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.

This is a key passage to my misunderstanding of John’s Gospel. I originally read this as a snarky dismissal of the agony in the garden which the other Gospels describe. “Yeah, right, like I’d say save me from this hour – no way.” That was what I heard before I realized John puts post resurrected Jesus’ words into pre-resurrected Jesus’ mouth.

And in this particular case, it’s a post decision Jesus. It’s post Jesus saying your will not mine. For all the times I’ve read it, I never picked up on the admission of a troubled soul. This suggests to me that it’s not a matter of Jesus’ soul ceasing to be troubled, but rather Jesus is determined to follow through on His decision despite a troubled soul.

And quite frankly, troubling your souls was something I worried about but decided to risk in picking the theme of living like you’re already dead. Dying to this world, dying to the life of the perishing, and living God’s will, living out love on God’s scale, wasn’t even easy for the fully God fully man Son.

In Mark and Mathew’s Gospels, the angels come and tend to Jesus after the temptation in the desert. In Luke, the temptations are called trials and the angel comes to comfort Jesus in the garden, after His last trial; the final temptation to avoid the cross. The trial in which he makes his decision to fully submit to God’s will.

One hopes, that whichever service you attend on Easter Sunday, you will be asked to renew your baptismal vows; the baptism in which you symbolically die with Christ to be born anew. It will be your time to make the decision again to love on God’s scale. Love on a scale that sadly will separate you from this world, separate you from the values of the perishing, values based in very limited love, if love at all.

So if this is about love, why is the word hate in our Gospel today? What does Christ mean by hating your life? Again sadly, for many Christians, that means hating yourself. It’s certainly the view I was raised to have. But that doesn’t make much sense if we’re to love our neighbor as ourselves. It’s our life, not who we are that’s the issue. Christ promises a life beyond our meager and limited one, the one that we think belongs to us.

Our life-force, which keeps us alive, never did belong to us. It was a gift from God in the first place. In the mad scramble for money and power, for the anti-beatitudes of this world, we’re taught to own things, to steal our life from God and call it ours. So when comes the time for god to take our life back, we lose it forever. So if we, now, make a decision to give our lives back to God, to admit it was never ours to begin with, it will never be lost.

I do believe, as our other texts claim that God’s law is written in our hearts. The ways of the perishing teach us otherwise. We learn to fear and be defensive and look at others as less than, or for that matter even more than us. We learn hate and greed and we learn to use others. We cling to things and even people, and try to own them; just as we are deluded that we own our own lives.

There is so much to let go of, so much to die to, ironically it can take a lifetime to do this. It will not happen without trouble in our souls. We cannot do this instantly, without help and support from others who are on this path as well. What we can do right now, what we can do on Easter, what can be done in a moment is make a decision. Make a decision to go forward with this work despite our troubled souls, our doubts and even our confusion at this seeming paradox.

We won’t do this alone - can’t really. Even Jesus brought his closest friends with him to the Garden. In fact trying to go this alone is one of the ways the values of the perishing diminish - if not outright kill - love. We also have Jesus’ who promises to be with us. He guides us in scripture, prayer and meditation. He is in the bread and wine we’ll share very soon. We’ll share that with each other, the very ones we, as a community, support in the work ahead.

A long time back, when a trending topic in the news was courthouses that displayed the Ten Commandments, a co-worker of mine asked “What was wrong with that?” He went on to say don’t we all agree to not steal or murder, etc.? And I looked at him and said, “Do you know what the first commandment is? He looked at me blankly. It wasn’t that he assumed everyone should have no other God but the Judeo-Christian one; it was that he didn’t even remember that was the first commandment.

And while the televangelists and prosperity gospel preaches may at first glance seem the obvious modern day equivalent to the money changers that Christ got so upset with, I suggest that a closer equivalent are those trying to make the U.S. a theocracy.

I’m not even talking about the evangelicals who exposed their hypocrisy in supporting the current president. They’ve proven that their so-called Christianity is a façade for their political agenda. I’m talking about the folks who sincerely think Christianity should be enforced by law.

We’ve been talking throughout this liturgical year about living as if you’re already dead. That living a Christian life is living a life of the spirit and detaching from the ways of the perishing. Enforcing Christianity by using the ways of the perishing is clearly opposed to this view of the Christian life.

You can’t force someone to detach. You can only force them to attach to something else, some other aspect of the perishing world. So it is no wonder that those inclined to force faith on others embrace the anti-beatitudes we discussed last Lenten supper: Blessed are the rich, those who make others mourn, the violent and the invincible, the proud and the powerful, the domineering and oppressive, those who hunger and thirst for injustice, those who show no mercy, the impure of heart, the warmakers, those who never stand up for justice, who do not rock the boat.

The beatitudes are not describing those that the perishing should be charitable toward. Those who live by the anti-beatitudes see those who Christ calls blessed as less fortunate than they are; missing the whole point.

Paul really gets at this in today’s Epistle. “For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.” Repentance, metanoia, the change we’re getting at, the dying and being reborn is living out God’s foolishness and weakness.

It’s worth noting that Jesus’ summary of the law does not quote the Ten Commandments. Rather they are drawn from Deuteronomy & Leviticus. The Ten Commandments are to be understood only in the context of love, certainly not in the context of a justice system based in punishment.

For Christ, the second person of the Trinity, our Lord and our God suffered under a system of punishment. Imagine how that sounded in Paul’s time; that the Messiah, the Son of God, suffered humiliation and torture unto death. That would sound foolish indeed.

But further, Christ didn’t just come to help the unfortunate; Christ said he WAS the unfortunate. God IS the hungry, the naked, the sick, the refugee, the prisoner. This is truly God’s foolishness and weakness.

So is this the life God promises - A life of hunger and thirst and imprisonment? Not in the sense that we’re to deliberately bring ourselves to ruin. In the sense of vulnerability, however, yes that is the life God promises. We’re to understand ourselves and live as if we were as vulnerable as the unfortunate.

And the truth is that the unfortunate are not actually unfortunate, they are the oppressed. Oppressed by the few who live the anti-beatitudes and who convince others to agree to the anti-beatitudes despite themselves.

Part of dying to the ways of the perishing is not only to wake up to the ways we unjustly benefit from the system, but to be conscious of the ways the oppressors do not benefit us; that we, in admitting our vulnerability before God, understand our solidarity with the vulnerable about us.

And this is where the righteous anger of Jesus in our Gospel tonight resides. As Christians, in solidarity with the oppressed, we should chase out those who want to legislate faith, and in doing so remain vulnerable, at risk. For we have already died and have been raised in this new life. Our temples rebuilt in a spiritual body, a spiritual life that endures.

You’ll notice that in the order of service I have an icon of the temptation in the desert rather than the transfiguration. And that’s because it’s relevant to a theme I’ve noticed these past Sundays after Epiphany. In nearly all the readings Jesus tells someone (demon or disciple) not to say who he is or what they’ve learned about Him.

A friend in my Bible study gave me a clue to the conundrum of why Jesus didn’t want anyone saying who he is. She was actually contemplating why Jesus didn’t stay in a town and heal everybody before he moved on. She wondered if he might get full of himself from the adulation.

Now I had a different take on that question, but what she said made sense to me in the context of Jesus demanding silence about his nature. For at least part of the temptation in the desert was for Christ to fully use His Godly powers.

I imagine that was even more tempting given his humble origins. “What good can come out of Nazareth? I’ll show you what Nazareth has wrought!” Oh wait, no that’s not what I’m here for. And please don’t remind me what I am.

And this brings me to our theme for this liturgical year. Question (How do we live a Christian life?) and Answer (Live as if we’ve already died.) As Paul tells us tonight, the rest are perishing. We’ve come out the other side. But we do nothing to help the perishing by being full of ourselves because of this knowledge.

And honestly, we did nothing to deserve this. We were lucky and listened and heard. That’s all. And for all we know the next person may have heard about the life God wants for us from another source and has left perishing behind in their own way.

Now I’ve seized on this word perishing, because I was looking for a word to tease out the difference between those who have died and are living into the kingdom of life, from those who are just dying. The ones who are not living the life of God’s kingdom and so have no true life at all.

The perishing world condemns the poor, the meek, the mourning, and the yearning for justice, the merciful, the peacemakers, the suffering, the stranger, the persecuted, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked and the prisoner. If you forget to not read the comments on anything posted on the internet, this is plain as day.

As we live the life of the kingdom, the life that heard Christ when He said he WAS the stranger, the persecuted, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked and the prisoner, we’re not to fall into the trap of the Imperialism of Helping. To think we’re helping the “less fortunate” – it does not do to think of Christ as less fortunate than us.

Wealth, power and status are what the perishing seek and has no place in the Kingdom. For through the humble incarnation, the violent cross, and the resurrection of the still wounded Christ, the glory we read about tonight on the high mountain belongs to the very ones the perishing think aren’t worthy of God.

If we look at the historical Jesus on the scale of wealth power and status, putting aside Christ in our thinking for the moment, I don’t think any of us can truly say we’re less fortunate. And that’s a reason for us to not dwell on Jesus’ potential power, because if we forget Jesus’ humbleness, can we really see him in the downtrodden?

Paradoxically, we need Christ’s power to do this. The wounded person of the Trinity is where we draw true life from. To live into the Kingdom, to truly live apart from the world of the perishing, we need Christ and we need each other.

We’ve built a nice little community here. We’re comfortable in each other’s homes. And it’s a community that does center around Christ. This is a good and fine thing. We’re going to need it more than ever in the days ahead. For the leaders and followers of the perishing world will try their hardest to take us down with them.

A short time from now, we’ll eat the bread of life. We’ll be feeding on life as a defense against the perishing who demand we perish with them and as fuel to live with Christ in the margins. May we remember to see the true glory of Christ.