Wake up and be the Christ you are made to be, for the healing of the world.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The First Sunday of Advent, year A
Texts: Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44; Isaiah 2:1-5
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Let’s talk about “woke.”
The term describes people awakening to their privilege, implicit biases and prejudices, and facing them. Realizing what people other than themselves experience, whether racism or sexism or abuse or oppression or poverty, or anything else, as well as their institutional aspects.
“Woke” has become a term of derision and mockery among many who can’t be bothered to face anything different than their own experience, beliefs and practices, who lack the imagination to step outside their tiny, limited minds and lives and see the world from another’s perspective, and act on that vision.
So we probably need to let go of the word “woke.” It’s beyond redeeming in our culture.
Fine. Let’s use Jesus’ word. Awake. Keep awake, Jesus says. It’s time to wake up from sleep, Paul says. And apparently for Paul and Jesus, hitting the snooze bar on your alarm is the last thing you should do.
This metaphor makes so much sense.
At this point in my life I wake up several times in the night. Sometimes, once awake, my body at this age says, “as long as you’re awake, you could probably use the bathroom.” I don’t turn any lights on, I go, and as I get back into bed, I tap my watch to show the time. It’s a moment of truth. If it flashes 1:45, or 3:32, I relax in relief. I can go back to sleep. I’ve got hours before the six o’clock alarm. Some days I’ll even hit the snooze bar after the alarm and blissfully stay in the dark.
Paul and Jesus say that when that happens in my life of faith that’s a problem. I’m too often breathing a sigh of relief and going back to sleep. I’ll ponder whether I’m ready to get going on what Christ is calling me to do, on what I see out there in the world, and think, “I’ve got more time. No need to act now.” Even if the alarm goes off, I can buy another 9 minutes, or the equivalent in real time avoidance of serving as Christ in a world in desperate need.
I must not be the only one. Christians can’t hear Isaiah today without doing it.
It’s an amazing promise that in days to come all will come to God’s mountain and God’s word will spread to all nations, making a massive change in how people live with each other. Whole countries will take their weapons of war and melt them down and make tools for feeding the world’s people.
And we hear this and say, “won’t that day be wonderful? When it happens.” We push this promise into an unknown future day when God comes to fix all things. We’ll do it with the reading we’ll hear next week, too, the peaceable reign of God where wolf lies with lamb and babies happily play with venomous snakes. Won’t that be wonderful when that day comes?
But that’s just hitting the snooze bar. Looking at your watch and going back to sleep. Nothing in Isaiah says this is some unreachable future. “In days to come” could mean tomorrow. Next week. For people who are Christ in the world, those days to come are now. It’s time to wake up, Paul says. Get out of bed. Start bearing God’s word of peace and love and wholeness into the world. Because it’s the spread of God’s word of life, Isaiah says, that leads individuals and even nations to things like disarmament and to focusing energy on feeding, sheltering, healing.
But maybe that work seems too much for us to handle, that’s why we stay in bed.
Here’s another truth of my sleeping. Most of my adult life, since college, I’ve had anxiety dreams from time to time. In college, the dream was that the final exam had started, and I was nowhere near the place. I also was completely unprepared, I hadn’t studied at all. And I was often missing some key pieces of clothing. Usually pants.
Since I’ve been a pastor, the dream is the same, just different details. Now the service has already started, I haven’t prepared a sermon. I’m usually a long way away from the nave, and as always, I’m missing clothes. Still pants, a lot, though now sometimes it’s missing robes, and I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt at the door of the church as the procession is about to start.
It doesn’t take a genius to see what my brain is doing. It’s painting a vivid picture of an inner anxiety that I’m not prepared to do my job, I’m not ready, I’m running out of time. Now, my anxiety dreams always end with me waking up and realizing I have days till the thing, I’ve got time to be ready. I know my job, and I can do it. I can go back to sleep.
But our anxiety about waking up as Christ, about being able to do what needs doing for Christ in this world never really goes away. Even awake, we realize we’re not terribly confident that we can do anything to make a difference in this world, to be a part of God’s coming into the world in Christ for hope and healing.
So, Paul refocuses that anxiety and just talks about how you live in the light.
Being awake is walking decently in the day, he says, with three pairs of behaviors that aren’t part of that.
The first is reveling and drunkenness. Paul says if you’re awake you don’t escape reality by masking it, hiding it. Doing all the things we find ourselves addicted to that keep us from looking at the world as it is and facing that world. Whether media, entertainment, or even real chemical addictions, we find ourselves trapped in avoidance. It makes us feel good and we don’t have to worry about not doing our Christly work.
The second pair is illicit sex and licentiousness. This is more than Paul being prudish. Paul says we need to look at how we shape our lives and priorities for our own pleasure, at the expense of others. Is your highest goal what pleases you, rewards you? We can’t live lives focused on pleasure while others aren’t even able to live.
The third pair is quarrelling and jealousy. If you’re going to be awake, avoid the in-fighting in your community and family, Paul says, watch your tendency to distract yourself from what needs doing by disagreement and conflict. Our ability to get angry about something important can wake us up. But it also can become the focus, where we stay in the anger, blame others for the world’s problems, and never quite get to doing something about them.
Paul doesn’t say anything about your ability to be Christ. Neither does Jesus.
They both seem to think being awake and alert is enough to do what’s needed.
Because when you’re awake, Paul says, you put on the Lord Jesus Christ, clothe yourself in the goodness and healing of God in Christ. You are a washed, baptized child of God, you have been anointed as Christ, wrapped in Christ. You are the next coming of Christ the world is waiting for. Flawed, anxious, feeling unskilled, it doesn’t matter. This is what you and I were anointed to be and do.
So stay awake. Resist the snooze bar. Avoid Paul’s distractions and Jesus’ complacency. Wake up and let Christ fill you and hold you and clothe you as you go out as a child of the light for the sake of a world wrapped in the shadows of fear and hopelessness. And in you, Christ’s light will shine.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
