(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/BIC-Mass-Blog-for-the-Sixteenth-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time.mp3)
This Sunday’s gospel account tells us Jesus’ new friend Mary was busy absorbing his teachings while Martha fussed about all the serving her lazy sister left her to do. Luke doesn’t tell us what Jesus was teaching Mary, but the lesson he ended up teaching both of them could have come straight out of Sunday’s first reading from Genesis—about how Abraham threw himself into God’s service. What does Jesus say about Martha’s approach?
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part.” (Luke 10:38-42)
Maybe Martha was burdened by how her service made her look to Jesus and how it made her feel about herself. Jesus was not impressed with her busyness. We can imagine Jesus using Abraham’s example of selfless service, displayed in this Sunday’s first reading, to teach Martha and Mary how it’s done. This prophet saw God in the three visitors who showed up at his tent entrance on a hot day. Concerned about their comfort, he immediately begged to serve them.
“Sir, if I may ask you this favor, please do not go on past your servant. Let some water be brought, that you may bathe your feet, and then rest yourselves under the tree. Now that you have come this close to your servant, let me bring you a little food, that you may refresh yourselves; and afterward you may go on your way.” (Genesis 18:1-10a)
God rewarded Abraham and his wife Sarah for such service by promising them a child who could carry on with God’s work. But Sarah, like Martha, doesn’t fully appreciate what can happen to someone in God’s presence. Sarah, well past child-bearing age, laughed at God’s promise. In Luke’s gospel, Martha is laughable in how her indignation blinds her to the opportunity to learn directly from God the way to a lifelong path of service.
She and Mary would become some of Christ’s most productive disciples, spreading his teachings to others—as we’re all called to do. Paul shares the secret to service productivity in Sunday’s letter to the Colossians:
It is Christ in you, the hope for glory. It is he whom we proclaim, admonishing everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. (Colossians 1:24-28)
In the Old Testament, a perfect life was one that went on beyond yours, through generation after generation of family members. Be fruitful and multiply. In the New Testament, Christ perfects the harvesting and distribution of humanity’s fruit. “Christ in us” instills Christ in others. Such perpetual service is performed with Mary’s passion for what Christ taught her, but without Martha’s resentful self-consciousness that there are so few of us helping with the workload.
Like Jesus, we recognize the harvest is bigger than the number of workers signing up to serve God. But that shouldn’t stop us from recognizing God as Abraham did—at our own front door. That’s the same kind of call to service Mary and Martha received from Jesus—delivered right in their own living room. Our job is to learn and share the fruit of those house calls with others in our lives. Christ is in every link of such two-way supply chains, ensuring God is always at someone’s service.
–Tom Andel
This blog and these readings make me reflect on the balance between prayer and service.
Every Saturday morning at Saint Michael Church, a small group of selfless dedicated people serve the parish by cleaning, dusting, mopping, and whatever else is required to make the church nice and presentable. I witness this many Saturday mornings as I spend time with the Lord in the adoration Chapel, but I never lift a finger to help them. Not that they would ask–it’s their personal ministry. I guess I am the Mary in the group. Why do I feel a little guilty?
I suppose our faith life means striking a balance between being and doing. Like the writer of this weekly blog. He does it out of a humble service to glorify God in his own way, using the skills and training God has provided.
Well done good and faithful servant!
Thank you for that encouragement, Thomas, but I must admit, sometimes I feel a bit like Martha: busily posting these every week, hoping they make a difference but worried nobody cares. Then I remember: my target is an audience of One.