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

Breach of Protocol for Holy Week

A difference of living in New York from any other experience in my life is the amount of interaction I have with people before my work day begins.  Up until now I’ve gotten in the car at home and gotten out again at the office.  It’s just been me and NPR, and oh yes, Annie.  In New York, though, I have contact with scores of people, actually hundreds if not thousands, between my front door and the fourth floor of the Church Center.  I like watching people and wondering about their lives.  This morning a boy was studying, seemingly for a test.  I wondered what in.  There was a woman wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.  I wondered what that was about.  I saw a woman running as best as she was able on worn legs from down the block to catch the M4 at Amsterdam.  The bus driver waited for her.  How kind, I thought.  The bus got to the end of the block at Broadway just as I did.  And she got off.  I wondered what was up with that.

 

There is etiquette to interactions on New York subways and streets, though.  It is generally not considered polite to notice others, or at least to get noticed noting others.  One rarely speaks to a stranger during the morning commute.  It is not that New Yorkers are unfriendly.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  It is just that New Yorkers are not morning people.
 

Today, Monday in Holy Week, was an exception for some reason.  I had something happen to me on the way to work this morning that has never before happened.  And this morning it happened twice.
 

As I came out of the gate from the Cathedral Close, a woman, nicely dressed and a little younger than I, looked right at me and said, “Good morning.”
 

“Good morning,” I replied, a little startled.  And then she sort of bowed, almost a curtsy.  It wasn’t a subservient sort of gesture, more obeisant, respectful, and maybe slightly deferential.  I was really startled then.
 

At 96th street I transferred from the local to the express.  I was late this morning so it was crowded.  I found enough space to stand, and when I did, I was face to face with a casually dressed man, again a little younger than I.  He was with someone, another man, apparently the two of them on the way to work.  When I looked up after finding a space, he looked at me and with a slight nod of the head, something less than a curtsey, said, “Good morning.”
 

I was so startled this time that I didn’t even think to respond in kind.  Part of me thought he must be speaking to someone standing behind me.  I thought it would be truly rude to look and see.  So I just assumed this was directed at me.  “Hi,” I replied.
 

His smile assured me that I had correctly interpreted that the greeting was meant for me.  I thought about this all the way to Times Square, particularly the inadequacy of my greeting in response.  I resolved to correct that when I left the train.  “Have a nice day,” I said when we came to a stop.
 

“You, too,” he responded.  What I probably should have said, and may well have been expected to say, was “God bless you.”  I thought about that from Times Square to Grand Central.  Maybe I’ll get it right next time.  I can hardly wait for the trip home.
 

Now, what I wonder is why this breach in protocol today.  What made this day like no other day?  I can only speculate.  It was so different that it must be something important.
 

Maybe it is because I’m a priest, but I am particularly aware that this week is Holy Week and that yesterday was Palm Sunday (and I was surprised by the number of New Yorkers I saw out and about yesterday carrying palms).  Could that be it?  Was this obeisance directed to me as a symbol of something much greater than I?
 

The real thing I pondered was how, to the extent people know the story of this week, even vestigially, it touches something very deep inside.  Could it be, I wondered, that even long forgotten memories from childhood (I thought of the grandmother I saw yesterday at church lovingly whispering explanations in the ear of her very young grandson, pointing out the organ, and handing him a palm frond) are stirred by reminders during this week.  Could it be, I wondered, that even the church, which does not command the social prestige it once did (I thought about seeing the exhibit of the Lewis chess pieces yesterday at the cloisters and the explanation of why the bishops flank the king and queen on the board), perhaps this week the church is identified with the passion of divine love for the world, and that inspires something.  Perhaps this week, more than others, we remember our rightful place as servants of the one who came not to be served but to serve and those he loved to the end, especially the poor, the oppressed, the needy.
 

I will never know the answer, of course, but I hope it might have to do with the church’s identity with the Passion, with suffering undertaken for the sake of love, with the fervent hope that love endures even death, indeed defeats death forever.
 

We lose our way in that, not infrequently.  Perhaps the other 51 weeks of the year, we lose our way.  This week, though, calls us to remember who we are, servants.  And, indeed, how inherently, indeed unavoidably, attractive it is to the world when we do.  It is a powerful message when we actually live it out.  Jesus said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (Jn. 12:32).  It is the passion for love, even the willingness to endure suffering on behalf of others, of which the cross is the symbol, that draws us and others.  This week we remember that.

Peace,

+Stacy