3/31/68

Scripture: Matthew 12: 38-50.

Life abhors a vacuum. We see it vividly in the physical world. We are warned to leave some windows open in event of a tornado. For the sudden vacuum near the heart of the whirling storm can cause the walls of a house to explode outward. We can create small vacuums; we have done so repeatedly. But they must be handled carefully. All the power and pressure of the planet is pushing in toward them to destroy the vacuum and to restore a balanced pressure.

This affirmation, that “life abhors a vacuum,” points to a matter of common knowledge in the relationships of people. For life abhors a social vacuum as well as a physical vacuum. Put a group of children, who are strangers to each other, together and watch them for a while. If you have given them no game to play, nor have suggested any kind of activity for them to pursue, they will very soon invent something to do. One can not readily predict what it may be. But one can be sure that something will soon happen, for the kids are not going to sit very long doing nothing. Children must play, and play hard, with heart and soul -- and play they will, somewhere, somehow, with someone.

It is in the nature of adults like ourselves, to have a government of some kind or other. We are not content to live a nothingness in our relationships with each other; but we want some kind of dependable order. There are many kinds of government, ranging from pure democracy to absolute tyranny. But put us people in proximity to one another for a period of time, and some sort of community organization will evolve and develop. Life simply fills up a vacuum.

Our life has just as little patience with a spiritual vacuum. It is worse than idle for parents to say, “We are not going to try to indoctrinate our children. We are going to let them decide for themselves what they want to believe in religion.” There may be some merit in that observation if it means that we do not want to encourage our children to be intolerant or bigoted in matters of religious belief. But that is seldom what is meant. What is really meant, is that the children are to be taught nothing at all in the area of religion. And that is utterly dangerous. If parents try it, they only leave a vacuum to be filled by something or someone else. Children will ask questions about religion as they ask about anything else. They will seek answers. And the parent who ducks the responsibility of thinking with the child only leaves a door wide open for the entrance of all sorts of ideas from other sources -- some perhaps good -- many almost certainly “cock eyed.” One has to be given something upon which to base a choice. Otherwise there is only a vacuum into which the first available idea rushes.

Fortunate is the child whose parents care and understand, so that he does not have to do his learning from those who may not care nor understand.

There is such a thing as “broad mindedness,” but that is not a suitable name for “nothingness.” For life fills in, with a vengeance, every attempt to create a spiritual vacuum.

The management of evil is a deeply personal problem. Everyone must face it, and win the victory, if his life is to know any sense of abundance and fulfillment.

All of this was quite clear to Jesus. Few of his parables are any more pertinent to our own time than the one which we have read this morning in which he illustrates the right way, and the wrong way, to conquer the centers of evil in our lives.

Of course he was talking in the thought-patterns which people of his day used and understood. Everyone accepted a belief in demons and demon-possession. And Jesus’ pointed story, his parable, tells of a man who successfully ousted a demon from his life. Glad to be free, he joyfully sweeps and polishes the house of his life. But having cleaned it up, he leaves it empty. The evicted spirit, in the story, wanders around for a while, gets tired of being without a home, and returns. He finds his former home not only vacant, unoccupied, but even more desirable for his devilish activities than before. So he moves back in --- but not alone! He gets seven other devils, even worse than he, to move in with him! And, as Jesus says, “The last state of that man is worse than the first.

There was a vacuum created by that clean but empty room. Too bad it had not been filled with something positively good. It is seldom enough simply to “swear off” something that is harmful or evil. It is too easy for the evil to return.

We are told by those who have found themselves to be helpless, and all-but-hopeless, alcoholics, that it is not enough to swear off alcoholic beverage if they want to quit. That only creates a vacuum which is sooner or later filled to its agonized brim with another binge. Those who join Alcoholics Anonymous learn, when they quit drinking, to fill their lives with other, new absorbing interests, including the helping of fellow victims.

Three decades ago, Sir Robert Seeley wrote: “No heart is pure that is not passionate; no virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic.”

No life can safely tolerate a vacuum. Neither can a civilization go without something spiritually substantial at its center. To live is to believe in something! William Butler Yeats gives eloquent and penetrating word as to what happens to a civilization without some positive belief:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Something like that surely happens when we try to live in a spiritual vacuum. Life demands, and will have, something at its center --- some ideal to which it can give itself with passionate intensity. It may be a low ideal of country, of race, or of class --- or a high ideal of a community of nations and the brotherhood of mankind. It can be a cheap ideal in which we profit at the expense of others; or it may be a high and costly ideal in which we share the necessities of life with people who need them.

This generation does not need to have it pointed out that the totalitarian regimes of the modern world emerged out of a chaos of conflicting purposes surrounding the life of peoples who embraced them. Countries that embraced these regimes tried at first to fight them off, but having no other answers to their threatened chaos, finally accepted them.

Harold Bosley has commented that there is a measure of truth in the statement that the rise of communism has been in direct proportion to man’s loss of faith in himself and in God. And there is probably as much truth in the suspicion that our faith in atomic weapons is in direct proportion to our loss of faith in ourselves and in God.

Each of can, in his or her own way, join his testimony with that of the man in the parable that, in its broad ranges, life abhors a vacuum and sets about at once to fill it with the materials at hand.

There is another affirmation of the parable, growing out of the fact that the man was content when he had evicted the Devil and cleaned up the place. He put nothing in its place. He was not only free; he was empty. And so he soon learned that negations are not enough. This gets close to a problem of our day. We feel quite sure about some things we do not believe. But we had better become more sure of things that we do believe and why we believe them. We shall certainly not find our way out of a dangerous period in life by believing in nothing. Our survival depends on our believing in the right thing and believing it with every fiber of our being.

Too many of us become adept at reciting what we do not believe: but what is it that we do believe? It is not difficult to take apart an inherited creed --- almost any creed. Most of us can do that -- probably have done it. Look at the great creeds of Christendom -- the Apostle’s Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Heidelberg Confession and others. Anyone who has studied their background and emergence knows that they are human and earthy in their origin and development. They are gigantic efforts of the minds of sincere people to put into permanent form a worthy statement of the faith that lies in them. They bear the marks of the ages in which they came to being and of the ages that cherished them before they have been given to the world. It is easy, from our current, modern experience, to point out inconsistencies, incredulities, sometimes simple superstitions that seem stated in those creeds. But the real test of our spiritual capacity is not our sophisticated ability to take the creeds apart, as we do, but to put together a statement of what we do believe.

Traditionally, our denominational fellowship, of the Congregational Christian churches, and of the United Church of Christ, has been in a non-creeded church. We of the United Church of Christ, especially the Congregational Christian wing of it, have respected the great creeds of Christendom, but have not required adherence to them, not required members to subscribe to them. But we do endeavor to state positively the things on which we think we can agree in covenant relationship. And one of the elements of our denominational life as Christians is a Statement of Faith, copies of which are included in our hymnal, and which we read together on occasion, not as a test of our faith, but as a testimony of our faith.

If our religion is to be a power for good in our lives, there must be at its center that which persuades our reason and our understanding --- something to which we can give the full consent of our intelligence in order to make it the power for good in our lives. We must be able to say what we believe.

This past week I attended the opening session of a “career night” at Lincoln High School --- an occasion wherein upper class students have opportunity to meet with people now engaged in more than 50 modern vocations for at least an introduction to the careers that they may consider. I thought it commendable that the keynote speaker laid firm emphasis on working out a vital philosophy of living, no matter which career one may choose as his vocation. And then he proceeded to outline and emphasize about nine elements in his own working philosophy for the consideration of the students.

I, for one, welcome the positive contribution of college, university and graduate students in campaigning for candidates and causes in which they do believe, before next Tuesday’s [the coming] elections. The fact that, in very significant numbers and in convincing manner, so many of them have campaigned for candidates they believe in, and for referenda positions which they believe should be supported, is a most healthy advance over the negative rebellion against “the establishment” which has characterized the over-publicized efforts of a minority of people their age.

To turn back for a moment to our consideration of creedal beliefs, let us hope that we can learn from the errors of dogmatism never to try to freeze our beliefs at any given point, saying in effect, “This is all I’m ever going to believe.” For that, too, can be disastrous. It is necessary that we continue building the positive affirmations of living, to fill the vacancies where we find that an old statement does not satisfy our unfolding understanding of truth. Negations are never enough. We have a hunger within us and around us, for positive affirmations to bring us through a world of confusion, waste and groping, to a world full of order and purpose.

A Christian alternative to chaos is focused in the emphasis of Jesus upon what he called the “kingdom of God” --- the family of mankind under the fatherhood of the great, unifying spirit --- or responsible relationship to each other in that spirit. For the Christian, this is light by which to see, a path on which to walk, a goal to seek and serve.

A third insight of this parable calls attention to the devil as taking full advantage of the unoccupied and refurbished room to move back in, not alone, but with the terrifying support of seven other devils, all worse than he. In translation, this suggests that evil always replaces itself with evil. Fear never replaces itself with trust. Hatred does not replace itself with love. When left to themselves, such qualities replace themselves with their own kind --- only worse. We can not drive fear out of the world by depending on instruments which engender fear in everyone else. The more we try to terrorize others, the more fearful we ourselves become.

We live and breathe in an atmosphere of fear these days, because we have tried to become so strong that other people will be afraid of what we might do if we are displeased with what they do. So we concentrate on massive retaliations as a guarantee for our own continued existence, rather than on cooperative understanding. We have approved our Congress rushing through bills appropriating billions for military force and then haggling endlessly over the millions that might be used in aid of a non-military character. How long will it be before we abandon a dying kind of world by throwing ourselves into the building of a new world that can live by bringing the means of life to all?

If we are to avoid the fate of the man in the Master’s parable, our new strategy is suggested by a fourth conclusion of the parable, namely this: that the man should have placed something good, creative, positive in his life to take the place of the ousted demon. The only way to prevent the devil’s return was, so to speak, to have the room occupied by some good force. It is a standing obligation of the Christian faith to overcome evil by the only known way; the doing of good deeds --- not in abstract terms, nor by good intentions alone (though these are essential) but in concrete terms.

I believe that we should support the United Nations and the program of UNESCO; that we should encourage the National and World Councils of Churches to address themselves, with vigor and realism, to the issues of our day. No one of us is going to agree completely with everything we see therein. We don’t agree completely with everyone and everything in our own families. But we build our family life on the things wherein we do find agreement, else we run into disaster. And we face the same challenge in community and national life.

This is true, as well, in the life of the church -- the local church like this one. It sounds odd to say it, but the ones who weaken the church most are not those who oppose it openly. The ones who weaken it worst are those who support it only half-heartedly. The church is strong only by the affirmative, aggressive loyalty of its members in doing something to nurture and bear witness to that loyalty. Without this it withers. How hard are we working at being faithful members? Have we been content with giving it as little of ourselves as possible, rather than being eager to give as much as we can? When we shirk, we rob ourselves of whatever strength the church can give us. The answer to little faith is greater faith, and faithfulness. The church needs us; but no worse than we need the church.

In similar fashion, on a worldwide scale, it is not enough to be afraid of the future; we must address ourselves to the task of building the kind of future in which our fear is unnecessary. And there is room for the effort of every man, woman, boy and girl in this effort. There is room, and need, for the business man, the farmer, the laborer, the manager, the housewife, the professional person, the student, the engineer, the diplomat --- for everyone. The person, and the church, that would serve our Lord, must come to him “prepared for a hard campaign.” Evil can be overcome --- but only by positive forms of good in the concrete forms of justice, love, food, shelter, encouragement, and assurance. The only way to overcome evil is with good. Every other way only multiplies, and increases in viciousness, the evils which now inhabit the life of mankind.

Thomas Chalmers, a great Scottish churchman, made the same general point in his greatest sermon, which he titled “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.” He says that we can overcome evil with good. Once we learn to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, this becomes the organizing center of our attitude toward other people and toward our own life. For we have installed good, rather than evil, at the center of our life. This love of God broadens and deepens until it becomes the dominant factor in life, expelling the demon of doubt, fear and guilt. There is nothing haphazard nor automatic about the process. It requires the attention and the purpose of one who is seeking to love the “great goodness,” God, and to serve Him. It requires the courage to start over again after we have failed in our determination to be faithful. And, as we persist, we find that our latter state is much better than the former one.

Every person will serve some master, whether it be God or Mammon. Jesus confronted his hearers with the requirement to choose the one they would serve. And the choice is still before each one of us. What shall we love with all our heart, soul, mind and strength --- God, or something other than God?

Samuel Longfellow put in verse a lesson we can all afford to study. It is sometimes sung as a verse of a hymn:

Holy Spirit, truth divine,

King within my conscience reign;

Be my Lord, and I shall be

Firmly bound, forever free.

If the house is to stay swept and in order, it must not be left vacant; it must be occupied and ruled by devotion to God and His purpose for the good of mankind.

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, March 31, 1968.

Also at Kalahikiola Church (Wed) February 19, 1969.

Also at St. Paul’s UCC church, Marshfield WI, August 5, 1973.

Also at Ebenezer UCC church, Stratford WI, August 5, 1973.

Also at Waioli Church, February 22, 1976.

[The following prayer was given with the above sermon at Waioli church, 2-2-76; also given previously on 11-21-71.]

O God, our Father, who knowest our necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking, we come in the fellowship of prayer to seek light upon our ways and strength within our hearts. In awe and reverence, we bow before Thy measureless greatness. Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, Thou art around us and beyond us. As creatures of the sea depend upon the tides, and as birds of the air depend upon the winds, we depend upon Thy presence.

Thanks be to Thee that Thou art within us as well as around us. Our eyes have seen beauty; our hearts have known love; our minds have discovered truth; our wills have discovered purposes that ennoble our living. Deep within our being, Thou hast been like a spring of water welling up into eternal life. O Spirit within, grant us another hour of fellowship with Thee that shall bring us radiance and insight, peace and power.

We turn to Thee from the perplexities of daily life, and pray for relief from disquieting and cowardly fears. If we are bewildered by the ecstatic confusion, tempted by petty annoyances and great griefs, by our dependency and doubt, by the angry emotions of our time, restore us to certainty and stability, to sanity and courage. Banish our evil by renewed faith, new affections, new desires.

We pray for guidance in a Christ-like way of life. We are tempted by the devices of our world; the sophistries of the cynical, some of the inclinations of our own hearts. Evil solicitations silence our consciences with their subtle persuasions. Grant us true and open penitence before Thee, and sincere amendment of life. Help us to see the right, and to love it. Fortify our decision to live with honesty, integrity, and unselfishness.

We pray for all Christian Churches around the world. Good Lord, deliver us from the tyranny of old customs and ideas, once helpful but now outgrown. Yet save us from discarding any ageless truth. Lift us from stressing the trivial and forgetting the vital. Grant to Thy churches a continuing reformation and renewal. Let us all proclaim the Gospel and live it. Open to us the gates of a new morning of fresh devotion and vital faith.

Guide our nation in difficult days. Use our power for Thy purposes, for justice and peace. Save us from any kind of stubborn or selfish nationalism. May our help bring hope to the depressed in stricken lands and at home, relief to those bound in poverty, freedom to those being crushed under tyranny. Strengthen the United Nations and all agencies dedicated to mankind’s peace. Grant that our eyes shall see the victory of Christ’s spirit over the enemies of his truth.

Look Thou upon our need and want, and give to each of us according to the riches of Thy grace in Christ.

[the Lord’s Prayer] Amen.