"Righteousness Beyond the Law" - 6th Sunday Homily by Deacon Ted

If you were not here last weekend, we had a collection for the 2026 Annual Catholic Services Appeal.

When you leave today, please see the poster in the gathering space.

You can use the QR code to make your pledge online.

Or you can fill out a card and mail it.

Thank you for your support of the charitable work of the Archdiocese through the Appeal.

The annual appeal helps us in a tangible way to understand Jesus' teaching today in the Gospel.

And God's wisdom mentioned in both the first reading of Sirach and the second reading by Paul.

Although tangible, it represents that extra effort of the heart to give.

To do more.

than what is minimally required.

Because you're moved for the love of your church and the people it serves through the programs that the appeal supports.

It's that extra giving.

that is the message of today's readings.

the extra.

Jesus says, not kill is what they said to your ancestors.

But I say to you, if you're angry with your brother, you have already committed a sin and you'll be held for judgment.

Well, to me, there's a big difference between killing and being angry.

And that's Jesus' point.

The intention of the law is to do what is right.

To fulfill all of God's will.

Righteousness.

That's what this is about.

Righteousness is in alignment with God's character.

His standards.

It represents moral purity and justice.

It's a gift of God in faith.

Righteousness.

So Jesus lays this out and he's teaching not the letter of the law but he's introducing something new.

Mitigating circumstances in the law.

Anybody who's been to court knows there's mitigating circumstances.

Yeah, you could have broken the law but yeah, you you got to consider these other things.

So let's think about that for a moment.

So I'm standing at a bus stop and I'm looking around.

All of a sudden I get this urge to knock down the kid that's standing over here and lay him out flat.

Send him flying through the air and he lays out flat on the ground.

Did I commit a crime?

Did I commit the crime of assault?

The law would say yes, you heard him.

Now, mitigating circumstance.

There was a car coming right for him.

and I pushed him out of the way to save serious injury, maybe possibly his life.

Now I ask you again, did I break the law?

That's what Jesus is saying.

You see the Pharisees and the scribes, they didn't get it.

They said the law says A or B.

Yes, no.

It's binomial.

One, zero.

You don't have any other options.

The Pharisees and the scribes said, you can't do that.

It's against the law.

And Jesus says to us, unless your righteousness is greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Because God doesn't want to keep score.

God doesn't want you to say, yes, I did every commandment.

If I stood there and let that young man be hit by a car, would I be right?

would I have committed a crime by standing there and not doing anything.

Well, I don't think so.

But I don't know.

No, I wouldn't have committed a crime.

No, I was doing the right thing.

I was staying in my lane.

I feel very sorry for the young man as the ambulance carries him away.

But I did the right thing.

I stayed right here.

So it is with the commandments.

We can follow the letter of the law.

Yes, no, right, wrong, one, zero.

Or we can ask what's God's real intent?

What does God want us to do?

What message has he put into our heart, into our minds to guide us on the way of righteousness, on the way of doing right, on His way?

the way he wants us to act.

Do you think God, the all powerful, the almighty, is standing there with the Ten Commandments going, let's see, David, Nat, broke that one, John, whoo-hoo.

Or is he looking at you saying, they're doing the best they can.

They're trying real hard to understand what I want them to do.

Now, I don't want to offend any school teachers in the audience, in the crowd, in the congregation, but you know, the Ten Commandments were like grammar school instruction.

They're the basics.

And that's what God gave to the Israelites.

They had nothing.

And He gave them these Ten Commandments as the foundation to build upon.

What they want wrong is they stop building.

They stopped understanding.

They didn't have the wisdom to go further.

Because if you keep building, you learn in second grade, you learn in fourth grade, by sixth and seventh grade you're learning a lot and it's all making sense.

By time you get into a senior year of high school, you've forgotten what you learned and you're not making any sense at all.

No.

But you understand what I'm saying.

Wisdom is knowledge and learning built upon each other to go to achieving the understanding of the will of God.

And Sirach in the first reading puts it very simply.

God gives you a choice.

Fire and water.

Good and evil.

Life or death.

Which do you choose?

Well, I choose good.

I choose water.

I choose life.

but you can't stop there.

How do they all go together and for what purpose?

That's when you start getting on the road to wisdom.

So we look at all of this and we say, what does this all mean to me today?

And here's the takeaway.

Before you make a decision of one or the other, yes or no, right or wrong, pray.

Contemplate.

Now this doesn't have to take hours.

This could be split seconds or a minute.

Ask God's help.

God, what do you want in this situation?

That's a prayer.

Contemplate.

Let me think about what the options are before me and the intended purpose, the intention and the purpose of what I'm doing.

If that fits together and you think God would be pleased, then that's the course you pursue.

And once you pursue that course, you have these great simple words at the end of the gospel.

Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no.

Don't change your mind.

After prayer and contemplation, if you believe it's the will of God, pursue it.

Don't let somebody else come along and say, oh, you're kind of funny.

You're doing that.

No one else is.

Jesus withstood pain, suffering, humiliation.

for you so that he could show you in practice what God's will is.

Let you yes be yes, your no be no.

And for those men in the congregation who are between the ages of 30 and 55, the Archdiocese of Washington is sending a representative here to our church to give an

information session on becoming deacons.

What's a deacon?

What do they do?

What's their mission?

How do you become one?

I invite each and every one of you to come Friday night, seven o'clock.

here in Founders Hall.

Wait, God is that right?

Let think about it.

Yes, Friday night, seven o'clock, Founders Hall, all men are invited.

Consider it.

And then let your yes be yes, and your no be no.