The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost – July 19, 2025

Today’s readings lend themselves to a catchy title for the meditation: Hunger for What Matters Most.

In the first reading from the prophet Amos, Amos sees a basket of summer fruit—sweet, ripe, and ready. But God’s message is anything but comforting: “The end has come.” The overripe fruit symbolizes a society past its moral prime. Amos laments not only corruption and exploitation but the loss of the Word itself. The deepest famine, he says, will not be of bread—but of hearing God’s voice.

There’s a haunting urgency here. The people have pursued profit, ignored justice, and forgotten the sacred. And now, even when they seek divine wisdom, it will be hard to find. It is a warning not just about societal failure—but spiritual drift.

Then we get to the Gospel reading from the tenth chapter of Luke, and we enter a very different scene: a quiet home in Bethany. Martha is busy; she is anxious, overwhelmed, and driven to serve. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, listening. When Martha protests, Jesus answers gently: “You are worried and distracted by many things; Mary has chosen the better part.”

The comparison is striking. Amos shows a society so noisy, so distracted, it no longer hears God. Luke offers an image of stillness—a woman who chooses to listen in the midst of chaos.

Here are some questions we can reflect on during the upcoming week:

• Are we so consumed by the urgent that we forget the eternal?
• Have we created spaces—individually or communally—where God’s Word is truly heard?
• When the world runs on productivity and profit, have we chosen the better part?

My friends, we do not need to wait for famine to remind us of the richness of God’s voice. In the noise of injustice and the distractions of daily life, may we be like Mary—pausing, listening, receiving. And may that attentiveness lead us back into the world, not with anxiety, but with compassion and clarity.