Sixth Sunday After Trinity 2026
“Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” These words compose the first sentence in today’s Second Lesson in which Our Lord is giving instruction to his disciples about the requirements to enter into his kingdom. They are words of gravity and they should cause us to examine ourselves. We should know what constituted the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees so we know what more is required of the follower of Jesus Christ.
We know from Holy Scripture and other sources that the scribes and Pharisees were zealous for the law of Moses. Their ancestors were taken into captivity for falling into idolatry and forsaking God's commandments. They were careful to calculate that there were 248 commandments and 365 prohibitions within the Law. They remembered well the stories of the exile and the longing to practice their faith in the Promised Land. Make no mistake about it, they were committed to keeping the law and worshipping the God of their ancestors.
Yet, the Pharisees were content with an external obedience, they were satisfied with formal satisfaction of the letter of the Law. It was in this formal observance that led them to believe that they satisfied all of it. They had deceived themselves into believing that they had been faithful when the spirit of the law - the heart of the law - had been ignored. The true nature of their self-professed righteousness was known in their motivation. God desired but the Pharisees lacked “truth in their inward parts.” For they satisfied the letter of the law by tithing even of the herbs in their gardens, but omitted the more important parts of the law such as mercy and faithfulness. Our Lord describes them in Matthew 23 as whitewashed tombs that looked beautiful on the outside but were full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Their righteousness was external for inwardly they were full of hypocrisy and sin. So, we can see in our Lord’s description of their practice that this type of righteousness fell short of the law of the kingdom of heaven.
Our Lord then follows up the call to greater righteousness by giving an example of what this would look like.
He takes the prohibition against murder - the sixth commandment - and then applies the standard of the kingdom of heaven with its more comprehensive requirements. Our Lord doesn’t take issue with the law of Moses, for earlier in Chapter Five he says “think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfil.” In Christ’s fulfillment of the Law, he brings with him the higher law of love. This law is at work in his exposition of Sixth Commandment. Jesus goes to the root of the matter and looks at the desires and motives of the heart. The law of the kingdom of heaven requires not just the absence of physical killing. Instead, it looks at the desires that are the seed of the physical act and calls for the inward motivation to be transformed. It exposes the attitudes of anger and unkindness that not only lead to judgment in the present through the magistrate and the prison but may lead one into the torments of hell.
In doing so, Jesus is saying that formal obedience is not enough. It may satisfy the hard-hearted pride of the Pharisees but it won’t cut it in the kingdom of God. What is required is a transformed heart - a heart of flesh, a heart with the law of Moses written on it.
Truly, a heart of love that is not satisfied to have avoided physical harm to another but seeks the good for another even in conflict. If we take this standard seriously, we will quickly realize that we don’t have the capacity to do so. It is an absolutely impossible task unless God does the work in us and through us. Unless God grants us the power to obey completely. He must do the work of transformation; He must bridge the gap between our hard-heartedness and the full and unavoidable scrutiny of the Law. In this process, we must remember that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, submitted to the Law and fulfilled it completely so that he might redeem us who were born under the burdensome yoke of the Law and provide adoption for us as children of God. St. Paul says as much in Galatians Chapter 4. He also says in that passage that our adoption was the very ground of God the Father giving us the Holy Spirit so that we might have the power to give ourselves completely to the sort of obedience required of us in our Second Lesson.
God initiates our transformation though our participation in Christ through baptism. From beginning to end, the Christian relies upon God’s grace. We need grace and the Holy Spirit both of which are conferred upon us by God in the Holy Sacrament of Baptism which is the subject of today’s Epistle.
St. Paul speaks about this reality that unites us to Christ and gives us the power and the desire for faithfulness. He says in the first verse of today’s Epistle, “Know ye therefore that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?” His death completed the full payment for sin. When we are baptized into Christ, we are united with his death and with it, the death of all that prevents us from being obedient.
There was a veil on the hearts of the scribes and the Pharisees, as St. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians Chapter 3, and that veil has been removed from us through the death of Christ and we were made beneficiaries through baptism. In the same way that Christ has been raised from the dead, we are to be raised so that we may walk in newness of life.
In being raised to walk in newness of life, we can begin that important journey of walking in those good works that God has prepared for us to walk in.
Later in today’s First Lesson. St. Paul says “for if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” It is helpful to think of the term “engrafted” as a synonym for planted. We have been engrafted into Our Lord’s death and resurrection. In the same way that a cutting derives its health from the roots of that to which it is engrafted so the baptized through a mystical union receives spiritual strength from Christ. Our engrafting into Christ through Baptism results in our bearing the fruit of obedience which has its power and origin in God himself. Our Lord used the analogy of the vine as a description of our dependence on him for bearing fruit. In John Chapter 15, Jesus said “Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; nor more can ye except ye abide in me. He then says that in our union with him we should continue in his love and by doing so we will be obedient. The greater righteousness required in today’s Gospel is a result of obedient love that is rooted in union with Christ.
It is in the power of God’s love within the Christian that we offer unto him the greater righteousness. It is of his own righteousness that flows to us that we bear fruit of the greater righteousness.
St. Paul would have us remember that we have been incorporated into Christ through our Baptism. We received grace through the sacrament. We received new life in Jesus' name. We have been connected to Christ’s righteousness that gives us the power to live obediently. Rest in that reality. We must revel in God’s work on our behalf. In doing so, we will receive the power, joy and love of God in our hearts that brings forth the obedience that is required in the Gospel for today.
As we enter into this week, let us resolve to make the greater law - the law which is a reality through our union with Christ - a reality of our interaction together. Let us speak kindly; let our words not be that of anger and abuse but a bounty of all the fruit of the Spirit. Let us not just love in words but in deed. Amen.
