Why I Am Woke
I didn’t bring a message to my Quaker meeting this past Sunday, so I’m sharing one from a couple of years ago. I think it’s just as relevant now as it was then.
I was in Florida recently, speaking to elected officials. I went with some trepidation, fearing my speech would betray my progressive tendencies and I would be tarred and feathered, rode out of town on a rail, sent packing, choose your metaphor. Instead, I was treated with great kindness, which was disappointing. It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced persecution, and I’ve missed it terribly. As Winston Churchill said, “Nothing in life is as exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” When I was in seminary, I read the book, Foxes Book of Martyrs and ever since have dreamed of dying for my faith, slain by angry Southern Baptists for defending a women’s right to preach.
Alas, the only sour note was spoken by the limousine driver who told me, within three minutes of meeting me, that he didn’t like President Biden, something I could have gone all day without knowing and yet he felt compelled to tell me. When I asked him why, he said because of the situation at the border, letting all “those people” in. He actually said, “those people.” Let me just say that when you use the phrase those people, you’ve already lost the moral high ground. Then he let it slip, without a hint of irony, that when he wasn’t driving limousines, he owned a roofing company and nearly all his employees were Hispanic. I pointed out that if we didn’t let people come into our country, he’d have no one to work for him and from then on, the rest of the ride was very quiet.
He was oblivious in a way many people are these days, unaware and unmindful, which some people seem to think is a virtue, something to which we should aspire. I was talking with a man this past week who accused me of being woke. The way he said “woke,” made it seem like a bad thing, as if I had kicked a puppy. We hear that term a lot these days, without anyone defining it, so I looked it up when I got home. Woke means to be conscious of oppression and injustice. I’m not sure when that became a bad thing, but there you go.
My mind turned to a story in the Bible, in the third chapter of the book of Exodus, when God speaks to Moses from a burning bush on Mount Horeb and says, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…”
According to the Bible, God is woke. God is conscious of oppression and injustice, and not only aware of it, but is determined to do something about it. I thought about that all week, about God being woke, then Joan mentioned it was Father’s Day this Sunday, which had slipped my mind, so I had these various ingredients stirring together in my head, God and fatherhood and being woke, and it occurred to me they were all connected, that good fathers make it a habit to be aware of suffering and injustice, and not just be aware of it, but act to end it.
God is a good father, a good parent. God is conscious of injustice and cruelty, and is determined to stop it. That is what good fathers do. Now I know we have become hesitant about using male language for God, but let’s remember the power and appropriateness of gender in context. The prophet Hosea said of evildoers, that “God will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs...” What a wonderful image that is! Let’s not lose that. God is a mother bear protecting her cubs. God is a father hearing the cries of his children’s misery. God is woke. God hears. God takes sides. God is conscious of oppression and injustice. God is woke. And if God is woke, if God is conscious of oppression and injustice, and is determined to end it, then you and I must be woke. To not be woke is to turn a blind eye toward the suffering of others. It is to give a stone to the child who cries for bread.
Let’s not ever say God doesn’t see, and God doesn’t care. God sees the birds of the air and feeds them. God sees the lilies of the field and drapes them in beauty. Let’s not ever say God doesn’t see, and God doesn’t care. God is woke. God is aware.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, someone hung two wreaths the colors of the Ukrainian flag on our meetinghouse doors. I don’t know who did it, but I liked the idea of it. It means we weren’t going to turn a blind eye toward the suffering of others, that our time in the meetinghouse was not an escape from the world’s wounds, but a symbol of our determination to heal them.
It turns out the birds of the air liked the idea of it too, because ever since those wreaths went up, the birds have been making their nests and rearing their babies in those wreaths. It’s kind of a doubly whammy of wokeness. We noticed Ukraine and God noticed the homeless birds and said, “Have I got a place for you! Reasonable rent. Good landlords.” So now we’re in the bird hospitality business. Our borders are wide open. God spoke to Moses through a burning bush at Mount Horeb, and now it turns out God is speaking to us through a wreath at Fairfield Friends. I never in a million years saw that coming. But God is a good father, and good fathers take notice of injustice and suffering and are determined to end it.
We had a visitor last week who told me we should have run off those birds when they first moved into our neighborhood. I told him that’s not who we are. Ukrainians, Hispanics, birds of the air, it’s their neighborhood too. And I tell you, if a Russian shows up, we’ll open our doors for him too. That’s what we do if we’re woke. We welcome the oppressed, and the oppressor, for we have all been both, and have needed in our lives to hear not only the comforting words of mercy, but the corrective words of justice. When someone tells us not to be woke, what they’re really telling us is to ignore the pain and suffering of others. They’re telling us to overlook it, that it’s none of our business, that it’s someone else’s problem, not ours, so pay no attention. That’s what they’re telling us. When they tell us that, let’s remind them that God is woke, that God heard the cries of his children and came down to deliver them.
Philip Gulley is the author of and the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.
Discover my books, stories, and more by visiting Books by Philip Gulley
Contact Philip directly at philiphgulley@gmail.com
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Great message the first time. Great message to repeat. It's like the signs that we see that say "just be kind". When did our society decide that being cruel was better than just being kind and compassionate? Thank you Phillip Gulley.
Beautiful and so perfect for our current state of affairs. Thank you!