If there’s one thing we Americans value above everything else, it’s freedom. We cherish, guard and exercise our freedom, and woe be unto those who threaten it in any way. We’re even willing to go to war to defend freedom, whether it’s ours or someone else’s. We are the world’s self-appointed watchdogs of freedom.

But Jesus says there’s a higher value than freedom. The first words the writer of the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus speak are not about freedom, but about obedience to the will of God. That’s what righteousness is all about, according to the gospel writer. Matthew uses the word righteousness seven times in his story of the life of Jesus, always connecting righteousness with being obedient to the will of God.

When Jesus comes to John the Baptist to be baptized in the Jordan, John prote…