In the decades/centuries before 1969, on July 29, we would have celebrated Saint Martha, one of few named women in the Gospels. Now we celebrate not only Martha, but also her sister Mary and their brother Lazarus.
In a way, I think it's a shame, as each of these siblings deserves their own feast day. But today let us ask if we can we learn something from celebrating all of them together?
In many ways, Martha is the most famous of the siblings, and I've written about her extensively. Many others have written about Mary. I'm intrigued by the people who go back to the Greek to try to prove that Mary actually had some authority, that the reason that she wants to sit at the feet of Jesus while Martha gets the meal ready is that she had been out and about in the countryside, in the way that the disciples had been sent.
Lazarus, also famous, is one of the few humans brought back from the very dead. He didn't just die an hour before Jesus arrived. He had been dead for days. I've always thought he deserved a story of his own, a follow up. I'm not the only one who thinks this, of course. Yeats is one of the more famous writers to revisit Lazarus after the tomb; I should revisit his play "Calvary."
Depending on how you attribute the various references to the women named Mary (all the same Mary? Who is the sister of Martha and who is the Magdalene? And then there's the mother of Jesus), Martha gets more space in the Gospels than her two siblings. We see her complaining about Mary not helping her, and we see her scolding Jesus for not coming earlier to keep her brother from dying.
I have always sympathized with Martha, and I still can feel the shock that come when Jesus doesn't. But in my later years, I see compassion in the words of Jesus when he reminds Martha that she worries about many things. It's only been in my later years that I see Martha's anxiety in a more clinical way. It's only been in later years that I see the harm in Martha's behavior, the way that obsessive anxiety for the ones we love can destroy so much.
Do I know what to do about my own obsessive anxiety? I know a few tricks, sure. I haven't explored every possibility; so far, I don't take any meds for my anxiety outbreaks. When I'm in the throes of an anxious day, I wonder if it's time to find a health care provider who can prescribe them. When I'm having a normal day, I think that I am managing just fine.
In some ways, I see a thread running through the stories of these siblings. Christ shows up to tell them that they're not doing fine. One of the siblings, Mary, is open to Christ's message, while Martha is not. We might think it's too late for Lazarus, but it's not.
Once again, I find myself wanting to know what happens in a year or two or ten. Does Lazarus return to regular life? Having lost him once, does his family appreciate him more? Does Martha ever get a handle on her anxiety? Does Mary go out to create the first convent? Or is she so tired of having to deal with her sister that she finds a solitary existence in a nearby desert?
The Gospels give us such small snippets, but that leaves us room to find ourselves in these stories. One of the benefits to feast days and lectionaries is that we have the opportunity to return to them periodically to see if we're finding something new.
This year, I'm reminded that God works in ways that humans don't fully understand, and that we need to resist the impulse to micromanage the miracles. But even if we don't, God won't go off in a huff and abandon us.
This year, I'm hoping that humans can also model that behavior. We're beset with anxiety, as are those around us. Let us remember that resurrection can still occur.
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