The Table Church’s vision is embody a more beautiful gospel that announces collective liberation and the renewal of all things. We are a multiracial, LGBTQ affirming church in Washington, DC.
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We're taught that changing the world costs everything: burning out, giving until it hurts, treating joy as a distraction from the work that actually matters. But what if that's backwards? Drawing on two one-paragraph parables from the Gospels, Octavia Butler's Earthseed novels, and — unexpectedly — Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this sermon unpacks how "sacrifice" gets weaponized to keep unjust systems…
In the summer of 1969, two completely different visions of the future played out at the same time — one aimed at the moon, the other rooted in a Harlem park packed with people who'd rather celebrate together than watch a flag get planted 250,000 miles away. This episode uses that split screen to unpack an old, uncomfortable story about ten bridesmaids, a late groom, and a locked door. Some of the…
There's an old story about a rich man who feasts every day while a man named Lazarus lies hungry right outside his gate. The rich man knows his name. He still does nothing. Trevor Went pairs that story with Octavia Butler's time-travel novel Kindred to ask a question that's harder to answer than it sounds: are you guarding the gate, or willing to break it open? This isn't about distant injustice —…
Ever feel resentful when someone else gets a break you had to earn the hard way? This episode digs into why rest, time, and success can feel like a competition — and why that instinct might be lying to us. Pastor Heidi uses a 2,000-year-old story about day laborers getting paid unfairly (or so it seems) alongside Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower to unpack how scarcity gets wired into our…
We're living in what feels like a dystopian novel — and Octavia Butler saw it coming in 1993. Her Parable of the Sower imagined a world of climate collapse, privatized towns, and a politician promising to "make America great again." When the future feels foreclosed, who gets to imagine what comes next? This message pairs Butler's Afrofuturism with what may have been Jesus' first parable: a farmer…
Description: Most of us were handed a set of rules about sex before we were ever given a framework for thinking about it — and for many people, especially those raised in religious communities, those rules came wrapped in shame, fear, and silence. The damage is real, well-documented, and affects far more people than the church tends to admit. In this sermon, Bekki reexamines a familiar Bible story…
Most of us want the benefits of community — safety, belonging, mutual support — but bristle at the friction that actual community requires. This sermon confronts that tension directly: why do we wait until we're "rich enough" to give, and what does it really cost to be part of something? Pastor Anthony explores an ancient letter where a broke, disaster-stricken community begged to be allowed to…
Most of us carry more than we realize — not just stuff, but the anxiety that comes with it. The drive to accumulate, to secure, to hold on tight isn't a character flaw. It's what happens when we build our sense of self on things that can be taken away. In this sermon, Pastor Tonetta explores what it looks like to locate your identity somewhere other than your possessions — drawing on stories from…
What if one of the most important things we're carrying is something we forgot we had? In this week's installment of "Everything We Carry," Matt opens up 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 to talk about spiritual gifts — the ones we've buried, the ones we're nervous to use, and the ones that still work even after years in the bottom of the bag. He names the wounds many of us carry from places where…
Most of us learned that power means control — over people, outcomes, situations. But what if that definition is exactly what's breaking us, and breaking the world around us? Preached by Pastor Tonetta, this sermon uses the story of Antoinette Tuff — a bookkeeper who talked down an armed gunman using nothing but honesty and presence — alongside the Pentecost narrative to reframe what power actually…
Most of us know we have some form of privilege — racial, economic, positional — but knowing it and actually doing something with it are very different things. What do you do with the guilt? The discomfort? The uncertainty about whether listening and learning is enough? Elder Daniel explores the story of Pharaoh's daughter — a woman defined entirely by the dominant system around her — and what it…
We all carry things we don't talk about — grief, shame, exhaustion, ambivalence about money and power. Most of us walk into rooms and put on our composure, because that's what we've been taught is acceptable. But what happens when the weight of it finally has to land somewhere? Pastor Tonetta draws on Tim O'Brien's 'The Things They Carried' and the book of Nehemiah to make a case that you can't…
You check your phone every 47 seconds. You say yes to everything and mean none of it. You refresh the news looking for a sign that something has finally gotten better. Somewhere in all of that, your actual life is happening — and nobody's really there for it. This week, Pastor Anthony looks at a moment where Jesus' closest friends ask exactly the wrong question, and what it reveals about where our…
How do you keep living your regular life when the news is genuinely catastrophic? It's not denial — it's one of the most disorienting feelings of our moment. This week Pastor Anthony Parrott sits with that tension and refuses to offer an easy answer. Drawing on a post-resurrection story most people overlook, he makes a case that small, ordinary acts — a meal, a text, showing up sad and confused —…
What if the deepest problem isn't your worst habits or biggest failures — but your fear of death? And what if that fear is quietly behind almost every way we hurt ourselves and each other? In this Easter sermon, Pastor Toneta Landisina draws on the story of Lazarus to reframe resurrection as liberation rather than sentimentality. She unpacks why scapegoating holds entire societies hostage, why "we…
When things feel out of control, most of us do one of two things: we retreat to what's familiar, or we come out swinging. But what if both of those instincts are actually traps — and there's a harder, stranger option that history keeps proving actually works? In this sermon, Pastor Anthony traces a thread from an ancient prophet to a Berlin prayer service that helped bring down a wall, asking what…
What do you do when everything around you is collapsing — your community, your faith, your sense of home — and someone tells you to act like it's going to be okay? That's the tension at the heart of this talk, and it's not a hypothetical. It's the question Jeremiah faced in a jail cell while his city was under siege. Trevor Wentt draws on the story of Jeremiah buying land he had no business…
Something is wrong, and a lot of us are carrying it alone. Whether it's personal loss, political exhaustion, or the weight of watching your community get hurt — grief has a way of isolating us exactly when we need each other most. In this sermon, Toochi Ngwangwa draws on the book of Jeremiah to make a case for grief as something meant to be shared out loud. From Jewish Shiva to New Orleans jazz…
What do you do when you've hardened — when grief, exhaustion, or the weight of the world has calcified something in you that used to feel things? This sermon sits with one of the oldest questions in the Bible: what happens to a relationship when one person walks away, and the other won't stop asking why? Drawing from the book of Jeremiah and a surprising reread of Ephesians, Anthony Parrott traces…
What do you do when something breaks and can't be fixed? Not reshaped — actually shattered. Most of us build entire identities around those moments, and then spend years living inside the story we made up about what the breaking meant. Preached by Anthony Parrott, this sermon holds two truths at once: some things genuinely can't go back to what they were, and that's not the end. Drawing from the…
Most of us have learned to protect ourselves from pain by shutting down — closing off, going through the motions, settling for less than we actually want. It works, until it doesn't. This sermon asks a harder question: what happens when the numbness that kept you safe starts keeping you stuck? Drawing from an ancient text written by and for people whose entire world had collapsed, and yes, The…
Many of us carry complicated feelings about prayer — maybe it was weaponized against us, maybe it felt hollow, or maybe we prayed hard for something and got silence in return. This episode sits with that tension honestly, without rushing past it. Antonio Ingram explores what prayer actually looks like when you stop performing and start showing up as you are — scared, angry, lonely, in pain.…
You've been showing up, doing the work, trying to live with integrity—and the results aren't there. Policies get worse. People leave. Relationships fracture. So you're left with a brutal question: Is any of this actually worth it? This sermon explores the prophet Jeremiah, who preached justice for 23 years and saw zero measurable success. Through his story and the words of Martin Luther King Jr.,…
When the ground beneath our feet feels unstable, how do we stay true to ourselves while adapting to a world that keeps shifting? Many of us know what it's like to recognize that the practices that once grounded us no longer feel sufficient—or worse, they deliver us back into shame and uncertainty. This sermon explores an obscure biblical community called the Rechabites, who mastered what we…
Does the future feel inevitable to you? With authoritarianism, deportations, and relentless bad news, it's easy to believe everything is already decided—that we're just watching a slow collapse. Despair can start to feel rational, even responsible. But here's the problem: when we decide the future is sealed, we're actually letting ourselves off the hook. If nothing matters, why bother? This talk…
What happens when the promises of progress turn into frustration? When the institutions we've trusted prove unfaithful? Drawing on MLK's lesser-known "three evils" speech and the ancient prophet Jeremiah, this sermon explores what it means to be faithful when everything you've taken for granted is crumbling. It's about surviving Saturday—that disorienting space between disaster and restoration.…
Most of us feel like we missed the day in fourth grade when everyone else learned how to be enough. We know how to deconstruct harmful beliefs, but we've forgotten how to reconstruct something that can hold us. We're experts at spotting manipulation but have lost the ability to be moved. And when the foundations we took for granted—whether theological, political, or personal—start crumbling, it's…
Fear has a way of convincing us that silence and compliance will keep us safe—but what happens when staying quiet means cooperating with harm? This sermon explores how fear gets weaponized to control us, especially in times when oppressive power seems to be winning. Through the story of the Magi, we see what it looks like when an encounter with something true makes compliance intolerable. Shae…
What does biblical manhood actually look like? Spoiler: it's not what you've been told. This sermon explores the story of Joseph—a carpenter who had every reason to walk away from Mary's inexplicable pregnancy but chose something more difficult: solidarity, humility, and embracing mystery over control. Pastor Tonetta draws from the metaphor of a Korean spa scrub to explore what we need to shed…
Not all fear is the same. Some fear protects you from real danger—and if you've experienced religious trauma or spiritual abuse, those fears are legitimate. But other fear is trickier: it's the voice telling you you're not capable, not worthy, that you can't trust yourself. This sermon explores how to tell the difference between protective fear and the fear of inadequacy that keeps you small.…
What do you do when giving up feels simpler than keeping going? When even the people you admire most are questioning whether any of this matters? This sermon explores why despair can feel like a guilty pleasure—offering a horrifying kind of consistency in chaotic times—and why that simplicity is ultimately a lie. Drawing on the story of John the Baptist questioning Jesus from prison, this message…
What do you do when you've buried your hopes because holding onto them hurt too much? When the world feels so dark that giving up seems like the only way to survive the next day? This Advent sermon explores an uncomfortable truth: hope isn't always comforting—sometimes it's terrifying. Drawing from an ancient poet writing amid literal apocalypse and a couple who'd long given up on their dream,…
What if the book of Revelation isn't about escaping the world, but about resisting it? Drawing from visits to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing site and a memorial to lynching victims, this sermon reframes Revelation's final vision as a manual for living under empire—any empire that crushes human flourishing. The ancient text offers more than comfort for the afterlife. It presents a choice:…
For centuries, Western Christianity has taught that hell means eternal conscious torment—but what if that's based on a mistranslation? This sermon digs into the Greek text of Revelation 20, the "millennium debate," and why early church theologians read the "lake of fire" as refining transformation rather than endless punishment. Drawing on scholarship about the word aion (age, not eternity) and…
We've been told Revelation is about predicting the future or achieving the right political outcomes. But what if it's actually about something we can't control or engineer ourselves? This sermon explores how the Bible's most misunderstood book challenges both religious conservatives and progressive activists to reconsider what liberation actually means. Drawing on imagery of empire's collapse and…
What do you do with biblical texts that depict God pouring out bowls of cosmic destruction? For those of us who believe in a nonviolent, loving God, passages like Revelation 15-16 create serious problems. They've been used to terrorize people and justify violence for centuries. This sermon offers a different way forward. By understanding apocalyptic literature as symbolic resistance writing from…
Why does doing the right thing seem to cost everything while everyone else appears to be thriving? And when resistance feels futile, is conformity really that bad? Using Revelation 13's symbolism of beasts and marks, this sermon cuts through religious jargon to expose how state power and propaganda work together to make injustice feel inevitable. It's raw, vulnerable, and honest about the real…
We all participate in systems that harm people—it's nearly impossible not to. Your credit card, your phone, your morning coffee: all connected to exploitation somewhere down the line. So what do we do when opting out isn't really an option, but going along feels like giving up everything we stand for? This talk digs into why resistance always comes with a price tag—lost security, financial strain,…
Ever wonder why the Bible ends with dragons, cosmic battles, and a woman giving birth in space? Turns out, Revelation 12 isn't trying to predict the future or scare you—it's doing something far more interesting. This passage takes everything the Bible has been saying about good, evil, death, and resurrection and cranks it up to high definition. Drawing on Eugene Peterson's insight that Revelation…
What does it mean to witness suffering without becoming bitter or indifferent? Can you stare directly at systemic injustice and still believe in life? Using Assata Shakur's poem "Affirmation" and readings from Revelation 6-8, this sermon reframes ancient apocalyptic literature as a survival guide for communities under oppression. The Four Horsemen aren't about end-times predictions—they're about…
Ever wonder why the Bible is so hard to understand? It's not just because it's old—it's because we're missing the cultural references. Just like future generations won't get "boots with the fur" or calling 411 for information, we're 2,000 years removed from the world that wrote Revelation. This talk explores the throne room vision in Revelation 4-5 and its central image: a lion that's actually a…
The U.S. government recently issued a directive targeting groups that show "anti-American" or "anti-capitalist" tendencies. Early Christians faced eerily similar accusations: they were called atheists, conspirators, and haters of humanity. This sermon explores how the book of Revelation wasn't written as a prophecy decoder ring—it was a survival manual for communities resisting empire. But there's…
How do you resist injustice without becoming what you despise? In times when hope feels scarce and violence seems to win, many of us struggle with what we're supposed to feel—and how we're supposed to respond. This sermon tackles those uncomfortable tensions head-on. Rather than treating Revelation as a roadmap to the end times, this message reframes the ancient text as a guide for "dissident…
How do you stand up to injustice without letting anger consume you? How do you fight systems of oppression without becoming the very thing you oppose? These questions feel especially urgent right now, as many of us wrestle with complex emotions about violence, justice, and what it actually means to create change. This talk explores the Book of Revelation not as a cryptic prediction about the end…
Many of us carry shame about our faith - shame about questions we've asked, people we've hurt, or feeling like we don't fit the "good Christian" mold. This honest reflection explores how religious shame can poison our relationship with spirituality and keep us from authentic community. Drawing from a summer of solitude and the apostle Paul's bold declaration "I am not ashamed of the gospel," this…
Ever feel like you're the only one who cares? Like you have to fix every injustice or no one will? Many of us cycle between doing too much, burning out, then either withdrawing completely or blaming others for not stepping up. This pattern destroys both activists and movements. Drawing from the ancient story of prophet Elijah's breakdown and recovery, Daniel explores how sustainable resistance…
We all hit walls—whether it's career ambitions that feel out of reach, relationships that drain us, or dreams that seem impossible. But what if the problem isn't your limitations? What if you're just misreading the signals? Trevor shares a fresh perspective on personal boundaries, offering practical tools to distinguish between obstacles worth pushing through and limits worth accepting. Through…
Do you exhaust yourself trying to fix everyone around you? Civil rights lawyer and pastor Antonio explores why our need to be everyone's savior leads to anxiety, burnout, and resentment. Whether you're supporting struggling friends, fighting for social justice, or caring for family members, the pressure to solve every problem can be overwhelming. Drawing from the example of John the Baptist,…
Whether you're fighting for justice or just trying to make it through tough times, burnout is real. This conversation explores an honest question: Are you the person who needs care right now, or are you in a position to help others? Using the ancient story of Elijah's breakdown and recovery, we examine how to assess where you are emotionally and spiritually. The discussion offers practical tools…
Most of us carry experiences that overwhelmed our ability to cope—trauma that literally rewires our brains and makes safe things feel dangerous. Whether it's childhood neglect, discrimination, abuse, or chronic stress, these experiences can leave us feeling frozen, anxious, and disconnected from the relationships we need most. This talk explores how ancient stories can offer surprisingly modern…
