Woke or Awake?
Now that I’ve got your attention, are you trying to decide which camp I am in. Are you in a camp? That word, woke, sure has people running fast to defend their tribe, right? The bristles are bristling, and the hackles are hackling when it is spoken or written about.
I’ll confess: I’m in the “awake” camp. Whoa, partner, not so fast; don’t fold that laptop, delete this post, or pigeonhole me in some all-inclusive stereotype. Give me a chance.
To begin, let’s get awake about the word woke. It is not a sarcastic, negative word. And it is not a relatively new word. It has been around since the early 1930’s in African American Vernacular English. The woke term showed up in the mid-20th century and post-millennium by a small group of Afro-American singers. The phrase stay woke was coined by these few entertainers in the 30’s and referred to an awareness of social and political issues affecting Afro-Americans.
It was early in the 2010s that woke began to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial justice, denial of LGBT rights, and sexism. More recently, it has been used by the American Left, involving identity politics, social justice, white privilege, and reparations for slavery in the U.S. In the mid-2010’s, woke began to be used by white people to signal their support for the Black Lives Movement. By 2020, the term had become a sarcastic word of contempt among political rights and centrists.
Wow, does our language evolve and change and get messed up! I remember one of my favorite Fred Astaire movies, The Gay Divorcee (1934).
Now, to get Awoke.
As followers of Jesus, we are citizens of another realm, The Kingdom of Heaven. “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone” (Eph. 2:19-21, NIV). Or try on, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20, NIV).
Our loyalty, identity, and focus should be on His Kingdom in our midst and what is to come. We should live with one identity, Christians, with no prefixes.
There are great issues at hand in our nation. There are significant inequalities and injustices, and sin abounds. What is the solution to our desperate needs?
The gospel of the Kingdom is the issue at hand. It is the vital, head-on, and total answer to our needs. The foundations of our nation are being rattled as never before in our short history. The Kingdom of Heaven must be among you. It must be allowed to break into your relationships and remake you.
The Kingdom of Heaven is God’s order in a society with no order. And while the nature of the Kingdom is social, it is entered only by a personal encounter with Jesus and new birth. The character of the Kingdom is the character of Jesus. Full stop.
“the people living in darkness
have
seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a
light has dawned.”[a]
17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt. 4:16-17, NIV).
I have become awakened to the plight of Afro-Americans, women, and so many other groups that have suffered abuse, prejudice, and marginalization. I am apologetic that this is their reality. Every single person has the same worth in the eyes of Christ. The ground is level at the foot of the cross.
But to all of us, I would give one simple, childlike response: it is time to Awaken to the Kingdom of God in our midst.
#woke