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!"

 

 "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 

 

We are currently in the middle of chapter 23 of St. Matthew's Gospel.  In this chapter we are given Christ's final public sermon.  In it we find a grand critique by Christ of the ways of the Pharisees and scribes.  Yesterday we read that Jesus said, "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, is it 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.  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."  Jesus continues His condemnation of the murderous hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees.  Their outward piety, while nominally good in upholding the teachings of the Law, masks an inward faithlessness and even murderous greed.  Thus, inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.  As Jesus says, they outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.  Moreover, just as Jesus told in the parable of the Vineyard, the many servants sent by God (the prophets and righteous) were persecuted in the days of their fathers.  So while they may outwardly honor the martyrs of the past, they witness against themselves that they are "sons of those who murdered the prophets," meaning that despite their words, they follow in the same footsteps as those murderers, and are therefore their "sons."

 

"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 speaks here as the Son who was sent after all the servants (the prophets and righteous) who previously came calling the people back to God.  He prophesies of the persecutions to come from these men, and the resulting effect:  "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, son of Berechiah, some patristic commentary teaches that this was the prophet at the time of Joash the king (2 Chronicles 24:20-22).  But others teach that Jesus is referring to the father of St. John the Baptist, who, according to tradition, was also murdered in the temple.  Indeed, according to commentary by Fr. Stephen De Young, the latter understanding is correct, that Jesus speaks here of the father of St. John the Baptist, for there is nothing in the Old Testament indicating that the prophet at the time of Joash was murdered, but on the contrary lived a long life.  

 

 "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 refers both to the temple and to the nation itself, for this Greek word broadly meaning house can also be used to mean "family" or "tribe" (see Psalms 115:12, 135:19).  Both the temple and the nation, my study Bible says, will be without God's presence once Christ has departed.

 

 It's very easy to minimize the effects of hypocrisy in our lives.  It's such a commonplace thing, on a varying scale, that it's easy to excuse or pass off as simply the difficulty of living our lives authentically within our faith.  But the Church has its own ways of coming to terms with the ways in which we fall short of living the life of faith which Christ teaches us.  Repentance is a way of healing what is wrong in our lives, where we've made wrong turns, and forgiveness is held out by a loving God.  But when we are frozen in that repentance, for whatever reason, we unfortunately can become hardened in that place, even opposed to Christ, even despising and hating what is good.  The practices of the scribes and Pharisees described by Christ are such things as are the outcome of a refusal of repentance, of heeding the call back to God.  For God has called from the beginning for a righteousness not merely of outward practice, but of faith.  Outward practice is important, for we as human beings are physical beings; what we do with our bodies makes a great deal of difference, and our bodies are not separated from soul and spirit but we are of one creation by God.  It is the split itself, in these cases, that is the problem, and leads to evil.  And this is what Jesus condemns and is talking about.  When the outward practices of these religious leaders shield practices that defy the purposes of God, the corruption only results in a deepening problem.  Jesus describes greed and envy, murderous intention when authority or public position is threatened, and a whole history of such repeated through time, and culminating in the present moment in which He speaks these words in the temple during Holy Week.  He speaks as the Son, sent by the Father to call people back, the age of the prophets of the Old Testament period having culminated in St. John the Baptist.  But the refusal to repentance has consequences.  Jesus will hold out the possibility of forgiveness through repentance, and through all the practices of the Church, starting with Holy Baptism.  But a refusal will only leave things where they are, a constant refusal of God's grace and mercy.  Effectively, this refusal is itself a kind of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and without repentance will not result in spiritual healing and salvation.  So, we find ourselves today asking what this has to do with us.  But, as my study Bible says, it has everything to do with us.  Hypocrisy hasn't left us, and neither has corruption.  In our Holy Bibles we read of Abraham whose faithfulness was counted to him as righteousness; St. Paul explains that this remained essential even after the Law came, for we find it in David (see Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3-8), and so it remains as well for us.  Without hearts drawn toward God, we miss the point of our faith, we miss the righteousness of Abraham, we run the risk of a hypocrisy that refuses God's call to change and repentance, healing and, effectively, salvation itself.  Let us take Jesus' words to heart, for He leaves His scathing testimony to us as the faithful Witness (Revelation 1:5).  

 

 

 

 

 

For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness

 

 "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 father's 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 

 

On Wednesday we began reading Christ's final public sermon, an indictment of the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees.  In yesterday's reading, He continued that sermon, saying,  "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 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 cumin, 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 is Christ's vivid description of a hypocrisy that masks behavior that leads to death, not life.  

 

 "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 father's 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." My study Bible suggests that the reference to Zechariah (as in Luke 11:51) may refer to the prophet at the time of Joash the king (2 Chronicles 24:20-22), while there is another opinion it may refer 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 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 His people, yet most do not want Him.  The desolate house refers both to the temple and to the nation itself, for "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 departs.  Noteworthy here is the feminine, loving, protective motherly image Christ gives for Himself as a hen who seeks to gather her chicks under her wings.  

 

 Jesus tells the scribes and Pharisees, "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 this image of the whitewashed tombs Jesus describes, we discover what we may look at as an illustration of what is called "the two ways."  These are the way of life and the way of death.  The two ways are specifically laid out for the people by God in the Book of Jeremiah, in which the prophet Jeremiah is instructed as follows, "Now you shall say to this people, 'Thus says the Lord: "Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death'" (Jeremiah 21:8).  In Jesus' preaching, we are taught about the two ways in the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus teaches, "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7:13).  My study Bible tells us that the description of the two ways was widespread in Judaism (Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1; Proverbs 4:18-19, 12:28, 15:21; Sirach 15:17), and also in early Christian writings (Didache, Barnabas).  In the struggle for the better way of the narrow gate, we as human beings wrestle against sin and human weakness in addition to spiritual forces of evil (Ephesians 6:12).  These varied forces and influences define the external focus of the religious leaders whom Jesus criticizes, who are like whitewashed tombs.  They are careful to appear to the world as pious and upholding religious law and doctrine, but their inner lives follow another way.  Hence Jesus' description, that all this beauty of the whitewash hides not only the sins done against others for gain (even "dead men's bones" that may allude to the prophets murdered by those in whose footsteps these men follow), but also their own neglect of their souls.  In Jesus words, they will "fill up the measure" of their "fathers' guilt."  Their hypocrisy, then, is a "way of death," another bad road leading to a bad end.  Jesus prophesies of those whom He will send out in the world:  "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."  But this bad road of hypocrisy in which, despite their words to the contrary, they follow the priests who stoned and killed the prophets before them, will lead to a particular end.  Jesus tells them, " . . . 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."  Those dead men's bones, and all uncleanness therefore includes not only the state of their souls in their turning from the love of God but also the sins of their ancestors whose ways they follow.  This is what it means that He calls them "sons of those who murdered the prophets."  We have to recall the repeated warnings to Israel by the prophets, constantly calling the people back to God, and persecuted and rebuked, even murdered, by those holding these responsible positions.  Jesus says to them that all this will come down upon this particular generation.  We must note that this passage ends with Christ's great, sad, and loving lament over Jerusalem, and her repeated refusal of the Lord's prophets who have been sent to her.  The Lord's "motherly" lament over His lost children echoes and expands upon David's mournful weeping over the loss of his rebellious son Absalom, and the transcendent love of the father for his lost son in Christ's parable of the Prodigal (2 Samuel 18:33; Luke 15:32).  Once again, we need to remind ourselves that these words of Jesus are not meant to simply teach us about the past, but to warn us about our own paths in life.  We are given grace to help us follow His light, to find His way of life for us (John 8:12).  I once spoke to a modern psychotherapist who put it this way; he said, "You're either going the right way or the wrong way."  In Christian terms, we follow the light or we don't.  To follow the light, as grace makes possible for us, is to find our lives in Him and where He leads.  To refuse is to find ourselves in darkness.  And this is what repentance is for, to come back to the way of life.  For He always awaits and calls us back.

 

 

 

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!'"

 

 "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 father's 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 

 

We are currently reading Jesus' final public sermon, which makes up St. Matthew's chapter 23.  It is Christ's grand critique of the scribes and Pharisees, and their hypocritical practices.  In yesterday's reading, Jesus said, "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."  Once again, as in the "woes" listed in yesterday's reading, Jesus continues to elaborate regarding the false practices of the Pharisees and scribes.  He condemns not the what was given from Moses, nor the authority from God ("The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat" - see Monday's reading).  Rather, Jesus is criticizing their personal, hypocritical behavior, which undermines what has been given by God, scandalizes the public, and as He said in yesterday's reading (above), renders their proselytes "twice as much a son of hell as yourselves."  Jesus has taught His disciples to do what they say (for their teachings come from God), but not what they do.  In yesterday's reading, Jesus focused -- as He has so often in His own teachings to His disciples -- on the inner life of these people.  He taught, "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."  In today's reading, He continues this train of thought, saying that they are like "whitewashed tombs," meaning that this whitewash covers up their inner and private lives, where they are full of death and "all uncleanness."  They outwardly appear righteous to men (as "all their works they do to be seen by men"), but inside they are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Moreover, here Christ declares that these religious leaders are truly the spiritual children of those who killed the prophets sent in Israel's past.  They are hypocrites in that they build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, but in their practice they follow in the footsteps of their spiritual fathers who murdered the prophets.  Jesus goes so far as to tell them they are witnesses against themselves that they are the same. 

 

"Fill up, then, the measure of your father's 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 is here not simply equating the scribes and Pharisees' behavior with those who killed the prophets of the past, but saying that these leaders will inherit the measure of their fathers' guilt.  He prophesies that they will continue to do so with the prophets, wise men, and scribes which He will send, and He prophesies also that they will scourge and prosecute His followers of the future -- "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."  My study Bible comments that in some patristic teachings this Zechariah is identified as the prophet at the time of Joash the king (2 Chronicles 24:20-22), while others say it's a reference to the father of St. John the Baptist.  According to tradition, Zechariah the father of St. John the Baptist 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 comments here that God's deepest desire is the reconciliation of God's people, but most do not want God.  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).  Both the temple and the nation, it notes, will be without God's presence once Christ departs. 

Here Jesus makes it clear that He believes there is no turning back for this generation of religious leaders, and in our following reading from chapter 24, He will make it clear that the destruction that results from the measure of guilt He names above will also have extraordinary consequences reaching into the future.  In fact, Christ's exposition on "end times" will be tied to the destruction that will come in Jerusalem to which He alludes at the end of today's reading.  But here, even in light of Jesus' prophesy of destruction to come ("See! Your house is left to you desolate"), it is worth revisiting the commentary of my study Bible on the verses we read yesterday.  In the Church we have inherited many ancient practices from the earliest Christians such as tithing (which Christ mentioned in yesterday's reading in connection with the scribes and Pharisees), sacred vessels, and holy rites.  As my study Bible put it, "These practices can be expressions of deep faith, lead a person to deeper commitment to God, and safeguard our life in Christ, or they can be observed without ever taking them to heart and lead to condemnation."  So, taking this commentary once again together with Christ's even stronger words in today's reading, in which He not only condemns but also expresses the consequences to come into the future, we need to understand that we could be, in effect, those whose fate in some sense follows the fate of the scribes and Pharisees.  If we also devolve into the kinds of hypocrisy that are possible for us -- through corruption, abuse of power, a lack of real faith, and a foundational shift toward the practice of doing nominally "good things" only for the sake of appearances -- then we also may find ourselves in the same place as the scribes and Pharisees of Christ's time.  Sincere faith is as important today (and perhaps even more important today) as it ever was at any time.  We live in a world of tremendously powerful weapons and economies, of great wealth and power side by side with those of small countries whose fates may be sealed tomorrow by the corrupt and powerful.  Our technology is capable of all kinds of things unimaginable a few decades ago.  The powerful nations of the world operate on a global scale unavailable to even the Roman Empire of Christ's time or any other later empire.  Therefore, when we read these passages in our Bible, we do ourselves a great disservice if we do not take them all to heart and apply them to ourselves today.  For we can't forget, also, that regardless of what we see, or the common belief that material appearance is all there is to life, that we as faithful must take the teaching seriously that we live as part of a creation of things both seen and unseen.  The spiritual reality we neglect today has consequences for us tomorrow; and, just like the people whom Jesus names who could not consider anything beyond their own material power for their own gain, we can't necessarily predict what those consequences are.  Regardless of material capability, or technology, or vast wealth, it remains an illusion to believe that everything can be controlled absolutely by the human will.  And we lose tremendously, as indeed did the rulers in Jerusalem, when we forget St. Paul's teaching, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12).  The only way to continue that true spiritual struggle is by putting on "the whole armor of God."  St. Paul writes, "Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints" (Ephesians 6:14-18).  For when we stop the true practice of our faith, the world is left open to such influences whose reflection we see in great injustices, mass violence and murder, corruption and inhumane exploitation such as we might not even be able to consider.  In St. Luke's Gospel, Jesus teaches a parable that "men [people] always ought to pray and not lose heart."  But He asks, "Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" (see Luke 18:1-8).  Whatever else we may do to try to address the problems we see and experience in our world, it is ultimately the power of prayer that Jesus emphasizes as necessary and powerful.  The only way we make such prayer effective is by remembering His words condemning hypocrisy and corruption, living and doing only to be "seen" by others while our private and internal lives reveal death.  Christ speaks so that we may be aware of such mistakes, but how blind may we become when we dismiss them and the possibility that our own "house" may be left desolate thereby?  So much may depend upon how seriously we take His words to these men, and apply them to ourselves.  

That on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth

 

 "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 father's 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 of His earthly life, preaching 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 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 Jesus continues the theme we read in yesterday's reading (above), as His sermon focused on the hypocrisy of the religious leaders.  In the beginning of His sermon, as we read on Monday, He said of them that "all their works they do to be seen by men" and so this comment that they appear beautiful outwardly applies in that sense.  They have external signs of holiness (and "cleanliness" in this sense of religious purification) but internally are anything but. 

 

"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 father's 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 is Jesus' theme elaborated that these religious leaders "are full of dead men's bones and all unrighteousness" -- He says they are the same, the very sons of those who murdered the prophets, for they continue in the same behavior.  Jesus gives His own prophecy here of those whom He will send to them, some of whom they will kill and crucify, scourge in their synagogues, and persecute from city to city.  In Greek, the verb that is translated as "I send" is ἀποστέλλω/apostello, the root from which we derive the word "apostle."  So while even now He sends them out (present tense), He speaks of the future when His apostles (prophets, wise men, and scribes) will be crucified, scourged, and persecuted from city to city.  Jesus speaks of those from the beginning, righteous Abel (who was killed by his brother Cain in Genesis 4:1-15)  to Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.  While some patristic commentary indicates this was the prophet at the time of Joash the king (2 Chronicles 24:20-22), others as well as modern scholars say it refers to the father of St. John the Baptist, making the contemporary "whom you murdered" make sense.  According to tradition, Zechariah the father of John the Baptist was also murdered in the temple.  In Luke's Gospel, he is referred to in the Greek version of his name, Zacharias (see Luke 1:5-25, 57-80).

"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, yet most do not want God.  The house which is desolate refers both to the temple in Jerusalem and to the nation itself, for "house" can be used to mean also family or tribe (see Psalms 115:12, 135:19).  Both the temple and the nation will be without God's protective presence once Christ departs.

Of course, Christian tradition understands Christ's prophecy of the destruction of the temple (and of Jerusalem) as fulfilled in AD 70, when the temple was destroyed by the Romans at the Siege of Jerusalem.  The prophecy of Jesus is seen in this light.  So, we might ask ourselves, how is it possible for "all the righteous blood shed on the earth" to come to one generation?  For that, we must ask ourselves about spiritual awareness and knowledge and the weight they carry in human lives.  These men to whom Christ speaks in today's reading are the experts in the Scriptures, the keepers of Jewish spiritual and religious history and tradition.  Moreover, these men are the ones responsible for the instruction of Israel, the carrying forward of the spiritual tradition of Judaism, and they have failed, in Christ's eyes, through their hypocrisy and corruption.  Even so, we might ask, how can the full weight of all the righteous blood shed come upon one generation?  First we must understand the responsibility that spiritual knowledge and experience carries.  When one "knows better" there is far more responsibility involved than something done in ignorance.  Second, Jesus gives us a very close hint when He tells them (in yesterday's reading, above), "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."   Bad habits and practices become extended from one person to another, and from one generation to another, when they are successively taught through practices and ways of thinking and being.  Righteousness is a question of how we relate to the world and all beings and things in the world; therefore unrighteousness can be acquired and learned as well through the imitation of those who fail to live righteousness.  Indeed, in the Orthodox tradition, the world is in a "fallen" state primarily due to the fact that we inherit the conditions created and, in a sense, "descended" from the first sin.  We don't inherit guilt, but we do acquire the habits of the world around us, the conditions into which we're born.  So these religious leaders are responsible for their own behavior, as they know the teachings of righteousness and yet simply accept corruption and its practices, even extended to unrighteous bloodshed and violence.  Jesus speaks of their hypocrisy when He tells them that "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 father's guilt.  Serpents, brood of vipers!  How can you escape the condemnation of hell?"   And He prophesies what they themselves will do, including His own crucifixion:   "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."  Christ ties them in to an extended history of what they know to be blameworthy behavior ("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'"), and prophesies that they will continue to do the same nonetheless.   Therefore Jesus speaks of the power of spiritual reality at work in our world, which is not only the power of God which sanctifies and brings holiness, enables prophesy and all the varied fruit of the Spirit in our world.  But that same power of sanctification and righteousness is also at work when we fail to uphold what we know to be the good, when we know better, when holiness is standing before us and testifying.  Jesus indicates this when He sends out the apostles and tells them, "And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!" (Matthew 10:14-15).  Note also that what we might call this destructive spiritual power (in response to unrighteous denial or rejection of holiness) comes in time; it will be forty years before the fulfillment of this prophecy.  This is understood as merciful, for there is time for people to repent.  Therefore to those who would be blind to it, cause and effect are not necessarily understood; only those capable of repentance could see or sense the spiritual effects of their actions.  So we today who "know better," who are recipients of the spiritual teachings of Christ and the traditions of holiness that are handed to us, bear responsibility for the spiritual treasures and wisdom we have been given through prophets, wise men, and scribes.  For God's holy power is still at work.  Let us consider when we pray the power of holiness and the reality of Christ's words and teachings.  For righteousness and compassion always remain essential to our understanding of the people He calls us to be.

You are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness

 "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?

You are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness

 "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

Over the course of the past two days, we've been reading Jesus' critique of the Pharisees and their practices.  See They bind heavy burdens hard to bear; and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers for the beginning of this discourse in the temple at Jerusalem.  Yesterday, we read Jesus' continuation:  "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!  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 thoughts from yesterday, regarding the difference between the inner life and the external life (and its focus) in the ways these Pharisees are living and practicing their faith.  The great difference between internal reality and external appearance adds to the understanding of what hypocrisy is here.  His focus, from yesterday's reading, is on the "inside of the cup and dish" -- a metaphor for ourselves.

"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."  What I find interesting about this passage is the form of urgency of the messages of the prophets, wise men, and scribes sent by Christ:  they come to save people from their own bad habits and practices -- to save those who are perishing, even the very ones who persecute, scourge, and kill and crucify them.  The present inheritors of the places of those who persecuted the prophets of the past are the very ones who claim they would not have done so:  and yet are about to do the same to Him (and others who follow).

"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!'"  This image of Christ as "mother hen" is a very important one, because in it we see His real response as One who is sent.  He loves the people He is addressing, and they have failed so in their willingness (or unwillingness) to heed anything He has to teach.  It's not a failure of love on His part, but a failure in the response to love ("you were not willing").   The time is up, His mission is complete.  He will leave them (take His exodus) at their own hands.

It's interesting to think of how Christ phrases the role of the prophets and saints who are sent to those who persecute them.  The real "energy" behind the sending is just that:  to prevent their perishing, to save those who are their persecutors.  Although God's mercy is infinite, what we find (in my opinion) through the Gospels is that there is a sense in which this mercy can be exhausted, and that is through our own choices not to hear, not to care, not to return and try to change.  I believe that the "fire of love" -- in the image, perhaps, of the "fiery ones," the angels of God (most specifically, those who sing the Thrice Holy hymn, and are always in worship at God's throne) -- is a fire of love that seeks to purify, to "burn away" that which is not like the fire and cannot survive in that fire.  In this fire of love that is pure holiness we find images that are part of the miraculous lives of saints, or even more powerfully, the burning bush which was not consumed, in which Moses encounters holiness, the I AM of God.  The burning bush, for Christians, came to be a symbol for Mary:  she who was visited by the Holy Spirit, but in her purity, never consumed.   Purity, in Mary, is a profound inner spirituality, a kind of sense of the internal and external being one and the same, the opposite of hypocrisy.  This sense of purity conjures up the image of the pearl of great price.   Before modern innovations such as cultured pearls, a pearl found in nature was one of pure nacre:  something that was the same on the inside as the outside.  Again, an image that is the opposite of what Jesus describes here when He speaks of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, those who are like "whitewashed tombs" but are internally full of death and decay and "uncleanness."  Let us consider, then, what the point of "holy fire" is:  it appears in the saints to heal and purify, to have the effect of sanctifying, it lives in those who can stand in it and not be consumed.  Just as a test for gold reveals impurities that burn in fire, this sense of holiness is that which conveys a kind of purity in which the fire of love only finds that which is like itself.  In that sense, an image of that which will perish is one in which no love is found in it, no mercy, no sense of wanting to be like God at all.  That is, no heeding of the call to turn back toward God; perhaps a sense that God is absent and will not see, particularly in those who wish to have all control themselves  (see the parable of the wicked vinedressers).  All this is to say that Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees isn't just for the Pharisees, but for all of us, for each of us.  It's a way of understanding where we don't want to go, where we lose our way, and go the opposite direction of God's love and God's holy fire.  Remember the image of the purity of body, soul and spirit in Mary -- or the pearl that is pure in the most profound sense of that word, with no inconsistency.  This doesn't mean we are finished at some point, but rather that we are consistently on the journey of faith; we ask for the fire of God's love to show us the way to be like God, to grow in our understanding of that love and how we practice it and live it, and to allow it to do its work in us.  That's just the path we want to be on.