You're Welcome at the Table | Mark 2

that have a friend they want healed. And they're willing to do the unconventional thing, right? To not do the religious thing, but to do the radical thing, which is like we think there's healing on the other side of that for our friend. That dude, Jesus, I don't know anything about him. I don't know who he is, but I know he can heal. - Yes. - And so we will go up on a roof and cut it open and come in and I love that Jesus' response to those people is not indignation. How dare you, this is somebody's house. You know what? Jesus is like, whoa, you have that kind of faith? - Mm-hmm. - Buddy, your sins are forgiven. This is the Crossroads Daily. No experts, no perfect people. Just honest conversations about what happens when the Bible shows up in real life. (upbeat music) Hey friends, I'm Chuck. - I'm Mish. - I'm Caleb. - And I'm Kirsten. - Thanks for joining us for a conversation about Mark chapter two. Quick reminder, Mark is the action-packed gospel of Jesus. Not a lot of fluffin' Mark.

He's going from experience to experience, action to action. - Mm-hmm. - Caleb, you call it like a Michael Bay movie. Like, you know, lots of explosions, lots of fights. Like, and speaking of fights, it's interesting. What stood out to you in Mark chapter two? We have a story of Jesus healing a paralytic. We've got the calling of a disciple. There's a question about fasting Jesus is engaging with and then there's this idea that he's the Lord of the Sabbath. What stood out to you? - I love this. He's just pissing everyone off. (laughing) It's so fun. I just cannot. Everyone, I feel like when I first started coming around believers in church, I got this picture of this, like, Jesus loves you. He forgives you, and yes, yes, yes, he does. And he just doesn't give enough. Like, he knows what his role is and the fact that he is forgiving sins when, you know, everyone up until that point in faith is like, no one has the authority to do that. He's like, you were mentioning, what about the fasting thing made them mad? - That he wasn't. - That he wasn't.

- That he wasn't. His disciples and him didn't fast. - Why aren't you doing this? Just all the things, every part of this chapter is just him making people angry and I love it. I'm pretty nerdy, so you don't have to go with me on this for a second, okay? - Oh, no, no, no, no, you are too nerdy. - But I was talking to some friends about toxic fandom the other day. There's a new Narnia movie coming out. I love Narnia. I like Greta Gerwig. I can't wait to see it. And all the chatter that I see is people like, well, he picked this person to be insulin's will. He's really, they changed the timing about it. And they do that with Lord of the Rings. They do it with Star Wars. Like, "Ugh, toxic fandom gets on my nerves so much." And I was reading this and I was like, "That's who the Pharisees are." - Oh, wow. - They're like, "Ugh." - It's supposed to be like that. - It's supposed to be like that. - Jesus, does that matter? They're a hungry people. Like, that's not what's happening. And I just love that someone else like Jesus is like,

please take your toxic fandom over there. The real people are gonna have a real conversation about the real guy. - Yeah. - That's awesome. - I was gonna ask, what's the equivalent to like, someone not fasting now or someone? And later on it goes not doing a Sabbath, which is like a day of rest. Someone not doing the Sabbath. They're doing it not exactly. Is it that? Is that day of rest? - Well, I'm hating on something. - I think, you know, I think about how I grew up. I mean, sometimes it's like, well, you don't dress up for church? - Right. There's one. - You dress casual? - Yeah. - Is that honoring God? Like, that would be, you know, there are things in that category. - Yeah. And then you said, the thing about it is, Jesus, we can say Jesus was a rebel. Actually, Jesus was radical. - Yeah. - Yeah.

- The word radical means rooted. - Yeah. - Jesus was rooted. So religiosity wasn't a part of his deal. So it wasn't like he was anti-fasting. - No. - He just wasn't gonna fast just for religious performance, right? - Yes. - He's not anti-the Sabbath. - So good. - But he's not gonna let the Sabbath keep him from doing the work of God. You know, and it's like, hey, it's time to work. I'm here to work. So I think it's really powerful to think about Jesus in that way. And it's one of the reasons why I love the story and this chapter about these guys that have a friend they want healed. And they're willing to do the unconventional thing, right? To not do the religious thing, but to do the radical thing, which is like, we think there's healing on the other side of that for our friend. That dude, Jesus, I don't know anything about him. I don't know who he is, but I know he can heal. - Yes. - And so we will go up on a roof and cut it open and come in. We love that Jesus' response to those people is not indignation. How dare you. This is somebody's house. Jesus is like, whoa, you have that kind of faith? But your sins are forgiven, which I can do because I'm God. Jesus was claiming to be God.

And not only that, but I'm gonna raise you up. - So beautiful. - It says something about the kind of person that Jesus is attracted to, you know? We don't have to be perfect people. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - He like broke down the, I feel like the Pharisees put limits on the work that they could do. - Yeah. - Like when I'm thinking of your question about what is equivalent to fasting, some might be down, but like I get tons of people being like, "Oh, so sorry, I'm not gonna be able to meet you for church on Sunday." Like, "I feel horrible to be missing." Then I'm like, "You know, there's six other days of the week. It's like, I'm coming after you if you don't go to church on Sunday." Like church on Sunday, I think is really important for community and just like you're saying, Jesus is not against church on Sundays. He loves church on Sundays. However, when you see church on Sundays being your, like thing getting you there every week, you lost the plot, like you're not getting it. So that was what came to mind for a week. - One of the reasons I started coming to our church crossroads and loved this church is because of that. It like, you know, one of the most common things I get

when I talk about like my time at crossroads in the church and going to church and stuff like that is sometimes people saying, "Oh, I'm not a very religious person." - So much as one be like, "I'm not either man." (laughing) - Exactly, you know, and there's like even a worship song that we have recently gotten here and worship a long song. They all talk about breaking religion. That's exactly what Jesus is doing. He's breaking religion, he's breaking like a stereotype, a generalization, the social dynamics, the gender, all these different like blockages. And that's what I love about Mark, the gospel is in general. And just what following Jesus means, it comes across as rebel, but it's radical, it's rooted in something way deeper. It's the things that actually matter and what God cares about. - That's good, right. - Right, obviously Jesus, you know, his focus is always on people, you know, where like, that was railing about the Pharisees. Like their focus was on the rules, right? And if the people fit the rules or not, Jesus' focus is always on the actual people that are made in the image of God, right? Especially the ones that are ignored by the religious people, right?

And he says like, verse 27, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Like you got it twisted, right? It's about how the Sabbath blesses people, not how people can bless the idea of a rule. Oh my gosh, I was always fascinated by when Jesus forgave someone, was like sitting with people and says, "Your sins are forgiven," that he doesn't get into details of what sins were forgiven and like list them out. And that's what that reminds me of like, if he was about the rules, 'cause some people will be like, "Well, it's still important to repent and to list out your sins," yes, yes it is. But I think if you're exactly right, if Jesus went for that person and their heart and had love he has for them, he would be very clear to be like, "Here's the things that you need to get right." And he just says, "Your sins are forgiven." - That's right. - Like they know, they see the love in his eyes. Like, ugh, so good. - I think it's why you see people following Jesus, right? It's easy to read it now, knowing the end of the story. But if you put yourself in the story with them, like the reason people followed Jesus, they didn't know he was the son of God. - No. - Immediately.

It's because he listened to people. He was kind to people. He invited people. He was loving people. - Yeah. - Like, oh, I could do that instead of seeing the person that makes me uncomfortable and going that way, you know? I could be more like Jesus and go toward that person. - Yes, yeah. For Mark I, you asked the question, what character of Jesus still like, you want to embody or do you feel a call towards? And I'd say the inclusivity piece is a big one that I just like, "Oh man, he's the ultimate recruiter." And I thought of like a modern day, kind of like relation of like what Jesus forgiving and healing the paralyzed man could be. It's like imagine if like you're at a country club, you're golfing, there's so many rules there. - Couldn't find anything. - And the four of us, same, honestly. But the four of us roll up and we're blasting music, looking exactly like this. - Doesn't say are we wearing green? - We'd be shooting, well, of course we're wearing green. We'd be shooting away. We'd be like, someone will come out, no hate on country clubs, if you've joined like, great. - My husband loves them. - Yeah, there you go.

And no hate on golfing too, happy for you. But what Jesus would do is he would say, "No, come golf with me. I got the golf part for you already." - That's right, yep. - He would include you and leave it as he's in his khakis. - He might not be wearing cactus, bro. - And also, he'd walk. He wouldn't get the golf cart. (laughing) - No, you're right. I mean, and that's the beauty of Jesus. The beauty of Jesus is, at the end of the day, the criteria for who's in and who's out has nothing to do with what we put the criteria in, which is all about performance, right? We have our hierarchies. With Jesus, it's like, where is your heart? Where is your heart? If your heart is for me-- - Yes. - And you will receive this forgiveness of your sins that I'm bringing to you. - Yep. - You're in. You're in. You're welcome to the table. And it's cool, 'cause even him call him and the thing we didn't talk about is like, he calls a tax collector to be a disciple. We don't know how offensive that is.

That's Jesus going to Bernie Madoff and saying like, Bernie, I want you to be one of my closest friends. Like, that's what it meant when he called Matthew Levi to be a tax collector. So, man, there's so much we could talk about every day when we do these. Today, I was just left for you to read again, chapter two. What character do you relate to? Maybe there's a story in here that connects to your story. Just know Jesus came for you. He came for people like you. And you don't have to have it all together to be in relationship with him. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)