The Table Church DC

Mark 1:40-45—Get Angry More; Invest In People Less

Sunday, October 31, 2021. Preacher: Anthony Parrott. This Sunday we talk about the step before translating the Bible. We talk about why Jesus gets angry — and we can too. And we briefly talk about "investing" in people isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Mark 1:35-39—Resistance, Reactivity, Rhythms

Mark 1:35-39

Resistance

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

(Non) Reactivity

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.

Rhythms

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.

Mark 1:29-34 Jesus at Simon and Andrew‘s House

Mark 1:29-34

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? 
 Because serving is the sign of being a disciple, in the way of Jesus
 
Her serving is not about her being a woman and therefore being put back in her rightful place. 

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.
2) This woman.
3) And Jesus Himself. "The Son of Man did not come into the world to be served, but to serve."

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.

Mark 1:21-28—Exorcisms and Healings

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.

Mark 1:14-20—The Calling of the Disciples (Downtown)

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.
--
"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?

Mark 1:14-20—The Calling of the Disciples (Columbia Heights)

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

The Heavens Are Opened (Mark 1:9-13)

Mark 1:9-13 The Baptism of Jesus

Main Idea God arrived in the person of Jesus to
1) Launch the New Creation;
2) show us what God is really like; and
3) to tell us how God really feels about us.

New Creation

• Genesis 1
  • Separation of waters (where chaos lives)
  • Living among the wild animals
  • Spirit brooding above the waters
• Genesis 6—7
  • Heavens broke open
  • Noah among the animals
  • 40 Days/Nights
  • Sign of New Creation is a dove

Jesus' Baptism

• heavens are rent open
• Spirit descends like a dove
• Jesus in the wilderness 40 days
• With the wild animals

What God Is Like

• Isaiah 64, "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down." And then the rest of the chapter is about judgment
• Everything from here on shows us what it looks like for God to show up and render judgment

How God Feels About Us

• Isaiah 42 - song of the suffering servant. "This is my son..."
• God says this to Jesus (notice the Trinity)
• God is saying this to you too

Something Old, Something New (Mark 1:2-8)

Mark 1:2-8

Something Old

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.

Something New

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.
• Baptism. This is what happened to Gentile converters to Judaism. John is doing it to Jews.
• Elijah. Same description as 2 Kings 1:8. And the expectation that Elijah would come back. "Look, I am sending Elijah the prophet to you, before the great and terrifyin day of the Lord arrives."

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

Requires a Change of Direction

John's message was to change direction.

• We think of repentance as negative. But it simply means to change direction.
• Repent is bit preachy. Christianeze. But, you know, we like it when people repent. Repentance can save lives. When people change their minds. (Gay marriage moved from being allowed in one state to all 50 from 2004-2015. One study showed that "Repentance" from banning gay marriage meant 134,000 fewer teens attempted suicide each year).
• Which, we also think of repentance and forgiveness of sins as an individual thing. And it can be. But it's also a community thing; a as-a-people thing. So, as we get closer to the death of Jesus, and we talk about "forgiveness of sins," remember that we're talking about a "nation-being-brought-of-an-exile" thing; not a "go-to-heaven-when-you-die, now-god-can-stand-to-be-around-you-thing."

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