Now when the unclean spirit comes out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they come in and live there. Matthew 12:43-45
Jesus shared this cautionary parable about “being empty” but leaves us to wonder about what it means. He doesn’t tell us how to be filled or with what. We get the general point, but Jesus is short on specifics.
A key word is the one translated “unoccupied”. It can mean to cease labor, that is, to be unoccupied with work, as well as refer to being empty. We are faced with a twofold question: what does it mean to be idle or empty, and what is the filling or work that we need?
Perhaps the saying “idle hands are the devil’s workshop” was inspired by this parable, but will anything do to keep us from being idle and empty? Once the evil spirits enter in, the man is certainly neither idle nor empty, but that is hardly the filling he needs!
Though the parable warns against being “unoccupied” we are right to wonder if we actually are ever empty or idle. We are certainly able to stop all physical activity, but if you try to empty your mind you find it impossible. You may quiet your thoughts, but the mind always is going somewhere, if only thinking about not thinking!
We will be mistaken if we conclude that as long as we are always doing something we will stave off any evil spiritual invasion. Too much busyness can itself be the problem, a form of empty activity, being filled with a constant flow of nothing. We can be idle while being very busy. We may be occupied with the things of this world but empty with respect to God.
Such is the one who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich in relation to God. Luke 12:21
The filling we need is not any sort of constant activity, but attentiveness to God. Paradoxically, such awareness of God comes through a certain degree of inactivity, shutting out the noise of the world, resting from labor, and quieting the mind. We think of the meditative and contemplative practice of prayer, the kind where we enjoy being with God even in silence. This was the purpose of the sabbath.
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will follow My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him. John 14:23
The most encompassing way to think of being filled is through every practice of love. When the Father and Son dwell in us through the Spirit we are never empty. Every work of love undertaken for the sake of Christ deepens our experience of God living in us, and so fills us.
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