Awake, Thou That Sleepest
“Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” Eph. 5:14.
On April 4, 1742, Charles Wesley preached a sermon titled “Awake, Thou That Sleepest.” It would be the only sermon not written by John Wesley included in John’s Sermons On Several Occasions, a collection that would be important to Wesleyan core beliefs. In it, Charles Wesley uses all the subtlety of a street-corner preacher with a megaphone, imploring sinners to wake up and turn to Christ.
Charles’ original audience would have been Anglican Church-goers at St. Mary’s, Oxford, not the sinful masses on the public street-corner. And so Charles warned the congregation to the possibility that even if they were by all appearances “religious,” yet they may still be asleep, and therefore dead in sin. Often, the openly sinful are aware that they are choosing a lifestyle contrary to God’s will, but Charles suggested that it gets more tricky when something fancies themselves a good person who has it all together. Both sorts of people, Charles believed, have been lulled to sleep, and it is harder to convince the person who has it all together that they have any need to wake up.
The crux of the message is the Wesleyan core belief that true happiness and wholeness comes when the Holy Spirit makes a home in our hearts. The love of God in Christ is unleashed into the world through people who have welcomed the Holy Spirit of God to dwell within them. All the good works in the world can’t earn us the love of God. Our life isn’t made more worthy of God’s love by our attempts to impress God or others. Charles insists that we can have assurance of God’s presence with us by placing our faith firmly in Christ Jesus, and trusting that the Holy Spirit is alive and at work in us.
I think the challenging part of Charles’ message is his belief that otherwise happy people might actually be “asleep,” and therefore dead in sin. Wesley describes it this way, “full of all disease, he thinks himself in perfect health.” The metaphor of disease to describe the sinful state is well documented in John Wesley’s writings. The idea is that God designed humanity in God’s image, as very good, but human will chose disobedience, leading to a sort of disease of the soul that affected our abilities to desire or do the things of God. Only the light of Christ can shine upon our disease to awaken us to a new life, where the Holy Spirit alive in our hearts causes us to desire and do the things of God. This becomes a lifelong process of growing in love for God and love for neighbor. For Wesley, this is where true happiness is found. If our soul’s purpose is to know and love God, then anything less than that is sleep.
Now, Charles’ sermon really leans hard on some language and theological concepts that I personally believe are no longer helpful in today’s world. He refers to those who are asleep as “abominations” to God. He really emphasizes the fear of Hell and eternal damnation as the impetus for choosing God. This strategy of preaching the Gospel has been fairly universal to the evangelical movement, and I think it is a teaching that greatly contributes to spiritual abuse and manipulation, with the direct result of there being a mass exodus from the church of people who are now deconstructing their belief and hoping for a better gospel. Trying to convince “good” people and “happy" people that they are in fact miserable abominations deserving of eternal torment seems antithetical to the very approach of Jesus. That’s not to say that Jesus never challenged the comfortable; in fact, he often had very strong words to say to those religious teachers who were so assured of their own salvation.
While I may not use all of the language or concepts that Charles Wesley employs in this important sermon, I really value its core message that God is beckoning us to wake up and come alive. As a person who values all humanity and appreciates the devotion of other religions, I still hold to the belief that knowing Christ personally can radically change even a happy life for the better. As a gay man, someone who half the church thinks can’t possibly be a Christian, let alone a pastor, I take comfort in the assurance of salvation I have through the very felt presence of the Holy Spirit in my life.
Y'all, God is saving gay and trans people all over the place, and God is not asking us to be straight. The witness of the Spirit is too strong in us to deny us. We are awake to God’s incredible love for us and we have a fierce love for God and neighbor. The church can be an incredible witness to help wake up the world. I hope it will be.