First Saturday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm.You, Lord, showed favor to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. 2 You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins.
8 I will listen to what God the Lord says; he promises peace to his people, his faithful servants— but let them not turn to folly. 9 Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land. 10 Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. 11 Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. 12 The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. 13 Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps.
Ezekiel 36:24-28
24 “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.
Mark 11:27-33
The Authority of Jesus Questioned27 They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. 28 “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you authority to do this?” 29 Jesus replied, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 30 John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin? Tell me!” 31 They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 32 But if we say, ‘Of human origin’ …” (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.) 33 So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”
By Whose Authority?
by Nikayla Reize
Nikayla Reize is the lead pastor of a small parish church in Calgary, Alberta called Awaken. She has been a sessional instructor at Ambrose University teaching Old Testament and Biblical Theology since 2015. She has a BA in Theology, an MA in Biblical Studies (Old Testament) and she is currently working on her PhD (New Testament) through Aberdeen University. Her research is on Sabbath and Jubilee in Luke-Acts. She is especially focused on how Sabbath and Jubilee are religious as well as socio-economic and at the heart of Jesus and the early church's mission. As a parish pastor she loves dreaming of ways the local church can embody Jubilee through trauma-informed neighborliness, radical inclusion, and wealth redistribution. She teaches workshops and speaks at churches and conferences across Canada. She and her family live in Bowness and feel a strong connection to the living land, the wild life, and the beautiful Bownesian community. Nikayla often has many projects on the go between being home with young kids, school work, course prep, and serving her beloved Awakeners but she somehow always brings her passion and joy to everything she does.
My son is named Raven and so people often send me anything and everything that comes across their feed that has to do with corvids. And so, I was reading about crows recently (as one does) and I was moved by the concept of a scarecrow. A farmer puts a scarecrow in his field twice a year: once when the seeds are first planted and again when the cobs of golden corn are juicy and ripe. The crows stay away from the tasty food because they think the scarecrow is a man. It’s an illusion of authority but nothing more.
In the lectionary reading from Mark 11, Jesus is minding his own business, doing what he loves and the religious authorities come out of nowhere and confront him: “by whose authority do you do these things? Who gave you this authority?” I can feel these words pull at my skin – I can feel their jagged edge. Those questions serve no purpose except to belittle, diminish, and undermine.
I find people mostly ignore the work I do until something goes well and then the gatekeepers come down from their ivory towers and begin to interrogate us – a private meeting, empty promises, and sinister suggestions that I’m young, naïve, divisive; “unauthorized.” For many of us church leaders in Canada right now, reading these words about interrogations from the religious authorities directed at Jesus, meet us in a tender place.
So I find myself returning to this image of the scarecrow over and over as I try to navigate the opposing forces of gratitude and dread that wrestle around inside my pastoral heart. In my mind’s eye, I can see these crows sitting on the edge of a golden field that is truly unguarded but who are unable to rise up because they have been tricked by a fence post and an old jacket!
It makes me want to shout like a mother towards her timid children, “it can’t hurt you – go! Take and eat! It’s just a fence post – it doesn’t wake up or come to life – it cannot hurt you, go on baby!” I have spent far too much time trying to convince people that their liberation begins on the other side of their fear; their fear of conflict, of asking for help, of saying no, and of telling their side of the story.
But I’ve not often faced my own fears or interrogated my own scarecrows in the flurry of life as a minister. I know that I am surrounded by treasure and yet I constantly feel trapped on the edge of joy. I feel the weariness of another winter settling into my bones; the fall season was exciting at church, but the intensity never slowed and now I’m into the thick of Advent and being the mom of young children at Christmas. I’m so vigilant and on guard against criticism and conflict that I brace when the phone rings or I receive a new email. The January season for which I need to articulate a fresh and expansive vision for the church is coming fast and I’ll have to start preparing for another denominational assembly.
I consider resigning or just shutting down and coasting on empty, but I ache for liberation and belonging for my neighbours, and I feel the fiery conviction to take courage and keep doing what I love. I carry a sense of dread everywhere I go but I still believe in the work; these people and this neighbourhood are the joy of my life.
It is a liminal space to simultaneously know how rich in hope-filled community I am and yet to feel so hungry and alone. I can sense that there’s treasure all around me but somehow, I sit in resentment on the sidelines of my own life.
It gives me hope to consider that the authorized men in Mark 11 are nothing but scarecrows. Jesus doesn’t answer them – he simply responds with a question of his own, “by whose authority did John the Baptist do the things he did?” They had no answer and so neither did Jesus.
The entire scene is a play between presumptions of authority and Jesus is just pointing out, as he continues on his way, that none of us is authorized. Their power is an illusion. Jesus isn’t authorized by the religious authorities, and neither was John, and technically even the religious authorities hadn’t been authorized by anyone other than the non-entity that resides ambiguously at the other end of the thread of the tradition. You can only love what you love and labour unto the world you believe in and if it ignites even the smallest of revolutions, keep going, this is what it is to live a life, well.
The crowds don’t recognize the authority of the religious leaders, and the religious leaders know it; they can only manage a status quo, they can never lead a movement. So they come grand and condescending to Jesus, “Where did you get this authority? Who do you think you are?”
Jesus never asserts his authority over any of them and nor does he belittle them. He sees the scarecrow for what it is – an illusion of power, placed there by an absent farmer who knows the value of the treasure growing in the field he thinks he owns. Jesus is not afraid. He feels no need to work with the official process or earn their respect – he doesn’t need to slow his approach down or soften his voice until they’re ready for his vision – he doesn’t recognize their authority and he feels no need for them to affirm his.
He knows the value of the treasure all around him, that he encounters in everyone he meets, and he knows the scarecrow is nothing but a signpost testifying to the value of the world God loves.
For me this Advent, I’m finding myself surprised by how consistently my fears lie to me and how consistently my liberation seems to begin on the other side of my fear. I pray for strength this Advent season, not to pull away from the work I love, for fear of casting too big a shadow, but to draw nearer, trusting that the gift of my love for what God already loves, will be met with warmth and gratitude.
__
To the crows on the barbed-wire fence
Watching longingly over a sea
Of golden corn on a September afternoon
Paralyzed by self-doubt
before an old jacket and a worn hat
On a post
What a thing to be telling yourself and your friends it is unsafe
To enter the yielding field of treasure
To be so intuitive and capable
To know how to get what you want
how to speak a language
and how to remember faces
To problem solve and
To live free among men
-To fly-
To play
in the wind and eat for free
day and night
You would own the world
If it weren’t for that scarecrow.
If it weren’t for the pain you’ve imagined when you see goodness and joy
Right there
-Out in the open –
Oh! what a thing it would be to be unafraid
The fun we would have
Eating and dancing
Telling the truth and listening to the wisdom of the changing seasons
We could gather sticks and build nests and feed golden corn to our young
We could celebrate the treasure growing in the fields we already own
Thank you for reading the New Leaf Advent Reader, a collection of reflections from writers across Canada. If you are enjoying the reader, sign up to receive the readings in your inbox each day here: SIGN UP
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There is a four-letter word I am not particularly fond of at the moment. I suppose it makes sense in some situations. In other circumstances, I can hear it without getting annoyed. But where I am right now, in this season of life, with growing disillusionment, mounting frustration, transitions looming, and uncertainty around the corner, I am admittedly just not in a place to hear it…
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One of the enduring mysteries, not only of Advent but of the entire premise that God is intimately invested in the wellbeing of the cosmos, is the blurring of lines between creator and creation, between sovereignty and submission, between strength and weakness, between inception and completion…
I have been learning that in life, there are many uncertain roads to walk. Uncertainty seems to be more prevalent now, as many of us face global pandemic uncertainties alongside all the other existing ones…