- a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; -
Not going to lie. The tear line? That threw me.
Remember how all those priests and rabbis would tear their clothes? That is what this refers to.
This isn’t a reference to tearing down buildings, a neighbor’s political signs, or your enemies apart limb from limb, in case any of you went that direction.
Tearing of robes is either an expression of extreme grief or anger, especially at heresy.
Job when he found his family and possessions had been taken from him? Tore his robes.
The Pharisees when Jesus said that He was the Son of God? They tore their robes.
Given verse three discusses mourning and weeping, I think we should consider the implications here regarding anger.
Now, there’s no doubt that Pharisees participated in rituals for the praise and attention of other men. That doesn’t make the expression wrong, just performed for the wrong reasons.
With that said, what Jesus said was radical, especially to a society as concerned with religious rituals as the Jews.
According to their customs, customs which God gave, tearing their robes and pulling the heretic out back for a quick stoning was warranted.
Except, if it was God Himself who made the assertion.
Perhaps the lesson isn’t tearing one’s clothes. They’re not as costly as they used to be.
If you tore your t-shirt in front of someone who said there is no God, well it might be illegal or just very, very strange at best.
It’s something like this, show public suffering and anger in a respectable manner to your culture and align that with truly religious causes.
Wow. Doesn’t that put protesting to the front of one’s mind.
Fiery but peaceful protests. January 6th. Antifa and Proud Boys in Portland.
Do any of these seem like a country that has learned to “tear our robes” in a civilized manner?
Why do we need to sew? Because that which we have torn in our grief and outrage needs to be put right.
Those robes are expensive. What about our government and cities? Have we not destroyed trust and love between each other by fighting in our streets?
How can we ever begin to heal the divide?
Some might say that the right-side needs to be more like the left. The right may demand the opposite.
Two of the same sides of a cloak are worthless. Perhaps then what we need is something like ourselves yet stronger, a thread in between to unite us.
That sounds a lot like compromise. Those are made between parties who don’t want to work together. They grow bitterness, especially if one side can make them to their benefit more often than the other.
What you need is something quite unlike the coat to bring the two together. Something that will rend and pierce them more in order to bind them.
A needle.
What is the needle we need? We could say God, and we would be right, though infuriatingly.
Do we have wisdom? Do we know how to rend our robes? Do we know how to speak to one another?
We must learn to stop speaking lies. We must learn to stop wildly accusing others of speaking lies.
We must stop trying to be large and learn we are small.
The politicians will be politicians. It is up to us to become a family.
Numbers 14:6