Fourth Tuesday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
1 Samuel 1:19-28
Samuel’s Birth and Dedication19 The entire family got up early the next morning and went to worship the Lord once more. Then they returned home to Ramah. When Elkanah slept with Hannah, the Lord remembered her plea, 20 and in due time she gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, for she said, “I asked the Lord for him.” 21 The next year Elkanah and his family went on their annual trip to offer a sacrifice to the Lord and to keep his vow. 22 But Hannah did not go. She told her husband, “Wait until the boy is weaned. Then I will take him to the Tabernacle and leave him there with the Lord permanently.” 23 “Whatever you think is best,” Elkanah agreed. “Stay here for now, and may the Lord help you keep your promise.” So she stayed home and nursed the boy until he was weaned. 24 When the child was weaned, Hannah took him to the Tabernacle in Shiloh. They brought along a three-year-old bull for the sacrifice and a basket of flour and some wine. 25 After sacrificing the bull, they brought the boy to Eli. 26 “Sir, do you remember me?” Hannah asked. “I am the very woman who stood here several years ago praying to the Lord. 27 I asked the Lord to give me this boy, and he has granted my request. 28 Now I am giving him to the Lord, and he will belong to the Lord his whole life.” And they worshiped the Lord there.
Luke 1:46-55
The Magnificat: Mary’s Song of Praise46 Mary responded, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. 47 How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! 48 For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed. 49 For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me. 50 He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him. 51 His mighty arm has done tremendous things! He has scattered the proud and haughty ones. 52 He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. 54 He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful. 55 For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.”
Hebrews 8
Christ Is Our High Priest8 Here is the main point: We have a High Priest who sat down in the place of honor beside the throne of the majestic God in heaven. 2 There he ministers in the heavenly Tabernacle, the true place of worship that was built by the Lord and not by human hands. 3 And since every high priest is required to offer gifts and sacrifices, our High Priest must make an offering, too. 4 If he were here on earth, he would not even be a priest, since there already are priests who offer the gifts required by the law. 5 They serve in a system of worship that is only a copy, a shadow of the real one in heaven. For when Moses was getting ready to build the Tabernacle, God gave him this warning: “Be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I have shown you here on the mountain.” 6 But now Jesus, our High Priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood, for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with God, based on better promises. 7 If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it. 8 But when God found fault with the people, he said: “The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. 9 This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt. They did not remain faithful to my covenant, so I turned my back on them, says the Lord. 10 But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 11 And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already. 12 And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” 13 When God speaks of a “new” covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear
NLT
Open to Light
Erin Wildsmith is a lover of Jesus, words and finding beauty in unexpected places. She is the Pastor of Highview Community Church, a nondenominational faith community in Kitchener Ontario, though currently on maternity leave. She and her husband Dave are the parents of three boys: Eli 7, Micah 4 and Kharis, born November 17, 2020. Erin blogs sporadically at https://trustthemystery.wordpress.com
Art piece by the author, Erin Wildsmith
Sometimes the most profound truths come to us from humble teachers. A few years ago, after a particularly difficult day at work, I bought myself a small potted plant as a pick-me-up (I know, I know - emotional spending, but never mind that now).
What made the day difficult was a conversation at the end of it with a person who seemed to have lost, not only hope but even the belief in or desire for hope. Of course I know that circumstances, hardship and mental illness all do this kind of thing to us. Many of us have had those moments the ancient teachers call “the dark night of the soul.” And as a pastor, I’ve certainly walked through these moments with people before. But this seemed different.
There was something about the flatness in this person’s voice or the deadness in their eyes that day that caught me off guard. Like when you walk by the home of a friend you haven’t seen in a long time, and find the windows boarded and the property overgrown. I found myself unprepared.
The conversation that day felt like death, and left me hungry for life: hence the houseplant.
Like most $6 grocery store plants, I expected the poor little thing to wilt after a week or two, but surprisingly, it didn’t. I kept watering it, and somehow it kept living. Sooner or later it felt like I should move it from our dark dining room to a window for a bit of natural light. That’s when I noticed.
Turns out my little impulse purchase had a surprising ability: it opened to light. The interesting triangular leaves and occasional delicate white flowers always, always, opened wide with the sunrise and closed tight at night. Every time. My oxalis plant (because of course I had to google it!) wasn’t picky about the kind of day it was outside the window where I placed it. Cold and grey or bright and sunny. Every day, without fail, my tiny little plant always stretched itself wide to receive all that was being offered. And there was something in this small, humble fact that moved me.
If I were to give this plant a name, I think it would have to be Hannah (I’ve been known to christen plants before). Hannah after the woman we meet in 1 Samuel 1. One of the wives of Elkanah and the one who would become the mother of the great prophet Samuel.
At the time in the text when we meet Hannah, though, she’s nobody’s mother. And to a woman in the Ancient Near East, finding oneself “nobody’s mother” was, if possible, even more gut-wrenchingly sad than it is for would-be parents facing infertility today. It was salt in a wound, unbearable shame mixed with intolerable heartache. And it was understood to be singularly the woman’s fault, every time.
To make matters worse, Hannah is not the only wife of her husband Elkanah. She and Penanniah share one husband, and the other woman has borne him many sons and daughters.
Hannah was thought to be “barren.” And “barren” must have been the word that echoed around her brain on many a sleepless night as Penanniah, provoked her mercilessly. Like a six-dollar grocery store plant, Hannah would have had every right to close herself up like a boarded up house. But surprisingly, she makes a different choice. Hannah choses to open to light.
Because the Lord had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”
Once when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s house. In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly.
1 Samuel 1:6-10
Make no mistake. When we find Hannah pouring out her soul in tears and wordless prayers to the Lord shortly before our Lectionary reading begins, that is exactly what she was doing. Like all of us facing a dark night of the soul, I’m sure Hannah was tempted to choose a flat, dead life, trampling the tender shoots of grief before they had a chance to grow up into hope, but she didn't do that.
The tears and grief Hannah poured out at the temple that day, rather than the dying breath of despair, were actually a defiant testimony to hope. For whenever we lament deeply and wholeheartedly as Hannah did, we declare that the life we are living is not life as it is meant to be. We express our faith that there is more, and our grief becomes the inarticulate longing for the more we believe in but cannot yet see or touch.. Indeed it is as 20th century theologian Jurgen Moltmann so succinctly puts it in Theology of Hope,
“If we had before our eyes only what we see, then we should cheerfully or reluctantly reconcile ourselves with things as they happen to be. That we do not reconcile ourselves, that there is no pleasant harmony between us and reality is due to our unquenchable hope.”
It is the unquenchable hope of Hannah, the stubborn almost defiant way my oxalis plant always opens to light that is at the heart of Advent. If Christmas is “comfort and joy,” then Advent is disruption, discomfort and longing, but not without purpose. Advent is our opportunity to weep bitterly like Hannah, boldly daring to proclaim all that is not right in our world and in so doing, stoking the fires “unquenchable hope” that there is something (Someone) better, something (Someone) more.
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Read previous Advent Reader posts:
Joy to the world!
It might be a cold and broken hallelujah, but it's a hallelujah nonetheless.
We made it.
Despite the backdrop of injustice, the broken, decay, unlikely and at times discouraging spaces the people find themselves in, the prophets echo the sentiment of Isaiah 9 more often than we may recall: “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness a light will shine.”
A pandemic is an interesting time to have health care workers in your life, as I do. In normal times, I expect to hear stories of sick people and families struggling with loved ones’ illnesses. But what I did not expect during this time are the constant stories of stress and anxiety. Working in health care is always stressful. But this year’s pandemic has accentuated many of these stresses..
Sometimes the most profound truths come to us from humble teachers. A few years ago, after a particularly difficult day at work, I bought myself a small potted plant as a pick-me-up (I know, I know - emotional spending, but never mind that now)..
Two thousand years of patriarchy have undoubtedly diminished the powerful words of the two women in our readings. Today we will centre one, a voice that comes to us in the form of a song…
When I hear the word home, I find myself flooded with memory and meaning. I see the familiarity of shoes scattered over mats in the garage of my childhood, smell buns baking on busy Saturday mornings, feel the pulls and aches of being misunderstood and simultaneously cherished…
When people talk about “biblical manhood” I think of Samson, the manly man. There he is, rolling out from under a Camaro, wrench in his teeth, sweat on his brow, oil stain on his bicep and, of course, glistens of divine approval on his mullet of biblical proportions. He is awesome…
For the past few months, I’ve had the privilege of being a part of the New Leaf Network Design Shop, the online edition. While moving the event online had some limitations, it did allow us to have English-to-French translation provided in realtime for our Francophone participants. It was a sight to behold watching our skilled translators work so hard to keep up, and by all accounts, they did an excellent job…
Advent. Waiting for God to come close. Our passages today remind us that our God is an intimate God. He likes close proximity to us…
Three hundred hand-folded origami butterflies, tenderly wrapped in torn sheet cocoons, threaded onto fishing line and hung across our sanctuary. An art installation to kick off lent, a reminder that in the darkness, in our proverbial piles of goo, in the waiting, God cocoons us in his hands, transforming us with her grace. The big reveal was to come Easter Sunday morning. Our church family would enter the sanctuary and be met with the bright colourfulness of 300 butterflies soaring above them. The waiting over, the tattered cocoons lying at their feet, the transformation complete. But that day has yet to come.
“Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD. Lord hear my voice…”
The psalmist pens a cry universal to our experience. Perhaps, the deep longing strikes a more poignant and universal chord during this year of pandemic disruption and, often unwelcome, change…
I am a neighbourhood pastor. Some days I am not sure what that means. Pastors who see their pulpit as their home base have a focus for their week. They know what to get on about. Other pastors who see their programs and leadership as their passion have their work before them…
When the news of the national security bill had indeed been passed in Hong Kong, my stomach dropped through the floor. The last few months had already had me on tenterhooks, a low thrum of tension and scraped nerves—through the protests and the violence and the thought of home in such utter crisis…
Not long ago, I was asked to do a devotional for a group of young people just coming off a year-long intensive mission program. What to say? I remember that kind of transition in my own life as a student, and how hard it was to switch from mission life to “normal” life. And my mind went to a conversation I once had with my wife about Lord of the Rings…
“YHWH, do something!” Habakkuk does not mince his words when he presents his complaints before God. As he watches Judah implode from injustice and immorality, he cries out to God with urgency and desperation…
I was standing in a church basement on a cold winter day in Edmonton when I received one of the most honest compliments of my life. “Overall, you’re not an a**hole." I mean, does it get any better than that?
The subtle invitation of the readings for this second Tuesday of Advent is to “listen.” But, to listen on a Tuesday? Tuesday is a day of the week that finds us in full activity. It is not Monday when we start the week and plan for the days to come. It is not a Wednesday or Thursday when we are in the middle of the week to see how we are doing. Finally, it is not a Saturday or a Sunday where we evaluate the week, we give thanks, and we recover. It is simply a Tuesday. In any event, today's readings invite us to “listen.”
Over the summer, my wife and I decided to have our kitchen renovated. The old kitchen had been around for over 3 decades (which actually meant it was older than my wife!) and it was in huge need of a makeover…
Twice a year, spring and fall, in most parts of our country, we change our clocks one hour either ahead or back depending on the time of year. Sometimes regardless of the reminders from friends, the media, we forget. Several years ago, when I had just moved to Fort Frances I was on the schedule to lead the early worship service at 9:00 am…
In the Advent season, we remember that Jesus came from Heaven to live on earth, and we anticipate his imminent return. But what we should also do is reflect on what Jesus’ coming has to do with our lives today. Do we know who Jesus is and what He is doing among us? How can we faithfully participate in His work on earth?
When the news of the national security bill had indeed been passed in Hong Kong, my stomach dropped through the floor. The last few months had already had me on tenterhooks, a low thrum of tension and scraped nerves—through the protests and the violence and the thought of home in such utter crisis…
As I write this we have a big appointment for someone in my house tomorrow. It’s a medical appointment that we’ve been waiting on for more than a year and a half. There’s a lot riding on it, and there’s no way to know whether it will be helpful or unhelpful….
Last year I burned out. Before the world hit a pandemic pause, my own world halted. Looking back, I can see now that disruption was a gift to me. But at the time I only felt exhausted.
I’ve always been a little afraid of the second coming of Christ. There’s a lot of good things in the world and there were so many things I wanted to experience before we were all “whisked away to that spirit in the sky.”
As I approach Christmas this year it is with a certain resignation. I want to plan. I want to be scrolling through advent liturgies for the kids to read Sunday mornings as our tiny church family joins to light the candles on the advent wreath.
Isaiah's very powerful and poignant plea to God to split the sky, shake the earth, and settle the score is such an earthy and familiar request.
I’ve been there. Often.
Welcome to the third annual New Leaf Advent Reader. We are so glad you are here with us to journey through Advent while reflecting on change and disruption.
Explore last year’s Advent Reader:
Dear Advent readers,
Thank you so much for going on this Advent journey through scripture and reflections with us…..
I lost hope this Christmas season.
I didn’t mean to, in fact, I’m not even sure where exactly I lost it.
But lo and behold, somewhere between the eggnog and the garland, I slowed down enough to realize my trusty sense of “all manner of things shall be well” had gone missing. Had I misplaced it? Did it disappear forever?…
At the conclusion of this Advent season, I wonder how many times you have thought of Christmas as the opportunity to live free from idols?…
Our second son was born mid-January, and the December before he arrived was a Christmas season like no other. I grew up familiar with the contours of the Christmas Story: the stable, angels, shepherds and wisemen. I’ve heard (and preached) many sermons about the miracle and wonder of it all, God-with-us!
But that Christmas was something special.
My children are heavy in my lap, three and six years old, cozy on our couch watching televised British people bake. These children snuggle into me. Their heads smell of shampoo and the faint sweaty sweetness of outdoor play in toques….
The strong was made vulnerable, made helpless, made refugee, and made all with the authority and the backing of the God of the universe. The King is coming, and sometimes the hope of the coming King catches my breath and all time around me stops….
Christmas was perhaps one of the more magical times of year when I was young. It was particularly special for my mom. Every year she would decorate the house inside & out like she was from the Griswold family….
In the early morning hours post-election of the now famed, Donald Trump, I held my then 8-month-old in distress. What kind of world had I brought a child into?…
Have you ever had something you needed to say, but your body refused to say it?
When I think about silence and speech in the Christmas story, I remember the priest Zechariah, whose ability to speak was removed by the angel Gabriel until after his son, John the Baptist, was born. How ironic,…
Today’s reflection is based on Jude, that tiny one-chapter letter in the New Testament we mostly skip over to get to the metaphorical circus of Revelation. This is fitting, however, because Jude was a Holy Fool.…
If you grew up in pretty much any part of the church in the 1980s or after, you probably have memories of the almost-acceptably-cheesy praise song “As The Deer” which is based on one of our readings for today – Psalm 42..…
Today, as I read Isaiah 35, I thought of a few things. I found myself remembering the actions of an old Sunday School song we used to sing using the words of these verses – miming putting a crown on our heads, making motions of sweeping as we talked about sadness and joy fleeing away, and giggling as we would sweep our hands towards the friends around us, turning the song into a game...…
In the past, when Advent approached, it was a mix of Christmas songs, carols, Santa Claus parades, Christmas card exchanges, workplace dinners, and gift exchanges. Along with volunteering with The Salvation Army, Christmas light drives at night, church musical outreaches, and children’s school holiday concerts. I’m already tired just thinking about it.
It’s always the fire, isn’t it? As a young lad, I would spend an hour every week stuck in a church pew without a kids program or snack bag to comfort me. Perhaps it was here that I first heard…
The Christmas Eve candlelight service is about to begin. After a day of unsuccessfully trying to avoid meltdowns from over-excited kids, running to the store for one last bag of milk, and racking your brain to remember where on earth you stashed those gifts you bought back in August, you sink wearily into the pew.
Reading Scripture can be tricky. I think we often fall into a trap when we read about the lives of our spiritual fore-parents. We sit in our comfortable armchairs with our leather-bound book filled with crisp, white pages and wonder to ourselves how “they” could be so foolish and unfaithful. Of course, if we could put ourselves in their places we would know how gritty and difficult their faith journeys actually were.
When we scroll through social media for the 18th time, or listen to the latest news events, it’s often draining. The world sounds like a mess with no end in sight and we–WE–are a part of it. The messy part.
When we scroll through social media for the 18th time, or listen to the latest news events, it’s often draining. The world sounds like a mess with no end in sight and we–WE–are a part of it. The messy part.
I grew up in a congregation with a deep love of choral music. For many years, I joined the men’s choir to sing at the Christmas Eve Candlelight service because I always looked forward to singing Es ist ein Ros’ entsprugen (Lo, How a Rose e’er Blooming) in four-part male harmony.
The first theologian who introduced me to the concept of Advent being something other than an effervescent, sparkling, anticipation-filled countdown to Christmas, was the Rev. Fleming Rutledge. As I watched a recording of her declaring ”The significance of the birth of Jesus Christ will forever elude us if we are unable to take an inventory of the gravity of the human condition”, something in me said a quiet yes.
I hadn’t been home for Christmas in five years.
It was December 23, 2008, and I vibrated with excitement as we exited our car in the Orlando Airport parking garage. My husband was wrestling luggage from the trunk as I unstrapped our toddler from his car seat. In just a few short hours, this little guy would be spending Christmas with his grandparents for the very first time.
The liturgical season of Advent is a space where the mixed emotions of longing and grief are given space to sit in tension. In contrast to the “Christmas season” filled with Christmas parties, one more gift exchange to buy a gift for, hunting for the most desired gift on a child’s wishlist and preparing far more food than is good for many of us. Creating space for the tension between what we long for and the struggles that are immediately before us is a delicate task.
In the Christian tradition, Advent is a season of great hope and possibility. God has come to dwell among human beings, setting in motion something new and mysterious – the kingdom of heaven emerging in our earthly dimension.
“I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it—seems that only children weep,” I hear these words spoken from the backstage, where I stand, waiting in the wings for my next cue. I watch Marie, who is playing Scout Finch lean her head against Atticus, and I see the shine of tears in the eyes of the audience in the first row. Tonight, as with each previous performance, we all weep. The story doesn’t end as we expect; it’s all gone terribly wrong.
In the sparkly season of Christmas, I often feel out of sync when life is stressful or dark or just full of emotions. I know that Christmas can be full of happiness for many people, but sometimes I just feel the pressure to do Christmas “right” when I can’t muster up the requisite joy on my own.
Today’s reading in Isaiah is such a clear picture of a world I want to be a part of. Isaiah invites us to imagine a future in which God’s reign is at the centre of our world. A future where God’s judgment, true and just, begins to settle the disputes of many peoples.
Tomorrow is the beginning of Advent. Here on the New Leaf Blog, we are going to be journeying through Advent together with writers from across Canada. The New Leaf Network is a Canadian network spread across this northern country.