Swept andGarnished

Friday's Gospel starts with a miracle and ends with a vacancy.

Jesus drives a demon out of a man who couldn't speak. The man speaks. Some in the crowd say Jesus did it by the power of Beelzebub. Others want a sign from heaven.

Jesus answers the first charge, and in the middle of the answer he tells one of the strangest stories in the Gospels. An unclean spirit leaves a man and wanders through dry places looking for rest. It doesn't find any. It comes back and finds the house swept and garnished. Clean. Orderly. Empty. So it moves back in with seven spirits worse than itself.

Here's the argument of this piece.

The Law could name what had to leave the house. Only the Spirit can live in it. The same finger of God that wrote the commandments on stone drives out demons in Luke 11 and writes on the human heart. A soul that is only swept, however clean, is still a vacancy.

Scripture on this page is quoted from the Douay-Rheims (Challoner revision), which is in the public domain. The NABRE readings proclaimed at Mass today are linked at the USCCB.

The finger

Verse 20 is the hinge of the whole passage.

But if I by the finger of God cast out devils, doubtless the kingdom of God is come upon you.Luke 11:20

That phrase has a history, and Jesus' audience knew it. It first shows up in Egypt. Pharaoh's magicians match Moses plague for plague until the gnats. They can't reproduce that one, and they tell Pharaoh, This is the finger of God. Jesus is standing where Moses stood, doing what the opposition can't counterfeit.

It shows up again at Sinai. God gives Moses two stone tables of testimony, written with the finger of God. The Law itself is finger-work.

Then Matthew tells the same story and changes one word. Where Luke has the finger of God, Matthew has the Spirit of God. Two evangelists, one saying, and the second tells you what the first one means.

Paul closes the loop. The Corinthians are a letter from Christ, written not in tables of stone but in the fleshly tables of the heart. Jeremiah promised exactly that: I will write it in their heart.

The Church has been praying this for over a thousand years. The Veni Creator Spiritus, most likely written by Rabanus Maurus in the ninth century, calls the Spirit the finger of God's right hand. The Catechism ties the whole thread together in paragraph 700: the finger that cast out demons, the finger that wrote on stone, and the Spirit who writes on hearts are one image.

The stronger man

Verses 21 and 22 tell you who is doing the work. A strong man armed keeps his court, and his goods are safe. Then a stronger one comes, overcomes him, takes all his armour wherein he trusted, and hands out the spoils.

The Church tells you how to read this. The Gospel acclamation the Lectionary pairs with today's reading is John 12:31-32: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself. The stronger man wins at the Cross.

Then verse 23 removes the middle ground. He that is not with me is against me. There is no neutral house.

Swept and garnished

Dr. John Bergsma's commentary on today's readings in the St. Paul Center's Letters From Home makes the practical point plainly. The house wasn't dirty. It was empty. If the spirit had come back and found the Holy Spirit living there, it couldn't have moved in.

And when he is come, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then he goeth and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself: and entering in they dwell there.Luke 11:25-26

Read it slowly. Cleaned out. Decorated. In order. Every box checked. And nobody home.

Look at the verb in verse 26. Dwell. The question in this Gospel isn't whether the house is clean. It's who lives in it.

Matthew's version adds a line Luke leaves out: So shall it be also to this wicked generation. This isn't only about one soul at a time. A whole people can reform, clean up, and still refuse the one who comes to live with them.

What the Law could do

That's why today's first reading belongs next to this Gospel. In Galatians 3, Paul says the Law carries a curse on anyone who doesn't keep all of it: Cursed is every one that abideth, not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them (3:10, quoting Deuteronomy 27:26).

The Law could name what had to go. It could even sweep. It couldn't move in.

So Christ takes the curse himself. He hangs on a tree, which Deuteronomy 21:23 calls accursed, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus: that we may receive the promise of the Spirit by faith (Galatians 3:14).

Bergsma reads the blessing promised to Abraham for the nations as, at bottom, the gift of the Holy Spirit. Verse 14 backs him directly. The blessing reaches the Gentiles so that we receive the Spirit.

One caution. Bergsma reads works of the law as the ceremonial markers of the Mosaic covenant: washings, kosher, holy days. Not good works in general. That's a serious scholarly position, and it isn't the only one. The argument here doesn't depend on it. However you read the phrase, the Law could clean the house. It couldn't live there.

Read it in order

The weekday Lectionary walks through Luke 11 in sequence this week, and the order makes the argument for you.

Thursday's Gospel is the teaching on prayer. Ask, seek, knock. It ends with this: how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him? Friday is the swept, empty house. Saturday, a woman calls out a blessing on the mother of Jesus, and he answers, Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it. Monday answers the demand from verse 16. The only sign they'll get is the sign of Jonas.

Sweeping is preparation

A clean house is a good thing. Confession, discipline, better habits, a well-ordered life: that's the sweeping, and it's real work worth doing. But sweeping is preparation. It isn't occupancy. The point of clearing a house is so someone can live in it.

Bergsma's application is the right one. We receive the Spirit in baptism, and he's renewed in us every time we receive the sacraments. The Christian life can't be lived on our own power. It's lived by the one who moves in.

So ask. The Father has already said what he'll give.