Throughout St. Matthew’s Gospel, one of the subplots is the relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees, who were influential teachers of the tradition of Moses; but as we know, the Pharisees’ behavior did not match their rhetoric and they saw Jesus as a serious threat to their authority. Once again today we are told how they try to disconcert Jesus, but Jesus is more than equal to them. Jesus’ response to the Pharisees can challenge us in our own time and place. For every community of people there is always a temptation to maintain order and control by lying down the law: this is the human way of keeping order. It is a perennial temptation even within the Church to misuse power in this way and believe that maintaining the structures is all that really matters. But Jesus shows us a wholly different way, in which those who are powerful do not lord it over those who are weak, but place themselves at the service of all. There is only one critierion by which we can judge ourselves and that is the law of love.