advent week one

stay awake
advent week one
mark 13:24-37

take a moment to read mark 13:24-37 if you are not familiar, as this reflection follows pretty closely to the outline of the text. i’m also setting some stuff up that we will come back to in future weeks, so bear with me.

wtf even is advent? logistically, it is the four weeks leading up to christmas. spoiler alert: in USAmerica, we like to think that christmas starts right after thanksgiving (or for some strange folks, after halloween). we bust out the red and green, sing songs about baby jesus, put up christmas trees. but christmas time doesn’t even start until christmas day.

for four weeks before christmas, we wait. we bust out the purple (most commonly), we light candles, and we let the anticipation build. advent is the season of waiting with bated breath.

--- (when you see this marker, it is intended to be a spot for you to pause and take a breath before moving forward. it might mean i’m about to say a bunch of stuff, or it might mean i just said a bunch of stuff and i want to give you a moment to process before we move on. either way, it is important and intentional, so take a breath)

and that is the space that this first text invites us into. initially, it seems a bit scary. the sun and the moon lose their light, stars fall from the sky, some dude called the son of man comes out of the clouds, and angels run amuck.

that is not actually what is going to happen. the writer of mark is using imagery that is used in other places in the story that let us know that god is about to do something, and we need to shut up and pay attention.

and then there’s a fig tree? where did this come from? again, the writer is using a symbol that is rich with evocative imagery. the fig tree comes up all over the story, but it goes back to the beginning. if you remember the poem at the beginning of genesis, you remember there are a few trees. the tree of life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then a fig tree. i swear the fig tree is there. It is how adam and eve make clothes for themselves after “the fall” (which is problematic language for this bit of the story, but that’s for another post).

let’s spend a second with this old fig tree. before adam and eve find this fig tree, they are naked before god, there is no shame. only unconditional, open and reciprocal love and knowledge. but after they transgress a boundary (we can unpack the problematic language of sin in another post as well), adam and eve feel the need to cover themselves. the garments made of fig leaves become the first thing that humanity creates to separate themselves from god. they do this before god dishes out any punishment, they hide from god, they react with fear. before this, there is no separation of relationship (we will come back to this in future weeks).

back to mark. the writer tells us that the fig tree is a sign that something is going to change. that thing that you know so well, that thing that shows up in your stories, that you pay attention to because it has meaning to you, that thing that tells you things are changing...that’s what the sun and the moon and the stars are doing here. something is changing.

the writer makes it clear that there are signs that we need to be paying attention to. a change is going to come, and we better be ready.

then the writer of mark says something interesting. “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” this sentiment is expressed over and over again in the story, just like the fig tree keeps coming up. and there’s lots to unpack here. but i’m going to save that for next week. for now, keep it in the back of your mind.

the rest of this passage, we are told that we don’t know when the time will be. we don’t know when this new thing is going to happen. we have to pay attention. we have to stay alert.

if you are reading the NRSV, as i am inclined to do when i am able to open a bible, the next verses can be shocking. we are given an analogy for why it is important to keep awake. “it is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. therefore, keep awake - for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly (mark 13:24-26).” it would be easy to skip past this and focus on the idea of staying awake. but i’m not really a fan of easy.

there are a couple important things to remember as we encounter these verses. first, it was written to a specific group of people, in a specific time, for a specific purpose, and we should consider it as such. second, scripture is also living and dynamic, and we should also consider it through our modern eyes with all of the context that we bring to it.

that said, the people the writer of mark is addressing had slaves. this text is trying to instill a sense of fearful anticipation. slaves who are left to tend a master’s house while they are gone must stay vigilant so as not to be caught failing at their duties. because what happens if they don’t do what they are supposed to? they are punished. to read this through our current context, in USAmerica, we must acknowledge our own history of slavery, and the ways in which we subjugated an entire group of people through fear, power, and control. and the ways in which we continue to do this in our country.

this metaphor sucks. despite intending for the reader to identify with the position of the slave in the story (as god is the “master”), it is written from the privileged position of the master in reality. it is painful, it should force us to be honest about our complicity, because we can at once identify as the “slave” as well as the “master.” the plain sense meaning of this text and our identification with the slave’s position in the story is pretty straightforward. so can we put ourselves in the shoes of the master? and what does it mean for us to keep awake?

as a master, staying awake means realizing the ways in which your presence and privilege devalues, is hurtful to, or outright oppresses another. staying awake means educating yourself about the things that are happening around you in the world that you have the privilege of being insulated from. staying awake is about removing our fig leaves and making ourselves vulnerable and open to god’s movement.

--- (don’t forget to take a breath here)

the phrase “stay woke,” may have come to your mind in reading this. the association is fair, it is worded very similarly. the ubiquity of the term, however, is the direct result of cultural appropriation on behalf of ignorant white people. the term is originally a black term used to describe a consciousness of the apparatus of white supremacy, and it gained traction in a broader context after the murder of Trayvon Martin and the beginning of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. after that, white people made it a meme, attached it to nonsense, and there was no turning back.

but i think the association of the term isn’t necessarily a bad thing here, as this sort of awareness is what i am calling us all to this advent. but don’t forget where this term came from, and don’t trivialize it. in “staying awake,” as the writer of mark implores us to do, we need to wake up to systems of oppression and our participation in them. we need to wake up to realities that we get to ignore most of the time. because advent is about waiting for the moment of change. advent is about realizing that something big is on the horizon, god is about to do a new thing, and we are invited to participate in it. but we need to wake up, we need to be aware.

so at the beginning of this season, ask yourself what you need to wake up to in the world around you. ask yourself what change might be coming (or should be coming, perhaps with your help) in these areas. and if you are unsure, consider some of these things:

LGBTQ+ rights in USAmerica and the rest of the world
blatant corruption of USAmerican politicians
police brutality, particularly toward people of color
the prison industrial complex and the ways in which it perpetuates a modern form of slavery
systemic oppression of white supremacy, patriarchy, and colonialism
rampant terrorism in the middle east that has millions of people living in fear every day
Rohingya refugees and their daily struggle for survival
there is more...there is always more.

this list isn’t meant to depress you. advent is primarily about hope. but we can’t truly have hope until we can be honest about our current reality and what discover what it is we hope for.