The Table Church DC

Resistance is refusing to be defined by the powers that want to take hold of us.

Capitalism. Toxic Family or Social Systems. Addiction or Compulsion. Inner and Outer Voices and Pressure.

"Healthy boundaries are a form of rest." —Tricia Hersey (The Nap Ministry)

“We must not confuse the command to love with the disease to please.” ― Lysa TerKeurst

“Whenever you say yes to something, there is less of you for something else. Make sure your yes is worth the less.” ― Lysa TerKeurst

Self-Differentiation is the ability to separate your emotions and actions from the emotions and actions of others.

It's different from detachment. Detachment is the inability to care about someone else's emotions. Self-differentiation is the ability to not let someone else's emotional state define yours.

‌Non-Anxious Presence. First, you must be present. This is not the same as avoidance. Second, deciding to not add anxiety to anxious situation. Not the same as denial. But rather, the choice to not add to or pass along anxiety.

Non-Reactivity and Non-Judgment. To be able to respond instead of react. To thoughtfully consider, instead of instinctually knee-jerk.

Disciplines are activities within our power that enable us to accomplish what we cannot do by direct effort. The effect of discipline is to enable us to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. (Dallas Willard)

Solitude is choosing to step free from human relationships for a lengthy period of time, in isolation or anonymity, to make room for occupation of our lives by God. It is to do nothing and not try to make anything happen. It is the primary spiritual discipline which enables us to learn other disciplines

Silence completes solitude. It is not an absence but a presence, a positive reality, in which we experience in quiet or are in a place with only natural sounds.

Simon's Mother In Law - yes Simon is married (this is later referenced in 1 Corinthians, that the apostles wives and family traveled with them)

Sick with a fever - of course, couldn't go to synagogue. This was not because of the germ theory of disease. This was because of impurity, uncleanness. Perhaps inability; but even if she had been physically able, she would not allowed to go by the community. 

Jesus' response - physical touch. To touch those that society had deemed unclean. 

**Jesus has contagious purity.** 

Why did the woman serve? 

Though, it is slight about being a woman, because women were not permitted to be disciples of a rabbi. They are not the people to whom you would be expected to look for an example of discipleship. But it is the woman who ends up being the example to which to follow.

How do we know? Because there are only 3 examples in the whole of Mark's Gospel of people who serve.

1) The angels, who serve Jesus in the desert after his temptation.

Messianic secret (why does Jesus tell demons to be silent)

Main Idea: The extraordinary kingdom of God is enacted through radical acts of hospitality and restoration.

In a more subtle way than the possession in our passage today, each of us too can be possessed by the initially small, subtle toe holds we allow evil to gain in our day-to-day life (e.g. anger, envy, grudges, us v. them politics, etc.).

Our long journey, our very personal collaboration with God, to be more Christ-like is a long-term, gradual, non-linear exorcism/healing in slow motion.

Preacher: Heidi Mills

Main Idea: Jesus' ministry of the Kingdom of God was about disrupting the unjust social order for the sake of creating a new social order.

"Kairos time is the right or opportune time. It is a decisive moment in history that potentially has far-reaching impact. It is often a chaotic period, a time of crisis. However, it is through the chaos and crisis that God is fully present, disrupting things as they are and providing an opportunity to a new future--God's future.
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"Kairos time is, therefore, a time pregnant with infinite possibilities for new life. Kairos time is God's time. It is a time bursting forth with God's call to a new way of living in the world." Kelly Douglas Brown, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God.

Jesus disrupted the fishermen in the middle of their ordinary lives... so they can be a part of what Jesus doing.



The disciples don't know what the end result of this disruption will be, but they make the decision to follow anyway. 

Pray: God, how are you disrupting my life, and what am I called to do or become in response?

Preacher: Richard Kelley

1) God’s purpose is clear: to call us an others into God’s story

2) God sees worth in everyone

3) God is not calling us to a new career; God is calling us to a new identity.

"The claim of a God bigger than those who worship him, more gracious, more generous, more hospitable than they are, is at the core of what Jesus calls the good news, or the gospel, and it ought to be good news that God is bigger than we are." Reverend Peter Gomes

Main Idea God arrived in the person of Jesus to

• Genesis 1

• Separation of waters (where chaos lives)

• Heavens broke open

Jesus' Baptism

• heavens are rent open

• Isaiah 64, "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down." And then the rest of the chapter is about judgment

• Isaiah 42 - song of the suffering servant. "This is my son..."

Opening Example: Favorite book/movie franchises?

Question: What do we do with the Old Testament? Particularly the God of the OT? (Note: "Hebrew/Jewish Scriptures," "First Testament," "Old Testament" all refer to Genesis—Malichi)

Marcion tried to answer this question by saying that the God of the OT was a different god than the God revealed in Christ. Therefore Christians should reject OT.

Smacks of anti-semitism. Marcion wanted a Christinaity, "Untrammeled and undefiled by association with Judaism."

But then we meet the opening of the book of Mark. "The beginning of the Gospel" begins with — the Old Testament.

"Isaiah" quote is actually 3 Old Testament quotes. First Malachi 3:1,

"Look, I am sending my messenger who will clear/prepare the path before me; Then suddenty the Lord (Yahweh) whom you are seeking will come to his temple." (God is going to come on the scene; but first a messenger).

Which it self is a quote from Exodus 23 at Mt. Sinai, "I'm about to send a messenger/angel in front of you to guard you on your way and bring you to a place I've made ready."

And a quote from Isaiah 40, "A voice one calling, 'In the wilderness prepare the way for Yahweh; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain shall become level, the rugged plaes a plain. And the glory of Yahweh will be revealed, all all people will see it together." (Which just a few verses later is the passage we talked about last week..."Tell the good news...here is your God!")

Application: Jesus and NT is unintelligible without the OT.

Just because there's continuity with what came before doesn't mean something new isn't happening.

In the stories of the first horseless carriages, the investors and inventors were ridiculed because what they were doing was "just a fad" or just a novelty. Cars were just doing the same thing horses had done for centuries. And horses were a lot easier to care for.

John (and, we'll see, Jesus) had continuity with the past; but something brand new was happening as well.

• Wilderness. All the best stories happen in the wilderness. Wilderness was the place where God did new things. Red Sea, Sinai. Expectation was high that the messiah would show up in the wilderness to start the revolution.

Application: Reducing Jesus down to a "nice moral teacher" is an insult to what John proclaimed and the first Christians believed.

John's message was to change direction.

• We think of repentance as negative. But it simply means to change direction.

But here's the thing about repentance and forgiveness: Grace has little effect on those who feel they have no need of it.

Sunday, September 12, 2021. We begin a new series on the life of Jesus and the Gospel of Mark. We dive in deep on the opening verse of the gospel. It reveals to us that the Gospel is Political; the Gospel is News; and the Gospel is Good.

Read the full sermon notes by clicking here.

Pastor Anthony concludes our Race & Justice series. We talk about the need for starting the process over again, because it's not a one and done thing.