I’ve recently been reacquainting myself with music from the ‘00s, and when I got to 2004 I was struck by the song “Rebellion (Lies)” by Arcade Fire. It’s told from the perspective of a child refusing to go to sleep; the refrain goes “Every time you close your eyes / Lies Lies Lies.” It’s interesting how kids innately react so negatively to missing out on what’s happening by falling asleep, yet so many adults go through life sleepwalking, wilfully unaware of what’s actually going on around them. (This is the great irony of the whole anti-’woke’ movement; it’s ridiculing people for their awareness. (This is to say nothing of its overly racist origins.))
It’s hard not to think about these things as we approach the end of the Church year. For in these final weeks before Advent, the Sunday readings become apocalyptic in theme. This isn’t done to frighten us — indeed Apocalyptic as a genre is about hope and trust — but to shake us out of our complacency. The message is simply: WAKE UP! Open your eyes! (“Every time you close your eyes / Lies Lies Lies.”)
This message comes through in today’s epistle reading:
Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11)
It’s fascinating that the refrain Paul uses to describe those who are happy to be asleep is “peace and security,” that message that is always used to uphold status quo. Peace is of course not a bad thing — it’s a value right at the heart of our faith. But, when it’s tied to security, it can be twisted into something it’s not: simply an absence of violence, obtained for the comfortable, by closing ranks and excluding those on the margins. The comfortable are always discomforted by the saying “No justice, no peace.” They see it as a threat, when really it is simply a truth. Without genuine justice in the world, there will be no peace, and any ‘peaceful’ situation simply a mirage to trap folk in their sleepwalking complacency.
But Paul’s message is clear: It’s past time to wake up. We as Christians, of all people, are meant to be awake, alert and sensitive to the world around us. After all, we follow a Lord who was born under a cloud of whispers, who spent his ministry under suspicion of the religious powers-that-be, and was killed by a collusion of religion and politics. We know what shenanigans the world performs under the guise of “peace and security.”
So, as we prepare to begin Advent in just a couple short weeks, our calling is clear: Wake up.
