Readings
- Proverbs 17:1-20
- 1 Timothy 3:1-16
- Matthew 12:43–50
- Psalms 39; 119:25–48
Matthew 12:43–50
"When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' When it returns, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation."
While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, "Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you."
But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" And pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."
Notes
Two scenes today, joined by an underlying argument about what holds a household together.
Verses 43–45. The unclean spirit returns. Jesus tells a strange little parable.
A small grammatical note. The unclean spirit, with the definite article in Greek. The unclean spirit reads almost like a counter-figure to the Holy Spirit. Jesus is contrasting two kinds of habitation. Either the cleaned-out person is filled with the Spirit, or other spirits will move in. An empty house is not a safe house.
The punch line is verse 45b: so will it be also with this evil generation. Jesus is not just describing exorcism gone wrong. He is making a prophetic statement about the Israel of his day. The Jewish revolt that began in 66, when Jewish forces drove the Romans out of Jerusalem, ended four years later in catastrophic destruction. General Titus razed the Temple and most of the city. The last state was worse than the first. Whatever Jesus is foreseeing, the trajectory of religious nationalism untethered from the kingdom he is preaching ended badly within a generation.
A broader pastoral reading. Evil spirits in Matthew are not always personal demons. They are also systems and habits that haunt entire societies. A society can exorcise one demon (rid itself of one bad pattern) and find itself worse off because nothing better moved into the vacated space. (For instance, the Union’s failure to fully deal with the Confederacy). The cure is not just removal. The cure is filling the swept house with the Spirit.
Verses 46–50. Who is my family. Jesus' mother and brothers arrive looking for him. (For the record, Jesus has biological siblings, named later in Matthew 13:55. This is a real family situation, not an abstract one.) Someone tells him they are outside.
Jesus' response is: Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? And then, gesturing to the disciples: here are my mother and my brothers. The definition of family is being redrawn in front of Mary's face.
This is consistent with Jesus overturning conventional family throughout the gospel: let the dead bury their own dead (8:22); I have come to set a man against his father (10:34–37). Today the redefinition is positive instead of negative. Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Discipleship creates a new kinship that runs deeper than blood.
This is why the early church became a place of fictive kinship. Christians called each other brother and sister, ate meals together as a household, shared resources, took responsibility for one another's children. It was strange and politically charged behavior in the Greco-Roman world, and it had explicit warrant from Jesus' own teaching here. Family of origin is not the deepest bond. The deepest bond is kingdom obedience.
Jesus is giving permission, if not outright demanding, that family not be the end-all of human allegiance. He is especially clear about this when the family of origin is the thing holding people in the old wineskins.
Questions for reflection
An empty house is not a safe house. Where in your life have you exorcised a bad pattern without filling the space with anything better, and what has moved into the vacancy?
Jesus redefines family around shared kingdom obedience. Where is your family of origin still functioning as your deepest loyalty, when the gospel is asking you to let something deeper claim that place?
