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

Christ Pantocrator/Teacher, Byzantine, 13-14th century, Vatopedi Monastery, Mt. Athos, Greece

"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 yesterday's reading, Jesus continued His final sermon, given in the temple at Jerusalem:   "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."  Jesus continues His criticisms of the religious leadership, based on their hypocrisy.  Here He describes the emphasis on outward appearance of cleanliness (as He has already attacked their practice of ritual purity which covers up a lack of concern about true internal righteousness).  This is the starkest and strongest image possible, the image of death within.

"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."  Here Jesus speaks of the treatment of the prophets who have come before Him, and links the persecution of the prophets of old with the leadership of His own time.  In the parable of the Wicked Vinedressers (told in this reading from December 5th), Jesus illustrated the prophets having been repeatedly sent to Israel, to call people back to God.  But here, this condemnation of all that has gone before, sweeping up the current leadership in the guilt of those who have committed these crimes of the past, Jesus emphasizes their lack of leadership and care of the common people, their charges whom these leaders are supposed to guide toward God.  We and the crowd that listens to Jesus preach here surely have the recent memory of John the Baptist in mind.  (Indeed, Christ has asked these leaders in the same week about the baptism of John and its holiness, in this reading.)   In fact, my study bible points out that some patristic commentators suggest that Zechariah (mentioned here by Christ) was the prophet at the time of Joash the king (2 Chronicles 24:20-22), but others teach that Jesus here is referring to the father of 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 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 God's people, but most do not want Him.  The desolate house, it says, refers both to the temple and to the nation itself, as house can be used to mean "family" or "tribe" (see Psalms 115:12, 135:19).  My study bible adds that once Christ departs, both the temple and the nation will be without God's presence.  Finally, let us note this feminine image which Jesus presents us of Himself, as a hen who gathers her chicks and wishes only to protect them with love.

Jesus ties in the hypocrisy and bad practices of the religious leaders with the desolation and coming destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem.  In the following chapter, He will go further into this prophecy of what is to come.  But it is clear from this final sermon of Jesus that He knows full well what is to come regarding His Passion and the Cross, and also what will become of Jerusalem and the temple once He has been crucified.  It is a time of the deepest possible transition, the deepest possible effects of their choices.  So much so, that Jesus ties in all the evil that has gone before in terms of the persecution of the prophets with what these leaders are about to do, and what will be the result.  Let us remember that in our past two readings Jesus has scathingly criticized the leadership, based on their hypocrisy which, most importantly, hinders the spiritual progress of their flock toward God.  Jesus has repeatedly said that this is the most important job of a pastor or religious leader.  In His own teachings to His disciples (to whom this final sermon is also addressed), He has repeatedly and emphatically spoken about humility and also the importance of self-knowledge, leading to personal correction in casting off the impulses and desires that may lead to abuses of those less powerful (illustrated in the image of cutting off hand or foot or eye "if it offends" in this passage).  But in today's reading, Jesus takes this all a step further, when He ties this abusive and neglectful behavior of the leadership with the whole of the spiritual history of Israel, culminating in the prophecy of what is to come in Jerusalem and to the temple (which will continue into the next chapter).  Significantly, Jesus' prophecies of what is to come -- and the tying in of repeatedly sending the prophets to Israel to call her back to God -- give us the sense in which our choices manifest in results in this world, even if we no longer are living to see them.  It is similar to the projection of a lifetime spent going in the wrong direction of one individual.  Here, a whole history of passed down errors and selfish personal indulgence -- rather than righteously upholding the teachings of God in personal conduct -- coupled with the refusal to hear the One who is sent, will have disastrous results.  Whether or not we want to see history this way, or even that our choices can manifest in such effects, we must see this text as tying in all of these things, in Jesus' words.  In other words, whatever we make out of what Jesus is saying here, there can be little, if any doubt that we are given the certainty that our own corrupt choices have effects in our lives and upon those around ourselves.  As we have seen from the texts as we read through the Gospels all along, when we are presented with spiritual truth (in whatever form, I would venture to say) we are not simply given a gift which we might easily refuse.  Spiritual truth, in whatever form it comes, is, finally, the gift of reality presented to us; paraphrasing the name of God given to Moses in the Old Testament (I AM WHO I AM - in Exodus 3:14), spiritual truth is what is.  Fighting against and rejecting that reality is, in a particular way, the same as rejecting the laws of physics.  If we fight against gravity, we don't expect that is not going to have its effects.  If we reject spiritual truth, we should not expect that this will create no effects in our lives.  It seems to me that it is certain, whether or not we realize or recognize it in our lifetimes, that rejection of spiritual truth works itself out in real effects -- often with a great lag of time, depending on the circumstance and the depth of rejection involved.  This may seem a bit mysterious, and indeed, it is.  It falls within the very definition of mystery, since "to those who are outside, all things come in parables" (Mark 4:11-12).  Indeed, this word for parables can also be used interchangeably with "riddles" or even "mysteries" -- hidden, secret things.  We are responsible for what we hear, and also for our lack of capacity to hear; at least somewhere deep within us, we have the faculties for such spiritual hearing and sight.  Whether or not we care to use them also seems to be a function of a depth of decision, part of the mysterious nature of faith and how it works within us.  We are offered grace, even in the admonitions of Christ, who, in this starkest and harshest of critical language, still tries to save and to warn.  Let us pay attention for our own conduct, our own faith, our own times, and their effects.   The icon above, from Vatopedi Monastery on Mt. Athos in Greece, is a depiction of Christ the Teacher, as He holds a scroll of His teachings.  Let us note that at the same time, He raises His hand in blessing, indicating that all is given through grace.  But He is also Christ Pantocrator, or Almighty, a reminder that His teachings are His word, the reality or Logos of God, and so they are always connected to His power of judgment and of eternal life.  They carry with them the weight of truth, and its fullness of effect in terms of our own response.  Let us remember that His teachings and warnings carry the same weight for us today as they do for those whom He addresses in the temple.  We are warned of the importance of our own righteousness and the internal life of the soul.  As the hen who would gather her chicks under her wings, everything Jesus says -- even criticisms and warnings -- are given from love for us.  May we be His willing children who do not reject that love.