Peter and I have been slowly making our way through the Marvel movies. I say slowly because I’m only mildly committed to it, even thought it was my idea. We’re watching them in chronological order, which is not the order in which they premiered. I thought it would help me understand them better but again…only mildly committed here.

It does have me thinking more about heroism and sacrifice and the things we consider heroic (or heroineoic? no, that’s unnecessary - focus, Kristin). Seemingly, the ultimate sacrifice is of self-sacrifice. The end all, be all laying down your life for someone else.

The Bible even tells us in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

But in a way, isn’t it harder to sacrifice in the day to day of life? Forgive me a Hamilton reference here but “dying is easy, young man; living is harder” seems like the more accurate sentiment.

I heard somewhere, and I wish I remember where, that married people should have shredded tongues from all the words they bite back. I am admittedly terrible at this. But it’s something I’m really strive to be better at in 2021. That’s self-sacrifice in the daily: not saying the things I want or feel justified to say. And not letting my words consequently come out in my face, either. As my southern friends would say, “fix your face,” because it says what your mouth doesn’t.

Self-sacrifice in the daily can be as simple as eating something we don’t want for dinner (or not whining when it’s half vegetables again). It can be watching the movie we wouldn’t have chosen on our own or rearranging our schedule, staying home so that someone else can do what they want to do. It’s putting our own agendas, wants, needs - the things that make our life more comfortable - aside for someone else.

It’s choosing to love. And these examples, while we can claim them as difficult, really aren't. Because they’re sacrificing we’re making for people who are easy to love. Or at least for people we’ve agreed to love - through vow or by bringing them into this world or because we share DNA.

But what about the people outside of our homes? Outside of our circles? Let’s go back to the Bible again.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:7-12

As Christians, when we read verses like this, it’s tempting to be all on board. To carry our banner of Christianity and wave the flag of scripture in our religious parades. “Yes! I’m a Christian! Be like me! I don’t hate anyone! I love everyone! Because that’s what Jesus did and I’m a Christian so I that’s what I do, too!”

Really though? If we blast our social media with scripture and tell the world to be like us as we’re like Jesus, we’re actually using our religion as a free pass to move on and not have to examine ourselves. And while I won’t pretend to know what anyone else’s motivation is, it’s often a manifest of shame or pride. Shame that we know we aren’t as good as we’re pretending to be so we block out anything that would let others in on what we know to be true. Are you really doing that well as a Christian? OR pride that won’t allow us to see areas where we need to grow so we shut down and block it all out with our self-righteousness. Are you that much like our perfect Jesus that you have no need of improvement? Instead of pointing scripture at everyone else and using it as a guidebook to get them to live right, we should allow it to be a mirror we see ourselves in.

We should allow those same scriptures to leave us feeling a little convicted. Not to make you feel bad about yourself but to fuel you to be better, more like Christ. Especially to the people we only love in “Christianese” but not action.

What does action look like? So many things. Maybe it’s using your voice to call out oppression or opposition when you see it. Calling out injustice even if it makes you uncomfortable. Acknowledging biases and prejudices within yourself - that we all have - and realizing that it doesn’t make you a bad person, it just makes you human. You can’t heal what you won’t name and you can’t fix what you won’t admit is broken. Maybe action looks like admitting that you don’t know, that you’re not always right, that you have more to learn. Maybe it’s in re-educating yourself not just on current events but on America’s history, seeing where it’s been white-washed and learning the stories we weren’t told as kids. Maybe action looks like checking in on your friends who are black, gay, atheist and asking them if they’re okay, how their heart is, if they need to process.

If you don’t have any friends who are black, gay, atheist or who don’t fit in your homogenous category, whatever that is for you, find some. Expand your circle. That’s a great first step of love in action.

See, this love from John, this love that we are called to live out and use as our model, it’s about choosing love daily. It’s loving from a place of self-sacrifice that is willing, not forced or out of obligation or guilt, that expects nothing in return. Not accolades, not for it to come back to you, just because. Expecting nothing in return.

And it’s choosing to do so even if the other person is undeserving.

It’s laying down your life in love for the other side, the other people group, the ones who believe the “wrong” things, who don’t represent your group the way you think they should, the ones who are hateful online, the ones who spread lies, the ones who came at you first, the ones you don’t understand or get their perspective at all.

What are the limits of your love for those who are hard to love? What is your shame or pride making you unwilling to sacrifice? Is it being right? being understood? having control? needing someone to be better than so you at least you aren’t “like them”? What are the boundaries you won’t cross? Who are the people you won’t love because they don't deserve it yet?

Because this love - Jesus’ love - had no boundaries. When He said He came for the world, he meant it. “Well, I mean, I know, Jesus died for them too…” right. That’s your “Christianese” talking. But. We are called to do the same. Not once they come to your side, not once they stop acting how they are. Not once they become Christians. Now. As is.

True love doesn’t wait. Because Jesus didn’t. He didn’t wait for people to get right. He came, he chose love, he put into action, he sacrificed. And we are called to do the same & love people now.

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. OUR sins. as we are are. as they are. No conditions. No limits. No boundaries. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, if we choose to love, if we choose to live it out, divinely & sacrificially because it takes God’s intervention for us to actually carry this through, then God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

We get to do this. More accurately, we get to let God love others through our self-sacrifice. daily.