The preacher was "woke"

Who knew that from miles away a message so radical, so dangerous to the status quo could be spoken so clearly? The pagan culture was thriving. The locals were raking in money from tourists coming to see the temple of their gods. They were greedy, corrupt, and deluded by lusts. They did not want a new way of living. They were just fine, thank you. 
 
Licentiousness is not a word often thrown about these days. It essentially means lewd, vulgar, crude, filled with sexual overtones. We may not know how to define it, but we know it when we see it. So did the preacher. 
 
The preacher, himself so transformed in the light, became a bold and powerful voice of disruption and change to the status quo. He called people to a new way of living, a new self, created in true righteousness and holiness. 
 
 He called people to speak truth to their neighbors. Put away anger and not make room for the devil. Give up stealing and stop all evil talk – that includes slander and defamation. Put away all bitterness and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving. No wonder he got put in prison. People love their licentiousness, hate, greed and bawdiness.
 
The message of the preacher rankled those in power, just like the message riles people up today. Even people who know that the message of kindness and forgiveness is a message of life, put on a hood and cape so no one will know who they are, and march in hate, carrying a cross and a message of who’s in and who’s out. But the preacher reminds us that no impure person, or one who is greedy or mean will have any inheritance in the Kingdom of God. And if you think differently, you are minding empty words.
 
When I heard the Sunday morning preacher speak words from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, I thought how contemporary these ancient words are. They paint a picture of wokeness that resonates even today. Awareness of social ills, wrongdoing, injustices and cruelty (which is what wokeness is) is necessary for survival in the world today. 
 
The word “woke” comes from the African American vernacular of the 1930s. It was written in a song lyric by Lead Belly in 1931. Nine young black men, the Scottsboro Boys, were accused of raping two white women. They were convicted and though the efforts of the NAACP, pleading their case in courts for years, finally got them freed, they never fully recovered. 
 
The story of the Scottsboro boys is lived and re-lived in stories that fill the news today. Young Black men are frequently at risk of this persecution, the list of names is getting really long. Sorry, folks, but they need to stay woke to the dangers that lurk around them. 
 
LGBTQ+ kids are targeted. People with disabilities and old people are mocked. Everybody needs to be woke to the threat by those who would do us harm.
 
But the word woke is loaded. They say wokeness is about DEI and CRT, and Affirmative Action. They burn the books about gender differences that could help young adolescents better understand themselves. Being woke is dangerous to a status quo that is happy to live the life of cruelty, mockery, smallness and hate. 
 
To insist that woke is a pejorative term of self-importance negates the cautionary value of a word necessary to those whose lives may be at risk simply by walking across a parking lot. We should all be woke, finding strength enough to speak into injustice and wrong-doing on behalf of those who have no voice or power.  
 
Paul’s words to the fledgling church in Ephesus speak to a new and different way of living in the world. It’s called the Cruciform life, a life in right relationship with God, with our neighbors and all creation. The ills that plague the world will not go away until life, our lives, are transformed into a new way of being. We have a better chance of living this if we do not see ourselves as the hero. That role is already taken. 
 
Thank you, preacher, for Sunday’s lesson. 
 
Lib Campbell is a retired Methodist pastor, retreat leader, columnist and host of the blogsite www.avirtualchurch.com. She can be contacted at libcam05@gmail.com