Monday of the 28th Week of Ordinary Time
For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the servant, and one by the free woman. However, the son by the servant was born according to the flesh, but the son by the free woman was born through promise. These things contain an allegory, for these are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children to bondage, which is Hagar.
But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, "Rejoice, you barren who don't bear. Break out and shout, you who don't travail. For the desolate women have more children than her who has a husband."
So then, brothers, we are not children of a servant, but of the free woman.
Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don't be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
Praise the Lord! Praise, you servants of the Lord, Praise the Lord's name. Blessed be the Lord's name, From this time forward and forever more.
From the rising of the sun to its going down, The Lord's name is to be praised. The Lord is high above all nations, His glory above the heavens.
Who is like the Lord, our God, Who has his seat on high,
Who stoops down to see in heaven and in the earth? He raises up the poor out of the dust, And lifts up the needy from the ash heap.
When the multitudes were gathering together to him, he began to say, "This is an evil generation. It seeks after a sign. No sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. For even as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so the Son of Man will also be to this generation. The Queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation and will condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, one greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation, and will condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, one greater than Jonah is here.
There's a restlessness in us that keeps looking for proof. We want a sign — something unmistakable, something that removes all doubt and makes faith feel less like a leap and more like a sure step. And here, in Luke's Gospel, Jesus names that restlessness directly, and doesn't flatter it.
The crowd pressing around Jesus is enormous, and yet what they're really asking for is more evidence before they commit. Notice how Jesus responds — not with frustration exactly, but with a kind of clear-eyed honesty. He points to Jonah and to the Queen of Sheba, two figures from outside the covenant people of Israel, who responded wholeheartedly to far less than what this crowd is witnessing. The Ninevites didn't ask for a second sign. The Queen of the South traveled thousands of miles on the strength of a rumor about wisdom. And here stands the source of all wisdom, in the flesh, and the crowd wants more.
Paul's letter to the Galatians is speaking to something similar. The movement he describes is from bondage to freedom — from Hagar's children, born into slavery under the law, to the children of the free woman, born through promise. The paradox is that freedom in Christ doesn't feel like what we expect. We often trade it back in for the familiar weight of rules and proofs and conditions, because at least those feel solid under our feet.
What both readings are pressing on is the same tender spot: the willingness to receive what's already been given. The sign of Jonah — death and resurrection — has already happened. The freedom has already been won. The question is whether we're living inside that reality or still standing at the edge of it, waiting.
Consider what it would mean, on an ordinary Monday, to act as if the freedom is already yours.
What signs are we still waiting for before we trust more fully? Where in daily life are we choosing the familiar weight of bondage over the uncomfortable openness of freedom? And what might it look like to respond, today, with the wholehearted readiness of the Ninevites?