I’m going to read some words out loud. As I read these words, picture in your mind the person who first spoke them. Try to imagine his face. Picture the forehead, the eyebrows, the eyes, the lips, the teeth, and the skin color. Is he happy? Is he sad? Is he mad? Here are his words:
“…woe to you…hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.”
“Woe to you…hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”
“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools!…”
“Woe to you…hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!”
“Woe to you…hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence….First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.”
“Woe to you…hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
When you picture the person who first spoke those words, what do you see? Do you see a forehead creased in frustration? Eyebrows bent in anger? Eyes narrowed in wrath? Lips stretched thin and teeth clenched with fury? Skin bright red with rage?
I wouldn’t blame you if that’s the image that came to mind. Because these are hard words aren’t they? They hurt. They cut. And when we hear hard words, we picture them coming from a hard person. We assume that radical words like these must come from a wrathful and raging individual.
I saw this in a humorous way over Spring Break. We were staying at my niece’s house in Tempe, Arizona. My niece is a six year old girl named Brianna. One night I watched Brianna walk into the kitchen, get a prepackaged cup of applesauce, rip the top off, and then walk back into the living room with the applesauce. Having sat down on the couch, she proceeded to lap the applesauce like a dog. Her grandmother took her by the arm into the kitchen and said, “No, Brianna. You are not going to lap applesauce like a dog. No.” To a six year old, “No” is a hard word, isn’t it? It’s a cutting word. And Brianna responded in this way: with arms crossed, eyebrows down, eyes tearing, and lips pouting, she said, “Why is everyone always so mean to me?”
When we hear hard words we assume they are coming from a hard person. And that can be the case with the words I read earlier. Those words come from Jesus in Matt. 23. They’ve been the topic of our five week series called Masquerade. And when we hear these hard words, it’s tempting to imagine that they come from a hard Savior. We may wonder, “Why is Jesus being so mean to me?”
And what is our response to hard words from hard people? Recent events in the Middle East illustrate what we humans tend to do in the face of hard words.[1] What do we do? We revolt. We protest. Hard words from hard people lead to passionate protest.
- For example, in Yemen protestors are calling for the ouster of their President who has ruled since 1978. The protestors cite government corruption and lack of political freedom.
- In Libya, protestors have run a defiant Gadhafi out of power because of high unemployment and a lack of freedom.
- Citizens of Tunisia recently removed their President from power due to corruption and political repression.
- In Egypt, demonstrators forced President Mubarak from office. They were angry over lack of free elections, high food prices, low wages, and high unemployment.
Again and again, people living in the Middle East have faced hard word from hard Presidents, hard Prime Ministers, hard dictators and hard leaders. The response has been revolt. The response has been insurrection. Hard words from hard people often lead to passionate protest.
That is exactly how some of Jesus’ original listeners responded to him. When they heard Jesus’ hard words, they rioted and revolted against Jesus. Here’s how Jesus describes it: “29Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? 34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. 37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” (Matt. 23:29-37 ESV).
Jesus gives a little history lesson here. It’s called “React 101: How Religious People Respond to Hard Words.” Jesus starts way back in the Old Testament with what his listeners would call “the days of our fathers.” Their forefathers were faced with some teachers called prophets. Prophets typically come with challenging words from God. And how did those forefathers react to those prophets? Jesus says they shed the blood of the prophets. They murdered the prophets. That’s how violently they reacted to the hard words coming from the prophets. They revolted. They ignored the message and they killed the messengers. Historically, hard words from hard people lead to passionate protest.
Then, based on this little history lesson, Jesus makes a prediction. Jesus talks about how he and God are going to send people whom he calls “prophets and wise men and scribes.” Jesus is probably referring her to his own followers. Jesus is going to send his followers to preach his message after he dies and is raised from the dead. Some of those followers will carry some pretty hard words. And Jesus predicts how his current audience will react to those hard words. Jesus says some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town. The people who will soon hear the hard words of Jesus’ followers will repeat history. They will do exactly what their own forefathers did when God sent prophets to them. They will riot and revolt against those hard words.
Finally, Jesus turns from just the scribes and Pharisees whom he has been addressing and looks over the entire city of Jerusalem. And Jesus laments, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” The city of Jerusalem is caught up in the same violent response. Every time God sends messengers to that city with hard words, the people of that city kill them and stone them. Hard words from hard people often spark passionate protest.
Timothy Keller writes that the Bible is filled with hard words, no matter what culture you are from.[2] Many of us read a certain passage of Scripture and say, “That’s so regressive, so offensive.” But we ought to entertain the idea that maybe we feel that way because in our particular culture that text is a problem. In other cultures that passage might not come across as regressive or offensive. Let’s look at just one example. In individualistic, Western societies, we read the Bible, and we have a problem with what it says about sex. But then we read what the Bible says about forgiveness—”forgive your enemy;” “forgive your brother seventy times seven;” “turn the other cheek;” “when your enemy asks for your shirt, give him your cloak as well”—and we say, “How wonderful!” It’s because we are driven by a culture of guilt. But if you were to go to the Middle East, they would think that what the Bible has to say about sex is pretty good. (Actually, they might feel it’s not strict enough!) But when they would read what the Bible says about forgiving your enemies, it would strike them as absolutely crazy. It’s because their culture is…more of a shame culture than a guilt culture…If the Bible really was the revelation of God, and therefore it wasn’t the product of any one culture, wouldn’t it contradict every culture at some point?…Therefore when you read the Bible, and you find some part of it outrageous and offensive, that’s proof that it’s probably true…”
No matter what culture you live in, you will be offended by some words in the Bible. You will find some of those words hard to hear. And that often leads us to engage in our own little revolution. Our own little protest. We don’t go around murdering and stoning the Bible’s messengers as Jesus’ audience did. But we have our own ways of protesting the tough words of Scripture.
One of our most common strategies of protest is to simply ignore Scripture. When the Bible becomes too offensive or too cutting or too regressive and backwards, we protest by simply ignoring it. We shut its cover and refuse to open it. In her book Amazing Grace, the writer and poet Kathleen Norris shares what she calls “the scariest story” she’s ever heard about a Bible.[3] Norris and her husband were visiting a man named Arlo. Arlo started talking about his grandfather, a sincere Christian. The grandfather gave Arlo and his bride a wedding present. It was an expensive leather Bible with their names printed in gold lettering. But Arlo had no use for Scripture. He didn’t care for the Bible. He either found its words irrelevant or offensive. But either way, Arlo left that wedding present in the box and never opened it. For months afterwards his grandfather kept asking Arlo if he liked the Bible. Eventually Arlo got tired of the grandfather asking. So, strictly out of curiosity one day, he opened that Bible. Arlo said, “I finally took that Bible out of the closet and I found that granddad had placed a twenty-dollar bill at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, and at the beginning of every book … over thirteen hundred dollars in all. And he knew I’d never find it.” Sometimes our strongest response to the hardness and sharpness of Scripture is to just keep the covers shut. But ironically, when we do, we miss what is truly meant as a gift from someone who loves us.
And that’s where Jesus seeks to lead us this morning. When we first hear these words from Matt. 23 their hardness makes us assume that Jesus is hard. And our gut response is to revolt. To protest. To shut the cover and listen no more. But Jesus seeks to move us far beyond that initial reaction. Notice the end of our text this morning. 37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Matt. 23:37 ESV). Jesus does something remarkable here. He transforms our image of him. If we imagined him vengeful and raging and hate-filled, he paints just the opposite image. His paint comes from the songs and poetry of ancient Israel. Jesus dips his brush in the book of Psalms. One of the favorite images of God in the Psalms is God as a bird who protects his people under his strong wings:
- Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings… (Psalm 17:8 ESV)
- How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. (Psalm 36:7 ESV)
- Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by. (Psalm 57:1 ESV)
- Let me dwell in your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings! (Psalm 61:4 ESV).
- for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. (Psalm 63:7 ESV)
Jesus tosses out the stern portrait we may have in our minds as a result of his hard words. And he dips his brush in the book of Psalms and paints us a newer and truer portrait of himself. Jesus describes himself as a hen or bird protecting her chicks with her outstretched wings. Even though Jesus knows that his listeners will respond to his hard words by killing him, he nonetheless shows himself to be the loving and tender mother who only wants to protect her chicks from all harm and all evil.
Barbara Brown Taylor explains the tenderness of this image:[4] “On the western slope of the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem, sits a small chapel…According to tradition, it was here that Jesus wept over the city that had refused his ministrations…Down below, on the front of the altar…is a mosaic medallion of a white hen with a golden halo around her head. Her…wings are spread wide to shelter the pale yellow chicks that crowd around her feet…The medallion is rimmed with red words in Latin. Translated into English they read, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Brown then imagines the rest of this scene: “In the absence of a mother hen, some of the chicks have taken to following the fox around. Others are huddled out in the open where anything with claws can get to them. Across the valley, a white hen with a gold halo around her head is clucking for all she is worth. Most of the chicks cannot hear her, and the ones that do make no response. They no longer recognize her voice. They have forgotten who they are. If you have ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand the depth of Jesus’ lament. All you can do is open your arms. You cannot make anyone walk into them. Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable posture in the world –wings spread, breast exposed… Given the number of animals available, it is curious that Jesus chooses a hen…What about the mighty eagle of Exodus, or Hosea’s stealthy leopard? What about the proud lion of Judah, mowing down his enemies with a roar? Compared to any of those, a mother hen does not inspire much confidence….But a hen is what Jesus chooses…What he will be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. She has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles. All she has is her willingness to shield her babies with her own body. If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first. Which he does, as it turns out. He slides up on her one night in the yard while all the babies are asleep. When her cry wakens them, they scatter. She dies the next day where both foxes and chickens can see her — wings spread, breast exposed — without a single chick beneath her feathers.”
That’s a very different image isn’t it? Nothing hard. Nothing stern. This is a tender, loving, self-giving, compassionate and vulnerable image. That’s who is speaking these hard words. That’s who has delivered this sermon of Matt. 23. Not a raging lunatic. But a devoted mother ready to die for those to whom he speaks. Hard words from a loving Lord.
And that image of Jesus ought to impact what we do with these hard words. That image of Jesus ought to keep us from passionate protest. Instead, it ought to lead us to passionate practice. Hard words from a loving Lord lead to passionate practice. Jesus delivers this agonizing sermon because he adores us. He longs for us to experience real religion. He wants to keep us from the fox of fraudulent faith. He knows that fox is out to get us. That fox looks harmless. But the faith of the frauds has sharp teeth and a ravenous appetite. And Jesus speaks these words because he wants to keep us from that fox.
This section of Matt. 23 is like the end of Matt. 7. In Matt. 7 Jesus ends his Sermon on the Mount by urging us to not just hear his words, but to put them into practice. Jesus says if you do that you are like a wise man who builds his house on the rock. Storms come but the rock and the house stand. Jesus ends his sermon on the religion of the real by urging us to practice his words. And Jesus ends his sermon on the faith of the frauds in Matt. 23 in the same way. He is urging us to practice these words. But he wants to make sure we understand who’s issuing the invitation. It’s not a dictator. It’s not a tyrant. It’s a loving Lord with arms open wide ready to protect even if it means dying.
In his book The Bible Jesus Read Philip Yancey writes that in Jesus’ day sometimes fires would sweep through the land and destroy farms.[5] In the aftermath the farmer would find the scorched bodies of hens, wings outstretched. As the farmer kicked the corpse aside, chicks would scurry out, alive. The mother had sacrificed herself to save the chicks. That’s the one who’s spoken these hard words. These words are his attempt to save our life. These words are his attempt to rescue us from the fox and the fire. They are words of love. So do not protest against them. Rather, practice them. Embrace them. Go and live them out.
[1] http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/03/09/middle.east.africa.unrest/index.html.
[2] Tim Keller, in the sermon Literalism: Isn’t the Bible Historically Unreliable and Regressive?, PreachingToday.com.
[3] Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (Riverhead Books, 1998), 95.
[4] Barbara Brown Taylor, “As a Hen Gathers Her Brood,” The Christian Century (February 25, 1986), 201; http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=638.
[5] Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read (Zondervan), 210.
