Word to the Wise
Saturday, January 12, 2008 - Christmas Weekday
[1 John 5:14-21 and John 3:22-30]We know that we belong to God, and the whole world is under the power of the Evil ONe. We also know that the Son of God has come and has given us discernment to know the one who is true. And we are in the one who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 2008 CHRISTMAS WEEKDAY [1 John 5:14-21 and John 3:22-30] We know that we belong to God, and the whole world is under the power of the Evil ONe. We also know that the Son of God has come and has given us discernment to know the one who is true. And we are in the one who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. The Johannine literature in the bible, especially the Gospel and the First Letter of John, has a strong flavor of dualism that is expressed in such contrasts as light/darkness, sight/blindness, truth/falsehood. When it gets personalized, this dualism has an adversarial character: our community against the "world." A small community living under threat of persecution or being expelled from the synagogues for preaching about Jesus might easily develop this adversarial way of thinking. The interpretation of "the world" is difficult to pin down, but most often it is anyone who is not "one of us!" The problem with this way of thinking is that the Other may not necessarily be an enemy! We are all too familiar with the prejudices, especially religious and racial, that plague our society. Thus, the problem of dualism is as ancient as it is modern. When I was growing up as a Catholic in the 1950's, there was a strong Us vs. Them attitude in religious and racial relations in my hometown: Catholic/Protestant and White/Black were the major ones. My mother was Presbyterian till she was 45 years old and my father would not allow us to entertain strong dualistic notions about faith. We had to respect my mother's faith. Much of my father's family was Protestant as well. But the racial dualism was certainly there and it remains in spite of the progress made on the level of civil rights and economic opportunity. We would, ideally, like to think that our faith would enable us to overcome destructive dualisms in a common search for the truth, but sadly we don't permit faith to do this. We cling to our concepts and fears of The Other. It requires constant effort over a long period of time to overcome destructive prejudicial and adversarial social and religious attitudes. If we recognize that the Son of God has given "discernment" to all humans who strive to do good, we will make the first big step. AMEN
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