Carrie lives here

About 25 years ago, when my wife and I were living in Toronto, we went to a church which was within walking distance of our apartment.  All to the good, since we had no car.  On the walking route to the church we passed a particular apartment building in which lived a good friend of my sister-in-law.  While not every Sunday, many Sundays when passing the apartment, my wife would comment, "Carrie lives here."  She said this frequently enough that the phrase itself, "Carrie lives here" has become a shorthand version of saying, "Yes, you have told me that several times."  Our entire family understands the phrase and what it means as well as the story behind it.  If someone seems to be needlessly repeating themselves, we need but say, "Carrie lives here" and all move on.  As an aside, a couple of years ago we were at a party for my sister-in-law at which said Carrie was in attendance.  We introduced her to our kids as "Carrie, of 'Carrie lives here' fame."

There is often similar subtext to many comments.  Some of them, like ours, would be nonsensical if you did not understand the history.  Others may make perfect sense independently yet become even more meaningful if the subtext or context is understood.  Here's one that I came across recently in my reading which is like this latter - more meaningful if the context is understood:

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. 
1 John 1:5

For us, perhaps, this hardly a startling statement - that God is light without any darkness.  Indeed it is almost an unremarkable theological statement.  But Carrie lives here - there is a story, a subtext.  St. John the Evangelist, disciple of Jesus and Apostle, was Jewish but possessed a philosophical mind which had a keen understanding of Greek thought.  His Gospel is a remarkable articulation of orthodox Hebrew thought expressed in the intellectual language of the Greeks.  In his Gospel, but more particularly in his epistles, St. John is writing to warn the fledgling church against the gnostic thought which was prevalent in the culture and which threatened to infect the church.

Gnosticism is protean in form and thus had many expressions and manifestations.  But at its core it is a belief that salvation is found in gnosis, in knowing the right things and teaching. (There is a modern psychological gnosticism which suggests that if we know or understand the problem we will be cured of it.  Christian thought insists that the cross is necessary for healing and salvation.  But I digress.)  Gnosticism is often characterized by a dualism, valuing the spiritual while despising the material.  Sadly, the church is still not free of it.

One other expression of this dualism is the cosmic battle between good and evil, light and dark, God and the devil.  (Again not a truly Christian perspective.  God is good and beyond or higher than the devil.  The devil's antagonist is St. Michael the Archangel, not God.)  One of the most common places we see this dualistic thought is in the Yin and the Yang - a round circle divided into paisley halves of white and black, with a drop of white in the black and vice-versa.  The symbol is an articulation of the cosmic struggle but with the assertion that in the darkness there is a little light and in the light there is a little darkness.  And this thought is common today and was in St. John's day.

And thus the statement, "God is light and in him is no darkness at all" is a strong theological statement against the dualist Yin and Yang notion.  Carrie lives here.  There is a subtext.  There is no darkness in God, says St. John.  Many around you will talk Yin and Yang.  Do not be confused.  He is goodness untouched by any evil, light unadulterated by any darkness.

And that matters.  Because only the God of unalloyed light, goodness, and holiness, is worthy of our praise and adoration.