Monday To Sunday

Pick up any coin from the cup holder in your car and it will tell you three things without being asked: whose face is on it, what it's worth, and who stands behind it. This past Sunday somebody held up a coin like that in front of Jesus and asked him a trick question about taxes. He answered with a question of his own, and two thousand years later it is still harder to answer than theirs.

This is the midweek show. You heard three readings on Sunday and a sermon on top of them, and by now most of it is gone. That is what a week does to things. So we go back and sit with the same readings again, slower.

Proper 24, Year A: Isaiah 45:1-7, Psalm 96, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, Matthew 22:15-22.

The Greek is eikon, Matthew 22:20. Most English Bibles say "head," the King James says "image," and the King James is closer. It's the word behind our "icon": a likeness that carries the identity of the one it shows. The coin was most likely a denarius of Tiberius, stamped with his portrait and a line calling him son of the divine Augustus. And in the Greek version of Genesis, God makes humankind kat' eikona theou, in the image of God. It's the same word. The coin goes back to Caesar because his face is on it. You go back to God because his is on you.

Also in this episode: why Jesus has to ask for the coin while the men trying to trap him have one in their own purses; the census tax and the revolt it started; apodidomi, the "give back" verb behind "render unto Caesar"; Cyrus of Persia, the only foreign ruler in the Hebrew Bible to be called mashiach, anointed; the clay cylinder in the British Museum where Cyrus credits a different god; and why money behaves like a god, right down to handing out verdicts.

One thing to try this week: take one coin or bill out of your pocket, read the face and the words, and ask what you've been letting it tell you about yourself. Then give God something from the first of your week instead of the last of it.

Monday to Sunday is hosted by Joe Stein. New episodes Tuesday and Thursday. Full archive and written companions at mondaytosunday.life.

Every town has two people like this. Both have given years to the same good thing, both work hard, and somewhere along the way they stopped being able to stand in the same room. Paul had two of them in Philippi. He named them out loud, in a letter read to the whole church.

This is the midweek show. You heard three readings on Sunday and a sermon on top of them, and by now most of it is gone. That is what a week does to things. So we go back and sit with the same readings again, slower.

Proper 23, Year A: Isaiah 25:1-9, Psalm 23, Philippians 4:1-9, Matthew 22:1-14.

The Greek is epieikes, Philippians 4:5, and translators have never agreed on it. The King James says "moderation," the RSV "forbearance," the ESV "reasonableness," the NRSV "gentleness." The closest English is the give in a person: the willingness not to press every advantage, even when you're right. Paul never says who was right between Euodia and Syntyche. He asks them to stop needing to win.

Also in this episode: synathleo, "struggled beside me," a word that appears only twice in the New Testament, both times in this letter; the peace of God standing guard like a garrison over a Roman colony; logizomai, the accounting word behind "think about these things"; why the king's hall in Matthew 22 is full of people who didn't choose each other; and the one word the king says first to the man without a wedding robe.

One thing to try this week: think of someone on your own side of something good whom you've stopped being able to stand, and find one thing to give on that isn't essential.

Monday to Sunday is hosted by Joe Stein. New episodes Tuesday and Thursday. Full archive and written companions at mondaytosunday.life.

Tucked inside most wedding invitations is a small reply card with its own stamped envelope. It asks one question: will you attend? A lot of those cards spend weeks on the refrigerator, and almost nobody who has one is against the wedding. This past Sunday Jesus told a story about a king whose invitations went exactly the same way, and Isaiah told us what was on the menu.

This is the midweek show. You heard three readings on Sunday and a sermon on top of them, and by now most of it is gone. That is what a week does to things. So we go back and sit with the same readings again, slower.

Proper 23, Year A: Isaiah 25:1-9, Psalm 23, Philippians 4:1-9, Matthew 22:1-14.

The Hebrew is bala', to swallow, to gulp something down whole. Isaiah uses it twice in a row: in verse 7 God swallows the shroud cast over all peoples, and in verse 8 he swallows up death forever. Most English Bibles give it two different words, so you'd never notice. Everywhere else in the Old Testament, death is the one doing the swallowing. The ground swallows Korah, the earth swallows Pharaoh's army, and Sheol swallows the living. At Isaiah's feast, the swallower gets swallowed. Paul quotes the line in 1 Corinthians 15: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

Also in this episode: the moment Psalm 23 turns from shepherd to host, and why the enemies at the table can't touch you; the Greek ameleo, "made light of it," the word for letting something slide; why most of the guests in Matthew 22 weren't hostile, just busy; the guests gathered from the streets, "both good and bad"; and the man without a wedding robe, who made it into the room and still didn't care.

One thing to try this week: pick one invitation you've been letting slide and answer it, before the week swallows it.

Monday to Sunday is hosted by Joe Stein. New episodes Tuesday and Thursday. Full archive and written companions at mondaytosunday.life.

Paul had the résumé. Tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, a Pharisee, blameless under the law, and every line of it checkable. Then he took the whole list and called it a word most English Bibles are too polite to translate.

This is the midweek show. You heard three readings on Sunday and a sermon on top of them, and by now most of it is gone. That is what a week does to things. So we go back and sit with the same readings again, slower.

Proper 22, Year A: Isaiah 5:1-7, Psalm 80:7-15, Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46.

The Greek is skybala, Philippians 3:8, the only time it appears in the New Testament. Your Bible probably says "rubbish." It can mean table scraps thrown to the dogs, or it can mean dung. Paul had gentler words available and reached for the rough one on purpose. His numbers were true. He just stopped letting them be his verdict.

Also in this episode: the ledger language of gains and losses running under Paul's list; why the tenants in Matthew 21 were good at their jobs, and why that makes the parable land; what Isaiah's mishpat and mispach look like in a comment section; and the little flame icons Joe checks before coffee.

One thing to try this week: notice the exact moment a number changes your mood, and ask whether you've let it become your verdict.

Monday to Sunday is hosted by Joe Stein. New episodes Tuesday and Thursday. Full archive and written companions at mondaytosunday.life.

A man plants a vineyard and does everything right: good hill, stones cleared, a watchtower, a wine vat. At harvest it gives him grapes, just the wrong kind. Sour ones. All three readings this week turn on the same vineyard, and on a question none of us likes to ask out loud.

This is the midweek show. You heard three readings on Sunday and a sermon on top of them, and by now most of it is gone. That is what a week does to things. So we go back and sit with the same readings again, slower.

Proper 22, Year A: Isaiah 5:1-7, Psalm 80:7-15, Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46.

The Hebrew is a pun. In Isaiah 5:7 God looks for mishpat, justice, and finds mispach, bloodshed. He looks for tsedaqah, righteousness, and hears tse'aqah, a cry. The words sit a syllable apart, and Isaiah wrote it that way on purpose: counterfeit fruit can sound almost exactly like the real thing. Mispach appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible.

Also in this episode: why the tenants in Jesus' parable weren't lazy, and what they were willing to kill to avoid admitting; how the crowd hands down their own sentence without noticing; Paul's résumé in Philippians 3 and why he's the only one in the three readings who catches himself; and four sour tomatoes on Joe's back porch.

One thing to carry until Thursday: look at what you're producing this week and ask who it's for.

Monday to Sunday is hosted by Joe Stein. New episodes Tuesday and Thursday. Full archive and written companions at mondaytosunday.life.

A man falls asleep on a rock in the middle of nowhere, running from his brother with nothing but the clothes on his back. It turns out to be the most important night of his life. He wakes up and says, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it."

This week had a major feast tucked into the middle of it. St Michael and All Angels, September 29, is one of the oldest holy days on the church calendar, and it comes with its own readings most of us never hear. So instead of going back over Sunday, this episode pulls those out: Genesis 28:10-17, Psalm 103, Revelation 12:7-12, John 1:47-51.

The Greek is katēgōr, the job title Revelation gives the dragon: the accuser, the one who accuses day and night. It is a courtroom word. Kata, against, joined to the root of agora, the public square where cases got argued out loud. A katēgōr stands up in public and speaks against you. A prosecutor. And the good news of the feast is that he runs out of room: "there was no longer any place for them in heaven."

Also in this episode: why Genesis introduces the gate of heaven as "a certain place," the way you'd describe a rest stop off the highway; how Jesus puts himself where Jacob's ladder used to stand, in a town somebody had just insulted; why Revelation is closer to a political cartoon than a news report; and what happens to the two quietest hours of the day when you spend them facing a screen.

Two things to try before Sunday: once today, put the phone face down and name the room you're actually in, and stop waiting for the ladder to show up somewhere more impressive than where you already are.

Monday to Sunday is hosted by Joe Stein. New episodes Tuesday and Thursday. Full archive and written companions at mondaytosunday.life.

A father has two sons and one job for them: go work in the vineyard. The first says no and walks off. The second says yes, sir, on my way, nice and polite about it. Only one of them actually shows up, and it isn't the polite one.

This is the midweek show. You heard three readings on Sunday and a sermon on top of them, and by now most of it is gone. That is what a week does to things. So we go back and sit with the same readings again, slower.

Proper 21, Year A: Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 78, Philippians 2:1-13, Matthew 21:23-32.

The Greek is kenoō, the verb underneath "he emptied himself" in the Philippians hymn. It is the word for pouring out a container until there is nothing left in it, draining a jar all the way. In the hymn, what Jesus says about himself and what he does with his own life are the same motion. That is exactly what the second son never manages. His words were fine. Nothing behind them ever left the porch.

Also in this episode: why "Is the Lord among us or not?" is an accusation dressed up as a question, asked by people eating bread that fell from the sky that morning; how Psalm 78 reads Israel's own history back to them like a baby book; why "work out your own salvation" is a labor verb; and which of the two sons Joe usually turns out to be.

Two things to try before Sunday: say the true thing you already know instead of the question you're used to reaching for, and go stand in the field for ten minutes.

Monday to Sunday is hosted by Joe Stein. New episodes Tuesday and Thursday. Full archive and written companions at mondaytosunday.life.

The only person in the ancient world who insists on calling Matthew a tax

collector is Matthew.

It is his book. When he reaches the roll call of the twelve, every other name

on the list is just a name. His has the job attached, and it is the job nobody

wanted to be seen with. Mark tells the same story and calls the man Levi. Luke

calls him Levi too. Neither of them puts the occupation in the apostle list.

Monday was the twenty-first of September, the feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle

and Evangelist. It has its own appointed readings, and almost none of us heard

them, because almost none of us were in a church on a Monday. The thread running

through all four is one plain question: who handed you what you believe?

In this episode: why sitting is the posture of the tax booth, and what it means

that the man stood up. Why the Pharisees complain about the table rather than

the theology. And the sentence Matthew quotes twice, which no other gospel

writer quotes at all, because it is the line that got him in the room.

That sentence is "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." The Greek is eleos, the word

behind the Kyrie eleison people sing. But Hosea wrote in Hebrew, and the word

underneath is chesed, which is the hard kind. It is what you owe somebody you

are bound to, whether or not the warmth is available that day.

Also: what Second Timothy means by knowing from whom you learned it, why

Proverbs 3 is about weight rather than about not thinking, and the quiet

administrative way a name comes off a list while nobody announces it.

Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist.

Proverbs 3:1-6 · Psalm 119:33-40 · 2 Timothy 3:14-17 · Matthew 9:9-13

Nobody in Sunday's gospel got underpaid. The workers hired at dawn agreed to a

denarius and received a denarius, in front of witnesses. They complained anyway,

and Matthew writes the grievance down word for word: "you have made them equal

to us."

The Greek verb there is gongyzo. It's onomatopoeia, the low continuous noise a

crowd makes before it has organized itself into sentences, and it's the same verb

the Greek Old Testament uses for Israel in the wilderness in Exodus 16. Matthew

had a neutral word available for a payroll dispute. He used the wilderness word

instead, which tells you which story you're standing in.

Put the two halves together. In Exodus they murmur before the bread, and the sound

comes out of an empty stomach. In Matthew they murmur after the coin, and the sound

comes out of a full hand. Hunger and envy make the identical noise. If you recorded

both and played them back you could not tell which was which, which means you cannot

use the noise as evidence about yourself.

Also in this episode: why manna is named after a shrug, what the omer was quietly

protecting, Paul running a cost-benefit analysis from a prison cell and finding no

losing column, and what fifty thousand self-storage facilities have to do with a

bread that was designed to spoil.

Proper 20, Year A. Exodus 16:2-15, Psalm 105, Philippians 1:21-30, Matthew 20:1-16.

mondaytosunday.life

The church has a feast day for a piece of Roman execution equipment. September 14, Holy Cross Day. Try the same move with anything modern, a feast of the electric chair, and listen to how it sounds.

There is a cartoon scratched into a wall on the Palatine Hill in Rome from around the year 200. A figure hangs on a cross, and the figure has the head of a donkey. Underneath, in bad Greek: Alexamenos worships his god. Somebody drew it to make fun of a Christian who worked in the building. It is roughly two hundred years older than the earliest Christian artwork of the crucifixion. The people who thought the cross was ridiculous drew it first.

This is the midweek show, and this week it takes the appointed readings for a feast most of us missed, because it landed on a Monday. Isaiah 45:21-25, Psalm 98, Philippians 2:5-11, John 12:31-36a.

The Greek is hypsoō, to lift up. It does two ordinary jobs at once: hoisting a beam, and raising somebody's standing. John hears Jesus use it and knows both meanings are running. The lifting up is the execution and the enthronement in a single motion.

Also in this episode: why the Philippians hymn is shaped like a V that does not come back to where it started, what Isaiah's one-question test for an idol does to a magazine's annual ranking of the richest people alive, and why the discipline of this feast is descending an inch in private, where nobody finds out and there is no return on it.

Monday to Sunday is hosted by Joe Stein. New episodes Tuesday and Thursday. Full archive and written companions at mondaytosunday.life.