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"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!'"
- Matthew 23:27-39
We are reading Jesus' final sermon, given in the temple in Jerusalem during Holy Week. The sermon began with Monday's reading (Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted). Yesterday, we read that Jesus continued: "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. Woe to you, blind guides, who say, 'Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.' Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? And, 'Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it.' Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells on it. And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also."
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." Here we receive the real condemnation of religious practices as mere means of appearance, a method to maintain hypocrisy. The comparison can't be minimized: outwardly whitewashed and beautiful, like the bright wedding garments of those who will attend the marriage of the Lamb -- but inwardly full of death, the antithesis of God who is life itself, even Resurrection. As my study bible pointed out earlier in this sermon, these warnings aren't merely for the scribes and Pharisees, but "every word applies equally to those in the Church who behave in this way."
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?" Taken one step further, the inner remains of "death" becomes the lineage of guilt of murderers -- those who shed the blood of holy ones, the prophets sent by God. But their own hypocritical actions continue those of "their fathers." Jesus calls them a "brood of vipers" -- those who spread what is deadly, poisonous and painful to human beings. John the Baptist has used the same expression to characterize the leadership earlier in Matthew's Gospel (see Matthew 3:7).
"Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation." Regarding Zechariah, my study bible says that some Church Fathers teach that this was the prophet at the time of Joash the king (2 Chronicles 24:20-22), while others say it refers to the father of St. John the Baptist, who, according to tradition, was also murdered in the temple.
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!'" My study bible tells us that the deepest desire of God is the reconciliation of His people, yet most do not want Him. The description of the desolate house refers to both the temple and to the nation itself -- house can be used to mean either "family" or "tribe" (see Psalm 115:12; 134:19). It says, "Both the temple and the nation will be without God's presence once Christ departs."
In future readings, we will get a deeper sense of where Jesus is heading with these last words. But in the comparison to whitewashed tombs, the declaration of the guilt of sons of murderers (those who practice the practices of their murderous predecessors, but declare they would do differently), and the epithet brood of vipers, we get a sense of a spiritual declaration here. There is a way of life and a way of death, and the two are enemies of one another. We know that God is the God of life everlasting and eternal; Christ's Resurrection gives true meaning to just what life is. It cannot be defeated by death. In the Easter Resurrection hymn, the Orthodox sing that Christ, through the Crucifixion, "trampled death by death, giving life to those in the tombs." In one of the earliest teaching documents of the Church, the Didache (dated by most to be written sometime near the end of the first century, and subtitled "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles to the Nations"), the great theme is that there are two ways in life: the way of life and the way of death. Jesus' way (as in I am the way and the truth and the life) is the way of life. This word in Greek for way is οδος, which also can be translated as "road" or "path." By using the allusion to a death-filled tomb, Jesus is explaining that hypocrisy is the way of death, encased in a false picture of life. But true life comes through the one who truly loves God, as in the first great commandment, and is therefore extended into the second, to love one's neighbor as oneself. Apart from this, the suggestion goes, there is no life, no way of life. The contrast cannot be anymore stark nor clear. According to my study bible, the condemnation is all the greater for those who would be leaders or teachers of this "way of life" who are, in fact, hypocrites. For us to really understand what this means, we need to have a sense of what life really means. Life isn't something that ends with what appears to be death. Whether or not we are speaking about a venture in life that doesn't work out, a dream one has that must be discarded, or physical suffering and diminishment, even physical death itself, none of these things overcome God's power of life. The power of life includes Resurrection, and all of its forms: the capacity to recover from disaster and disappointment, the capacity to continue "the good fight" of life, the capacity to pray, to keep trying, to restore, and to heal -- even the capacity to mourn properly, with love: all of these things are a part of the way of life which is always at work. It is truly remarkable how prayer or communion with God in meditation can uplift and energize in defeat, restore one back to the "struggle" of a godly life -- even when faced with the ways of death. We all can come to recognize those; their basis is selfishness, a kind of self-centeredness that sucks the life, maybe the hope, out of everything around it, that gives nothing to others. That's a broad description but as Jesus said, "by their fruits you shall know them." This stark contrast is given to us so that we understand the difference that repentance makes, that with true life there is always recovery, resurrection (even in the act of repentance that restores right relatedness to God and to others). These are the "weightier matters" (as Jesus said in yesterday's reading) of justice and mercy and faith. Which road do you choose?
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." Here we receive the real condemnation of religious practices as mere means of appearance, a method to maintain hypocrisy. The comparison can't be minimized: outwardly whitewashed and beautiful, like the bright wedding garments of those who will attend the marriage of the Lamb -- but inwardly full of death, the antithesis of God who is life itself, even Resurrection. As my study bible pointed out earlier in this sermon, these warnings aren't merely for the scribes and Pharisees, but "every word applies equally to those in the Church who behave in this way."
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?" Taken one step further, the inner remains of "death" becomes the lineage of guilt of murderers -- those who shed the blood of holy ones, the prophets sent by God. But their own hypocritical actions continue those of "their fathers." Jesus calls them a "brood of vipers" -- those who spread what is deadly, poisonous and painful to human beings. John the Baptist has used the same expression to characterize the leadership earlier in Matthew's Gospel (see Matthew 3:7).
"Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation." Regarding Zechariah, my study bible says that some Church Fathers teach that this was the prophet at the time of Joash the king (2 Chronicles 24:20-22), while others say it refers to the father of St. John the Baptist, who, according to tradition, was also murdered in the temple.
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!'" My study bible tells us that the deepest desire of God is the reconciliation of His people, yet most do not want Him. The description of the desolate house refers to both the temple and to the nation itself -- house can be used to mean either "family" or "tribe" (see Psalm 115:12; 134:19). It says, "Both the temple and the nation will be without God's presence once Christ departs."
In future readings, we will get a deeper sense of where Jesus is heading with these last words. But in the comparison to whitewashed tombs, the declaration of the guilt of sons of murderers (those who practice the practices of their murderous predecessors, but declare they would do differently), and the epithet brood of vipers, we get a sense of a spiritual declaration here. There is a way of life and a way of death, and the two are enemies of one another. We know that God is the God of life everlasting and eternal; Christ's Resurrection gives true meaning to just what life is. It cannot be defeated by death. In the Easter Resurrection hymn, the Orthodox sing that Christ, through the Crucifixion, "trampled death by death, giving life to those in the tombs." In one of the earliest teaching documents of the Church, the Didache (dated by most to be written sometime near the end of the first century, and subtitled "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles to the Nations"), the great theme is that there are two ways in life: the way of life and the way of death. Jesus' way (as in I am the way and the truth and the life) is the way of life. This word in Greek for way is οδος, which also can be translated as "road" or "path." By using the allusion to a death-filled tomb, Jesus is explaining that hypocrisy is the way of death, encased in a false picture of life. But true life comes through the one who truly loves God, as in the first great commandment, and is therefore extended into the second, to love one's neighbor as oneself. Apart from this, the suggestion goes, there is no life, no way of life. The contrast cannot be anymore stark nor clear. According to my study bible, the condemnation is all the greater for those who would be leaders or teachers of this "way of life" who are, in fact, hypocrites. For us to really understand what this means, we need to have a sense of what life really means. Life isn't something that ends with what appears to be death. Whether or not we are speaking about a venture in life that doesn't work out, a dream one has that must be discarded, or physical suffering and diminishment, even physical death itself, none of these things overcome God's power of life. The power of life includes Resurrection, and all of its forms: the capacity to recover from disaster and disappointment, the capacity to continue "the good fight" of life, the capacity to pray, to keep trying, to restore, and to heal -- even the capacity to mourn properly, with love: all of these things are a part of the way of life which is always at work. It is truly remarkable how prayer or communion with God in meditation can uplift and energize in defeat, restore one back to the "struggle" of a godly life -- even when faced with the ways of death. We all can come to recognize those; their basis is selfishness, a kind of self-centeredness that sucks the life, maybe the hope, out of everything around it, that gives nothing to others. That's a broad description but as Jesus said, "by their fruits you shall know them." This stark contrast is given to us so that we understand the difference that repentance makes, that with true life there is always recovery, resurrection (even in the act of repentance that restores right relatedness to God and to others). These are the "weightier matters" (as Jesus said in yesterday's reading) of justice and mercy and faith. Which road do you choose?
