— The Field of Tears

Sarah lived one hundred twenty-seven years,
and died at Hebron, in the land of Canaan.
Abraham went in
to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.

The tent had gone quiet.
The voice that once laughed
at an impossible promise
had become silence.

The man who counted the stars,
who climbed Moriah,
could do nothing now but weep.
Faith does not make grief disappear.
Love makes grief unavoidable.

I remember, by way of reflection,
Jesus weeping at the grave of Lazarus,
though he knew that morning was coming.

Then Abraham rose up from before his dead
and said to the Hittites,
“I am a stranger and a sojourner among you.”

A stranger and a sojourner.
Long ago I crossed the sea
to serve in a new country,
and some evenings the old words return.
Perhaps we all live in borrowed tents.

“You are a prince of God among us,” they said.
Abraham bowed to the people of the land.
Grief takes the height out of us
and teaches us courtesy.

“Four hundred shekels of silver,
what is that between you and me?”
Abraham weighed it out by honest weight.
I have confessed the bent scales of my own heart.
Even at the graveside, justice belongs.

So the field, the cave of Machpelah,
and all the trees in the field
became his before the city gate.
God had promised the land,
yet the first ground Abraham held was a grave.
Not a palace. Not a kingdom.
A field. A cave. A place to lay down love.

The hand that opened on Moriah
opened again.
He could not keep Sarah.
He could carry her name.

As a pastor I have stood by many graves:
earth to earth, dust to dust,
a widow’s hand resting on the casket
as if to keep it warm.
Forgive me the years I did it like a task.
Every grave is a Machpelah.
Every grief deserves the full weight of silver.

At three in the morning the house is still.
SaRang sleeps. The crape myrtle stands dark.
I speak certain names more softly now.

Sarah sleeps in the field facing Mamre.
Abraham walks on.
And beneath the quiet soil,
like a seed fallen into the earth,
the promise waits for morning.

God who counts the stars and the tears,
who walks with strangers to the city gate,
teach me to weigh my love with honest silver,
to bury my dead with open hands,
and to wait beside every grave for the dawn.