Jamin Bradley

The word “woke” started making its way into Black vocabulary around the 1940s as a way of recognizing that the world had been sleeping through the oppression and discrimination done to them, and it was now time to wake up and address it. In very recent times, the definition of this word has been broadened to include the suffering of other people groups and turned into a bit of a curse word used by Conservatives.

This dynamic has baffled me. With America’s roots in the horrors of things like slavery and segregation, I would think we would all be quite aware at this point that we can sleep right through oppression if we don’t intentionally try to wake ourselves up and recognize it. But it seems the thought of every new generation is that we solved all societal problems in the last social justice movement, and that we could never be capable of what our predecessors did. (The cycle found in the Book of Judges would like a word with us.)

To wake up to the pain and suffering of people in this world, we have to put down our defenses and listen to what others around us are saying. We must often hear their pain before we can see it with our own eyes. And if we’re really convicted by what we hear and see, the Holy Spirit will often begin to do a convicting work in us, showing us how we have also caused this pain to others. I think of an older woman who came to church after George Floyd was killed to watch our documentary specials on the church’s involvement with racism in American history. She seemed nearly on the verge of tears, saying things like, “I didn’t know this was happening.”

If being “woke” is about waking up to the ways people, powers, and societies oppress the marginalized, then no one is more woke than our omniscient God, who sees all injustice, knows all injustice, and sends his prophets to address the injustice. This is a holy quality we need to admire, not shun. Unfortunately, this term has become a political catch-all that might now be defined as “ideologies I don’t like.” This makes it difficult to invite people to wake up to suffering, as the very idea is demeaned before it’s even explained.

Jesus dealt with a similar dynamic in his time. Like many other prophets in the Bible, he was killed for his messages. He was well aware that while many came to hear what he had to say, a fair number were not woke to his message. He’d share his message anyway and follow it up with a spiritual invitation: “Those who have ears, let them hear.” The message was now out there, and Spirit would have to wake some up to his words while the rest would remain asleep.

The call to “get woke” is not a call to embody everything political wokeness has now become. But it is the same general message the prophets have always brought to us: there is pain and suffering in this world, and it’s now time to wake up to it and address it.

I explore this theme further in the latest podcast episode. Listen here: