“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus hears these words first from Martha, then from Mary. The sisters do not hesitate to say to Jesus the words that are on their minds and their hearts. In today’s reading, Martha and Mary challenge us to consider how we speak and what we are willing to say, in love, to those whose lives are threaded with our own.
“Anger and tenderness: my selves,” Adrienne Rich writes in the poem “Integrity,” from her book A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far. She speaks of anger and tenderness as strands of the same web being spun and woven from the spider’s body, “even from a broken web.”
Mary and Martha know this web: the web of passionate feeling, of relationship, of creation from brokenness—the web that connects but does not entrap, that provides shelter but does not ensnare. Mary and Martha are websters, web-weavers. By their care and hospitality, they have established this web of relationship with Jesus.
This web enables each of them to speak out when Jesus finally arrives after Lazarus’s death. It enables them to voice their anger, or at least their sharp dismay, at his absence. In the face of Mary and Martha’s pain, Jesus realizes that he has put lessons ahead of relationship. Perhaps Jesus wonders if God’s glory can be displayed outside the context of care for his friends.
Martha and Mary’s words free Jesus to rediscover his compassion, to remember the depth of their relationship and the strength of their web. In the real, immediate presence of their tears, Jesus realizes the depth of his own loss, a loss that spills beyond the borders of his well-intentioned plan. And he does not merely cry; he weeps. Within the web, within his circle of friends, the holy one’s humanity runs down his face.
By their care and their words, Mary and Martha bear the strands of resurrection. With his compassion, with his tears, Jesus weaves them and fashions life anew.
Questions for reflection
How willing are you to speak what lies in your heart and your mind to those whose lives are bound together with yours? Do you have spaces and relationships of love and trust where you are able to name the more difficult emotions, such as anger? Has there been a time when acknowledging your anger led you to a place of new life or healing or freedom?
From Sacred Journeys © Jan L. Richardson
Dear Jan,
Thank you for these much-needed words today. I’m sure that more words will surface for me as I sit with the questions for reflection…but I was reminded so insistently of Jean Baker Miller’s concept of “waging good conflict,” that conflict is often a site of growth and deepening our connection to others, and being able to give voice to our authentic experiences, even when those experiences are uncomfortable, is often essential for relationships to develop. The exact phrasing escapes me at the moment, but thank you for the impetus to explore voice, anger, relationships, and conflict as a conduit for deeper connection…