June 12-13, 2010
3rd Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 7:36-8:3
Salem Lutheran Church
Sycamore, Illinois
I found myself crying at my sister's wedding last week-end.
I didn't mean to. I didn't expect to. But there I was standing next to the other pastor who was officiating that day. He was reading a lesson from Romans about hating evil and loving good and about outdoing one another in showing honor and extending hospitality to strangers and I could feel the tears forming behind my eyes.
I tried not to, believe me, I did. For I was preaching in just a moment and this was as happy a day as my family had seen in some time. But there was, it seemed, no fighting those tears as the other pastor continued next to read from Matthew about asking and it will be given you, seeking and you will find, knocking and the door would be opened to you.
I cleared my throat as I came to the greeting before my sermon. I looked at the crowd gathered in the chapel at Carthage College and was quickly able to pick out old friends and a smattering of cousins and aunts and an uncle and my sisters and their families. My mom was right down front in her beautiful powder blue dress chosen just for this day. She had moments before been walked down the aisle by a couple of beaming grandsons. On the other side, the groom's father, pushing his walker, had been guided down the aisle by his grandson.
I cleared my throat and finally had the courage to look at Sarah and Bill. And I as I suspected would be so, this helped not at all, for their faces were open and glad and tender all at the same time. To say they had both been through terrible times before they came to this day would be an understatement. It was a day I never thought I would see, having walked with Sarah through such heart wrenching pain in the wake of her divorce years before. It was a day Bill's family could not have imagined when he buried his first wife five years ago. And yet there we were. In a place of such gladness, the threatening skies outside didn't come close to touching the joy shared in those moments.
So why the tears? Only that such days could be possible again, I suppose. And the bittersweet gladness of having had so many such wonderful people on the journey with you but then, of course, not having present some who were so much loved who have died who we seem to miss especially on days like those. I learned later I wasn't the only one who was crying. People were biting their lips to hold their emotion in check. Family and friends alike sat and let the tears flow, experiencing such wonder and gratitude they could not begin to find words for what they were feeling.
It is said you should pay attention to tears. Especially when they come unbidden like that. For tears say more than words sometimes. They may come in anger, to be sure. They may well up, coming from some hidden, long buried grief. They may come on anniversaries of losses and they may be yours on an ordinary day. And they can be yours on what would seem to be the happiest of days. Whenever and wherever they come, they come from a place of profound feeling and experience way down deep inside us. And they ar