This last week

the Southern Baptist Convention

voted to not allow women to be preachers

in their 40,000+ churches nationwide.

This angers me...

to say that women are

somehow less than men in the eyes of God.

To suggest that women

are not capable or worthy

to be vessels of grace.

Jesus comments on this, you know.

Luke 15 is made up of three stories

all told by Jesus

to exemplify the kingdom of God.

The stories are 100:1, 10:1 and 1:1

The first story

is the story of the lost sheep. (Luke 15:4-7)

100 to 1.

In this story,

who is God?

The shepherd.

The third story

is the story of the lost son...

the prodigal son. (Luke 15:11-32)

1 to 1.

Who is God

in this story?

The father.

The middle story,

the 10 to 1 story,

is the story of the lost coin. (Luke 15:8-10)

10 to 1.

And in this story,

who is God?

The woman.

Jesus told these stories

to show his followers the kingdom of God.

I have a hard time with the religious right...

because their historical contribution is that

they have been consistently wrong.

• On the issue of

  slavery

  they were wrong.

• On the issue of

  segregation

  they were wrong.

• On the issue of

  women in the workplace

  they were wrong.

• On the issue of

  women in the church

  they are wrong.

I guess we can count on them

to show us wrong every time.

Spotted on a T-shirt worn by a motorcyclist:

"If You Can Read This,

My Wife Fell Off "

Want to slip into something comfortable?

Something with a tight,

draft-free fit?

Something zippered and kinky?

If you're thinking Tyra Banks and Victoria's Secret,

you are so wrong.

Try this:

Slip on a full weight,

dry-milled leather jacket,

a draft-free fit

and zippered storage compartments.

Slap on your leather chaps

with the

brass-finished zippers,

snap-down cuffs

and belted waist.

Strap on your Shorty "Ultralight" helmet,

pull on your leather gauntlets

and go for a ride

on the new Harley 2000 Fat Boy!

Mount a Fat Boy

and you immediately feel a difference.

No more low-speed vibration

that you get from Evo-powered Softails when idling.

Ramp into first gear

and you feel the shift mechanism glide into place.

Ease out the clutch

and power on the throttle

and not only is the vibration gone

but there is something new ...

power.

Perfect for freeways

at speeds below 75,

although a rubber-mount is still better

for high-speed, long-distance cruising.

Let's review.

• You got your 2000 Fat Boy

  with the Twin Cam 88B motor

  vibrating between your legs.

• You got your biker babe behind you

  with her arms cinched around your waist.

• You got a hundred miles of open highway

  ahead of you.

• The wind in your face

  and bugs in your teeth.

Hog heaven.

Harley Davidson hasn't always had this kind of success or appeal.

Although Harleys

were the cycle of choice

for rebels and outlaw bikers,

the company chose to distance itself

from this antiestablishment image.

But later,

as Japanese imports flooded the market,

Harley Davidson stumbled,

close to bankruptcy.

It was well into the 1980s

before the company leadership embraced

the hard-core biker group

that was showing incredibly faithful brand loyalty.

To ward off the invasion

of the Japanese crotch rockets,

Harley made a final, desperate bid

for survival

by focusing on its legendary connection with

rebelliousness,
sheer vitality, and
off-the-wall lust for the elemental life.

The strategy worked.

Harley saved itself by embracing its outlaw image.

Hog riders and cycle lovers

want to see themselves

as being part of another world,

and no matter the role they play 9-to-5 -

as lawyers, accountants or business leaders -

they feel unashamed and unabashed

as they strap on their leathers

and rumble off on their "Milwaukee monsters"

to Sturgis, South Dakota.

Last year's bike rally

in the Black Hills,

called "Sturgis 1999,"

drew a pretty good crowd,

but not a great one.

The total count was only about

a quarter of a million people.

Bottom line?

At the soul of the Harley

is a rumble and a roar,

an outlaw attitude

that is positively otherworldly.

To be a true renegade rider,

you've got to put your hope of hog heaven

above everything else.

There's a message for us here,

whether we're bike buffs or not.

Jesus,

in his great prayer in John 17,

hopes his disciples will be willing

to be of another world,

to strap on the leathers

of a countercultural spiritual life.

Although we are called to a radical Christianity,

too many of us are practicing

a pastel Churchianity

that has lost sight of its original vision.

We've become a gaggle of weekend riders

rather than the gang of road warriors

Jesus refers to in the prayer of our text.

Our primary identity is an outlaw identity -

outside the law, that is,

and inside God's grace.

True riders have little time

for the new breed of bikers out there.

What's with these growing cotillions

of polished and well-paid professionals

who have discovered that

while they were bred to be businesspeople,

they were born to be wild?

While they make a living

writing legal briefs,

they really live

to ride "scoots."

They clatter away on computers

in their corporate cubicles,

and think they're outlaws on weekends,

riding the roads with cup holders

for their double-decaf cappuccinos!

The purists know that

these bogus bikers are not for real;

they're yuppie wannabees.

True believers are usually -

but not always -

riding under the influence of testosterone.

They've got hairy armpits,

braided ponytails

and bad breath.

The guys are even worse.

They can spot the yuppie phonies:

• Their leathers still have creases ...
• Their tattoos wash off ...
• They buy bikes as investments ...
• Their Harley shirts have collars ...
• They don't ride in the rain ...
• They think that some motorcycles are too loud ...
• They need a biker lingo book ...
• They stop 30 miles from Sturgis

  to unload their bikes

  so they can ride in ...

• They're scared by real bikers ...
• They complain about

  the "smell and fumes" ...

• Their saddlebags have a special pocket

  for their cell phones ...

The church is in big trouble

unless it returns to its radical roots.

On our way to hog heaven,

we've got to strap on the leathers:

jackets, chaps, gloves and other protective pieces -

a rebel getup that the apostle Paul describes elsewhere as

"the whole armor of God":

• A belt of truth around the waist,


• a breastplate of righteousness,
• a shield of faith, and
• a helmet of salvation (Ephesians 6:10-17).

The early history of the church

is nothing if not

a gallery of outlaw Christians ready to rumble:

Paul, Peter, James and John,

Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin, Cyprian,

Tertullian, Anthony, Athanasius and Augustine.

These are not cappuccino Christians.

Fortunately, their breed still exists.

The church has

Chuck Colsons

who work in our prisons;

Mark Yaconelli

who, with a Lilly Foundation grant,

is introducing teens to the Lectio Divina and the Ignatian Awareness Examen

at Sleepy Hollow Presbyterian Church in San Anselmo, California;

Bart Campolo,

an evangelist with a buzz cut and combat boots

working with the homeless and fatherless

in the crack-sophisticated ghettos of Philadelphia;

John Dilulio,

a Princeton professor

who has created a new project

to help teens escape the cycle

of poverty, crime and drug abuse;

Eugene Rivers

and his Azusa Christian Community

in the inner city of Boston.

One man in our church involved with

Big Brothers

Time tutoring at TMM's children's village

Prison visitation

Writing letters to prisoners

Setting up camp and fellowship time

And for those of you who are parents...

that child is your ministry.

Committed Christians

have got to hang tough,

and be Real Riders -

not just the "wannabees"

so disdained by die-hard hogsters.

this is not always easy,

especially when he is not physically present to guide us

or when evil threatens to throw us off course.

who we are and whose we are:

citizens of another world, a breed apart.

In the end,

it's a trip to be an outlaw:

to live outside the law of human expectations,

and inside the grace of God.

Harley Davidson got it right

when it discovered that

hog riders

are tapped into another reality,

one that fills them with joy

as they slip on their jackets and rumble off to Sturgis.

the countercultural, convention-confounding kingdom of God.

Not to mention rowdier,

and a whole lot more joyful.

The Germans are obsessed with the Harley Davidson.

Now, why is a country that has Bavarian Motorworks

so obsessed with the Harley Davidson?

BMW produces a perfect machine,

with heated handlebars, ABS brakes,

but it can be a perfect machine

and still have no soul.

The Japanese bike is a perfect machine

yet it sounds like a sewing machine.

It does everything wonderfully well,

yet misses the point because

it doesn't have a connection

between a bike and the rider.

The Harley Davidson rider

who works with his bike

is able to put more of himself

into the bike.

It becomes an extension of his soul,

whereas the other bikes are simply a means of transportation.

What you work on

with your time and energy and mind and hands,

what you put yourself in,

becomes an extension of the soul.

Jesus said it this way,

"Wherever your treasure is,

there your soul will be also."

After the Second World War,

the townspeople of one devastated city in England

were concerned about the restoration of a large statue of Jesus

that had been symbolic of Christ's help and guidance for many generations.

It had stood in the city square

with hands outstretched in an attitude of invitation.

The words carved on the pedestal read:

"Come to me."

Master artists and sculptors

worked for months

reassembling the figure.

But not enough fragments from the hands

could be found in the rubble to mend them.

Finally someone suggested,

"The sculptors can make new hands."

The townspeople rejected the proposal.

"Leave him without hands!"

they decided.

Today the restored statue of Christ

stands in the square without hands.

The words carved on the new pedestal read:

"Christ has no hands but ours."