Woke to Jesus

​Woke to Jesus
Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
September 29, 2019
Proper 21, Year C
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
Are you woke?  The call for wokeness traces back to the late sixties and was coined as slang for getting conscious, getting hip, getting aware in that day of the radical racial inequality.  The term woke then went to sleep, but its use has made a strong resurgence in the last few years as so many other inequalities have dragged it back into popular parlance.
 
There are so many issues to we are asked to be woke to now.  Of course, we need to be woke to classism, racism, and sexism.  We need to be woke to climate change, white privilege, and the socioeconomic roots of opportunity and achievement gaps.  We need to be woke to cultural hegemony, exclusive language of all kinds, and gender fluidity.  Wokeness has also given rise to slogan driven declarations: Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, Me Too, Pride, and many things LGBTQ+.
 
If our heads spin around all we must learn and appreciate to be so woken, now, some who employed the term originally, calling attention to race issues now resent its more widespread application as a watering down of its singular urgency.  So then, we need to be woke about not over appropriating idea of being woke.
 
Warning: we could get so wrapped around human peculiarity and particularity as mediated in such dizzying lingo that we reduce important conversations to dismissive labeling or resent whoever the other is because we feel put down as ignorant or unaware.  All of the issues and ideas driving conversations of justice and equality deserve a deeper dive into understanding and appreciation.  But when we become overwhelmed and threatened, we tend to shut down, shut out, or just shut up.  And yet, as a matter of faith, and a cornerstone of our baptismal covenant, we are to seek and serve Christ in all persons loving our neighbor as ourselves.  There is no asterisk there.  We are not excused even when doing so is hard, complex, or controversial.  We can disagree without being disagreeable.  But we cannot look away from the bedrock that is the Gospel of Jesus.
 
Today, we encounter one of those lessons that sends preachers scrambling.  In one of many of Luke’s commentaries on the impossibility of serving God and wealth, we hear the story of the rich man in hell and the poor man in heaven.  The set-up is stark.  The rich man spent his life in purple Gucci and gourmet feasting, while the poor man sat on the floor with dogs licking his sores.  When they die, the poor man is carried into healing heaven, and the flames of torment now lick the rich man.  As the story goes, he asks father Abraham who is the poor man’s companion in heaven, to have the man bring him a cool sip of water.  When Abraham tells him the chasm between them it too great, the man tells him to send the poor man to his five living brothers (to his people) to warn them of their potential fate. And with the foreshadowing of Jesus returning from the grave to bring life for all, Luke’s not so subtle joke and jab at those who do not get it is intense.
 
It is no wonder lectionary preachers all over the Church are trying to put a softer filter on this disturbing picture.  If we can speak in more metaphorical terms, perhaps we can get through this stark challenge, and keep our Jesus gentle, meek and mild.
 
Sorry.  This image is a two by four hitting us - especially us - between the eyes.  While we are a small denomination of Christians, we are among the most affluent in the world.  While we are shrinking like all mainline denominations, statistics tell us we are among the most educated, most resourced, and most physically secure of all segments of the world population.  This is not to say that most of us are super rich, Gucci laden, senseless consumerists.  But we do enjoy safe drinking water, access to decent nutrition and healthcare, and the protection relative peace and opportunity.  On the scale of economic reality we are much closer to the rich man than poor Lazarus.  If we take Jesus seriously, we have to live with awareness of our position, steward our abundance, and respond to the deep chasm between having much and having little to nothing.
 
In saying all of this, the preacher could be accused of going to meddling: of spouting socialism, communism, or some other form of wealth redistribution.  But that is not the point, nor is poverty and wealth gap a simple calculus with an obvious solution that some externally imposed force, tax, or shame can fix.  The problem for the rich man is not that he has all of that wealth; it is that he never seizes the chance to leverage his resources to help even the guy sitting under his table.  And even when he is fanning the flames of tormented selfishness, his response is to seek relief for himself, and to order Abraham and Lazarus to do his bidding.  “Me” and “mine” is the vocabulary that deepens the chasm.  “We” and “our” is the language that moves us toward healing and help.  Jesus goes on record over and over, reminding us that we are in this life together with all creation.
 
This last week, Netflix released a three-episode documentary about Bill Gates, the world second richest man.  While amassing his fortune in the tech boom, Gates was relentless, tireless, and visionary.  His business became so dominant that others in that sector dubbed his company, Microsoft, as the evil empire, gobbling up any and all competitors.  He was sued for anti-trust violations and shamed in the courts and the media.  He could have gone sour.  He could have leveraged his immense wealth to exact revenge, buy into other markets, or just floated around on an enormous yacht.
 
But something happened.  It is not clear what exactly, but with business stable and prospects abundant, Gates turned over daily operations of the business to someone else.  Then, he and entered into another absolutely equal partnership. He and his wife now devote almost all of their time and energy to this mission: “Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives.  His billions are working to eradicate polio, develop clean energy running on nuclear waste, and solving the massive problem of converting human waste into clean water and harmless byproducts.
 
Given the events of just this past week, with national and world leaders engaging in the blood sport of division, dissention, and personal and political vendettas, it is good to shift the narrative to something better, the work of those who value every human life.  We do not know Bill Gates’s heart or faith, but we can see his effort and energy doing something generative and life giving. 
 
We may not have his scale of wealth at our disposal, but we do have resources.  We may not have Gates like organizational machines, but we do have minds to think, hands to serve, hearts to love, and our Church’s work to get behind.
 
So again, are you woke?  Given all of the divisions that need to be helped and healed, I am not sure it possible to be so thoroughly woke.  Life is complicated, and an issue driven existence simply feeds anger, blame, frustration.  Folks, what we proclaim here is that we need only one kind of awakening: a grounded identity in Jesus.  Looking to God’s eternally creative presence, to Christ’s self-giving love, and the Spirit’s unbounded power guide us, we can tune into the ONE wokeness that covers all of the bases, fulfills our calling, and leads to all peace.  Get woke to Jesus, and all else good and right and just will follow.