"Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes ..." Perhaps this sermon need not be preached. The necessity of wakefulness may already be widely recognized as we gather for worship. We arrive tired, we endure preaching that is often supernaturally dull, and the atmosphere of quietness soon dispatches even the most faithful. This is not a modern problem. Our Puritan ancestors gave a high importance to staying awake. During their long services the ushers roamed the congregation with a long pole in hand. Male nodders got a whack from the metal knob on one end of the pole, and drowsing women were teased awake by the feather on the other end of the pole.

But there is more to such a sermon than the need to stay awake in worship. The real problem is that we tend to give wa…