Announcements
Justin: Good morning everyone. It is so good to see all of your faces today. My name is Justin. I'm one of the pastors here on the staff and I just wanna welcome you to the table. If you're new, we also wanna extend a warm welcome to you as well. I do have a few announcements for us today. First, kids normally are dismissed at this time, but kids are gonna stay until after the baptism because we're celebrating baptism today. So they'll experience baptism with us and then they'll be dismissed after.
If you are newer to the community or you are just curious to learn more about the table and who we are, we have an environment that is just for you that's New at The Table. And new at the table is today after worship. So if you would like to come learn more about who we are, how to become a member or get involved, this space is for you. Grab coffee, donuts after worship, and then where you'll go is you'll head all the way to the end of the hallway. You'll go down the stairs and there we will be. So that's gonna start at 11:15. It'll last 45 minutes and we look forward to seeing you there.
Then next Sunday, for those who do decide to join us and become members, we will celebrate our new member welcome. And so that will take place in worship. So please come back and celebrate all of those who are going to become new members at the table. Also, if you can't make it to new at the table today but you've been thinking about becoming a member of the table, let me or Debbie know and we'd be happy to talk with you this week and get you connected so that you know what's going on on Sunday.
Ladies, women at the table is coming up on the 11th at 7 p.m. You'll be gathering in a local home here in South Minneapolis and it'll be good vibes, good stories, laughter. So please RSVP at this QR code and the ladies look forward to being together and laughing and having a good time.
And then coming up on the 18th at 6.30 is our mental health night. Marta, our youth pastor has worked so hard putting this event together. There will be two panel discussions with professional therapists who are gonna have good conversation, good discussion around mental health and youth. And so if you are a middle schooler, there will be a panel discussion just for you. And if you are an adult, so that means a parent, someone who is a teacher who may be around kids a lot or you just have a child in your family that you care deeply about and you wanna know how to have good conversations with your family member, that space is for you. So please, please, if you are an adult and you care about the mental health of youth and children, please join us by scanning that QR code and RSVPing for that.
And then on 1119, QTs, which stands for queer trans folks at the table, we'll be having our first ever friends giving at 6.30 and it's gonna be at a local home here in South Minneapolis as well. It's gonna be a potluck style get together. So bring a dish and we're gonna share also good vibes, laughter and good friends. And so we're really excited about that.
And then lastly, my last announcement is last Sunday we kicked off our new series, Everything Hallelujah. And we told you that we wanna celebrate all of the hallelujahs with you. And so if you have a photo of some way that you feel grateful or thankful, whether that's a birthday party, a baptism, anything, a new house, whatever it is that you're thankful for, submit those photos to us and at the end of this series, we're gonna have a slideshow so that we can celebrate all of our hallelujahs together. So make sure that you submit those photos. That is it in the way of announcements.
Baby Baptism
Justin: So we're gonna transition now into a time of baptism. So I'll invite Debbie to join me on the platform.
Baptism is one of those holy marking moments in the life of the church where we get to celebrate God's deep and abiding love for us. But not only for us, but our deep and abiding love for God as well. And so every time we have the opportunity to do this, I hope that it fills you with joy as much as it fills God's heart with joy for God to see us following in the ways of Jesus. Our scripture passage for this morning comes from Mark 10, verses 13 through 16, and it says this.
"People were bringing little children to Jesus "for him to place his hands on them, "but the disciples rebuked them. "When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. "He said to them, let the little children come to me "and do not hinder them, "for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. "Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive "the kingdom of God like a little child "will never enter it. "And he took the children in his arms, "place his hands on them and bless them. "Let's pray together.
"Lord Jesus, we do come to you once again "to welcome another little one into your kingdom. "We know that our love and joy can never match "the love and joy that you have "in moments like these where life and hope are celebrated. "So we come to you now with open arms and open hearts, "just as you have opened your loving arms to us. "Be with us in this holy moment "and may it be the beginning of a beautiful life of faith "for Emerson, in Jesus' name, amen."
So at this time, we would like to invite Emerson, Zach, Chloe up to the platform with us and Emerson's God parents, Kendall, Raphael and Nick to join us as well. (Congregation Murmuring) Feel free to take the stairs.
Of course, absolutely.
Debbie: Well, at the table, we celebrate two sacraments, that of communion, we take that together each and every Sunday. And the sacrament of baptism or dedication.
As a church, our main thing is practicing the ways of Jesus. And for many of us, this begins before we're even able to make that decision ourselves. It begins with a decision by our parents, a decision to introduce us to a relationship with Jesus. And whether choosing baptism or dedication, they're affirming, Zach and Chloe are affirming that a relationship with Jesus is vitally important in the raising of their child.
For Chloe and Zach, it's an outward sign of something that Jesus is doing on their inside. And today they will be making a public commitment to model and teach the life of faith to Emerson. And we, their community, are making that same commitment. To model the life of faith.
So for us, baptism is three things. It's a covenant with God. It's a declaration of God's love for this little baby, before this little baby is even able to respond to that love. It's a covenant with parents. Zach and Chloe are making a commitment, a promise today, to teach and model that life of faith. And it's a covenant with all of us. We commit to supporting this family as they raise and follow Jesus, raise Emerson and follow Jesus.
So I have a couple of questions. Chloe and Zach, do you reaffirm your own faith in Jesus Christ and do you promise to help Emerson grow in the life of faith and if so, say we do. Do you promise to raise Emerson in the way of Jesus, guiding him with love, compassion and grace so he may come to know God's presence in his own life and if so, say we do.
Will you create space for Emerson to belong and to be loved, both in your home and within this community of faith so he may grow into the fullness of who God created him to be and if so, say we do. Awesome.
And for the wonderful God parents that stand up here, I'm trying to get out of the way so people can see you. There you go. Do you promise to walk alongside Emerson, practicing the ways of Jesus, nurturing him in love and faith and belonging as he grows and if so, say we do. Will you commit to creating space in your own life where Emerson will always know he's loved and has a place to belong and if so, say we will.
Awesome.
Well, here we go team. Here we go team, hello.
Okay, you know what I, my first memory of this little boy, Chloe brought up maybe a, I don't know, a month or so old to a woman at the table and her story was when he was born, the nurses all came into the room to see this little blonde baby, it was so unusual. But he is, he is something and he is beautiful. Emerson James, beloved child of God, I baptize you, I wouldn't dare lay him down, in the name of God, the creator of Jesus the Christ and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
So this beautiful baby boy, also known as Sunny, on all accounts he has a very sunny and happy disposition. His parents described him as lots of happy. He's chatty, they said, and he communicates well both with his voice and his non-verbal eye contact. You can see it from up here. He's obviously quite relational. Let's take a guess and say he'll be an extrovert. What do you think? They say that he communicates one week, he discovers he's got a cough and he coughs all week and the next week it's blowing raspberries. But whatever it is, this little guy is surrounded by love. Love of God, love of a family. And as Scandinavian as he looks, he is 12% Colombian and there might be a grandmother that came in from Colombia for this holy marking moment. If that ain't love, I don't know what is. But he is surrounded and filled with that love and our hope and our prayer for you, Emerson, that before we know it, you will be up and running these halls and all that love that's filling you up will just shine from you and make this world a better place.
We pray that in the name of Jesus, amen. Amen.
Justin: So church, baptism is also a sign of covenant responsibility as a community of faith. So do you affirm your faith in Jesus Christ and commit to walking alongside Emerson and his parents as they grow in their knowledge and love of God? If so, say we do. We do. Together, let's welcome Emerson into our community with, you can applaud, yeah. (Congregation Applauding)
And let's share in the congregational welcome on the screen. With joy, we welcome you into this community of God for we are all one in Christ. We promise to love, encourage and support you to share the good news of the gospel with you and to help you know and follow Christ. Beloved, you belong.
(Congregation Applauding) Congratulations. Aww. (Congregation Applauding) This team, go team.
Debbie: Well, I always feel like that's one of the holiest marking moments. Oh, kids, I always forget this part. You are dismissed. I look to others on the team for detail. I openly admit that.
Sermon
Debbie: I'm Debbie Manning. I'm one of the pastors here at the table and we continue in our November series on gratitude, Everything Hallelujah. That's the title of our sermon series. I love that. And I think there's a lot of hallelujah going on this week for a whole lot of reasons. But I would say my most recent reason is last night I was at a partay and yes, that partay theme was super wings and baby things. Tommy takes flight and Millie tucks them in tight. And I gotta tell you, it got a little crazy. It got nuts. It's about all we could take, but it was a moment of gratitude and joy and a lot of hallelujahing going on. And it was one of the many things I was grateful for this week.
But on a more serious note, I think so many of us had a deep gratitude for the results of the election on Tuesday. And I wanna say clearly, Maggie named it last week. We are not partisan, but we are committed to being political, especially when a system we live in can marginalize and oppress people in this country. And I think for many of us, there was this great feeling of relief. And I'd say even joy.
I also wanna acknowledge, and Maggie pointed this out as our team meeting, that there are people in this country that are not feeling that. But for many of us, I think that we are so encouraged by the faith-inspired candidates that seem to really care about the common good of all people and they got elected. I think for many of us, it's that all of those voters created in the image of God, they exercised their right to vote. And we heard from those people.
And I think our hope and prayer is that we are in a new season, where we can be united, that we can come together, that we can care about the flourishing of all people. And as a faith community, as followers of Jesus, we will stand with that in this country. I think it's important.
But with all that gratitude and joy and relief, we continue on in this series. Justin kicked us off last week and he talked about a gratitude by reminding us that it's important to remember. He was in Psalm 107, and he invited us to remember how God had rescued, guided, gathered, sustained God's people throughout their story.
And often we look backward. So that we can recognize God's faithfulness in those moments. So we started off the series with being reminded that gratitude begins with remembering. But this week, the apostle Paul takes it just a step further. He reminds us that gratitude doesn't stay inside of us. That real gratitude always moves outward.
And that we recognize that ultimately all the gifts we have from God.
And when we do that, we can live open-handedly. That it becomes something we practice, not just something we feel. That this gratitude is something that morphs into compassion and generosity, and a generosity that looks like creating space for all to belong, to experience the love and goodness of God. I think a lot of us would agree that we walked through the last year or two and it's felt hard at times and scary.
And there's something about the human heart, and I'm talking about my own heart as well. Where when life feels uncertain, when there seems to be a lot of chaos, when the news feels overwhelming, when the future is unclear, I think we can start unknowingly, holding things a little bit tighter.
We hold tighter to our time because we're tired. We hold tighter to our money because we're not quite sure what tomorrow's gonna bring. We hold tighter to our energy because we simply don't know if we have any more to give. And sometimes, sometimes we even find ourselves holding tighter to compassion because the needs of everything around us, it just seems like way more than we have to give.
But what we have to do is recognize things are rooted in fear, and that it's fear that has this way of convincing us that there simply isn't enough. It whispers in our ear, oh gosh, I don't have enough time. I don't have enough security. I don't have enough money. Oh gosh, even enough love. I don't know if I have enough hope anymore. And before we realize it, we're walking around with these clenched fists instead of open hands.
Well, the Apostle Paul speaks to that temptation in our text today. Paul is traveling around the country among the churches that he had planted. He's collecting money, collecting an offering for the Christians that are living in Jerusalem. Now these believers, they're struggling deeply. They're facing poverty, famine, rejection because of their own faith. But Paul isn't simply organizing like a relief fund. What he's doing, he's trying to heal a divide in the church, and he believes that generosity will be part of healing that, will become part of reconciliation, will do something that words cannot do on their own.
I think that generosity says we belong to one another. And ultimately, generosity is the mark of the church. We're in 2 Corinthians 9:6-15:
The point is this, the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not regretfully or under compulsion, for God loves the cheerful giver.
And God is able to provide you with every blessing and abundance so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. Because as it is written, he scatters abroad, he gives to the poor, his righteousness endures forever. He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us. For the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints, but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. Through the testing of this ministry, you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ, and by the generosity of your partnership with them and with all others, while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that has given you. Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift.
In our text today, Paul's not simply talking about money. He's talking about the posture of our lives. And he asks a much deeper question. Do we trust God to provide? Or do we live as though everything depends on us? Do we believe that God's grace is abundant? Or do we secretly live? As though love and mercy and generosity are limited resources.
Now, from a theological perspective, Paul directly confronts the concept of scarcity and abundance. Rather than treating abundance as this human reward or reward for human effort, Paul reframes it as a reflection of God's character. He shifts the conversation from material wealth to spiritual transformation.
Now, the Corinthians had enthusiastically promised to participate nearly every year, or nearly a year earlier, but after conflict had arisen in their church, their excitement began to fade. And Paul could have used guilt. He could have demanded that they keep the promises that they had made the year before, but instead he gently reminds them that generosity isn't born out of pressure.
Because if that happens, it's not generosity at all. He writes this, "Each of you should have what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."
You know why I've always loved that verse? I've loved the verse for what it doesn't say. Because Paul doesn't say that God loves the wealthy giver. He doesn't say that he loves impressive gifts or that God loves people who give the most. He says God loves a cheerful giver. Focus is an amount. It's on the heart. And it's about the joy that comes from trusting that whatever we give to God, God will use.
Now, what's cool about this text that Paul paints this picture, that his audience a couple thousand years ago would have really understood it. He talks about a farmer sowing seed. And you imagine a farmer walking up and down his field with his little bag of seeds. And what if that farmer was terrified that those seeds would run out and that he might carefully just count out a few and lay a few here, lay a few there, scattering them cautiously, and then he tucks the rest safely away.
That might protect what he has, but it certainly isn't gonna lend itself to a bountiful harvest. And it isn't lost when we scatter it in the soil. The farmers know that the seed isn't meant to stay in the bag. That seed is entrusted to something far larger than itself. It disappears for a season, but when it comes back, it returns to multiply as new life. That's Paul's imagery of generosity. He isn't promising that if you give away $10, you're gonna get a hundred back because he's not preaching a prosperity gospel. He's talking about trust. He's talking about the trust that the farmer has as he lays all that seed into the earth. He's trusting that God will do what God created everything to do. And in the same way we trust God, we trust that God is faithful, and what we place into his hands is never wasted.
And at the heart of this passage is a question about how we all see the world. Do we see the world through a lens of scarcity? Or do we see the world through a lens of abundance? Because scarcity tells us that there's not enough. It believes that there is a limit to the amount of resources, success, love, and all that does is it leads to competition and fear of running out. Or do we see the world through a lens of abundance believing that there's more than enough for everybody, leading us to collaboration, to generosity, to growth?
I may think we have to be honest that we live in a culture that messages scarcity all the time. We certainly heard that throughout all the political campaigning of this last fall or year. There's never enough to go around. Not enough resources, not enough opportunities, not enough security. There isn't enough success to go around because if someone gets ahead, then that means you fell behind. If someone else belongs, that means that we won't.
Fear becomes the operating systems of our lives.
But Paul offers a completely different vision of reality. He writes this, "God is able to provide you with every blessing and abundance so that by always having enough of everything you may share abundantly in every good work."
Listen to how expansive Paul's language is. Every blessing, always, enough, everything, every good work. And again, Paul isn't saying that every follower of Jesus is gonna become wealthy. What he's saying is far more profound than that. God's grace is never running out. God's mercy is never depleted. God's love is never scarce.
Here's the thing, friends, we don't have to cling tightly because God's love is endless and is generous.
And we don't see that better anywhere than in the life of Jesus. When crowds were hungry, Jesus didn't look at what was missing. He blessed what was already there. And somehow there was enough for everybody. When people had been pushed to the edges of society, Jesus didn't protect the table, and when shame convinced people that they no longer belonged, Jesus restored their dignity. And even when death itself claimed hope, resurrection revealed that God's abundance is greater than anything that death can take away.
Jesus lived as though love was unlimited. We keep saying we practice the ways of Jesus. I think we need to live that way too. And that's why I love the mission of the table.
We say that we are a community practicing the ways of Jesus by creating space for all to belong and all to be loved. And as I was thinking about the phrase, creating space, it hit me that creating space is actually an act of abundance. If we believe love is scarce, then we'll be deciding who deserves that love. And if we believe that belonging is limited, then there's gonna be some people on the outside of that belonging.
If we believe grace can only go so far, then we will ration out our mercy. But if God's love is abundant, then there's always a chair to pull up to the table. There's always room for another story. There's always another person who can discover the truth that's always been there. They're already beloved by God.
That's what we're called to, to live out of this posture of gratitude and generosity. And when we do that, we're saying something about God. What we're saying is that God's love is bigger than our own fear. Paul says, "You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity."
And a reminder, he's not enriching us so we can accumulate more. He says we are enriched so that we can become generous in every way. God's blessings are never meant to stop with us. They're meant to flow through us. And like a river, when that happens, we see grace and love and compassion and generosity. It just keeps on moving out here.
We've seen that happen over and over again in this community. People bringing meals and groceries to people they've never met, volunteers spending countless hours with our kids, whether it's the nursery or our grade schoolers or our youth, reminding them that they are loved just as they are. We've seen this community stand beside our LGBTQ plus brothers and sisters, standing with neighbors and immigrants, families facing hardships and people that had nearly given up that they could belong at church anymore.
And again and again, we've watched generosity create belonging. And that's what gratitude looks like. Gratitude doesn't simply say, hey, thank you, God. It fills us, it changes us, it transforms us, and it reaches out with generosity. And finally, Paul ends with one of the most beautiful lines in all of scripture. Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift.
Everything begins here because before we ever gave anything, Jesus gave everything. Jesus left heaven to come to earth where he experienced hunger and rejection and grief and suffering, and he stretched out his arms on a cross, holding nothing back.
And if anyone had a reason to protect himself, he did. But instead, he gave himself away in love. And that is the gift that Paul talks about that cannot even fully be described.
You know, our generosity doesn't earn God's love. Our generosity is simply a response to that love. So maybe the invitation this week isn't simply to give more, but it's to trust more. I think we need to ask ourselves that question, where has fear tightened your grip? My grip. Where has scarcity shaped our imagination?
And then ask this one simple question. What would gratitude do here? A gratitude that isn't something we feel, but something we practice for the sake of others.
There's a story that I feel like reflects this beautifully. It's a woman named Oseola McCarty. She was born in 1908. And Sara, if you can show that video, that'd be awesome.
A banker laid 10 dimes on the desk and told the 87-year-old washerwoman that each one was 10% of her life savings. She slid six of them across the table. Oseola McCarty was born in Mississippi in 1908. In the sixth grade, her aunt fell ill and Oseola left school to care for her. She never went back. Instead, she took up her grandmother's trade, washing and ironing other people's clothes by hand with a big pot and a scrub board in a small frame house in Hattiesburg. She did that work for more than 75 years. She never married, never had children, never owned a car and walked everywhere she went, pushing a shopping cart a mile to buy groceries. And every week, for three quarters of a century, she put a little of what she earned into the bank. A dollar here, a pile of coins there. She lived on almost nothing and never touched it. When arthritis finally stopped her hands in 1994, the bank sat her down to ask what should happen to her money. She had $280,000. To make the choices simple, the trust officer laid out 10 dimes, each one representing 10%.
She pushed one toward her church, three toward her three cousins. Then she slid the remaining six across the desk to the University of Southern Mississippi to fund scholarships for black students who could not afford college. 60%, $150,000. To a university she had never set foot on and one that for most of her life would not have admitted her.
The gift detonated across America. More than 600 donors poured in money that tripled her fund within four years. Ted Turner, after hearing what she had done, gave away a billion dollars, saying that if that little woman could give away everything she had, he could give a billion. She received the Presidential Citizens Medal, an honorary doctorate from Harvard, and carried the Olympic torch in 1996.
Through all of it, she kept living in the same small house. "I don't regret one penny I gave," she said. She died in 1999, but her money kept working. In March 2025, time to what would have been her 117th birthday, the endowment she started passed one million dollars. It now sends 20 McCarty Scholars to college every single year. A woman who was pulled out of the sixth grade spent her whole life washing clothes so that strangers could get the education she never did. The dimes on that desk turned out to be one of the greatest bargains in the history of American generosity.
What I love about that story is, and I read up quite a bit on it, her generosity came out of a deep faith in Jesus Christ. Until her dying day, she said, "I have a list of content. I had all that I needed." She often reflected, "I am unable to accomplish everything, but I will certainly offer something, and what I can do, I will do." She said, "I start each day on my knees saying the Lord's Prayer. Then I get busy about my work. You have to accept God the best way you know how, and then He'll show Himself to you. And the more you serve Him, the more you're able to serve Him."
And I think this statement from her is profound in the culture we live in. Some people make a lot of noise about what's wrong with this world, and they're usually blaming someone else. I think people who don't like the way things are need to look at themselves first. They need to get right with God and change their own ways. If everybody did that, we'd be all right. She refused to see her life through the lens of scarcity.
She recognized that she was abundantly blessed, allowing God's gifts to flow through her to enrich other people. Genuine gratitude. That doesn't wait until we're entirely secure. It recognizes God's current abundance, and that it's already more than enough. It's efficient enough for us to open our hands and share, because at the end of the day, gratitude reaches outward, and every time it does, someone gets to experience God's love, experience the generosity of God, discover that they belong, reminded that they are already deeply loved, and that's exactly the kind of harvest that Jesus came to grow.
Please pray with me. Holy and gracious God, we are so grateful. God, we pray that you can help us see the abundance of your provision, to remember that you invite us to be your hands and feet, the hands and feet of generosity, so that through us, others may come to know your great love for them. We pray all this through the name of Jesus, amen.
Words of Institution
Maggie: Thank you, Debbie. We needed that reminder about scarcity versus abundance, and as we move into this time of communion, this is our first opportunity to practice that abundance, because we did not set this table, this is God's table, and everyone is welcome here. You will see all kinds of people, from the very young to the, I was gonna say very old, but that feels offensive. Everyone is welcome at this table, every single one of us, and so as we move into this time of communion, a couple of logistics for you.
We do have an orange tape line on the carpet in the aisles. If you're in front of that orange tape line, you'll come to the front station. If you're behind the line, you'll go to the rear station, and we practice intinction here at the table, which means you'll pick up a piece of our gluten-free bread, and you'll dip it into the juice, and then you'll eat it right away, and then you'll use your right aisle, there we go, to return to your seat.
And this is our way of remembering that on the night that Jesus died, he was with his friends, and he gathered them all together, and he took a piece of bread, and he gave thanks to his father, and he broke it, and he said to his friends, "This is my body, "and it's been given for you. "Do this in remembrance of me." And in the same way, he took the cup, and he poured wine into it, and he gave thanks, and he said, "This is the blood, my blood, "for you, and everybody's welcome. "Whenever you drink it, remember me."
And so now I invite you to stand, whether in body or in spirit, we are gonna say the Lord's Prayer, but I'm also gonna remind you, I think we have a member of the prayer team in the back, and if you need prayer, Justin will be standing in the rear of the sanctuary, you are welcome to stop by and see him, he'd love to pray with you and for you. Let's pray together, saying, "Our God, who art in heaven…”