Dying Under a Hard Sky (A Good Friday Reflection)

"I only got half my intestines." Renegade practically shouts while lifting his shirt revealing a snake-sized scar crawling up & over his gargantuan belly toward his chest. "Shot up in Nam. I was a machine gunner. When I eat I need to be close to a bathroom." He laughs loudly but suddenly stops & says, "That ain't funny." And then he smiles a wide toothless grin.

Renegade’s a big man with a big grey-white beard & a bigger belly tucked into a red flannel shirt. He has a big voice & in many ways he reminds me of the bear from the animated Jungle Book movie, Baloo, jolly & jovial most of the time but strong enough to protect himself from an onslaught of angry men.

Once in December while he was throwing a sign for money in downtown Monterey a little boy ran up to him and jumped in his lap. Without missing a beat Renegade told the earnest youngster, "Well son you know I'm off duty right now but I'll make an exception - but just this once. Now listen - if you do good in school & I'm tellin' you you gotta do your best. And you obey your ma & pop you'll get what's coming for Christmas - now tell me what it is you want." And the boy proceeded to tell Renegade all his Christmas wishes while a startled father relaxed at the incarnation of Santa right before his eyes.

For a few Sundays at our little 'inconsequential' homeless church on the beach Renegade hovers around sitting one picnic table away from where we read Scripture & pray for one another. He pretends not to listen. But I see him lean closer at times straining to hear what's being discussed while he sips a can of beer wrapped up in a brown paper bag. I think in some ways he believes he’s paying due respect by not 'attending' church while drinking.

"Me and God are straight. I ain't saying I'm perfect - I like my beer & I like to smoke my weed. He knows where I stand. And when I get up there,” he says pointing to the sky, “ain't no secrets gonna be between Him & me. Me & Him have a deal." Renegade repeats that refrain every time I see him. It seems to be a kind of testament to his honesty but one that betrays a hurricane of destruction churning & slashing the outer banks of his spirit.

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“I don’t know if you know this - but I was a deacon at a little Baptist church in Texas.” Renegade said this to me one Sunday as we were sitting down at our picnic table for our homeless church. “If it’s all right with you I’d like to say the opening prayer.” I said that it would be an honor & so he prayed a surprisingly eloquent opening prayer. He walked back to his usual picnic table, drank his beer, and listened in for the rest of the service. As we were finishing Renegade hauled himself up from his seat, made his way toward our table, and said, “And now I will pray the benediction.” He didn’t ask if he could - he declared it like a deacon would. “Lord, I know you know our needs & I know you look down upon us in love & grace. But whatever blessing may be coming my way today Lord I pray you bestow it not unto me but unto my friends gathered here today. Amen.” Afterward he wrapped me in his arms & whispered gruffly into my ear, "Thank you. Thank you." I noticed his eyes were wet.

Jesus died on Friday. He never flew a helicopter in Viet Nam as a machine gunner. He never drank himself into a stupor day after day. Jesus never lived on American streets looking for a warm handout nor did he ever marry & become a father to two girls. Jesus never killed fifty four Vietnamese as a U.S. soldier. Nor did he ever experience his wife & two girls being crushed & slaughtered by a drunk driver. Jesus never smoked weed to blanket his pain nor did he look into the dead eyes of innocent civilians he killed in war. And never did Jesus throw dirt on his own girls' coffins.

Jesus died on Friday. But all too often we limit his death to being a simple & straightforward & might I add a rather sanitized theological spiritual transaction of payment for sins. Yet if we lean in & listen closely enough we might hear the present human dimension of the scream from a Roman torture device, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?"

It is the horrifying refrain we hear in the screams of people from Japan to Haiti - from Sudan to Libya - from the meth-addicted teenage prostitute in Monterey to the eleven-year old child soldier waging violence & mayhem in the Congo. Why this betrayal from you the God of goodness & mercy? Why have you left me only desolation? Why give your children this heated wasteland of misery oh God?

But we mustn't suppress our screams of betrayal. If we do - we do so at our own expense. For within the hollows of our own devastation we discover that Jesus screams alongside us - we, the partakers of bitterness & obliteration, of cancer & foreclosure. We are not alone in betrayal. There is one who screams in solidarity.

But that solidarity gives itself over to neither destruction nor death. The still small voice of the One who seems to have failed us has actually & beautifully been with us all along. But this is a longer story that finds its full narrative thrust on Sunday.

Jesus died on Friday. Renegade died on Tuesday. He fell over on a bench in Monterey & left this world.

I miss Renegade. I miss his wide grin & his long rambling stories. I miss his veiled compassion for others. Renegade indeed screamed in his own way. And I trust that the Jesus who screams "Why?" meets the Renegade who also screamed "Why?"

In deepest loving memory of Steven "Renegade" Prickett.

 

Comments

[Krissie]

What a beautifully told, painful story, so full of hope. Thank you for this Good Friday blessing , Brian. Love.

[JIM BAJARI]

BRIAN, THIS IS DAD:

GREAT STORY ABOUT RENEGADE WITH SOME VERY DEEP THOUGHTS ABOUT WHO JESUS REALLY IS AND THAT HE HEARS US IN OUR TRIALS AND MAYBE "AGONY" IS A MORE DESCRIPTIVE WORD.

I AM PROUD OF YOU MY SON, IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED.

YOUR DAD

[Justin]

Powerful stuff man. Keep being that voice for the "last, lost, and least".

Justin

[Josh B]

Thanks for the post Brian.