Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity AD 2026

We like to be right. And we like to think of ourselves as righteous—before other people, before the law, and before God. After all, being righteous makes us feel good about ourselves. Sometimes we feel especially good when we compare ourselves with others whom we consider less righteous than we are.

But God’s Word reminds us that none of us is perfectly righteous. None of us can honestly say that we have never broken the law, never done wrong, or never misunderstood something or someone.

In truth, we hardly need God to tell us this. We know it already. And we also know that some of the most difficult people to deal with are those who are convinced that they are always right and behave accordingly. We are usually quite good at noticing this in others…

Yet God’s Word does not tell us that righteousness is beyond our reach. We can indeed become righteous—but not through a righteousness of our own. We become righteous through the righteousness God gives us in His Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ.

This righteousness is not based on the Law, but on the promise. It does not spring from self-assertion, but from self-giving love: first and foremost, from the love of God revealed and given to us in Jesus Christ, and then, in response to that love, from the love God pours into our hearts through His Holy Ghost.