“Woke” - Yes Please
Merriam Webster:
Woke: aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)
It’s disturbing to me that so many on the right of the political spectrum are demonizing the term “woke.” If they want to use it as a pejorative term then it says more about them than it does about those who are interested in developing a greater awareness and understanding of the issues of racism and other social injustices facing our world today. Tragically too many today are like the people Isaiah prophesied to who will, “Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving” (Isaiah 6:9).
I’m not going to dig into the origins of the word, suffice it to say that it originated in the black community. Yes, there’s a racist overtone in the way it's been demonized today.
I believe the church needs to be more woke, not less.
In the book of Revelation we are introduced to the church in Sardis, “I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” From the outside the church looked like it was doing well, but in reality it was anything but. They had become complacent. We are told their, “deeds are unfinished.” They are not doing everything that God has called the church to do. They are not living fully for Christ. G.B.Caird says they are, “the perfect model of inoffensive Christianity.”
I wonder how many of our western churches are also the perfect model of inoffensive Christianity?
So how does God challenge the church in Sardis? “WAKE UP!” And if you don’t wake up then God is coming for you. Better get “woke.” It’s a challenge to a complacent church to live out the values of God’s kingdom in the world. It is their actions that are incomplete. It’s not that they don’t believe, it’s they don’t turn their belief into the appropriate action.
If wokeness is about issues of racial and social justice then we have to ask does Scripture call us to be woke?
“[God] defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.” Deuteronomy 10:17-18
“Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” Isaiah 1:17
“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.” Isaiah 10:1,2
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” Isaiah 58:6,7
“This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.” Jeremiah 22:3
“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me.” Ezekiel 16:42
I could go on quoting Scripture after Scripture, but I think the point is clear, the church needs to be awake to issues of injustice. The church needs to have eyes to see how important issues of justice are to God. The church needs to wake up. It needs to set aside its tribal, national, cultural, biases and take seriously our call to be witnesses to God’s love for all the people of the world.
It was not a “liberal” who said, “Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.” It was Jesus. Maybe Jesus was woke!
Certainly the apostle John was woke, “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (1John 3:17,18)”
If you want to accuse me of being woke, or a liberal, or a socialist, so be it. I’m only trying to follow what seems to be the very plain and clear call of Scripture. So I will continue to self-identify as a Christian who takes the whole counsel of Scripture into account in my quest to be a faithful disciple.
Confession:
I am often guilty of being asleep. I like an inoffensive Christianity, it feels safe. I often stand for justice only when it is convenient (my privilege allows for this). I don’t always live the way I teach and preach. I have a long way to go before I’m fully awake.
