15th Sunday in Ordinary Time Reflection:
Many of us have a stereotype of God in the Old Testament as a stern taskmaster, ready to pounce on humankind at every failing, carrying out vengeance at every turn.  Though there are passages like that, there are many more like today’s reading from Deuteronomy.  Moses, who lived about thirteen hundred years before Christ, was telling the people that God was not a distant being out in the sky or across the sea, rather the command to know and love the God in our hearts “is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts.”  Living centuries later, we know that that promise has been fulfilled and enhanced in the coming of Jesus into the world and our hearts.  If we really believe that, we must go out and share our love and Good News with those around us, just as Jesus commanded when he shared the example of the neighborly love of an outcast and hated Samaritan.

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time Scripture:
Gn 18:1-10a; Ps 15:2-3, 3-4, 5; Col 1:24-28; Lk 10:38-42
The first reading today from the eighteenth chapter of Genesis recounts the story of Abraham offering hospitality to three men.  In the Old Testament, men, angels, spirits of God and God’s own self are often used interchangeably to represent God’s presence among humankind, and in fact, immediately after our passage today we hear about the LORD speaking directly to Abraham.  The famous 15th century iconographer Andrei Rublev, wrote (drew) a well-known icon based on this passage in Genesis 18.  In the icon, he represented the three men as being the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  They are all seated at Abraham’s table, and the Christ figure us pointing two fingers (possibly representing his divine and human nature) at a cup on the table, probably representing the Eucharistic cup.  Behind the Father figure is large house, because Jesus promised that in his Father’s house there are many mansions.  Behind the Christ figure is a tree, either the terebinth tree under which Abraham sat when the visitors arrived, or the tree of the cross of salvation, or both.  Behind the Holy Spirit figure is a mountain, the typical place where God was encountered in the Old (and New) Testament.  For his hospitality, Abraham was promised that he and Sarah would have a son to fulfill the convenant promise within the coming year. 
This naturally leads into the Gospel reading about Mary and Martha, the famous story of Mary listening to Jesus, while Martha complained about the hard work she was performing while waiting on the assembled group.  One cultural issue that we might overlook but would have been very important in Jesus’ time was that men and women were there together.  That seldom happened, and almost never happened between non blood-related kin.  But once again, Jesus, as he so often did, turned the cultural taboos of his time upside down.  He was obviously in the presence of women not of his family, and he was teaching and accepting their food and kindness.  Over the years, scripture scholars have given various interpretations to this passage.  Often the active vs. the contemplative life is represented, or justification by faith vs. by works, or Judaism vs. Christianity, or conflicting women’s careers and priorities, or the right to education for women, often denied in third-world countries.  Which is the preferred or correct interpretation?  Only God and Luke know for sure.  But given the fact that God’s word is sharp as a two-edged sword (Hebr 4:12), whose message is given to different people in different circumstances, any of the above is really possible.  It seems that, in light of the two readings, we might observe that our lives ought to exhibit a balance between prayer and action, giving and receiving, thinking and acting.  Or, as Ecclesiastes so eloquently states, there is a time for everything under heaven.  According to the words of Jesus in the Gospel today, the core element is making sure that all of those difficult life decisions are informed by a deep and intimate relationship with the Lord.

By: Mike Glotzbach, Director of Christian Formation, Mother Teresa of Calcutta Catholic Church, Topeka, KS