Worried and distracted
by many things?
O, Jesus, if you knew!
Yes, if you only knew!

It’s not the bread and cookies
or the trays of snacks,
nor the fraying linens
or the dusty sills:

It’s the wailing children, Jesus.
It’s the hopeless refugees.
It’s the pain-wracked sufferers.
It’s the justice-denied and hungry.

It’s the comfortable oppressors.
It’s their eager lackeys.
It’s the ones determined
that they will not see injustice.

Worried and distracted
by many things?
O Jesus, if you knew!
But then, you did; you knew.

Breads and cakes forsaken,
I will shed my tears upon your feet.
How will we dry the moisture
lavished there from streaming eyes?

Hold me, Mary, as we weep
together for the long-awaited reign of God.
Unbind your hair, to wipe away
betraying symbols of our grief.

A poem/prayer based on Luke 10:38-42, the Revised Common Lectionary alternate first reading for Year C, Proper 11.

The image is Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, by Johannes Vermeer. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21865869