After Pentecost Devotional - Day 42

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Your people have killed the prophets and have stoned the messengers who were sent to you. I have often wanted to gather your people, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you wouldn’t let me.” Matthew 23:37

Rather than a portrait of an angry God, Jesus paints the picture of a mother hen. It is a far cry from the image so many have of God. While this portrait may seem at odds with some passages, it is a seemingly constant refrain on Jesus' lips. He teaches forgiveness, even from the cross. He teaches grace for all who accept their sin and failures. He teaches love for enemies, including foreigners and national enemies. He declares God as loving toward one and all, then he places that same character into action.

While we may want to portray God as angry and vindictive, Jesus' words here remind us that we are the ones who react out of anger and violence when confronted with perspectives and words that run counter to our preferences. We are the ones who kill prophets. God is the one who sends prophets to offer a correction to our paths. While God's purpose is to redirect and redeem, we often respond in violent protection of the status quo.

We are the angry ones. We are the violent ones. We are the ones who react in a crowd mentality to silence voices calling on us to rethink our positions and prejudices. We are the ones who respond to injustice by closing our eyes to uncomfortable visions of the suffering we help cause by callous inaction. We are the ones who ignore cries for help and assistance, while God listens to the Hebrew cry in bondage. All too often, we find ourselves in the shoes of Pharaoh, who is more concerned with maintaining his position of power, influence, and wealth than worrying about those upon whom he might be treading.

The prophets Jesus referred to in Israel's history were concerned about economic injustice wrapped in the practices of the fertility cults. They were concerned about the ways Israel was failing to meet the needs of the widows, orphans, immigrants, poor, and infirm in their midst. They were concerned with the ways in which the powerful were using religion to advance their personal interests at the expense of those they marginalized.

The masses to whom Jesus taught and ministered were the marginalized of society. They were not the wealthy, elite, and powerful. They were those who suffered at the hands of the religious and political power brokers. They were the ones in need of good news. They were the ones who suffered at the hands of those Jesus was addressing.

He was not addressing Jerusalem as a whole, but in its role as Judaism's power structure. Jesus had been speaking directly to the Pharisees and scribes all through the chapter at hand, and this passage was the culmination of that critique. The power structure, religiously, politically, and economically, was set against God's message through the prophets. God still wanted to redeem and redirect the nation, but they would not have it.

They wanted something other than God's priorities. They wanted something other than justice for all. They wanted something other than grace and mercy. In their obstinance, they were missing the blessings God had for them.

At what points do you find yourself struggling against God's priorities? Determine to allow God to redirect your paths and priorities.

"Lord, help me let go of anything keeping me from pursuing reconciliation with you."

—©Copyright 2016, Christopher B. Harbin

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