John 19: 25-27
‘Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.’
In Montauk, New York there is a collection of sculptures by German artist Suse Lowenstein. The sculptures represent mothers, sisters, spouses, and relatives of the 259 people who died on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988. The terrorist bomb exploded mid-air on that aircraft killing all on-board. This group of sculptures entitled ‘Dark Elegy,’ captures the moment when a loved one got the news of the tragedy. Most of the women depicted with these remarkable figures are slumped over or on their knees. Many have an open-mouthed wail, a dramatic depiction of the deep grief. These pieces depict women whose bodies, whose faces show the clear message of how precious life is, how terrible it is to lose a loved one and the horror of terrorism.
How was it for Jesus’ mother that day at the foot of the cross as she saw her son crucified and dying a painful death? Can you imagine her on her knees, wailing, shrieking because of the Roman terrorism? Professor Donyelle McCray of Yale Divinity School has written that the ‘familiar scene of Good Friday centers on Christ and the two thieves, but Mary’s screams are what were heard. Her wailing announces the divinity of Jesus and denounces the forces of evil in the world.’
In John’s Gospel, that visceral grief is not mentioned. John only says that Mary was at the foot of the cross with Mary Magdalene & Mary of Cleopas. We can possibly only imagine how it was for her in those moments. My phlegmatic Norwegian forbearers would agree with the writings of Ambrose, the widely revered Bishop of Milan in the 4th Century, who believed Mary ‘stoically awaited the salvation of the world through the death of her son.’ And another early church commentator, Origen, believed Mary may have had doubt, but she certainly didn’t scream or wail. But it’s interesting that in the Eastern church, there is a highly revered icon of the inconsolable figure of Mary who gazes at the wounds, the nails, the spittle, who hears the insults, the jeers, and is depicted as moaning and wailing.
Wailing involves tears, sighs, and screams declaring that all is not well. Mary’s wail announces death. And that wail reflects the grief of all of us who mourn. And if we are not mourning on this day we are truly not paying attention. If we are not weeping this day our hearts are hard as stone. (I should have referenced the poem in the bulletin by Christina Rossetti …. ‘Am I a stone, and not a sheep, that I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross, to number drop by drop thy bloods slow loss and yet not weep?) If we are not weeping for the families in Gaze devastated by unending violence, if we are not weeping for the starving masses in Sudan decimated by years of civil war, if we are not weeping for Abrego Garcia unjustly arrested by our government and sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, if we are not weeping for federal employees who have been labeled lazy & inefficient without any justification, if we are not weeping for the farm laborers, packing plant employees, and thousands of other workers who do the dirty, difficult jobs none of us can even imagine doing who are living constantly in fear of being ejected from our country….if we are not shedding tears this day we are living in a fantasy world, turned inward, and separated from reality.
Sometimes weeping is seen as turning us inward on ourselves but on this Good Friday let us be open to another consequence of weeping: weeping turns us toward the community, not away from it, and our turning toward the community weeping, wailing, yes, even screaming communicates that not all is well and that we truly need each other, that we are empowered by each other. A Marge Piercy poem depicts that empowerment so well:
The Low Road
What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them.
How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.
But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.
Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean,
and each day you mean one more.
We weep together uniting us to join together to live the Christ-values, the Benedictine values of hospitality, prayer, care for the earth, & justice. We define how we live out our Christ-values by framing and affirming the remarkable ‘Here We Stand’ declaration. Our individual and community actions flow out of these Christ-tenants, and out of that incredible way of being in the world.
Weeping, wailing, shrieking for God’s world following the example of Mary, is powerfully uniting. It rids us of pretense and shallowness. Our tears, like Mary’s, like the sobbing mothers of Gaza, like the crying children in Sudan, like the stunned family of Abrego, denounce the forces of evil in the world. Our Christian piety goes off the tracks. The script is not followed. All hell breaks loose. The community is reshaped, the country is reshaped, and the world is reshaped into an even more Christ-like form.
Amen.