Paul has just finished moving his own credentials into the loss column and describing his ambition — to know him and the power of his resurrection — as something he has not yet attained but is pursuing. Now he turns to the congregation and does two things in quick succession: he tells them to copy him, and he tells them, weeping, about people who should not be copied.
What happens
"Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers and sisters, and observe those who thus conduct themselves according to the model you have in us. For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their Theos is their stomach; their glory is in their 'shame.' Their minds are occupied with earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the master Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, in this way stand firm in the master."
What to notice
Symmimētai mou ginesthe — a compound so rare that Paul may have made it. Not be imitators of me but "become fellow-imitators of me," with the syn- prefix doing real work: imitate together, alongside each other. Then skopeite, keep your eye on (the verb behind scope, aiming at a target) those who walkkathōs echete typon hēmas, according to the pattern you have in us — typos being the impression left by a die or stamp. The metaphor is not aspiration but reproduction. Then the invective, which is unusually raw. Hōn ho theos hē koilia, "whose god is the belly," has been read for centuries as an attack on gluttony, and it may not be: koilia is the gut, and in this letter Paul's opponents have been the teachers pressing circumcision and food regulations. Read against Philippians 3:2–3, "their god is the belly" is a jab about dietary law — and the next clause fits exactly: hē doxa en tē aischynē autōn, "their glory is in their shame," where aischynē is a standard euphemism for the genitals. Their boast is in the circumcised member. Then the sentence that unlocks the whole letter, if you know where it was sent. Hēmōn gar to politeuma en ouranois hyparchei — "our politeuma exists in the heavens."Politeuma is not simply "citizenship"; it is the technical word for a colony of citizens living abroad, a body governed by the laws of a homeland they do not live in. And Philippi was exactly that — a Roman colonia, settled with veterans after Actium, holding Roman citizenship some eight hundred miles from Rome. Paul is telling colonists that they are colonists, in the vocabulary they would use about themselves. The next phrase presses it: ex hou kai sōtēra apekdechometha, "from which also we await a savior" — and sōtēr and kyrios were both imperial titles, while a colony's great civic occasion was the arrival of the emperor, for which the citizens went out of the gates to meet him. Paul says the arrival will come from the capital, and names someone else as the one arriving. Then a pair of words a reader of this letter should feel land: metaschēmatisei to sōma tēs tapeinōseōs hēmōn symmorphon tō sōmati tēs doxēs autou — he will re-schēma the body of our humiliation, making it con-morphos with the body of his glory. Both roots come from the hymn of Philippians 2, where he was found schēmati as a man, took the morphē of a slave, and etapeinōsen himself. The hymn's vocabulary comes back and runs in the other direction — the same four words, traded. And the last line is a soldier's and a colonist's: stēkete en kyriō, stand firm, a word for holding a position.
Psalm 122 is one of the Songs of Ascents, the little collection (Psalms 120–134) sung by pilgrims going up to Jerusalem. This one is sung on arrival, and its tenses are worth watching: the first verb is what they said before setting out, the second is where the feet are now.
The selected verses
Psalm 122:1–2."I rejoiced because they said to me, 'We will go up to the house of Yahweh.' And now we have set foot within your gates, O Jerusalem." Psalm 122:3–4ab."Jerusalem, built as a city with compact unity. To it the tribes go up, the tribes of Yahweh." Psalm 122:4cd–5."According to the decree for Israel, to give thanks to the name of Yahweh. In it are set up judgment seats, seats for the house of David."
What to notice
Samachti b'omrim li beit Yahweh nelekh — "I rejoiced in those saying to me, let us go to the house of Yahweh." The joy is located in the invitation, not in the arrival; the psalm remembers being glad at the sound of the proposal. Then the present: omdot hayu ragleinu bish'arayikh Yerushalayim, "our feet have been standing in your gates" — a participle of continuing action. They are standing there while singing it.Yerushalayim ha-benuyah k'ir she-chubberah lah yachdav, "built as a city that is joined to itself together" — chavar is to bind, to ally, the root of chaver, friend. Usually taken to describe the physical closeness of the buildings, it also says something about the people: a city whose defining feature is that it is fastened together. And the last line the lectionary keeps is the one that matters today: ki shammah yashvu khis'ot l'mishpat, kis'ot l'veit David — "for there the thrones for judgment are set, thrones of the house of David."Yashav is to sit, and the verb is perfect: the seats are already placed.The pilgrim comes up rejoicing and arrives at a courtroom. Just outside today's selection is the famous pun — sha'alu shalom Yerushalayim, "ask the peace of Jerusalem" — three words in a row built on the same consonants, so the request, the peace, and the city all sound alike.
Luke 15 has not ended; Luke 16 is the same speech, and the chapter break is a later convenience. The prodigal son has just come home, and Luke uses one word to weld the stories together: the son diaskorpisen tēn ousian autou, squandered his property (Luke 15:13) — and the manager here is accused as diaskorpizōn ta hyparchonta autou, squandering his goods.Same verb, back to back.
What happens
"A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, 'What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.' The steward said to himself, 'What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.' He called in his master's debtors one by one… 'One hundred measures of olive oil.' 'Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.'… 'One hundred kors of wheat.' 'Here is your promissory note; write one for eighty.' And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light."
What to notice
The oikonomos is not a servant in the modern sense. He is a household manager with delegated legal authority — often a slave or freedman — who could contract on the owner's behalf, which is why the debtors' notes are in their own handwriting and why he can tell them to rewrite them without the owner present. His signature is the owner's signature until the moment it isn't.Apodos ton logon tēs oikonomias sou, "give the account of your management," is a ledger phrase — and notice what follows: ou gar dynē eti oikonomein, "for you can no longer manage."He has already been dismissed. Everything he does next, he does after the sack. The soliloquy is one of Luke's specialties (he gives interior monologues to the rich fool, the prodigal, the unjust judge, and this man): skaptein ouk ischyō, epaitein aischynomai — "to dig I am not strong; to beg I am ashamed" — two options rejected in five words, with a jab of self-knowledge in each. Then the discounts, whose sizes are the puzzle everyone tries to solve. Oil: a hundred batous, cut by half. Wheat: a hundred korous, cut by a fifth. The percentages differ wildly, and yet by the commodity prices we know the two write-offs are worth roughly the same amount — something near five hundred denarii each. That has suggested to many readers that what he cancels is not the principal but his own commission, or the concealed interest by which loans in kind evaded the prohibition on usury. On that reading he steals nothing: he gives away his own cut, buys a network of grateful debtors, and leaves the owner's position where it was — which would explain the otherwise incomprehensible commendation. Because the commendation is the problem: epēnesen ho kyrios ton oikonomon tēs adikias hoti phronimōs epoiēsen, "the master praised the manager of unrighteousness because he acted shrewdly." The praise is for the how, not the what — phronimōs is the adverb of the word Matthew uses for the wise virgins and the man who built on rock. It means practically intelligent: good at reading a situation and acting on it in time. And the closing line is a comparison, not a compliment — the children of this age are shrewder toward their own generation than the children of light — where eis tēn genean tēn heautōn, "toward their own kind," is the limiting clause. It is a remark about competence within a domain, and it is not admiring.
A man who has been told the audit is now, and does something about it today
Every one of today's readings is standing between a notice and an arrival.
Paul writes to a Roman colony and calls them a colony. The word he uses, politeuma, is the technical term for a body of citizens resident abroad — people who live under the laws of a place they are not in. For veterans settled at Philippi after Actium, holding Roman citizenship eight hundred miles from Rome and conducting civic life in Latin in the middle of Macedonia, that is not a metaphor; it is their legal situation. And what a colony does is wait for the visit: when an emperor or his representative came, the citizens went out through the gates to meet him. Ex hou kai sōtēra apekdechometha uses the two titles the emperor claimed, sōtēr and kyrios, and assigns them elsewhere.
The psalm is the same picture from inside. Pilgrims have come up, and the psalm catches them standing in the gateway — omdot hayu ragleinu — a moment that in most travel narratives would get a line and here gets the whole poem. And the last thing the lectionary lets the psalm say is that the thrones for judgment are set up in that city. The pilgrim's joy and the courtroom are in the same six verses, and the psalm sees no tension.
Then Luke, and the reason this parable has always been difficult. Notice when the manager acts. He is not caught deliberating whether to be honest; the question never arises. He is told give the account, for you can no longer manage — he has already been dismissed — and every clever thing he does afterward, he does in the interval between the notice and the handover. That interval is the whole parable. The commendation is not for his ethics. It is for his sense of timing.
And the comparison that closes it is the sting the day is built around: the children of this age are shrewder toward their own kind than the children of light. Not better. Not more admirable. Phronimōteroi — quicker to see what the situation actually is and to act while there is still room to act. The man who knows he is finished behaves with total decisiveness; the people who have been told a savior is expected from the capital are, Jesus observes, often slower.
So the day sets a colony, a gateway, and a deadline side by side. Paul's response to the coming arrival is stēkete — stand firm, hold the position. The psalm's is to stand in the gates and give thanks in front of the thrones. The manager's is to spend the afternoon making friends. And the parable, uncomfortably, is told in his favor.
A Question to Sit With
The manager did not become honest, and Jesus did not say he did. What he did was look clearly at a situation that had already been decided, understand that his authority had an expiry date, and spend what was left of it on people rather than on defending himself. I am generally slower than that, and the reason is usually that I am still arguing about the notice. Where am I currently managing something whose expiry I already know about, and what would I do this afternoon if I actually believed the accounting had been called in?