It’s Time to Get Up

Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24:36-44; Romans 13:11-14Growing up on the farm I can remember my dad waking me up on the weekend tohelp him feed the cattle. At first I would hear a soothing rhythm and tone to his voice.

Ohh Daaavid . . . time to get uuugghppp

. His voice did wake me up but it did little to stir me out of bed and start my day. Having dozed off again my dad would return and statesimply and straightforward,

Okay, its time to get going

. Returning to consciousness Imay have responded to my dad telling him I would be right there but before I knew I wastucked back under my covers and fast asleep. Then finally my dad would come one lasttime and with his voice lowered and stern he would rattle off some German phrase that Iinterpreted as

if you don’t get up now you will be sleeping with the cattle tonight

. Now Iknow some of us need more sleep than others but I don’t think anyone likes to be wokenup before they are ready.The pattern is not much different with God in the Old Testament. In the Gardenof Eden God walked with Adam and Eve and spoke in what must have been a gentle andfriendly manner telling them to stay awake and alert so that they did not do what washarmful to themselves. Then after humanity began to drift off a little God sent judges toguide the people and try to help lead them in a clear and straightforward manner. Thenwhen our snoring became too much for God the prophets finally came and warned that if they did not wake up to what was going on then they would be kicked out of the land.We don’t like to be told when to get up.Sleep can be one of our greatest comforts and joys. But the thing aboutsleep is that it is a solitary experience. In as much as sleep is a great joy to ourselves it isoften a great insult in the company of others. You can hardly blame people for falling

2asleep in certain circumstances. There is some grace for the times when our heads beginto bob in the pew or the classroom or at a desk. The reason why sleep can be such aninsulting expression in some situations is because it is almost the same as if you walkedout of the room in middle of someone’s sentence. There tends to be a little lessunderstanding when you nod off as a loved one pours out their heart to you.In addition to not hearing or understanding what is going on around us when wesleep we also can’t do anything about it. We are cocooned. We are an island set apartfrom the world. In the Psalms it says that God who watches over Israel “will neither slumber nor sleep.” Sleep is the greatest sin of the security guard. We are useless tochange things when we are asleep. When asleep we become passively complicit to whatis going on around us. We are carried along by the river of the age.And so when Paul tells the Romans to wake up he is reminding us that we mayfeel like we are alive and engaged in our world when in reality we have been lulled off tosleep and remain passive and accepting of what Paul calls the desires of the flesh. Theimage is not foreign to us. We are hearing scientists telling us to wake up to the reality of environmental damage. Non-profit organizations are telling us to wake up to the realityof poverty and injustice. We are being told to wake up from advertisings lure of bigger, better, faster. The classic image of this in the twenty-first century is the story told in TheMatrix trilogy of movies. These are science fiction movies in which robots take over theworld and enslave human beings and use them as their energy source. To keep thehumans passive, so that they do not rebel, the robots create a computer program in whichhumans experience life in a simulated world that looks and feels like normal life. Day today life was in fact a dream. Humans were born into a dream and had to realize theyneeded to wake up. It was only the few who struggled to find something more in life that

3were given the chance to wake up. What they woke up to was not what often how we picture truth. Reality was the storm that raged outside their safe illusion. And as is our tendency on a stormy day most people were content to stay inside their warm beds. Butfor truth can gain any traction reality and life eventually need to be engaged in the stormthat is going on outside.Despite these messages coming to us from the news and even in the movies thethought that a whole culture or society is essential asleep remains disturbing and isusually quickly dismissed. But what if the warm comfortable spot in our bed is just anillusion? There is a scene in Oliver Stone’s movie about the assassination of John F.Kennedy where a lawyer played by Kevin Costner begins to uncover what he sees as proof of a government backed plot to kill the president. Costner is up late investigatingthe evidence when his wife tells him to get some sleep. Costner replies by saying, “I’ve been asleep my whole life.” What he thought was real about the world around him wasquickly dissolving. And so the question is how can we shed our naiveté, or wake up fromillusions around us, without buying into every conspiracy theory and fear-based message?I am sure most of you have had experiences where you learned something about yourself,someone close to you or something about the world that made you question what you believe and that perhaps even made you feel a little disorientated. And once we haverealized something real and true how do we keep from simply being lulled back intosleep?Our society carries a great untapped resource in learning how to emerge from astate of slumber and gain clarity about the world around us. For those who have personally experienced or walked along side someone who has a serious mental illnessthe analogy of living in a dream-like state can ring true. In many expressions of