How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

 "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 I 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

In our current readings, Jesus is in Jerusalem.  It is Holy Week, the final week of Jesus' earthly life, and the last Passover He would attend.  Yesterday, we continued reading His final sermon:  "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 in 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."  In yesterday's reading, Jesus said to them, " 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."  But here, He goes even further in the description of what kind of hypocrisy He sees in them.  The filth inside isn't a matter of dirty dishes and utensils, but tombs filled with decay and death and uncleanness.  It is a warning to all of us about a hypocritical life, and how seriously we should take this flaw, a kind of fallen state in which we become blind to our own spiritual death.

"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."  Jesus' condemnation of the leadership continues to build.  Not only are they responsible for the extremes death and uncleanness within themselves, but they take on the guilt of all before them who have passed on this way of being untrue to the love of God, the hypocrisy that murdered the prophets while posing as the righteous.  All of this in which they freely chose to participate will come upon this generation.  It is not completely clear which Zechariah Jesus refers to here, but some teach that He refers to the father of St. John the Baptist, whom patristic tradition says was murdered in the temple.   Others teach that it was the prophet Zechariah at the time of Joash the king (2 Chronicles 24:20-22). 

"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 I 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 says that God's deepest desire is the reconciliation of His people, but most do not want Him.  The desolate house, it says, refers both to the temple and to the nation itself.  "House" can be used to mean "family" or "tribe" (see Psalms 115:12, 135:19).  Both the temple and the nation will be without God's presence once Christ has departed.

The maternal image that Jesus gives here of Himself is an astonishing one in a number of ways.  Or, rather, perhaps we could say that it is one which we must sit up and notice.  It is a picture of Christ, the Lord, having watched over Jerusalem like a mother hen throughout time, throughout the history of God's people.  It is important that we have this understanding of the maternal and feminine characterization of Christ's love, care, grace, and tender mercy, because it tells us something about what it means to be fully human as one who is created in the image of Christ, and who must learn to be Christ-like.    The fullness of our Lord includes this maternal image, one of comfort and care and protection  and eternal mercy.  He characterizes Himself as One with the care of a deeply devoted and loving mother, but whose love, concern, and care is not reciprocated by her children. In this extremely moving lamentation over Jerusalem, Jesus teaches us about who He is as Lord of a universe, the One to whom we are to turn, and who longs for us to do so.  But the most devoted care and protection cannot function through rejection, and repeated rejection.  Jesus teaches us that even in His majestic identity as Creator and Lord of the universe, He is maternal and loving, with the tenderness of a mother hen for her chicks.  He inspires us to know what a balanced life really is, with its capacity for love and devotion -- and for the heartbreak of rejection and failure of one's beloved children.  Let us consider all that He teaches us, about Himself, and about what we ourselves are to imitate.  The depth of care and protection that He teaches are His here belong to all who find Him, and are capable of reciprocating even the smallest sense of that love.