The Wednesday after the Sixth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on July 15, 2026 by under
Scripture: St. Matthew 15:1-9 (NKJV)
15:1 Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, 2 “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”
3 He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ 5 But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”—6 then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. 7 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:
8 ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.
9 ‘And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
Devotion
These Pharisees would go through a ritual washing in order to clean themselves from the filth of sinners. Now, an interesting thing is that the Pharisees were pretty good at this. There were hundreds of laws and traditions like this, and they sought to keep up with all of them. They appeared to be ‘super saints’, so to speak, and many people looked up to them because of it.
These Pharisees were ‘fulfilling’ the law so well because it was not God’s law they were fulfilling, but a law of their own making. God had never set down these laws about washing when people came back from the marketplace. God had never set down the hundreds of traditions that the Pharisees kept. And secretly, they liked following their own laws better, because they could accomplish them. They could actually achieve their goal, and therefore see themselves as righteous before God. That’s the problem. Man made laws and traditions can deceive our hearts and make us think that we are better than we are.
God’s Law is absolute and condemns you. But Christ’s word of Gospel tells you that, though you are guilty, you are forgiven. Through faith in Jesus Christ, you are no longer crushed under the weight of the Law in God’s eyes. That weight has been lifted off of you, and you can live in Christ’s forgiveness.
Collect: Lord of all power and might, Who art the Author and Giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of Thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of Thy great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
