Prince of the Pivot

Transcripts are AI-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Maggie: Dan and Emily and Shane, those are all members of our community who have found these ways of giving that coincide with their giftings. There are lots of ways to give to The Table, and that is what we want to talk about now. It's timely for us, right? The giving portion. We sent out a letter this week. Throw up a hand if you got a letter from The Table in the mail this week. And if you didn't and you were hoping to get a letter from The Table this week, it's 'cause we don't have your right mailing address on file. You can scan that QR code right there and you can update your mailing address with us so we make sure that we stay in touch with you. 

But in that letter we kind of gave a picture of where the table is at and one of those places is financially. And right now, we are experiencing in the year 2023, about a $2,000 shortfall/month. And I know that you might hear that and think, “oh, yikes.” But I want you to know that that's, been predictable, it follows a similar pattern over the last couple of years. But the key part of that is, the last couple of years we've also have had a pattern where, you are very generous to this community and you have allowed us to kind of make up that shortfall in the months of November and December through your year-end gifts. And so we are coming to you humbly because we do believe that this place matters to you all as much as it does to us. And so we'd like to ask for your help in meeting that shortfall. The number one way that you can help us is by becoming a monthly recurrent giver. 

Side note, if this is your first time at The Table, welcome. We value transparency and honesty and that's why we're bringing it to you just this way. But if you haven't already begun giving monthly to the table, those monthly gifts are actually, that's what we base our whole budget off of. So it's really helpful to us if you can kind of give some consistency to that. And we understand if you're not in a position to give monthly, please hear us that every little bit helps and we appreciate it all. 

If you are already giving monthly, you can make a one-time, year-end gift. And you can do that in lots of ways. You can give online at that link right there. But you can also give, uh, bank stock and, and a transfer as well. And if you are interested in that, I've got two guys back here in the corner, Mark and Shane, would you put your hands up? Those are the guys that you want to talk to if you're interested in a stock transfer or a bank transfer. 

But uh, the last way is that if you're already a monthly giver, would you consider increasing your monthly gift by 10-15%? And I want to tell you why. You just saw all that mass exodus of children heading to the back. Did you know that one year ago the average number of kids we had on a Sunday night was 16. It's doubled in 2023 and we expect it to continue growing because Pastor Jae is amazing at what he does and, and building up these programs to serve more kids. So would you help us continue to grow by helping us in 2024, setting up with no shortfall? So that's my humble ask. All of the ways to give are right there at that QR code. And we're grateful for your generosity. Thanks for being in our corner as we try to be in yours. Alright, Matt.

Matt: Are you serious? 

Maggie: Yeah, I'm—did you just spill? Matt just spilled his water, but that's okay. We love you anyways. Come on up. 

[Matt:] Of all the times to bring me on the stage. You're gonna do that right now. That's all right, Maggie. Hope you find a new place of employment next week. Hey, welcome to church everybody. My name is Matt Moberg. I'm one of the leaders of this community. We're grateful that you are with us. Is it still dripping down my stomach right now? Can you, uh, it is. No. Okay, great. Uh, this is the space in the worship program. We try to dive into the scripture and we take our stories. We hold them against our tradition stories. We say, is there any kind of nutrients that we could gather up in this space? 

Before we dive into the text tonight, I'm gonna say this, I say it every week. I'm gonna say it one more time. If you get nothing out of what I'm about to offer up right now, at least walk home with this. Who you are is more important than what you do. Even if what you do gets more attention than who you are, core essence, you can block me out from this point on if that's helpful for you. But in this space, close your eyes receive some kind of good news. At least catch your breath amidst all of the obstacles, the challenges, the trials, the tribulations that come your way. Be reminded as you come into this space tonight that your essence as a person matters more than your production as a person. 

We are going through our, uh, Markan text this year as a Table community. Uh, we're going inch by inch. There is no flyover territory. There is no Iowa, there is no Green Bay inside of this Markan text. Every inch we wanna believe has a purpose. That's why we protected and preserved it all these thousands of years and perpetuated on the masses. We think that if we, if, if we crawl our way through the gospel of Mark, there's good things that we could ascertain from it. When we go beyond the highlight reel and what tends to be provided to us, when you come on a typical Sunday, when we go into those low level areas, there's good nutrients for us here. So I'm gonna, uh, I say that and I'm over the top with it because the text I'm about to read for you and with you, it might feel like, what, what are we gonna get outta that thing right here? 

Mark 3:7-21. It's longer text. Read it with me. It goes, “Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea and a great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him.” 

Real quick. Pause. Jesus withdrew. If you've been with us up until this point, you know, Jesus was like itching for some R & R. He's been getting after it. He's been healing, he's been casting out all kinds of dysfunction. He's exhausted that man, his boys, the whole crew, the whole mission. Can they get a pause, amidst all the heavy weight that they're carrying. But the crowd came with them. When the crowd heard that the same guy who was doing what he had previously done, they went to go see him. And so Jesus told his disciples, listen, they're here. None of 'em can bow it down. Uh, let's get a boat ready. 'cause if we don't, they'll probably crush me if we don't do something, if we don't get some space, some real estate between us and this crowd who was so thirsty to get their hands on me and the good news we're trying to push forward, uh, it's not gonna end well. For he had healed many so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. Next slide. And whenever the unclean spirit saw him, they fell down before him. They also cried out, “you are the son of God.” And he strictly ordered them not to make him known. 

So let's pause there. So here's what we could do. Sermonically, if you are in my position, when we look at a text like this, no flyover territory, we could zero in on this right now and we could pontificate about different theological speculations. The Messianic secret. Why is it that Jesus turned towards the spirits and said, “Don't you dare tell anybody about who I actually am?” We could do that. I don't know if that's the most helpful way forward for us as a community. So if you want to do that, please do that. We're not doing that in this space right here. That's not belittling it. I just want you to know like we're not gonna zero in on that right now. Jesus sees the spirits, he hears the spirits He says, don't say anything about me. 

Next scene then is he goes up on top of a mountain. He goes up on top of a mountain and he calls to them those whom he desired. And they came to him and he appointed 12 whom he also named apostles so they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons. He appointed the 12 Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter), James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means “sons of thunder”), Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, the one who put a knife inside of his back. 

Then he went home and the crowd gathered again so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him for they were saying, “That boy has lost his mind.” Next slide says this. There's a few, few skips down the road, but I wanna put a proper bookend on this. Same chapter later on. Six verses later. And his mother and his brothers came and standing outside, they sent to him and called him and the crowd was sitting around him and they said to him, “Hey Jesus, heads up your mom, your brothers, they're outside, they're here, they're present. They want some face time with you, they're seeking you.” And Jesus spins in his seat and he says, “who are my mom? Who is my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “here is my mom. Here are my brothers for whoever does the will of God. He is my brother and sister and mother.” 

That's the text for tonight. Anyone got a sermon come out of that right there? Tom? Anything up your sleeve, you've been hiding this whole tim? Nope. Kinda weird, right. Uh, I fell asleep the other night to the movie. My favorite movie. Well, I'd say top five favorite movies. My favorite movie's, probably my girl. Just 'cause I had such a strong emotional reaction to it back in the day. Still haven't recovered from. Shawshank Redemption. Anybody love Shawshank Redemption? Yeah. 

Watched Shawshank the other night for the first time in a while. And uh, which led me to like, pardon the insomnia, but I did like a late night Google upon Google upon Google of Alcatraz. I just don't know much about Alcatraz. And so I'm looking at all these, like, there's some wild stories that came out of Alcatraz and hearing all these different stories that haunt the halls today, it's no longer an up and running like operating prison, but it is now more so a museum. 

It was crazy to hear TikTok is not helpful in this moment when you're trying to find sleep because there's tons of ghost stories that come out at that point. That's not helpful. But one of the things I didn't know was this, when Alcatraz was up and running, I guess I didn't know where to, you know, geographically place it in my mind. But I had no idea that it was only a mile away from San Francisco. I mean a little over a mile. It's about a mile and a quarter, but roughly a mile away from San Francisco. And as some would say, not all of the windows, this is an exaggeration but every window at Alcatraz had a view of San Francisco. 

This is one of those like cruel forms of cold, irrational, unreasonable punishment that was inflicted upon the prisoners who stayed at Alcatraz because they would be sitting behind the bars trapped inside their cage, and yet they could still see life unfolding in San Francisco just a little bit further than a mile away from where they were right there. So people who have written about Alcatraz, again 3:00 AM Google session after Google session, people who have written about it, when they asked prisoners who made it out of there, they said what was the worst part? It wasn't any kind of like you know, punitive punishment, lashings, cold treatment deprivation or anything like that. It was the fact that they could see San Francisco. 

When they asked why, they said everything that we want, we can see. But everything that we see, we can't swim to everything we want. We can see it, we can visualize it in our mind's eye, we can taste it. It’s there, but we can't swim to it. There's a barricade or two or three or 34 that stands between where we are and where San Francisco is. Everything we want to be about the life that we dream of, that we long for, that we're thirsty for. We can see it, but we can't get to it. 

I think about that. When I watched Shawshank Redemption the other night and it brought me to kid you not, six different conversations I had with folk in our community that week where they talked to me across dinner tables, coffee tables, breakfast tables, walks around Lake Harriet about a life that they could see. They could see where they wanted to go. They could see who they wanted to be. They could see what they dreamed about for the past 10 years, but they can't seem to swim towards it. 

And whenever I paused and I said like, what is, what is it? What's the barricade for you? Why can't you swim? What's keeping you from going from Alcatraz to abundance? What's keeping you from going to this thing you can see to the thing you can swim towards? And every single time though, they could clearly define where they wanted to go and who they dreamed of being. All of their ambitions came with full clarity, intact every single time. I pause and said, “but what is the thing that stands between where you are right now and where you are long years ago?” It got real muddy, real fuzzy. It's like, “I tried to go about this, I tried to get sober. But then that first day came around and I started getting those headaches, man. And I started thinking about how this was the time of day and I gotta go meet with these people. Why wouldn't I take another?” “I started to try to go after this job, but then I started thinking about how, you know, in high school I tried to go after something and my heart broke wide open and said, well, why would I try after everything again?” 

Whenever I asked any of the individuals five or six conversations, honest to God in the past week alone, what is keeping you from successfully swimming from Alcatraz towards abundance? What is the thing that keeps you from going from the life you are living right now to the one that you have dreamed up? And you can see, visualize, taste, touch all of the above again and again. It gets muddy, but when they go to day two, once the honeymoon of the ambition has run dry and the inspiration goes low, but the inconveniences pile up, they go, “it's just this, it just gets a little bit hard. And I don't know what to do with that hardship.” 

When I read about this, I read a book, reading book right now, actually I shouldn't say I read it as a past tense. Reading a book about change and how change happens most effectively and what derails change most consistently. It tends to be consistent with the conversations I had, the unforeseen trials, tribulation, the things that we didn't see coming our way. When we said we want to go after this, we, we didn't see what Monday would bring, we didn't see what Tuesday would bring. That tends to be the thing that keeps from change from actually being enacted and embodied and folded upon to the individual. 

But as a follow up to that statement, the writer said. But what we have learned in this field of trying to understand how change actually does unfold in the life of individuals, one of the main differences that we see. It's not like we are all born with ambitions. We're all born with that longing to be better than we are right now. Not one of us is spared of that. We are all wanting, we are right here where we are, but we also have a more ideal place where we want to go. All of us inside of our bodies, inside of our stories, inside of our lives, we long for the next phase. We long to graduate beyond where we are right now, where we're supposed to be, period, point blank. That's, that's not controversial, that's not questionable. The difference though is like when the inconveniences pile up and the inspiration goes down, what some folk do, what this person came to say is that while many people at the first sign of resistance tuck tail and run backwards.

Think about the Israelites in Egypt, they get out, they're finally freed. After four years of slavery, they get into the wilderness. First sign of a missed meal, they go, maybe we should just go back. Yes, there was chains, yes there was bondage, but at least we had a hot meal every night. Many people, when they first experience encounter resistance. Many people when they first figure out that like transformation, it comes with some trouble. It takes some work. It's hard. It's not the flip of a switch, it's a daily decision. Many people tuck tail and they turn around. Writer said this to me, but those who decide not to forfeit their calling but make a pivot instead, that makes all the difference in the world. 

I had the chance a couple years back to meet with one of the players that played alongside of Michael Jordan. And obviously I did the common courtesy thing of saying like, “man, I loved your,” I didn't ever watched any of his game. I don't know anything about his game, but I said, “I'm such a big fan of your work. Your career is inspiring. You did amazing things. Hey, by the way, from your vantage point as somebody that that was in the weight room with him as somebody that played night in night out with him, what is it about Michael Jordan that makes him the goat? What is it about him that makes him so great?” 

And this guy said, “you know, many people when they talk about Jordan being the goat, they bring up his jump or they bring up his jumper or they bring up his dunks or they bring up his ability to be always clutch no matter what the scenario might bring. He's always got ice in his veins. He can come through when your team needs it the most.” But his vantage point was this. “If you're asking me what makes Michael Jordan so great, please don't look to all of his incredible feats. Look at his incredible feet. Watch the way that he can pivot, watch the way that he controls his feet in the moment of clutch. It's not like highlight worthy, nobody's zoning in and saying like, we just pay attention to his feet. But if you want to pay attention and give a round of applause, the jumper, the spin moves, the jumps, all of it. Pay attention to his feet. He sets the conditions for his success with his feet.”

What I have read again and again in the field of psychology is that when unexpected changes, inconveniences, trials, tribulations, you set out on a Monday with high hopes of getting to somewhere by Friday, but come Tuesday, you are faced with all kinds of curve balls. What I have learned again and again from these different fields is do you have the ability to pivot in the midst of the storm? Not go like, forget it, I'm done. This wasn't worth it. I thought it would be all up into the right, but instead go, okay, I faced something I did not expect to face. Now here I am instead. Here I am Instead.

When I sit before this markan text tonight, and it's three different distinct scenes that we've just read together as a community. I feel like I am sitting before the prince of the pivot. Because what you see in the story of Jesus is three different scenes that do not go as he expected them to go. Three different scenes where he has to implement a pivot for the betterment of the story, which provides us with a nutritious future that we are participating in tonight. 

Gospel of Mark starts like this in Mark 3, the text that we read, Jesus goes out to the lake, withdraws from a crowd. He's expecting to catch his breath. He's expecting to get some respite from, he's been out doing sacred work. It's all worthwhile. It's heavy lifting, yes, but it's part of the calling on his life. But now he needs to recharge the batteries. He needs to get away, he needs to go to the lake, he needs to catch his breath. He gets there, he finds that the crowd is there as well. And so he tells Peter in the folk, can you get a boat from me so I can get some space from the crowd? And he teaches them from there. 

Jesus then realizes that like this is not a sustainable way to go about it. We came to get some time away. We came to catch our breath. We came to find some space as if we're gonna take on the sacred calling that I know is placed upon my life. I cannot carry on as if everything is okay. I need to pivot. Think about it in these, in these terms. I need to pivot. He goes from the side of the lake where he asks for a boat because it did not go as he expected it would. Then he goes to the top of the mountain, sizes up the crowd by the lake and he says, these guys can walk, they can follow me, they can track all my steps, but some of 'em can't climb. So we're gonna go high even if they can go wide. 

And he gets to the top of the mountain and he calls those closest to, and he says, listen, if we're going to do this work, if we're going to keep on bringing other people in on good news and telling them that they are loved, that they are enough, that they are significant, that they're celebrated, that they're seen, that they are safe, that they're worthy of living out their days with a destiny intact. If we're gonna do that sacred work, I can't do it by myself. 

So he calls on 12 of his closest of kin to take on the work with him. That's a pivot. He then goes down the mountainside and they're back down into his own home and he's thinking, at least let's get a warm meal. We're back in the the like, uh, the homegrown territory. Now we can like, let's reenergize, let's regroup, let's put a new plan inside of the place. 

But the crowd that they left in scene one is also there in scene three. And he can't even get to the table to get something to eat. And so Jesus is like, this is, this is pure chaos. So much so that his own mom and siblings come on the scene. They're like, think about this. This is not paid attention to enough inside the church. Mom, brother sis, they all look at Jesus and go, that boy has lost his mind. that Jesus we grew up with. He's, he's clinically insane at this point. At some point we have to take charge of his life. We have to control him because this is irrational behavior that's being displayed in front of us right now. 

Can you imagine for Jesus taking the hits he's already taken in chapter three of Mark to turn around and go, “at least I got my fam—wait, they're not even with me? Mom's like giving me that mean mug. Second guessed. Look, my siblings the one I grew up next to, they're looking at me going like, I lost my mind. The people that I thought would be in my corner through thick and thin, they don't even wanna ride with me anymore?”

And then notice the pivot. Later on in Mark three, Jesus encounters that news. He hears what his own family is experiencing and he turns around and redefines family. He says, I'm not gonna be derailed from the calling that's been put on me. I'm instead going to go, “What does family actually mean?”

Some people that I've met with in the past few weeks alone, you have been hijacked by your parents' disapproval of who you are. You have been sidelined by your parents not being psyched about where you are. You've put your life on pause because your parents aren't in your corner like giving you a round of applause saying “keep on, keeping on.” I get it. That is so hard. That is not easy. That is a heavy burden to hold. 

Others of you I've met with though you've taken the Jesus route, the one that says like my parents, my family, my place of origin did not see me the way that God sees me. And I will not be derailed by that. I'll redefine what it means to be a part of a family. Who is my family? Who is my mom? Who is my siblings? What does it look like to be about this work in my calling? How do I protect the story that God has put on my life? I'm gonna redefine the track. Anybody that does the work of God, anybody that participates in the purpose of God. Anybody that wants to be about the good news that I'm trying to lift up for the many people, that's my family. Those are my people. 

That's a pivot among the many things you might say about it. It's a pivot. This is the exact reason why every time, this is why I wear this necklace every night, every day—not just at night, every day—one day at a time, AA recovery community. If I think about not drinking for the rest of my life, overwhelming, watch me break out in sweats. But if I feel that pressure coming on me, if I feel the temptation sitting in me and I go, how do I make a pivot right now to go “I don't need to deal with the rest of my life right now, one day at a time. I don't know about the rest of my life. I have no idea about the rest of my life, but the pivot I can make right now, Michael Jordan move I can make right now. I'm not drinking at dinner, not drinking at dessert one day at a time.” 

I hate to be cringily like self help-y. But the reason, the thing that stands out to me above all else, when I read Mark 3:7-21, pay attention to the way that the master teacher pivots. He's not derailed. He doesn't forfeit the call. He doesn't throw away the mission. He doesn't say, enough is enough. I'm not cut out for this job. He pivots. He says, I recognize that. Which means this for me. Here's what I'm gonna do instead. Can't do that, can do this. 

One of my favorite things I ever read was about, uh, was it Annie Dillard who says, “How you spend your days is how you'll spend your lives,” spend your life, plural, single, singular. I always look at Maggie, our communicator, am I talking right right now? How you spend your days is how you will spend your life. The decisions you make in the small will determine the direction of your life in the big. Pay attention to the small ways that you decide that you will pivot. Your purpose is reliant upon that. 

I had uh, I did an art installation this past week in the church in Brooklyn Center. And I was like halfway through it, kind of trying to figure out the best way forward. And um, I came in one morning, um, after the kids were off to school and the lights were all off. This isn't creepy. It is gonna be a good story. But the pastor of the church was standing there in front of the peace. So that felt creepy, you know, to walk in on one man staring at your work. And he's just looking at it. And, um, I said, uh, “What brings you to, hello? How are you?” I was weird. I made it weird. Guy said this. He goes like, you know, uh, particularly the woman at the well on the left brought him completely to tears and he had to return to it immediately the next morning. And I said, “Is there a reason why you don't want the lights on? 'cause as the artist of the piece, I might take that personally.” And he said, “well, you know, I had a couple older folk in our community who were a little bit bothered by some of the paint stains you made on the carpet.” And I said, is there a way to excommunicate those people? And, uh, he said there was not. He goes, “I turn the lights off because the pivot I can make is if I have the lights on, I'm gonna be so distracted by the stains on the carpet that I'm gonna miss the beauty in front of me. So I take the lights off in response to their complaints and I'll say, what is the good gift that God has for me in this arc that I would miss if I didn't make a move on my own behalf?” 

God has a destiny for your life. You have decisions on your life. God is sovereign. You are responsible. Pray with me, Jesus God, you are good. God, we are grateful. God, I am. I am inspired, Lord, I'm moved. I'm compelled by the idea that you face all kinds of plans, that you walk into the place and they got torn into pieces, got all of your scripts that you thought would happen. They didn't actually happen. And instead of forfeiting the calling that was placed upon your life, you pivoted, you were moved by, you took it seriously. You carried the weight of it all and you walked differently. I'm grateful for that. God help us live in the same way, Lord, where we don't forfeit the calls upon our lives as individuals or our life as a community, but that we would learn the power of the pivot. In Jesus name we all pray. Amen.