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!

 "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, a great discourse against the hypocrisy and excesses of the scribes and Pharisees:  "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.  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' words reflect the parable of the Wicked Vinedressers (in this reading), which Jesus had told to the chief priests and elders, in which each servant sent by the vineyard owner represented a prophet sent to call the people back to God.  Here in today's passage, Jesus more clearly states that these leaders of His time are the children of their fathers, so to speak, as they will kill Him, the Son, and assuredly would have been among those who murdered the prophets.  Their own guilt becomes, in effect, a manifestation of Jesus' words of condemnation in yesterday's reading, in which He said to them, "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."  It is these men upon whom the added guilt of their "fathers" will fall, as they are the same as those who murdered the prophets; in effect, a "brood of vipers."  This is the third time that term has appeared in Matthew's Gospel; the first time it was used by John the Baptist, and the second time by Jesus (3:7, 12:34).

"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 comments that God's deepest desire is the reconciliation of God's people, but most do not want God.  The desolate house is a reference both directly to the temple but also to the nation itself.  House can be used to mean "family" or "tribe" (see Psalms 115:12, 135:19).  My study bible comments that once Christ departs, both the temple and the nation will be without God's presence.

I don't think we can overestimate the impact of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in terms of the meaning for the whole of Jewish spiritual history.  Jesus places this event, which will happen some forty years after His prophesy of its destruction, firmly within a timeline of choices by the religious leadership to reject God's repeated call in their practices.  Most particularly, it is the rejection of the prophets, including John the Baptist, and the deliberate putting to death of Jesus, that precipitates this horrific event which will take place at the time of the devastation to Jerusalem.  In some sense, the choice that will be offered to the people between the nationalist insurrectionist Barabbas and Jesus Himself will be both a symbolic and actual wrong choice in terms of spiritual truths and God's call to the people.  It will be a figurative choice between a doctrine of a messiah who will return the material fortunes of Israel as great earthly kingdom or Christ whose kingdom is at once "not of this world" and also "within" us and among us (John 18:36, Luke 17:21).  Repeatedly in recent readings (and especially in this final sermon), Jesus has spoken of the depth of commitment to God as something which concerns the heart and soul and mind (as in the first "greatest commandment").  Jesus has quoted from the prophesy of Isaiah suggesting that even as they draw near to God with words, their hearts are far away (Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:7–9).  The repeated powerful emphasis has been on the love of God and its presence within heart and mind and soul over and against a materialist mindset that values the "praise of men" more than the "praise of God" (John 12:43).   The seeking of a messiah for whom the glories of the kingdom of Israel would be paramount, such as becoming once again a conquering worldly kingdom as in the time of David, becomes the lynch pin, so to speak.  It is the stumbling block that prevents the response of the heart to God's call.  Jesus will be condemned by these leaders because He calls Himself the Son of God, but truly we must look at the patterns evidenced by repeated choices to understand the deeper roots of conflict.  We must wonder whether or not an all-powerful conquering Jesus, with an army that would throw off the Romans and establish great wealth for the kingdom of Israel would not, in fact, have been welcomed by both the leaders and the people.  In such a case, He may even have been acknowledged as messiah who was both God and man.  But Jesus, like the prophets before Him including John the Baptist, comes as one with "nowhere to lay His head" (8:20).   He does not command an army, He has not amassed weapons, and His focus is not on a political solution for Israel of overthrowing the Romans.  His focus is, instead, on a purely spiritual call, and a naming of the problems of Israel on spiritual terms:  that "these people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me," and that "in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men."  In today's world, we are experiencing a lot of social upheaval.  Perhaps depending upon which country (or countries) in which one lives, such upheaval affects us on one level and another.  But Jesus offers us a third way, so to speak, in complete contrast to the political solutions which present themselves for today's problems, which we may view as the "commandments of men," in some sense.  For one thing is clear, if we are truly to follow Jesus, and to consider His message for today.  We cannot leave our faith out of our solutions to current problems.  We can't leave God out of solutions to permanent and long-lasting problems that come into the realm of this world of human beings.  Ultimately, goodness and truth and beauty are not mere abstractions or philosophical ideals.  Our solution to all ills has to be a spiritual one to begin with, for it is in the love of God -- the Source of all goodness, truth, and beauty -- where we will find our true peace and joy.   This isn't just a formula for yet another political solution to current events and current problems.  Rather, we have to return to Jesus' true message of hearts that are drawn close to God, and which do not just give lip service to faith or to worship.  We have to come to understand His message in the context of our own times:  where are we drawn that will provide us with real answers to our problems?  How do we seek first His kingdom so that all things are added unto us?  How do we avoid being also a "brood of vipers" like those who may draw near to God with their lips but who would censor and condemn the prophets of our own time?  We have powerful structures and interests at work in the world, and those which are also corrupt.  Of that we can be sure, that nothing much has changed since Christ's time.  But let us consider His lament over Jerusalem, and His warnings to the religious leaders, and think not that we will find respite in easy rhetoric and virtue-signaling, which seem to be so popular and de rigeur.  Jesus does not ask for empty talk of guilt, but rather for faith -- and that is a much tougher and more courageous call.  It is the call of the Cross.