Fourth Monday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
1 Samuel 1:1-18
Elkanah and His Family1 There was a man named Elkanah who lived in Ramah in the region of Zuph in the hill country of Ephraim. He was the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, of Ephraim. 2 Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah did not. 3 Each year Elkanah would travel to Shiloh to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of Heaven’s Armies at the Tabernacle. The priests of the Lord at that time were the two sons of Eli—Hophni and Phinehas. 4 On the days Elkanah presented his sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to Peninnah and each of her children. 5 And though he loved Hannah, he would give her only one choice portion because the Lord had given her no children. 6 So Peninnah would taunt Hannah and make fun of her because the Lord had kept her from having children. 7 Year after year it was the same—Peninnah would taunt Hannah as they went to the Tabernacle. Each time, Hannah would be reduced to tears and would not even eat. 8 “Why are you crying, Hannah?” Elkanah would ask. “Why aren’t you eating? Why be downhearted just because you have no children? You have me—isn’t that better than having ten sons?”
Hannah’s Prayer for a Son
9 Once after a sacrificial meal at Shiloh, Hannah got up and went to pray. Eli the priest was sitting at his customary place beside the entrance of the Tabernacle. 10 Hannah was in deep anguish, crying bitterly as she prayed to the Lord. 11 And she made this vow: “O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, if you will look upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son, then I will give him back to you. He will be yours for his entire lifetime, and as a sign that he has been dedicated to the Lord, his hair will never be cut.” 12 As she was praying to the Lord, Eli watched her. 13 Seeing her lips moving but hearing no sound, he thought she had been drinking. 14 “Must you come here drunk?” he demanded. “Throw away your wine!” 15 “Oh no, sir!” she replied. “I haven’t been drinking wine or anything stronger. But I am very discouraged, and I was pouring out my heart to the Lord. 16 Don’t think I am a wicked woman! For I have been praying out of great anguish and sorrow.” 17 “In that case,” Eli said, “go in peace! May the God of Israel grant the request you have asked of him.” 18 “Oh, thank you, sir!” she exclaimed. Then she went back and began to eat again, and she was no longer sad.
Luke 1:46b-55
The Magnificat: Mary’s Song of Praise“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 9:1-14
Old Rules about Worship9 That first covenant between God and Israel had regulations for worship and a place of worship here on earth. 2 There were two rooms in that Tabernacle. In the first room were a lampstand, a table, and sacred loaves of bread on the table. This room was called the Holy Place. 3 Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was the second room called the Most Holy Place. 4 In that room were a gold incense altar and a wooden chest called the Ark of the Covenant, which was covered with gold on all sides. Inside the Ark were a gold jar containing manna, Aaron’s staff that sprouted leaves, and the stone tablets of the covenant. 5 Above the Ark were the cherubim of divine glory, whose wings stretched out over the Ark’s cover, the place of atonement. But we cannot explain these things in detail now. 6 When these things were all in place, the priests regularly entered the first room as they performed their religious duties. 7 But only the high priest ever entered the Most Holy Place, and only once a year. And he always offered blood for his own sins and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. 8 By these regulations the Holy Spirit revealed that the entrance to the Most Holy Place was not freely open as long as the Tabernacle and the system it represented were still in use. 9 This is an illustration pointing to the present time. For the gifts and sacrifices that the priests offer are not able to cleanse the consciences of the people who bring them. 10 For that old system deals only with food and drink and various cleansing ceremonies—physical regulations that were in effect only until a better system could be established.
Christ Is the Perfect Sacrifice
11 So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world. 12 With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever. 13 Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity. 14 Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.
NLT
A New Song in Uncertainty and Despair
by Rohadi
Rohadi is a thought leader on building diverse organizations and communities, church planting, and decolonizing and deconstructing Christianity. He lives in Canada, on Treaty 7 Lands, otherwise known as Calgary. He holds a Business Certificate from Mount Royal College, a BA in Economics from the University of Calgary, and a Master of Divinity from Canadian Theological Seminary.
In the areas of church planting, missional thinking, and church revitalization, he is both a practitioner and thought leader. He has planted two churches including an inner-city multi-ethnic expression called Cypher Church. He has written extensively in the areas of missions and church leadership, calling for new thinking and practices. Some of those ideas can be found in his book, Thrive. Ideas to lead the church in post-Christendom. Discover Rohadi’s latest book, When We Belong. Reclaiming Christianity on the Margins from Herald Press.
His experience includes non-profit work in both governance and organizational development. He is the past-chair of ACT Alberta, one of the largest anti-human trafficking NGOs in Canada. He’s also a director with Mosaic Ministries. Find him online - Website: www.rohadi.com, on Twitter: @rohadi, & Instagram: @rohadi.nagassar
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.
“Magnificat anima mea Dominum.”
It sure sounds better in Latin. Mary's Song, or the Magnificat as it is traditionally known, is the poetic reflection penned in Luke 1:46-55. In it, Mary provides a vision—the world will be transformed by and through the coming Messiah. Read the passage again and note the features.
The Lord will show mercy to everyone who honours him as God. He will scatter the arrogant and proud. He will pull the powerful down and lift the lowly. He feeds the hungry and will send the rich away empty. Mary is foretelling Jesus by outlining the way of Jesus before he arrives. This isn’t the first time either. Her words are echoed throughout Scripture. Prophets continuously demand a return to God’s best picture for our world. A kingdom that Jesus invites us to share and fulfill. What does this kingdom look like? The last shall be first. The hungry will be fed. The rich will be turned away. Justice will be realized, and the oppressor trampled. The opposite of how our culture and world look in many ways.
The lingering impact of Mary's words puts the church on notice, snapping our attention back towards the things that truly make us church. For many, this will require a re-imagination of sorts. Curiously, now is as good of a time as ever to make a change.
Who Are We?
As we wade through the monumental changes of 2020, churches are facing an identity crisis. The main one? What it means to be a church that no longer has a church service. Many congregations lost part of their identity when worship stopped. That was expected. But far too many lost their central identity when services ended. It seems bizarre, but so many have forgotten the church is the community of people, not the building or service where attendance is the chief activity.
COVID-19 has oddly become an equalizer of sorts, casting most into an array of confusion and despair. It’s stripped away the thing many hold most dear, forcing a blank slate and opportunity to return to what matters. Churches can respond in three ways. Struggle to figure out a new way of being in a post (and current) pandemic world; cling to the bygone era and hope enough people return to reclaim the old normal; or fight to preserve while refusing any change.
It’s not only the loss of a service that has challenged identity. The increased calls for justice in 2020 has forced many churches to confront a deeper understanding of racialized realities in our world. For example, we can no longer refer to “the church” in a generalized way. It’s not accurate (it never was) to call white Protestant or white Catholic churches “the church” without their racialized identity.
Look around you. Loss is everywhere. Grief and anger as well. And it’s in these places where our roots show. As you linger in various levels of Christmas isolation this year, what do you and your church hold dear? Articulating who we are reveals what and why we give certain things importance.
We know that the vocal few have married religious demands with white supremacy and nationalism as pillars of identity. Individual liberties, hatred for the immigrant and the neighbour, repudiation of justice, anti-mask “we must gather” calls, all to name a few. The health order defying “church” is no longer a signal of light, rather it harbours fear and bears death. They have traded the hope of Mary’s song for the right to sing Sunday between 10 and 12. But they are the few.
For the rest of us, we have to come to grips with how we look when all the ornaments are taken away.
Most of us get it and won’t be meeting for our candlelight services. Most are acknowledging, albeit struggling, to figure out all of this loss. We’ve lost a way of life, our freedoms, our communities, and some of us our friends. Most of us will forgo family gatherings to keep the vulnerable safe. We offer some level of comfort, even if it's not in person, when we can. We try to remind ourselves to give extra grace to everyone facing the same calamity. We sit in the feelings and realities, paying attention to not brush them aside or pretend they aren’t there. We cling to what little faith we have in an attempt to make sense of the chaos in the world.
It’s here, in the chaos, where I hope each of us can picture in a more meaningful way what it means to sing for deliverance and long for a better world. Not a return to an old normal, but a re-orientation towards a more beautiful song.
Both Mary and Hannah remind us of a future renewal coupled with a present hope. Mary sang through oppression with a conviction that deliverance was coming. It was near, and he would change the world. In the same way, we too must we pay heed to her words and find inspiration to sing a new song in a new age of uncertainty and despair.
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One of the ways we have been connecting online since the pandemic pushed us online is through our Learning Centre, a weekly interactive Zoom call on a topic with a Canadian voice of wisdom. For the season of Advent, we will be featuring a few of our writers and making space to reflect together on the Advent Reader articles. Join us for the interactive sessions on Thursdays at 1:30 pm (Eastern time) or sign up and view the recordings of the sessions afterwards. SIGN UP for the Learning Centre Advent sessions.
