Luke reports other words of Jesus earlier in his Gospel, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" This gives us a clear motherly image of God. How could one improve upon Jesus' picture of God as a Mother Hen, brooding over her chicks? God, with outstretched wings, trying to gather together all of God's children into one community of faith and hope and love...but they would not! And we still don't. Our unwillingness to be gathered together as God's children still brings grief to the heart of God!