Today's reading includes two episodes joined by the evangelist into one account. It begins with the disciples' question about prayer, in response to which Jesus offers them, and through them all of us, the "Our Father" (vv. 1-4). Luke, as one can see, focuses chiefly on the importance of asking, and of asking persistently, as a necessary condition for receiving what is asked (vv. 5-13). It would seem that God is not a human being who needs, like a forgetful or unfriendly steward, to be reminded again and again of what is requested. On the other hand, persistence in this case turns out above all to be evidence that a person remembers his request and that it is truly important to him. Indeed, is it worth granting a request that the one who asks forgets the very next day? One can ask this way only for trifles; important requests are those that a person who truly cares about them is ready to repeat again and again, confirming the seriousness of his intentions.

The same seriousness is at issue in the second part of today's passage. The point is not only that the very idea of casting out demons by the power of their ruler was absurd (vv. 17-18, 21-22). The point is also that for those arguing, everything Jesus did was a kind of game, something remotely resembling their own disputes, which were undoubtedly fascinating but, in essence, demanded no commitment. This explains the demand for a sign that would prove Jesus right (vv. 14-16).

The proof had to be theologically correct; it had to correspond to the "right" ideas of the "right" rabbinic school in order to be accepted. And until such proof was presented, anything would do as an explanation of what was happening, including absurd claims about the "prince of demons." But Jesus Himself was not going to play these games, because for Him everything He did was absolutely serious. And He tries to explain to His listeners the full seriousness of what is happening (vv. 24-26). The games are over; what is at stake is a person's spiritual life and spiritual death.

But professional disputants, as one can see, have no concern for that. What matters to them is whether Jesus will manage to outargue them or not. And in their disputes they lose the Kingdom without noticing it. For the Kingdom is not a game; it is serious. And forever.

Speaking not of imaginary but of entirely real dark forces, Jesus compares a person freed from the power of dark forces with a cleaned and carefully ordered house, which, however, is by no means safe: the forces of darkness can again take possession of such a person, just as they can again take possession of a house that has no owner. It should be noted that the image of a person as a house into which hostile forces can enter is also characteristic of the Jewish tradition of the Second Temple period.

Hillel, one of the great teachers of that era, says while reflecting on passions and their power over a person: "Passion first looks into your house like a passerby, then enters it like a guest, and in the end settles there like the owner." As can be seen, the thought of a person being seized from within by dark forces was not foreign to the teachers of Torah in the Gospel era, just as it had not been foreign to their predecessors. But when Jesus speaks of a person freed from the power of dark forces as a cleansed house, He has in mind above all the Kingdom by whose power He frees those who need liberation. And judging by His words, for a person in the fallen world there is only one choice: between the Kingdom and the evil in which the world lies. To receive the world apart from this evil, as can be seen, is impossible: even a carefully cleaned house without an owner will not stay clean for long. Of course, the situation was not always like this: before Christ's coming into the world, one could remain clean, ready for sanctification, but not sanctified. As can be seen, in our age, the age of the advancing Kingdom, intermediate states of this kind become impossible: for the Kingdom is now entering the world and changing it, and every action in the world now takes place either in the Kingdom by the power of God or in the untransformed world by the forces of that evil in which the world lies after the fall.

There is no middle ground anymore, not because God has become more demanding, but because the formerly existing illusion of the spiritual "neutrality" of some part of creation has disappeared, the part that once seemed not to participate in the spiritual confrontation. This is no surprise: the history of the Kingdom, begun on the day of Pentecost, is the final stretch of history, leading to the complete transformation of the world, after which the forces of evil will have no place in it. And everyone now has to choose whose side he is on. Liberation from the power of dark forces is only the first step on this path. It is by no means the last.

We often spend a long time asking God to deliver us from some fault of ours, from a sin we lack the strength to fight, from temptations. If we also make efforts toward this, then the Lord, of course, helps us. If we do not make those efforts, then He does not help us not because He does not hear us, does not want to help, or cannot help, but because that would be violence against our will. After all, if we ask for something but in reality do nothing to fulfill our desire, it means that we do not fully want to change; we may simply be afraid of it. Therefore the Lord waits, and when we take even a very small, but still first, step, the Lord adds a thousand to it.

But what happens after that? The Lord helps us overcome a temptation, or even fully frees us from some sin or fault... and we stop there, quite satisfied. Most often we are satisfied with ourselves. At best, we thank God for it. Yet the Lord has freed a place in our soul for good, for His Light, for the Holy Spirit; but He never enters without being asked. He does not want violence, because He is Love, and love is possible only in complete freedom. He "stands at the door and knocks" and waits for us to call Him, to invite Him into the place where He helped us clear space for Himself. And if we do not call Him, the freed place in our soul again becomes clogged with dirt and dust, overgrown with weeds, and the second time it is often harder to pull them out by the roots than the first.