Matthew  23: 36-44

“Squirming out of it.”   

Matthew 23:36-44 [MSG]

“You can’t squirm out of this: Every drop of righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood of that good man Abel right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah’s son, whom you murdered at his prayers, is on your head. All this, I’m telling you, is coming down on you, on your generation.

“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought you God’s news! How often I’ve ached to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn’t let me. And now you’re so desolate, nothing but a ghost town. What is there left to say? Only this: I’m out of here soon. The next time you see me you’ll say, ‘Oh, God has blessed him! He’s come, bringing God’s rule!’”

Introduction:

Well, Happy Anniversary, everyone!! Today is the first day of ‘Year A’ in our Anglican liturgical cycle. We return to page 268 of the Book of Alternative Services and, as usual, discover there the service for Advent 1. Today is a doubly exciting celebration, marking not only the start of a new year for the church but also the beginning of the countdown to Christmas, when we celebrate God’s gift to the world: His Son, the baby Jesus. This Sunday Morning, we light the first Advent candle, Hope, because this entire season points to our ultimate and only hope, which is in Christ Jesus.

So, our Gospel reading from Matthew, I think, needs a little explanation, as Jesus tells his disciples and the crowds following him that all the righteous blood shed since the good man Abel would come down on “this generation.” Sounds more like condemnation than celebration to me. Especially as Jesus continues with that famous line, “How often I’ve ached to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn’t let me.” There is, however, a message of hope in Jesus’ words in the face of condemnation that can help us stop “Squirming out of it.”

Sermon:

I have to admit, I really like the way Peterson’s The Message translates this passage in Matthew 23. He states plainly what all the other scholarly translations imply but never actually say, “You can’t squirm out of this.” Jesus, speaking to his disciples and the crowd that was following him, has just levelled seven “Woes” at the Jewish religious leaders, the Scribes and Pharisees, for the way they have twisted and misused the Torah, the law of God, for their own ends. They are hypocrites who have misled the people for their own pride.

Pride is ultimately Jesus’ topic in this sermon. In verse 9, he says to the crowd, “Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant.” He then breaks into the “Woes,” which again, I prefer how Peterson interprets the words as, “You’re hopeless.” Woe to them, for with so much pride governing what they do, they were hopeless, which is certainly not our message on this first Sunday of Advent.

First, what is this strange reference to “Every drop of righteous blood ever spilled on this earth”? I think we all know the reference to Abel, Adam’s son, murdered by his brother Cain. The very first murder, and that of a righteous man whose offering to God had been accepted, was killed by his brother because his offering had not been. The second reference Jesus makes is to one Zechariah, whose ultimate identity is a hotly debated subject amongst modern biblical scholars.

There is a Zechariah recorded in 2 Chronicles 24 who was killed in the temple court for prophesying and speaking God’s word. However, his father was Jehoiada, not Barachiah, as it is recorded in Matthew. However, many reasonable explanations for this discrepancy have been proposed, and Zechariah’s words recorded as he parted this world, “May the Lord see this and call you to account,” are in keeping with Jesus' speech.

But none of this helps us understand why Jesus would call upon, as he put it, this generation, all the guilt and blame for the murder of every righteous person since, essentially, time began. The Scribes and Pharisees were undoubtedly hopeless, although we know that there were some, like Nicodemus, who sought out and ultimately believed in Jesus. Is Jesus here, referring to the Scribes and Pharisees?

There is, in this, at the climax of his sermon, a change in who he is talking to. As if Jesus was proclaiming his condemnation of the Scribes and Pharisees over the heads of the crowd, his seven “You’re hopelesses” and once the crowd was all on side condemning them as well, he dropped eyes to meet theirs and said, “You can’t squirm out of this: Every drop of righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, … is on your head.”

“All this,” everything Jesus has been saying up till now, the condemnation of pride ruling in their hearts and corrupting the just commandments of God, “All this, I’m telling you, is coming down on you, on your generation.” Now wouldn’t that be a waker-upper for any of us standing in that crowd pridefully patting ourselves on the back for not being like the Scribes and Pharisees. It reminds me of the well-known story Jesus told about the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple.

We all want to be the tax collector who went home justified, but it would seem in this instance, Jesus wants us to stop trying to squirm out of it and see ourselves as the Scribes and Pharisees.“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought you God’s news!”

We are very quick to identify ourselves as the children of God. It’s one of the great shames of the history of the Church, and I’m sad to say, very much the Anglican church as much as any other, that the theology that Christians are the new Israelites under the new Covenant has led to significant antisemitism even in our supposedly enlightened, woke generation. If we are going to grab the vaunted moniker ‘God’s People’, then we must also wear the shame and guilt of having murdered the prophets. Which includes owning Jesus’ adulation, “You’re hopeless.”

Could “Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought you God’s news” possibly apply to us? Well, the church is described as the bride of Christ, and the Book of Revelation describes the New Jerusalem as being prepared as a bride for the Lamb. Which leaves us, because of our pride, bearing the guilt of every righteous drop of blood spilled on the earth since Caine killed Abel out of his pride.

Now, I know I’ve probably lost you somewhere along the way. The logic and the argument may be unassailable, and you may even agree with the idea, but emotionally, you’re not owning this proposition. It’s not your fault that Cain killed Abel, nor that Zechariah was stoned to death for preaching God’s word. Deuteronomy 24:16 states that each person will die for their own sins, so what do Abel and Zechariah have to do with us?

Well, a couple of paragraphs back in this sermon, Jesus seems to anticipate that his audience will come to that conclusion and provides the answer ahead of time. In his seventh ‘woe’, he says, “You build granite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints. And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands. You protest too much! You’re cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count.” We’re cut from the same cloth as those murderers, but our pride won’t let us see it. Jesus condemns us before we even know what we’ve done.

This should be a rather sobering moment. Jesus sees us, condemned for all the righteous blood that has been spilled since the beginning, far more and far longer than we even dare contemplate, more guilt than we can imagine, and we don’t see it at all. Our pride, like the pride of our spiritual ancestors, the Pharisees, hides it from our hearts and emotions. But here’s the thing.

Jesus cries, “How often I’ve ached to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn’t let me. And now you’re so desolate, nothing but a ghost town.” Do you hear it? Not one word of condemnation from the judge who knows your guilt better than you do. I would suggest, better than any of us will ever know. Jesus knows we’re nothing but a ghost town. We are so, so desolate. We are hopeless. And yet Jesus aches to embrace us. Even when we wouldn’t let him, he still longs after us. What a hope for the hopeless. That the one who knows my every guilt, even to the beginning of creation, all the righteous blood that my pride has spilled in this world, is aching to embrace me if I will only let him, to gather me under his loving protective wings as a hen gathers her chicks.

You see, as Jesus explained to Simon the Pharisee, one who is forgiven much will also love much. Jesus knows that unless we own our own sins, the guilt of our pride that has caused so much suffering in this world, we’ll never let Him embrace us as He desires to, we’ll never run to hide under the loving wings of His forgiveness and compassion. When we say that our hope is built on Jesus' blood and righteousness, it means we see, understand, and own the unrighteous pride that needs that atonement.

What captures my heart in this passage is Jesus' response to our hopelessness. We are desolate, a ghost town, so “what is there left to say? Only this: I’m out of here soon.” And that’s it. Nothing about the cross, suffering, death, resurrection, just, “I’m out of here soon.” Like Naaman, who protested over the cure for his leprosy prescribed by Elijah, we want God to do something big. After all, we’re a somebody aren’t we? God should be doing something huge and amazing to wash away my sins, there should be lightning and thunder and well, something worthy of me! But He’s just “out of here soon.”

You see, the real hope has nothing to do with us. That’s God’s business, between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They, together, are working out your atonement, salvation, and sanctification. All you need to know is that Jesus came in the first place and that he also left. And the next time you see him, you’ll say, ‘Oh, God has blessed him!’ He’s come, bringing God’s rule!’”

That Jesus came is the hope Advent points forward to. A small, humble event, a child born and raised like any of us would have been. And shortly after that, we look to another humbling event, when he left, in the shame and disgrace of the cross. But I have, in these words of Jesus, that immutable hope that, just as he did come and just as he did leave, so there will be a next time, and then I, you, and all the world will know that “Oh, God has blessed him” and that “He’s come, bringing God’s rule!”

I don’t need to squirm out of my guilt, to make myself more than I am, or less. And what good would it do? Jesus is my judge, and he already knows the true nature of my guilt far better than I do. Yet, when he returns, as he will as assuredly as he was born a human child, he will ache to embrace me as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and I will let him because I will know I have been forgiven much. Why would we want to squirm out of that?

Amen