[A sermon preached to Hinckley Unitarians on Sunday 27th of November 2022]
(Readings: Matthew 24:36-44 and Keep Awake by Rev. Kathy Galloway)
Being ‘woke’ has become something of a pejorative term. The other day an article in The Telegraph blamed “namby-pamby woke HR types” for trying to ban swearing in the workplace. Yesterday a Daily Express headline read, “BBC’s World Cup coverage blasted as ‘woke’”.
But where did this term come from before it became widely used as an insult for anything or anyone considered to be a bit too left-wing? Well, it originated in the African-American community in the United States. If someone was ‘woke’ it meant that they were “alert to the issues of racial prejudice and discrimination”. That eventually expanded to mean being alert to other social issues.
One definition of woke I read recently was, “to be alive to the insights, contexts, and needs of others; to aim to be well informed, thoughtful, compassionate, tolerant, respectful, and kind, to want to make the world a better place for all people and all living things.” I hope I’m not alone in thinking that that sounds a lot like the ideal Unitarian!
In our reading from the Gospel of Matthew today, the disciples have just asked Jesus to elaborate on his prediction that the Temple in Jerusalem will fall. They wanted to know when the Temple will fall and what signs they should look out for.
Now there is a problem with interpreting this passage in that, it is difficult to be certain if any particular verse is addressing the fall of the Second Temple in 70 CE, or if it is an apocalyptic pronouncement of the end times, or both.
Either way, the verses, “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.” Have caused no end of controversy because… does anyone know? Well, has anyone heard of the idea of the rapture? This is the idea, popular among some conservative evangelical groups, that, before the end of the world, the righteous will be physically taken up from the service of the earth and into heaven, leaving the wicked behind!
This idea has spawned several awful films, all called ‘Left Behind’, where the sudden absence of good people brings about a series of apocalyptic events (think planes crashing out of the sky because the pilots have suddenly been ‘raptured’). There is a website that advises one on how to be “rapture ready” by attempting to predict when it will occur and advising the faithful to wear loose-fitting clothing in case that turns out to be necessary for the rapturing to work! There is also; apparently, a service for American pet owners who are worried about being raptured and leaving their pets behind that ensures that, in the event, someone will continue to walk and feed their dogs into the last days.
The idea of a rapture is, of course, nonsense. No serious biblical scholar advocates that this is what this passage is getting at. It is more likely that “taken” relates more to the possibility of being removed from your home by the forces of the roman empire than going to heaven.
Instead, the main theological meat in this passage is the call to watchfulness or wakefulness. It was Karl Barth, the rather orthodox protestant theologian, who said that one should preach with “a Bible in one hand, and a newspaper in the other!” We should be prepared for unexpected encounters with the Divine. As I said last week, those encounters often occur when we place ourselves among the oppressed – in solidarity with them.
The apocalyptic in Biblical terms is not much to be afraid of; the imagery functioned back then in the same way the modern activist slogan “another world is possible” does now. The old world dies as it gives birth to the new.
In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray every week for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In that line, we are praying for the coming of the Biblical apocalypse, in other words, the coming of the Kingdom of God that will replace the earthly order that is full of injustice. In praying for this we acknowledge that we have a role to play in bringing this new world about.
That is why we must be woke. Woke to the stirring of the Spirit within our hearts. And woke to the current injustices of the world, so we know where to help plant the seeds of God’s Kingdom and find where those seeds have taken root and are growing already.
Echoing the words of Kathy Galloway, let us be awake and sober this Advent, for we have some walking to do!
Amen
