April 3, 2010
Holy Saturday

2 John

I never know quite what to do with Holy Saturday, between the two holiest days of the year, the wait, the limbo of the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. What is today?

In a way, I wonder if that is some of what happened when they were deciding what books to include. What do you do with this tiny book of the Bible shorter than most of its chapters? It's a note, and it seems almost written in code - or at least to refer to specific people and situations without wanting to name them in writing (such texts being hardly secure in this time).

And it seems to be writing about a time when a spiritual community was in a kind of limbo. A terrible schism of some kind had happened, and they were being asked to wait until a spiritual leader arrived to figure out how best to solve the problem, heal the breach.

And it began like this: "The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth," which is a great nod to feminism right there but mostly the purest personal greeting I have come across in the letters. And at the end, I wanted for a moment to read the salutation as a clue that it was a woman writer, but it could also be another instance of passing along a personal message, "The children of your elect sister send you their greetings." More interpersonal love than I've seen in any other epistle. The love of a shepherd for his flock, not as a whole but as individual sheep with beautiful glistening coats you admire so.

What I really love here is the idea of a network of women, the bedrocks of the Church. Their children, reaching out to each other across some distance, negotiating the way to handle - interpersonally, which more and more I come to realize is the only way that really matters - the schism of a spiritual community.

This isn't about advancing doctrine, the second thing the author says is, "not only I but also wall who know the truth, because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever."

And they'll know we are Christians by our children, our families and those who become our children in faith, whose guides we however temporarily become, who worship with us and who take their reminder of God's light from us. "I was overjoyed to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we have been commanded by the Father." Whichever of you causes the least of these children to stray...

The writer is planning a trip, where the elect lady, the elect sister, their children (and the writer, if she/he is separate) will work out the finer points of the truth, will figure out all the endless conundrums of a human-run church with little fixed doctrine and less means of communicating it globally. As we still do, in Parish Councils and retreat program board meetings and carpools to Sunday Mass and Bible study groups. In the great chambers of the Vatican they do this too.

This letter is just a quick note, to say that until the community could figure out what God would want, what is the most Christian thing to do, there are certain very important things to do: stay away from those who would lead you astray until we can figure out how to handle them, either to bring them back or correct them or realize they need to be cut out of the life of the community. Until then, do not let them prey upon you. Protect your children and your community.

But more than anything, I just love here the process. The writer has dropped this letter to ask the community to wait, wait until she/he can arrive, and then they will talk. And they will pray together. And they will study the Scripture and the teachings and the letters and they will try to discern the will of God. And then they will choose the Christian path. As they have done before, those who know the truth and who support each other constantly in realizing that truth in the world so often not ready to deal with it.

And even if the writer is not a woman, the "dear lady" written to is considered a spiritual elder of the community, her children recognized by a spiritual leader on a grander scale.

A community, including women, that comes together to figure out the way of God in this world, the path of the Kingdom of God, and does so continually and together.

That's just so beautiful.

If our experience of the modern negotiations written above seem to fall short, then perhaps we need to look over them again and realize what we are experiencing but have not the wit to see. Perhaps they need adjustment. Perhaps it's just our attitude that needs adjustment, perhaps we just need to remember: we are in this together. We are strong, and we are equal, and we are a family. We belong to each other and we are accountable to each other.

Everything else we can figure out as we go along. We have been given the answer to all the Big Questions by God Himself in human form. For all the smaller ones, we have each other.