Bible Text: St Matthew 5:17–26 | Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christian Preus
Jesus isn’t using some figure of speech when he says that our righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees or we won’t enter into the kingdom of heaven. He’s not exaggerating, this isn’t hyperbole. He means it. God has always meant what He said. From the beginning He expected us to be good because He made us good and He is good, and you cannot enter into His Kingdom unless you are, actually, really, completely good, righteous. So does your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees? Because it needs to.
There are at least four things Jesus is saying here about the righteousness that we need. The first is that it has to meet God’s standards, not ours. The Pharisees had created their own laws. In the sermon on the mount – which is where our Gospel comes from – Jesus hits on this a number of times. God’s law says, Don’t commit adultery. But the Pharisees had made their own laws that allowed a man to divorce his wife for any reason. You can actually read some of the Rabbis from the time of Jesus (actually a little after Jesus) and what they would say about divorce was pretty horrible, sounds a lot like hollywood divorce lawyers today actually. One good reason, they thought, for divorcing your wife, was if you found a prettier woman. These are rabbis (“pastors”)! Divorce your wife and marry the prettier girl. That clearly breaks God’s commandment, that you should stay true to your husband or wife until death parts you – the two shall become one flesh, and what God has joined together let not man put asunder. The Pharisees also taught a sort of prosperity Gospel, that if you were rich and successful it’s because God had blessed you and God had blessed you because you were good and God was rewarding you. That meant of course that if you were poor, it was because God was cursing you and God was cursing you because you were bad. So while God’s commandment says, do not steal, and along with that, be generous to the poor, and give without hope of reward, the Pharisees created rules that justified their own stinginess.
That’s the first thing, then. What does it mean that your righteousness, your goodness needs to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees? Don’t make up your own rules. Use God’s standard, not your own. Let me give you an example of why this very much still holds true today. I went to buy a bottle of wine the other month. And I was wearing my pastor costume, so it was obvious I was a Christian. And the lady checking me out said, “Aren’t you sinning? Aren’t you supposed to not drink?” And I told her that no, getting drunk is a sin, but drinking? No. Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding, he came, according to his own words, eating and drinking, and we have real sins to worry about without making up fake ones. And to be a Christian isn’t to be without sin, but to trust in Christ the Son of God who takes away the sin of the world. Now you might think this is a trivial example, but you’d be wrong. It’s extremely significant, because it tells you what the common person thinks about Christianity, about being a Christian, that it consists of obeying a bunch of rules and not having any fun. And they think that, at least partially, because that’s how a lot of Christians act. They make up rules and then judge people for not obeying their stupid rules. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t touch, don’t whatever. That’s is pure Pharaesaism. Jesus doesn’t like it. Please don’t ever make up rules and then impose them on others. As St. Paul says to the Christians in Thessalonica, and I quote, “Mind your own business.” You have enough to do with God’s real rules, without making up rules that make you look better than other people.
Second, the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was an outer righteousness – they even showed it off, by making everyone see they were fasting or giving money to the Temple. And Jesus says, and again he repeats it over and over again in the sermon on the mount, Jesus says that righteousness, goodness, belongs to the heart, not to outward works. So he applies it to the sixth commandment, it’s not enough that you are outwardly faithful to your wife, you are committing adultery even if you lust in your heart toward another woman. And he applies it in our Gospel lesson to murder. Congratulations, you’ve kept yourself from literally murdering someone. But where does murder start? With hatred, anger in the heart. Have you kept yourself from that? Of course not.
But in order for your righteousness to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you have to be not only outwardly, but inwardly righteous and good. No hate, no lust, no anger, no stinginess. And if you aren’t, you won’t go to heaven. That’s what Jesus says and he means it.
This is awful but also beautiful for two reasons. First, because it puts us all in the same boat. The boat is sinking, but at least we’re all in it together. And when you realize this, that you share this with all humanity, every single person you have dealings with, that sin and the death that it brings and the hell that it deserves, these are your common enemies, then you can begin to feel compassion for others, even those who sin against you, because you’re in the same boat, you’re dealing with the same sin.
But more than this, it’s only on sinners that God has mercy. I have come, Jesus says, not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. St. Paul says it this way, “God has consigned all to disobedience (to unrighteousness), so that God might have mercy on all.” And again, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified freely through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
And that gets us to the third point. If your righteousness is going to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, it has to be 1) according to God’s law, not made up rules, 2) it has to be inward and not only outward, and 3), it has to be someone else’s righteousness. Because you can’t do it. And that someone else is Jesus. That’s why he opens up our Gospel with these beautiful words, words we should all memorize and hold as the dearest treasure on earth, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” He kept the Law, the real Law, every jot and tittle of it, and He kept it perfectly, outwardly, inwardly, with all His heart and soul and mind, He loved His neighbor as Himself, He laid down His life for His enemies, for sinners, for the unrighteous, and He loved and trusted in His Father above all things. “He all the Law for us obeyed, and thus the Father’s vengeance stayed, which over us impended.” That’s the only righteousness that avails before God. Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus.
And that righteousness belongs to you. That’s the certainty of your Baptism. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? The most important day in the history of the world was when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, suffered in agony for us, loved us to His death, took all the punishment for our sin on Himself, and then rose again the third day, with our death and hell and sin destroyed, annihilated, because our God took them for us.
But the most important day of your life was when God joined you with Christ in your Baptism. There is no relationship that you could have on this earth that can be tighter or closer than this. We call it the mystical union. You are united with Christ’s death and resurrection. When a man and woman become husband and wife, they become one flesh. The husband gives his name to the wife. Everything he has becomes hers. Jesus is our Bridegroom. We are His Bride. The marriage ceremony between you and Christ was your Baptism.
In your Baptism He gave you His name. And He joined Himself to you, so much that everything He has is yours, His death, His conquering of sin and hell, His resurrection and life, He gave it to you, and His righteousness, the fulfillment of all the Law, perfect righteousness, is yours. God reckons it to you, as if you had done it yourself, so that when God almighty looks at you, He doesn’t see a sinner, He doesn’t see the lust or the anger or the selfishness, He sees His dear Son, because you are clothed in Him, you are one flesh with Him, His righteousness is yours. And that is the righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees more than heaven is higher than earth.
And finally the righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees is the love that Jesus tells His Christians to have for one another. The Pharisees fought with one another for recognition, they held grudges, they thought they could be right with God while they were wrong with their brothers. We have died to all that. When we are joined to Christ, we are joined to one another. We are one body, and we belong to one Savior. We still sin against one another. Anger rises in our hearts at what we think others did wrong against us. And we have wronged others, sometimes without even knowing it. But the beauty of the Christian life is that we all are in the same boat. And that boat is no longer a sinking one. It’s not filled with the holes of our own sins or the sins of others against us. It’s the ark that God has made, floating on the flood of our Baptism, secure and safe and at peace. It’s held together by the forgiveness of sins that we all receive from the same Savior and that we then give to one another. One “I’m sorry” and one “I forgive you” spoken by faith in the Son of God, is a greater righteousness than all the outward good works of all the heathen. And that’s the Church, where we confess our sins together and receive the pledge of our forgiveness together in the body and blood of our Savior. Here we aren’t simply reconciled to God. We’re reconciled to one another. And when we commune at that altar, that’s exactly what we’re confessing to God and to each other. And that’s a beautiful thing. St. Jude calls this our love feast. Don’t think anyone at this church has something against you if he’s communing here with you. And don’t commune if you’re harboring anger in your heart. Confess it to God, confess it to your brother if you need to, and then kneel here and receive the forgiveness that witnesses to the fact that God is not angry with you. The body and blood of His Son prove it. Amen.