Presbyterian Life & Witness Staff Hold Chapel Service on Keeping Awake

Presbyterian Life & Witness’ Interpretation and Communications staff held a Chapel Service on Wednesday for their colleagues, on the theme “Keep Awake.” The readings were Zephaniah 1:7 and 12-18 and 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11. The Rev. Lee Catoe, who edits Unbound and co-hosts the weekly “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast,” preached during the half-hour online service.

Catoe began with a personal story about sleep. He said that sleep “has always been a frenemy of mine.” When he was 5, his grandmother died in her sleep, “and it caused me to be fearful of naps.” He recalled running around a daycare van to avoid the naptime that awaited him, because “I didn’t want what happened to my grandmother to happen to me.” The problems eased as he grew older but returned in college, when his dreams became so realistic that they continue today. “I often wake up feeling the emotions in my dreams,” he said, and he sometimes has to ask himself whether the events in his mind actually happened.

Catoe noted that the Bible often describes God or God’s messenger coming to people in dreams. He called Zephaniah “a fiery prophet” who urged the people to stay awake “when it’s so easy to fall asleep.” He also addressed the word “wokeness,” which he described as “a term that classifies people as being aware of systems of injustice and possibly doing something about it. It depends on the person, I guess.” He said that followers of Jesus have often had difficulty staying awake.

Catoe said he would not be “hell-firing or brim-stoning” in the sermon. Instead, he asked his colleagues what it means to stay awake and sober when policy and process disorient them, and when members see the church as silent more often than vocal during what he called “the most turbulent time of my generation.” He pointed to young people who, he said, are asking the church to awaken as they face afflictions including the housing crisis, low pay and addiction. He also listed concerns including immigrants afraid to leave their homes, care for the Earth being disregarded, transgender people being demonized, unhoused people being beaten, social safety nets being eroded, and veterans being denied care. “Keep awake. Stay awake,” he said. Catoe urged the church to “be honest,” to “nudge and … shake,” and to “blow the trumpet to get the church to get up and stretch and show up.” He said that “the alarm clock has been going off, and tapping the snooze button of complicity and comfort has done more damage than we will ever imagine.” (Ephesians 4:15 names the call to speak the truth in love, which is the honesty Catoe asked of the church’s public voice.)

Catoe said the church can build something new by “de-centering the talk and entering the actual doing, the walk,” and by “building something new no matter the cost, because silver or gold will not be able to save us.” “Y’all, we can do this,” he said, adding that Christians “can awaken as Christ awoke” by recognizing “what we actually believe, and that is resurrection, new life and boldness.” He told his colleagues that they have “the talent, the expertise, the gumption, the call and the ability to be awake and stay that way.”

He said that the country and world “long to hear the good news, to see a church that does not sway in its message of justice, all the while keeping hope and living in joy.” He added that such a church “has to be cultivated” in the place where the staff works, because “hope, justice and joy do not radiate out of nothing.” When people grow weary, he said, they should “find that rest, knowing we have to get back up again and knowing that progress doesn’t come easy.”

Catoe concluded that staying awake includes “seeing each other and listening to each other and trusting each other,” and “dreaming together — not behind closed doors, but together, dreaming of a kingdom here on this Earth and in this reality, and in this current moment.”

Source: Read the original report