July 20, 2025
Pentecost 56Proper 11, Year C
The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas
St. John’s Episcopal Church
Essex, CT
Amos 8:1-12; Pslam 52; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42
The prophet Amos is not happy. Of all the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures, he does not flinch in his recounting the harsh words God has given him to say to the people of Israel. Like all prophets, Amos is the go-between, pleading the people’s cause before the throne of God and pleading with the people to straighten up and fly right before God’s vengeance cannot be held back. Amos wants us to know that he did not ask for this job. He was just out there tending the trees, minding his own business (Amos 7:14), when God told him to go and prophesy. And he did. Throughout the book of Amos, the primary accusation is that the people have trampled on the poor and needy, have said the right things with their lips but have not followed through with fulfilling God’s commands. And it is almost time to settle the accounts.
But the punishment God has in mind is not just to bring disaster on the people but to become absent from them.
The time is surely coming, says the Lord God,
when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it. (Amos 8:11-12)
They will search high and low but will not be able to hear, will not be able to find, God’s voice.
For Amos, this was a fate worse than death.
When Jesus tells Martha that Mary has “chosen the better part” (Luke 10:42), he is affirming, acknowledging this ancient reality – the Word of God is life and life-giving.
This scene with Mary and Martha is another of those stories that has become a well-worn trope about women’s roles and which ones have value. It’s astonishing that, for the “women belong in the kitchen” crowd, they have to twist themselves into knots to make that traditional role fit here. It has also served to create a rivalry between women in the church, and more often than not, those who get things done are pitted against those who spend time in quiet prayer and contemplation. And I gotta tell you, as someone who gets things done, I bristle at that.
But before I get myself all twisted into knots, let’s just rewind a bit. What these two sisters do when Jesus comes to call is far less interesting than what is really happening here.
Let’s step back for a moment.
Forget what you think you know about these sisters. Their appearance in John’s gospel with their brother Lazarus is such a dominant story, with the women sobbing and accusing Jesus of not coming in time to save their brother, and then, in gratitude, Mary anoints Jesus’s feet with expensive perfume at a banquet shortly after. And they lived in Bethany, just a few miles from Jerusalem on the far side of the Mount of Olives, a stopping place for Jesus as he made his way into Jerusalem.
But that is not Luke’s setting. There is no Lazarus, and he doesn’t say where the two women lived. We know he is on his way toward Jerusalem, but he has not yet reached Jericho. He is not yet as far as Bethany.
You may recall that at the beginning of Chapter 10, Jesus sent out the 70 (or 72) to go into the towns that he would visit, and he told them to rely on the hospitality of those who lived in the villages they came to. This is exactly what Jesus subsequently does, too. And the house that is opened to him is that of Martha and Mary, no spouse, no brother, no father. This means that Martha, who is presumed to be the elder of the two, must be of some means in order to show such hospitality. And hospitality is a crucial part of this culture, it was then, and it is now. This household was just fortunate enough to show hospitality to a guest like none other.
Have you ever noticed how Luke really seems to understand women? At the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary, a teenaged girl, is like, how am I supposed to get pregnant when I have never even been alone with a man? And the women who come to the tomb, doing what Luke knows to be women’s work – anointing a body for burial. And here, Martha’s frustration boiling over as she is left to feed the hordes while her sister does not lift a finger to help. No one else has this story. Typical Luke.
So why does Jesus chide Martha for doing what her time and position and culture demand of her?
Well, I don’t think he’s chiding. He does not actually say that Mary has chosen the “better” part, but the “good” part, which is Jesus’s very self. In one of his sermons, Saint Augustine wrote
Martha was absorbed in the matter of how to feed the Lord; Mary was absorbed in the matter of how to be fed by the Lord. Martha was preparing a banquet for the Lord, Mary was already reveling in the banquet of the Lord (Sermon 104.1).
Martha busied herself with feeding the Lord. Mary contented herself with being fed by the Lord. Both are blessed by having him come under their roof. These are not the times of Amos when the Word of the Lord cannot be found. It is present and real for Mary and Martha, and for us.
Old Amos might have a thing or two to say about the trampling of the rights of the poor and distressed in our day, and yes, in some quarters, what passes as the Word of God is weak sauce. But not here. Of the many things that brought me to St. John’s is your hunger for what God is saying even as the world tries to drown out that Truth, and your deep desire to be faithful to what the Word of God demands of us.
We cannot feed Jesus as Martha did although we are reminded that when we feed the hungry that is exactly what we are doing. Our better part, our good part, is that we can still sit at Jesus’s feet and be fed, right here at this table. So, come. Taste and see how good the Lord is.
[1] Thanks to Dean Andrew McGowan for sharing this link and perspective in his weekly blog “Andrew’s Version.”