The Amen Corner

After Margaret’s secret is revealed, members of the congregation start talking to each other. They start to wonder how Margaret can afford a new Frigidaire, while they are still stuck in poverty. They begin to wonder if their donations and tithes to the church are being used for Margaret’s own gain. Odessa, Margaret’s closest friend, overhears the conversation and scolds them for gossiping.

In Luke’s room, David is visiting his father. Luke tells him that he heard David playing before a service one night. He says, “You play piano like I dreamed you would” (40). David has been doing his own research on his musician father and is enamored with the life Luke has had. He tells him that he started playing piano, hoping that the two of them might get to play together one day. He’s kept all these ideas about Luke to himself because Margaret never wanted to talk about him.

David opens up about the pain he felt from thinking he’d been abandoned by Luke all these years. Luke tells him not to run away from the pain but to remember that it’s a part of life. He tells David that he and Margaret struggled when they had another baby who was stillborn. David says, “I remember—[…] And Mama was in the hospital—and you was drunk, going to that hospital all the time—and I used to hear you crying, late at night” (42). He wonders if Margaret actually found the Lord after that, but Luke says she’s the only one who can truly know that.

David tells Luke that he’s been having a crisis of faith himself. He’s been leaving the church more often, wanting to spend time with his friends and other musicians outside. He knows he will have to tell Margaret that he plans to leave for good soon but doesn’t know how to just yet. He is still conflicted between what he wants for his life, knowing that what he wants is what he’s been taught is wrong. Luke warns him that no matter what decision he makes, it’s the people in life that make it worth living; otherwise, there’s no reason to make music to begin with.

Margaret is still in Philadelphia, and the members of the congregation are gathered to gossip again. They mention the Frigidaire again and a newly commissioned stain glass window and wonder why the money isn’t being used to move to a better building than the one they have now. Odessa stops them again, telling them that the Frigidaire is in her name, not Margaret’s. Sister Moore defends Margaret, reminding the others that she is not focused on things on earth but things that are heavenly. Sister Sally retorts that her mother is doing the same: “But she say she don’t see why you got to be in the dirt all the time just because you a Christian” (49).

Finally, Margaret returns from her trip. One of the church members in Philadelphia drove her down, and she announces that the church is going to hear a sermon in Harlem tomorrow. They’ll be bringing their praise instruments, such as a trumpet and drums. They are shocked, asking if these things aren’t evil. Margaret replies, “Well, the evil ain’t in the drum, Sister Rice, nor yet in the trumpet. The evil is in what folks do with it and what it leads them to” (53). The Boxers use this as an opportunity to ask about Mr. Boxer’s job again. They argue that if it’s okay for worldly things like instruments to be used in church, then it should be okay for Mr. Boxer to drive a liquor truck. As long as he’s only using it to make a living, there should not be a problem. Margaret still objects, saying that he is helping people sin by driving liquor to them. The argument leaves the Boxers feeling even more resentful toward Margaret than before.

Later, Margaret is shocked to find David listening to one of Luke’s old records, one that she never allowed him to listen to. Luke tells her that he gave David the record. David leaves, and for the first time in 10 years, Margaret and Luke are alone. Luke tries to reminisce on how things were before, at the beginning of their marriage. Margaret insists that all she’s ever wanted is to follow Jesus, but Luke tells her it wasn’t like that in the beginning. He pleads with her, saying, “I know we can’t go back, Maggie. But you mean that whole time we was together, even with all our trouble, you mean it don’t mean nothing to you now?” (58). Margaret is firm that God has made her a new woman. It isn’t until Margaret tells Luke that he is the reason their marriage failed that Luke starts to get to the root of it all.

Margaret finally speaks about the pain of losing their baby girl. She says she heard a voice that told her, “Maggie, you got to find you a hiding place. I knowed weren’t no hiding place to be found in you—not in no man” (59). Margaret and Luke had been poor and cold that winter, and she felt that God was punishing her for being married to Luke. Luke argues that they did nothing that would have caused them to be cursed. He says,

All we’d done to be cursed was to be poor, that’s all. That’s why little Margaret was laid in the churchyard. It was just because you hadn’t never in your whole life had enough to eat and you was sick that winter and you didn’t have no strength. Don’t you come on with me about no judgment, Maggie. That was my baby too (60).

The root of Margaret and Luke’s split was Margaret’s refusal to grieve the death of their baby with her husband and instead running away. Luke tells David that they “had [them] a little trouble. And she wouldn’t come to [him]. That’s when she found the Lord” (42). Luke, meanwhile, should have focused more on his family than his music. Now, after years of regret and missing her, Luke tells Margaret that he wants to be with her now. Margaret begs him to turn to God and ask for salvation, turning her attention once again to something beyond her as opposed to the love and pain facing her in the present. She asks him to do it, if only to set an example for David, but Luke refuses and says he wants David to have his own choice in how he lives life.

Margaret leaves Luke, telling him he’s going to die. She goes into the kitchen, where Odessa finds her. She tells Margaret that the church is having a business meeting to discuss the future of Margaret’s position as a preacher there. She ends the act praying for strength.