While past commentators, including such luminaries as Augustine, Chrysostom, and Calvin, have focussed on Martha's personality and on her emotional state during this episode, O'Day insists that we need to look instead at how her actions and words contribute to the unfolding of the gospel narrative. When we do so, we will notice the striking similarity between her words and a psalm of lament:
Martha's words move from complaint (v. 3) and petition (v. 21) to confidence (v. 24) and confession (v. 26). This movement mirrors the classic movement in Israel's psalms of lament, in which the petitioner begins with a plea that gives way to praise in the course of the psalm.O'Day's article is a reminder that the first-century Jewish community, of which Jesus and his disciples were members, was steeped in the biblical Psalter, from which they sang and prayed on a daily basis.
In the plea section of a lament psalm, the petitioner addresses God directly and tells God how desperate the situation is. The petitioner then asks God for help, and to strengthen the petition may also provide God with reasons why God should act. Psalm 13 is one of the most succinct examples of the lament form: direct address to God ("How long, O Lord") and complaint ("must I bear pain in my soul") (vss. 1-2), followed by petition ("consider and answer me, O Lord my God") in v. 3, and motivation in v. 4 ("lest my enemy").
Just as in the classic lament psalms, Martha addresses Jesus directly (note the double use of kurie in vss. 3 and 21), expresses her complaint (Lazarus is ill), which gives way to her petition in v. 21. Martha even provides Jesus with a motivation to act ("I know that whatever you ask God, God will give you").
1 comment:
Thanks for this. I've been impressed recently by how much the whole New Testament is rooted in the Old Testament. Pauls writings, in particular, owe less to his Greek and Roman environment than to the Old Testament. This comment on Martha's dialogue with Jesus as being rooted in the Psalms of Lament is an insight that I appreciate.
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