Insights
Rev Gav
What does it mean to be woke?
Matthew 24.36–44
‘But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
Reflect
God is outside of time, and I have already talked about how Jesus, predicting the destruction of the temple, overlays apocalyptic style writing, and how the lines are blurred between the present, imminent future, and end times — i.e. Jesus came, is coming, and will come — and how we can meet the ‘Son of Man’ (Jesus) in the here and now through the Holy Spirit.
Today is the first Sunday of Advent which comes from the Latin adventus, meaning “coming” or “arrival”. It is traditionally a season of waiting where we hope, reflect, and prepare for the arrival of Christ at Christmas, but we are also waiting for God’s kingdom to come fully.
Yes, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus was describing the horrendous implications of war on civilians — whether working in the field or at home, going about their daily lives, “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,” when disaster strikes; however, there is a deeper resonance with the state of the world and how we must be alert and awake to what is happening around us.
Earthly powers — dictators, narcissists, manipulators, and oppressors — do not want us to be ‘awake’ to their corruption and injustices. Take, for example, the word ‘woke’. This is a word that was coined in the early 1930s and used in the phrase ‘stay woke’ urging people to remain conscious of the threats and dangers they faced with regard to racial prejudice and systemic injustice. The word was picked up again in the 2010s by supporters of Black Lives Matter, but since then it has been culturally appropriated by the conservative right to mock and dismiss progressive ideologies and policies such as those related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. How awful to take a word or phrase — one that was and is used by marginalised black communities — and use it against them, but then, that is what earthly powers do. They do not want us to be woke — alert and awake to their destructive agendas.
The way of God — the way of Christ — is diametrically opposed to the way of the world, and during Advent, through Bible readings such as today’s, we become conscious and aware of our inner longing for how things should be. We hold the world up against the ideal of ‘heaven’ — not a spiritual place of future escapism from this world, but a ‘putting right’ of worldly wrongs we experience in the present — and find it wanting. This, awakening or ‘wokeness’ in turn, spurs us to pray and to act.
The way of love is not for the fainthearted. If we are not to collude with corruption and oppression; if we are not to tread water until we ‘escape’ this world to a disembodied heaven; if we are not to fight violence with violence; and if we are not to be self-deprecating and allow ourselves to be downtrodden; then what are we to do? The answer is that we are to be strong in love.
As Christians we are connected to a higher power — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the source of all life and creator of all things, and the one who came and met us through Christ — and this God is love. We believe and trust that love will triumph over evil, and that if we stay the course of inspirational love, then one day evil will be vanquished. This ideology and theology seems foolish to the world, and they dismiss us as ineffectual, and pawns in their lust for power; however, we have a quiet resolve that there is no other answer to the world’s problems than submission to God’s love. Love will win.
Staying the course is not easy. There will be many who give up on ‘religion’ in favour of secularism, cave to their own hedonism, adopt false theologies such as ‘raptures’, or become apathetic or indifferent.
I am reminded of the story of the woman walking along a beach where thousands upon thousands of stranded starfish lay dying in the sun, and so she stopped and began tossing them back into the sea one by one. A passer by shouted out to her, “You can’t possibly make a difference!” The woman stooped down, picked up a starfish, tossed it into the sea and replied, “It made a difference to that one.”
A new world order was established with the coming of Christ and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem — a movement where God’s love was poured into the hearts of every believer such that we could make a difference wherever we are in the world. This movement is what Jesus called ‘The Kingdom of God’ and it is why he described it as both something we enter into and also something that is within us.
Today’s Bible reading from Matthew is an exhortation to stay alert, ‘stay woke’, and do not ever give up on God’s love — no matter how bad things get — and for some, things will get horrendously bad; however, though we are weak, our strength lies not in ourselves but in God — and a God who is expressed through each other. We have connections and relationships that no earthly power can break.
For now, we need to stay strong. We need to call out injustice and oppression wherever it may be found. We are to join in with God’s mission in the world to be bringers of God’s hope, joy, peace, and love. As individuals and even church communities we cannot change the world, but like that woman with the starfish, when it comes to loving others let us, “make a difference to that one.”
Amen.
and then