Why the Tears?

I always find tears to be a strange phenomenon. Like Jim Carey's Grinch, "I am all toasty inside; I am leaking." Or Jerry Seinfeld, "what is this salty discharge?"

              A personal favorite not always well received, "there is no crying in baseball."

              We have a lovely grandson who from time-to-time can caterwaul. Such a great word, caterwaul.  If there is something deemed unfair, an injustice, he lets loose.  To this his mother says, "if you are going to cry, cry in the other room."  Once when our grandson's caterwaul earned such banishment, I asked his mother, "can I give him something to drink?"  I didn't want to overstep.  She asked me a bit annoyed, why?  Well, I said, it is physiologically impossible to drink water and cry at the same time.

              Permission granted I filled a glass and told little Nickolai, hey, kid, drink this. He looked up, said, "why?" Well, I said, you're leaking.  You're leaking so we when need to fill you up.

              Why indeed. I was intrigued to discover the African tradition of keening.  Keening is a professional wailer, someone who cries on behalf of a family.  They walk at the head of a funeral procession and wail, cry.  It is as if they break the ice of grief, give permission, weep for those too lost to cry.

              I will never forget a wife, Terri, who lost her husband, Glenn.  Glenn was in his fifties, truck driver, father of three girls.  Terri was tough, she had to be to be married to Glenn.  Glenn was salt of the earth, wonderful man; she loved him to tears, but he was also a lot.  And he was a lot lose; her heart was broken. 

              When Glenn died, Terri would sit in the back of the church and weep. She worried her tears were an imposition, making people feel awkward.  Terri was also concerned her tears would not end.  To this I assured her, what better place to weep than a congregation who loves you, adored your husband.  To her tears, I made her a promise.  If you are still in constant tears after a year, we will talk, figure something out.  Until then don't worry about crying. Before the end of the year her tears were only from time to time.

              When I think of tears, crying, I always remember the chorus of Bob Dylan's "Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll."

William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane he twirled around his diamond ring finger
At a Baltimore hotel, society gath'rin'
cops were called in, his weapon took from him
they rode him in custody down to the station
booked William Zanzinger for first-degree murder

But you who philosophize, disgrace and criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face, now ain't the time for your tears

              Dylan moves you through this headline story.  A young wealthy tobacco farmer Zanzinger was 24.  But his 24 was drunk, angry, with a complete indifference to those beneath him.  Hattie Carroll worked in the kitchen, gave birth to ten children.  She was 51 when she died.  With each stanza filling in the tragic picture, Dylan ends with the chorus, "Take the rag away from your face, now ain't the time for your tears."

              But then you reach the final stanza, the verdict of the trial.  The judge speaks:

he spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished
handed out strongly for penalty and repentance
William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence

Oh, but you who philosophize, disgrace and criticize all fears
Bury the rag deep in your face for now's the time for your tears.

              Ecclesiastes says there is time to weep and there is a time to laugh.  I am always surprised by how interwoven they are.  In times of grief, you have tears one moment and laughter the next.  The weight of loss presses our heart and out comes sadness and joy.  The psalmist says, weeping may tarry through the night, but joy comes with the morning; the wrath of God is an instance, his mercy a lifetime. Tears and joy.

              The need to cry, the time to cry, the ability to not cry: all important to us.  We worry about tears.  Like Terri, we don't want to impose our grief.  How many times I have heard people refrain from giving a eulogy saying, "I couldn't do it without breaking down, crying." Rightly so.  We guard our emotions, feel embarrassed when we cannot control them, or when they control us. 

              Like Dylan's chorus "now ain't the time for your tears" we can believe tears are a kind of giving up or giving in, quitting.  We are accepting loss or accepting defeat.  Tears can be a sign of courage and a depth of feeling, but so often we worry our tears are a sign of weakness, failure.  We believe if we are crying, we are not strong.  Perhaps this is why we tell children not to cry, encouraging them to be brave, be strong, accept the setbacks of life with courage. Don't cry.

              And there is also the idea of something not being worth our tears.  "All your crying won't do no good."  There is a belief about someone being worthy of our sadness.  We would not think it odd for someone to say, "he does not deserve your tears." 

              What if our worries and our fears about tears and crying are warranted.  Hard things happen, but our life isn't hard.  We lose people we love, but we were so lucky to have loved them.  Weeping may tarry through the night, but joy comes with the morning.  Tears and crying are not bad, but they seem to have a measure, a timeliness, and a meaning.  We should be able to answer, "why the tears?"  And perhaps even the question, "why the tears now?"

              There are two instances of Jesus weeping.  The first was with Lazarus.  Jesus calls Lazarus from the tomb four days after he died.  John says, "Jesus wept."  Why he cried is a puzzle.  We don't know.  It really could be any number of reasons from sorrow to joy.  All we know are the tears.

              The other instance of Jesus crying is our reading today, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, saying, if only you knew what it meant to make peace, and, if only you could have seen God was with you.  Both sayings are clues to the tears.  Jesus wept over Jerusalem and it was a lament.

              There are two ways of reading this.  Sadness about the violence to come, pending destruction of the city, doom faced by Jerusalem in 70 CE, laid to waste by the Romans.  Or the lament could be for the squandering, the wasting of opportunity.  Both are plausible. The first is not a mystery.  Sadness.

              Squandering begs profound questions.  What if they had found what makes for peace?  What if they did come to realize how God was in their midst?  Would their life, day been different?  Jesus' lament seems to be an "if only."  If only you found what makes for peace, then the violence and destruction of Jerusalem would not have been.  Jesus is presenting a choice, chance, shot.  He claims peace was possible, dignity was something to grasp. Possibility.

              Jerusalem being destroyed in 70 CE is certainly worthy of tears.  Terrible act of violence.  Romans left no stone unturned.  If Jesus' tears were about this, then he could have spoken of how many times the walls were destroyed, the city ruined and then rebuilt.  As if to say, hard times come, but take heart, have courage, you will rise again.  But he doesn't.  He speaks as if the opportunity for a different life, peace and dignity were possibilities but squandered and lost.  He laments the loss of possibility. Things could have been different.

              On your bulletin cover is the window of a small shrine called Dominus Flavit.  The Lord wept.  It is about half-way down the hillside of the Mount of Olives.  Tradition holds this is where Jesus wept for Jerusalem.

              When you stand in the shrine of Dominus Flevit there is a weight pressing you down.  I have been there several times.  Each time a sense of sadness, a heaviness.  It is as if you are being pressed toward the window, almost carried to it.  Looking through the window you can see the ancient city, the wall, the temple mount, Dome of the Rock, churches in the distance. 

              Looking through the window there is a sense of history and tragedy.  But there is also a sense of possibility.  Not a guarantee or even an optimism, but a strange hope.  It is as if the lament of Jesus is being asked anew, not as a verdict, but as a hope.  Do you yet know how to make peace?  Can you recognize the time of God, the presence of God here and now?  Can you?

              Looking to the tragedy unfolding daily in Gaza and the rise of violence in the West Bank, it is hard to speak of peace or even imagine a resolution to the crisis.  1.9 million people are displaced in Gaza, their homes destroyed, lives shattered.  If you look through the window of Dominus Flevit and hear the question, do you know what it means to make peace, the first answer must be honest, we don't know how to make peace here.  It is hard to find God in a place like Gaza except with those who weep.

              If we were to use the chorus of Dylan asking, when is the time for our tears, it would be easy to say, now.  What more must transpire before we lament?  So much devastation, Gaza is worthy of tears.  What I want to ask now though, I ask with as much humility as I can muster, what I want to ask is this: can we yet hope for them?  Can we offer more than our tears, a resignation, powerlessness?  A great tragedy, a great loss worthy of lament.  Without question.  But when Jesus wept over Jerusalem, it was for the end of possibility, the chance now lost.  Is this true here?  Beyond hope?  No possibility for peace?

              The tears of Jesus for Jerusalem, his lament, could be the sadness we feel when life ends.  No question.  Yet, what if we look through the window again and ask, do we know what it means to make peace; can we recognize God in our midst here, now?  Can we?

              Making peace in Israel/Palestine may be well beyond us, well beyond our reach.  It is beyond us without question if we do not know how to make peace here, with each other; if we fail to find God here with each other.  If we cannot learn peace here, such is a time for tears. 

              We can make peace; we can see God in each other.  This we can do.  Amen.