There's a thing you said once that you wish you could take back. Not because it was wrong — because it cost you something. Maybe it was a conversation with a family member that hasn't been the same since. Maybe it was a position you took at work that put you on the outside of a circle you used to be in. Maybe it was a moment of honesty with a friend that ended a friendship you thought would last forever. You weren't trying to start anything. You just said what you actually believed.
This week's episode of Monday to Sunday sits with that exact ache. The lectionary handed us Jeremiah 20 — one of the most honest prayers in the Old Testament, where a prophet who is sick of being mocked tries to keep his mouth shut and finds he can't. And it handed us Matthew 10, where Jesus tells his disciples not to be afraid because they're worth more than many sparrows, and warns in the very same breath that the gospel doesn't always bring peace to the dinner table. I wanted to talk about what those two passages do when you put them next to each other.
The Prophet Who Tried to Stop
Jeremiah 20 is not a polite prayer. He opens by accusing God of deceiving him. He says he tried to give it up — tried to stop preaching, tried to keep his mouth shut, tried to walk away from a job that had cost him his friends, his standing, his safety. And then he says one of the most arresting lines in scripture: if I say, "I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name," there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.
That's the image that gives the episode its title. A fire shut up in the bones. Not a flame you can fan — a fire you can't put out, that hurts more when you try to suppress it than when you let it burn.
I think a lot of people know that feeling and don't have a name for it. The conviction you've been not naming because the table would go quiet. The honest answer you keep replacing with a polite one. The thing you actually believe that you've been softening for the sake of the room. Jeremiah names it. He says: it costs me to say it, and it costs me more to hold it in.
"Do Not Fear" — and "Not Peace, but a Sword"
Then we cross over to Matthew 10. Jesus is sending the disciples out, and he gives them what has to be one of the most disorienting pep talks in the gospels. In the same passage, he says don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows — and do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
People sometimes try to soften that second line. They shouldn't. It's not a license for division — Jesus is not telling his disciples to go pick fights. He's telling them: when you say what is true, the room will rearrange itself around you. Some people will move closer. Some people will move away. Some tables will get quieter when you sit down. That isn't a sign you've failed. It's a sign the gospel is doing what it does.
And right next to that hard word, he places the sparrows. Two sparrows for a penny. Not one of them falls without your Father knowing. The hairs of your head are numbered. So don't be afraid. The cost is real, and you are watched over. Both at once.
Dying With Him, So We Can Actually Live
Paul, in Romans 6, drops the deepest theological key under all of this. He talks about being buried with Christ in baptism so that, just as Christ was raised, we too might walk in newness of life. The old self — the one terrified of being mocked, terrified of being on the wrong side of the room — that self has been crucified. Not so we can be punished, but so we can be free.
I think that's the move the whole episode is making. Jeremiah's fire is not a curse. It's a sign that the old, soft, conflict-averse self is dying — and something more alive is taking its place. Paul says we are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. The fire shut up in the bones is part of how that aliveness shows itself.
The Line I Keep Coming Back To
If you take one line out of this episode, take this one: the fire in your bones is not a curse. It is a sign that something in you is still alive.
You can hold it in if you want. People do. They get older and quieter, and the table stays comfortable, and they wonder why everything feels a little dimmer. Or you can let it out — carefully, charitably, but honestly — and accept that the room will rearrange itself. Some people will move closer. Some people will move away. And the One who counts the sparrows will be counting you the whole time.
I closed the episode with a small bridge into Thursday's feast — the Nativity of John the Baptist. Luke writes that the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel. Jeremiah lived with a fire he couldn't hold in. John the Baptist lived in the wilderness preparing to be one. We'll pick that up on Thursday.
Thanks for being here. Listen to the full episode below — and I'll see you Thursday.