Rector's Blog: Bury The Rag Deep

In the first verse, Dylan details the crime and arrest, at the end of which, in his flat midwestern pinch, he warns the listener, “But you who philosophize disgrace, and criticize all fears, take the rag away from your face: Now ain’t the time for your tears.”

And so the song goes on. The second verse details the privilege of Zantzinger’s life, his wealth, his ownership of acres of tobacco farm at just 24 years old, his parents that helped get him released from jail the same day, his utter lack of remorse. It ends with the same refrain, “Now ain’t the time for your tears.” The third verse is dedicated to Hattie Carroll, her life, her service to others, her motherhood, the meaninglessness and gruesome nature of her death. The cane that struck her dead, Dylan says, was “doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle.” yet once again, we are cautioned to take the rag away from our face: “Now ain’t the time for your tears.”

It seems so callous. How could we not weep at this kind of inhumanity? How could we not be saddened by the taking of an innocent life? It’s a tragedy. We should get to cry! Why would we not cry?

Then comes the final verse of the song. It is located in the courtroom, the place of justice. The making right of things. And we are present to hear the judge hand down the sentence for assault and murder. Six months. Zantzinger is sentenced to six months in the county jail. There is the briefest of pauses, and then Dylan clinches it: “You who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears, bury the rag deep in your face: Now is the time for your tears.”

Of course the isolated event is horrible. Of course it’s disgusting and devastating. But the deeper, stronger, more lasting horror is the fact of a society unwilling to be transformed. Zantzinger is guilty. This is never in doubt. This terrible thing never should have happened. But the overwhelming part is that nothing changes. Nobody learns anything. The city, the state, the country moves on to the next tragedy.

This blog is about Buffalo, New York. This blog is about Uvalde, Texas.

Each event on its own is catastrophically tragic. Taken together, along with the countless mass shootings about which we’ve already forgotten, we can no longer call them unthinkable. They are not unthinkable, inconceivable, or unexplainable. They are every day. They are a part of us. When we bury the rag deep in our face, it is not for one isolated incident, however awful it may be. The tears we shed are a collection of years of sorrow and rage brought on by our complete unwillingness to be transformed. We want these shootings to stop. We want to change nothing about our lives, our culture, our laws in order to make them stop. We throw up our hands. What can be done? This is who we are.

There is a tendency for us to treat Jesus’ crucifixion as if it is uniquely gruesome. But the stripping and beating and hanging of Jesus is no more gruesome than the endless AR-15 slaughter of innocents that makes up the fabric of modern American life. How is Golgotha worse than Uvalde? How is Calvary different from Buffalo?

There is a tendency for us to treat Jesus’ crucifixion as if it is ancient history. But, as James Baldwin writes, “History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us.” There is nothing ancient about Jesus’ death. It is right now. Jesus says whatever you do to the least of these you do to me. That means every bullet has Jesus’ name on it. For those who ask where Jesus was during these shootings, that’s where he was: Getting shot. Over and over and over. Every life cut short is a crucifixion of the divine love of God.

And yes, the crucifixion was a sad and hateful moment. But the truest ugliness of the moment was the culture that promoted it and the government that saw this sad hatefulness simply as the cost of doing business. That was Rome and that is America. The leaders who represent us – across party lines – refuse to materially change the situation. They offer thoughts and prayers instead of concrete policies. Bury the rag deep in your face: Now is the time for your tears.

The victims of these latest tragedies don’t need our thoughts, and their families don’t need our prayers – not if they won’t be followed up by action. When Frederick Douglass was asked if he prayed for freedom, he said he prayed for it for 20 years, but things only changed when he prayed with his legs. Similarly, when Rabbi Abraham Heschel was asked if he prayed while marching with Dr. King he replied, “We prayed with our feet.”

It is tempting for us to say we should not discuss change so soon after such tragedy. What do we do when there is less and less time between each tragedy? How long can we mourn without transformation? How long can we pray without acting?

Many of those who are refusing to make real change are saying what this country needs is more Jesus.

But Jesus is here. And we keep killing him. Jesus is alive and active and present in the lives of the children we send to school, in the teachers who shape them, in the folks at our local grocery store, in the immigrants arriving at our borders. We don’t need more Jesus. We need to stop murdering Jesus every time he shows up. We need to stop sanctioning Jesus’ death with our inaction, we need to stop accepting as commonplace the murder of Jesus. The crucifixion of divine love is not the cost of doing business: It is our spiritual death. It’s time to pray for Resurrection. And it’s time to pray with our feet.