Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees...More often than not we read sarcasm in these words of Jesus. After all the criticism with which Jesus approaches the religious leaders, how can he turn around and see in them righteousness? Doesn't he warn us to be weary of the yeast of the Pharisees, hypocrisy? When we put aside the bias through which we have come to look at the Pharisees, we realize that the cause of conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders wasn’t the lack of righteousness of the latter, but rather their failure to live up to the billing of the offices they occupied. Simply put, Jesus was reminding them that to whom much is given, much is expected. The religious leaders were indeed given much (status, leadership, honor) but they forgot that much was expected from them as well (responsibility, role modelling). Jesus was not being cynical when he referred to the righteousness of the Pharisees (a righteous person is one who has "righted" the self before God). The Pharisees in this sense were righteous: they kept away from all that could make them sinners before God. They kept the law. They upheld the tradition. They took care of the vertical relationship. That much Jesus recognized. That which was lacking in them, and which Jesus wished his hearers to have, is the taking care of the horizontal relationship. For Jesus, it made little sense to be right with God if one couldn't be right with one's fellows. For being right with one's fellows is the application of being right with God. To the most part, keeping right with God (such as observing the law) is a downright passive affair. On the contrary, keeping right with one's fellows is active and demanding. Many avoid it. Of course, one can do with the vertical one only. But a follower of Jesus must, and this is a command of Jesus, ensure the horizontal accompanies the vertical one. One who does this surely surpasses the righteousness of the Pharisees. Jesus did this, and it becomes a prerequisite for being a disciple of Jesus.