We’ve been talking about living as if you’ve already died. And during Lent we spoke a great deal about what we need to die to; how we need to separate ourselves from the ways of the perishing, those who do not live the lives of mercy, love and tending to the suffering. And we admit that it is very difficult in the time and place we find ourselves in.

And so tonight our scripture reminds us that we can’t possibly do this by ourselves. We can’t without specifically abiding in Christ, or, to use a more colloquial word, remaining in Christ. I’ve said before that a relationship with God takes work; prayer, meditation, contemplation, reading scripture, and the intimate act of the Eucharist.

The metaphor of the vine is a good metaphor for this, a good way of thinking about the importance of cultivating a relationship with God through Jesus. It may be John’s writing style or a lack of agricultural understanding, but I find this passage brings a somewhat limited understanding of a relationship with Jesus Christ. It is true that from Christ I get power, or metaphorically sap or however the branch feeds the vine. I get strength to deal with what I can’t handle on my own – overcoming my social anxiety in order to do justice work for example. It’s in John’s letter, though, that I get a sense of what abiding in Christ really means.

We love because he first loved us. It’s not enough to take John’s word on this. To truly abide in Christ we have to develop our own sense of this. I used to say I never understood God’s love until I got into a relationship where someone actually showed me what real love is. Nowadays however, I see and understand that people did truly love me prior to that relationship. What I took as “true” love was the experience of someone delighting in me.

And that’s my personal take on God’s words at Jesus’ baptism, “In whom I am well pleased.” There’s a tendency to read merit into those words. I rather hear that as akin to what I experienced with my ex. She showed joy in my mere presence, admiration of my little quirks, giddiness in seeing my own joy, and more - Which is not to say we didn’t have our differences and arguments. What I should be clear about is that these displays of love continued well past the honeymoon period. They were genuine and sincere.

Jesus tells us that God has counted every hair on our head. That’s how much God delights in us. Embrace that, sink into it, God, creator of the entire Universe, doesn’t dispassionately love us, but loves us joyfully. So what is there to fear? Abiding in this is how we live as if we’re already dead.

Like anything else on the spiritual journey, this takes work. One technique I was taught was to imagine someone you know loved you, a relative or friend that had passed on, to imagine them embracing you from behind and saying “I love you” as you prayed or meditated. Eventually, over time, I came to understand that as God saying it.

There are certainly more ways to pray and meditate on this, ways that may suit you better. I will tell you when I first started cultivating this sense of God’s love there was a lot of pushback from my internalized negative messages. It wasn’t pleasant work. Get support in doing this.

A lot of Christians, myself included, were taught to love our neighbors instead of ourselves, not as ourselves. We equate self-love with narcissism. But seriously, there are times and places in the Christian year for self-examination and righting our wrongs. In Easter we do not say the confession, because this is the time to learn to abide in God’s joy in our mere existence. To find joy not just in Christ’s resurrection, but that it was for delight in us, that the cross, tomb and resurrection happened.

To love others, our neighbors, our enemies even, we need to abide in God’s love for us. It’s the only way it can happen. In this world, loving ourselves can be the hardest thing of all. Especially if you’re not a white, straight, wealthy, Anglo-Saxon, protestant cis man, because if you are not, you’ve been told in one way or another that you’re fundamentally wrong. The work of Christ is ahead of us, for now, finding joy in God’s love for us, for each other and for ourselves is our task.

I was recently talking to some fellow Christians about my belief that the Glory of the Cross turned upside down the whole idea of glory. Glory no longer belonged to the victor, but now belonged to the victim. The immediate response was, “Are you encouraging suffering?” Not at all, there’s plenty of suffering out there. I’m more concerned with how we view justice. The Good Samaritan didn’t tell the broken man on the road, “I’ll go find those bandits and kill them for you.” He bound his wounds and paid for his recovery.

In fact I’d argue that a triumphalist view of the cross and resurrection is what encourages suffering. It tells us to endure our suffering until that final day when Jesus’ victory comes to fulfillment. I want it made clear that leaving others to endure their suffering is not what I mean when I speak of living life as if we’re already dead. 

Ivone Gebara, the feminist theologian I respect the most, speaks of salvation as living a life of resurrection. She works with the poor women of Brazil, whose suffering is practically invisible and hear triumphalism as a command to suffer silently.

Jesus was sent to us because God heard the suffering of Her people. I think especially the ones who suffer in silence do to oppression. Sister Gebara reminds us that Jesus did not suffer alone; that the women were with Him to the end and tended to His body. Women’s’ work (Whether it’s women who do it or not) the work done behind the scenes to maintain community is mostly taken for granted.

And for Gebara, it is there you will find salvation in the here and now. Resurrection is found in the midst of suffering through the daily ways we nourish love, our bodies, and our lives. We must search for these moments every day just as we begin the actions of eating and drinking. Resurrection is closely linked in the Hope to carry on. So when I say live as if you’re already dead, that is a daily process a daily commitment.

This brings me to our readings today. As John says in his letter, “The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” And I would say this still is true. This world does not want to know the hungry, the naked, the prisoner, the refugee; it does not want to know Christ. It does not want to know to whom the glory belongs. It does not acknowledge daily resurrections these people find to carry on; daily resurrections that Glorify God.

The world doesn’t want to know the Children of God, who are the ones living as if they are already dead and free from the perishing world. And by the perishing world, I very much mean the oppressors, not those who struggle to find resurrection in their daily oppressed lives.

I also feel the need to mention that when John speaks of lawlessness, he is referring to the law written in our hearts, not the laws of the oppressors. The righteous from my point of view, are those people who search for daily resurrection. Who search for love, for tending to bodies and lives in the here and now, our own included.

Our other two readings mention being witnesses; witnesses to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In a world where far too many people think being a Christian is primarily about being a homophobic anti-abortionist, Christ need true witnesses. Part of my daily resurrection practice is to find opportunities to tell people who the glory really belongs to, who Christ is.