Easter 7

Want to slip into something comfortable? Something with a tight, draft-free fit? Then try this: Don a full weight, dry-milled leather jacket, a draft-free fit with 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 a new Harley Fat Boy!

Mount a Fat Boy and you immediately feel a difference. Ramp into first gear and you feel the shift mechanism glide into place. Ease out the clutch and feel the power. Perfect for freeways at speeds below 75.

Let’s review. You got your $20,000 Fat Boy with the Twin Cam 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 is in your face and the bugs are 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, at one time the company chose to distance itself from this anti-establishment image. But later, as Japanese imports flooded the market, Harley Davidson stumbled, close to bankruptcy. But, eventually, 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.

Harley Davidson capitalized on its “reputation of veiled menace” to establish a marketing niche, and its classically-styled, gleaming machines have become one of the most sought-after status symbols. Automotive writer Brock Yates, in his book Outlaw Machine (New York: Little Brown & Company, 1999), asserts that most Harley riders are drawn in by the mystique of the Hells Angels, Easy Rider, and black leather. They may be benign, suburban males, but they feel that owning the bike and dressing the part allow them to be daring, macho, “in your face” and intimidating – if only when they’re riding around the subdivision. Through the Hollywood imagery built up around motorcycles over the years, the hog-riding biker has become the rebel, the outlaw, the man who doesn’t have to answer to anyone. 

So 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 doctors – they feel unashamed and unabashed as they strap on their leathers and rumble off on their “Milwaukee monsters” to places like Sturgis, South Dakota.

Even Covid-19 could not stop the urge to merge. Despite warnings against large gatherings, last summer’s bike rally in the Black Hills drew 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 today’s Gospel from John, hopes his disciples will be willing to be of another world, to strap on the leathers of a counter-cultural spiritual life.

Herein lies the problem. 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 the Gospel. 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. And the guys are even worse! They can spot the yuppie phonies:

• Their leathers still have creases …

• 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 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.

Committed Christians have got to hang tough, and be Real Riders – not just the “wannabees” so disdained by die-hard hogsters. Jesus knows that this is not always easy, especially when he’s not physically present to guide us or when evil threatens to throw us off course. The challenge is always to remember who we are and whose we are: citizens of another world, a breed apart.

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. The Germans are obsessed with the Harley Davidson. Now, why is a country that has Bavarian Motorworks so obsessed with the Harley Davidson? BMW might produce the ultimate driving machine, but it still might 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 the bike and the rider.

Harley has the James Dean image, the American frontier heritage, the open ride. When Germans buy bikes, they don’t just buy the machine, they buy the subculture. They buy Marlon Brando hats and leather jackets.

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. We, too, are part of another world: the counter-cultural, convention-confounding kingdom of God.

Not to mention rowdier, and a whole lot more joyful.