The Rev. Pamela Dolan
“Love Life or Lose it”
March 17, 2024
Text: John 12:20-33
The Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan
Sermon for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Text: John 12:20-33
“Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25).
This is a startling idea if we take it seriously. It might make us think about some admirable heroes of the faith, saints and martyrs, who manage to live very simply and devotes themselves entirely to God—a monk in the Egyptian desert, perhaps, or Mother Teresa, or someone like Father Damien, who cared for the lepers on Moloka’i until he himself contracted Hansen’s Disease and ultimately died from it. But it doesn’t really seem like something we can aspire to ourselves.
Worse yet, some people who do try to take this admonition seriously become nags and killjoys, people who are so focused on being “good” and avoiding all worldly temptation that they take no pleasure in life—and they don’t want you to take pleasure in it, either. There are countless caricatures in pop culture depicting Christians who get all hot and bothered about so-called sins like dancing and drinking and playing cards, but who don’t notice their own greed, racism, homophobia, and the like, real sins that actual harm to other human beings and the earth.
Many Episcopalians take great pride in saying that we’re not like those Christians, that we appreciate the beauty of creation, rejoice in how God’s glory is made manifest in the world, as well as being open to partaking of a good glass of wine or a nice single-malt now and then. During Lent we might give up chocolate or some other favorite indulgence, but overall we’re much less prone to asceticism than some of our other Christians siblings.
Still, it’s not like we can just ignore how frequently Jesus talks about giving things up, letting go of earthly attachments, even giving away our possessions. In today’s Gospel he goes so far as to say we should hate our life in this world.
So, which is it? Is life in this world a precious and wondrous gift or something to be despised in exchange for eternal life?
Three things help me strongly affirm the Gospel understanding of life as gift, and this world as beloved by God.
First, “the world” in John’s Gospel doesn’t mean the natural world, or Creation. “The world” can more accurately be thought of as the corrupt systems and powers that control so much of our lives and distort God’s good purposes. You might call this “empire” or “the system,” but whatever you call it, it is unjust and works against human flourishing and the creation of Beloved Community. So, when the Gospel of John talks about hating the world, it is saying something like the promise we make in Baptism to “renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.”
Second, it helps me when I think more carefully about the metaphor Jesus offers us of the grain of wheat that dies so that it may bear much fruit. When a seed germinates underground, there is usually a husk or coating that must break open and be left behind to make room for new growth. Life in Christ is like that. There are aspects of our worldly life that need to be shed and left behind so that we can become the unique persons God created us to be. This is not about self-hatred, but about the necessity of change, growth, and non-attachment to the status quo.
Finally, there is my own experience of the world as an infinitely beautiful, infinitely precious place. When I wish to see Jesus, I need look no farther than the faces of my children or the wonder of a redwood tree. I know you have those experiences, too—moments that take your breath away with their sweetness and wonder. Those moments are of God. They are holy. God doesn’t hate the world God has made—and neither should we.
Today is St. Patrick’s Day, and so I really must share one of the ways that Celtic spirituality might help us think through this apparent paradox. When the early Celtic Christians went on a pilgrimage, they didn’t draw up plans to go to Jerusalem or some other holy city. Instead, they built something called a coracle or a curragh—a very simple, small round boat, without oars. Priest and author Mary C. Earle writes,
“In Celtic practice, you got in the boat and entrusted yourself to ‘currents of love,’ which meant the currents of the sea or river. You got into the boat and let go. You got into the boat and you physically cast yourself on the mercy and love of God.”[i]
For these people pilgrimage was a radical act of letting go, of dying to all their expectations of comfort or control. They placed themselves entirely in the hands of God and what they saw as a loving, benevolent natural world. Wherever they landed was where they were meant to be. They called their landing place “the place of resurrection.” It was likely that they would die wherever they ended up—after all, how does one navigate back home in a boat with no oars? But in this way of seeing the world, death is just the doorway to resurrection, and the entire created universe is good and holy and can be a place of new life.
As Earle says, “We live in this world not of our own making. We are here for numbered days, and we are here both to bless and to enjoy the world God has created. Our earthly life truly is transitory. And it is a gift.” Maybe today Jesus is calling us to live our life as this kind of pilgrimage: a pilgrimage of radical, fearless faith, and of living fully in the present moment, trusting that God will carry us home. Amen.
[i] Quotes are from Mary C. Earle, Days of Grace: Meditations and Practices for Living with Illness.
