Yanking Us Bald Headed into Life

There is a Southern expression I grew up with.  It has to do with being in really big trouble.  I don’t really know where it comes from.  It is something every Southern boy and girl has been told by their mammas as a solemn warning.  It is to yank bald headed, as in, “If you do such and such, I’m gonna yank you bald headed.”  I never saw anyone actually yanked bald headed, but neither did I ever see anyone do anything that would result in them getting yanked bald headed.  It must work.

Eastern Orthodox icons of the resurrection do not show risen Jesus alone.  Instead, they show Jesus reaching down to grasp Adam and Eve and pull them also from their tombs.  Jesus is yanking them bald headed.  Adam and Eve look none too pleased.  As the icons depict the event, it is as if Jesus must remove them forcibly, yank them bald headed, to get them to come out of the tomb.  If that’s what it takes, so be it.  God is not satisfied with leaving them undisturbed in the slumber of death.  They will live without regard to their choice.  They will live because God wills it whether they want to or not.  So it is with us.

It appears on the surface that the choice to live would be so self-evident as not to merit discussion.  Beneath the surface, we tend over and over to choose otherwise. 

Today Episcopalians from across the country, including 22 bishops, are walking the Stations of the Cross at the beginning of Holy Week to pray for sensible gun control.  The National Rifle Association calls such efforts un-American and proposes putting armed guards in all our schools.  Life proves to be harder to choose than it at first appears.  Somebody needs to yank us bald headed.

The wells supplying water to an entire community in Navajoland are poisoned as a result of mining activity nearby.  Life proves to be harder to choose than it at first appears.  Somebody needs to yank us bald headed.

Iran and North Korea threaten nuclear attacks.  Missiles are launched from Gaza into Israel.  Bombers are launched from Israel into Gaza.  Children are kidnapped to fight wars in Africa.  Children are imprisoned in the United States at an alarming rate.  Life proves to be harder to choose than it first appears.  Somebody needs to yank us bald headed. 

In truth, we human beings have an alarming propensity to choose death when left to our own devices.  We observe it up close in this Holy Week we are entering.  By the time Friday comes, we are all shouting, “Crucify him.” 

And still God will not have it, at least ultimately.  God lets us have what we want in the short term.  We have made an idol of gun-owning in America, and God will let us have our way for now and first graders are gunned down with automatic weapons.  Our greed poisons the very water God gives to sustain our life, and God will let us have our way for now.  War.  Death.  Prisons.  Drugs.  God will let us have our way for now.  And we even cry out to send even God to the cross.  God will let us have our way for now. 

Ultimately, though, God will not.  As the icons reveal, God is going to yank us bald headed if God has to in order to get us out of the tomb.  When the free will we have been given has run its course, when we have reaped the fruit of what we have sown, when at last the ability to set anything right is beyond our grasp, when we are confined to the graves we have dug for ourselves, God is not finished.  God’s choice for us is always life.

And we can rest assured that God is going to yank us bald headed if necessary so that we will have it.

So, this Easter, may God yank you bald headed into life, whether you want it or not. Happy Easter.

Peace,
+Stacy

Passion and Magic

The spiritual theme of Holy Week, which we are about to enter, begins and ends on distinctly different notes.  Actually, they are exactly the same notes, just in reverse order.  And the order is important.

Holy Week begins next Sunday, on what we often call “Palm Sunday.”  Strictly speaking, it isn’t Palm Sunday at all.  It is the “Sunday of the Passion.”  It happens to begin with the Liturgy of the Palms, which recalls the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  But the major theme of the day is the Passion Gospel in which we hear the story of the suffering and death of Christ, this year from the Gospel According to Luke. 

What I want to point out, though, is the order of those stories.  First comes the triumphal entry, then the suffering.  Triumph first.  Suffering second.

The end of the week is exactly the opposite.  We will hear the story of the passion again, this time from the Gospel of John, on Good Friday.  Then on Easter Day, of course, the story of the resurrection will be read. 

Note the order.  Suffering first.  Triumph second.  The order is as important as the stories themselves.

From the point of Palm Sunday in the story, things go terribly wrong.  The crowds began by spreading their cloaks along the road, waving branches from the trees, and shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest heaven!”  It is only five days later that the very same crowds are shouting, “Let him be crucified!”  The low on which the day ends is made all the lower by the high on which it begins.

The end of the week is just the opposite.  From the point of Good Friday, when all would seem to be lost, the story takes a remarkable turn and the completely unexpected happens.  Jesus is raised from the dead.  An angel announces the good news to the women who had gone to the tomb.  “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.”  The high on which the story ends is made all the higher by the low that immediately precedes it.

The rhythm is a very important part of the message.  The spiritually sound one is the latter.  Begin with suffering, end with triumph.  The one we have a tendency to prefer is the former.  Begin with triumph, avoid the suffering, or if you can’t, then ignore it. Suffering for love must come first.  Passion, the root meaning of which is suffering, is required for there to be true spirituality.  Everything else is magical thinking.

Magical thinking infects our life in lots of ways.  When we think “things will work out” without being willing to invest some passion, we fall victim to the magical.  When we are more concerned with triumphant outcomes than with passionate pursuit of outcomes, that’s magical thinking.  When we think that winning is more important than passionate integrity, that’s magical thinking.  When we think we’re better than others for one reason or another or deserve something others don’t for one reason or another or are entitled more than others for one reason or another, and when those things are more important to us than passionately loving others, that’s magical thinking.   

There’s nothing about the Gospel that is magical.  Palm Sunday may have felt like magic to the disciples.  Jesus knew better.  He was no sooner in Jerusalem after the magical, triumphal entry than he was in the temple bringing the magic crashing down by overturning the tables of the money changers.  That led directly to a conflict with the scribes and chief priests.  And things just went downhill from there.  Magic fades quickly. 

On the other hand, there is a lot about the Gospel that is passionate.  The crucifixion leads directly to the resurrection.  It is passion, suffering for love, that opens up what God can do in the world.  And, as Jesus teaches, it is certainly how we share in it.  Passion, which is spiritually true, protects us from magic, which is not.

Peace,
+Stacy