First Saturday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
By Whose Authority?
by Nikayla Reize
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.
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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
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