Choosing Life: The Law Fulfilled in Love
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
Sirach 15:15–20 | Psalm 119 | 1 Corinthians 2:6–10 | Matthew 5:17–37
Beloved,
Today the Word of God confronts us gently but directly:
Life and death are set before you.
You have heard it said… but I say to you…
We speak a wisdom not of this age…
The Scriptures are not merely instructing our behavior — they are revealing the condition of our hearts.
And if I can say it plainly: the world right now is not starving for more arguments. It is starving for hearts that have been converted by love.
Freedom: The Terrible and Beautiful Gift
Sirach tells us that God has placed before us fire and water, life and death — and we may choose.
This is a sobering truth. God does not coerce goodness. He invites it.
Saint Irenaeus wrote:
“The glory of God is man fully alive.” But to be fully alive means to be fully free. And freedom is risky. It means we can choose indifference. We can choose resentment. We can choose self-protection over sacrifice.
Or we can choose love.
In our current world climate — marked by war, displacement, political hostility, anxiety about the future, and a subtle hardening of hearts — our freedom matters more than ever. Because the tone of our homes, our parishes, our communities is shaped not by global headlines alone, but by daily, hidden choices.
Do I respond with gentleness, or do I mirror outrage?
Do I lean toward mercy, or toward suspicion?
Do I see the suffering person before me as a problem — or as Christ?
Saint Basil the Great, that mighty Father of the East, once said:
“The bread you keep belongs to the hungry; the cloak you store belongs to the naked; the money you hide belongs to the poor.”
He was not speaking merely of material goods. He was speaking of the posture of the heart. What love are we withholding? What mercy are we storing up instead of distributing?
Sirach says life and death are before us.
Life is always chosen in love.
The Wisdom That Is Not of This Age
Saint Paul tells the Corinthians that we proclaim a wisdom “not of this age.”
And let us be honest — the wisdom of this age is loud.
It tells us:
- Protect yourself first.
- Win the argument.
- Curate your image.
- Distance yourself from the messy and the broken.
But divine wisdom looks very different.
Saint Maximus the Confessor wrote:
“The one who loves God cannot help but love every human being as himself, even though he is grieved by the passions of those who are not yet purified.”
Notice that — love does not deny brokenness. It does not ignore sin. But it refuses to withdraw from the person.
That is pastoral love.
In pastoral care, we do not stand at a distance diagnosing souls. We draw near. We sit. We listen. We bear.
Saint John Chrysostom, preaching in a divided and unequal society not unlike ours, said:
“If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find Him in the chalice.”
That is not sentimental spirituality. That is Eucharistic realism.
If we receive the Body of Christ but recoil from the suffering body of our neighbor, then the Gospel has not yet reached our heart.
“You Have Heard It Said… But I Say to You”
In the Gospel, Jesus intensifies the Law.
He does not abolish it. He deepens it.
You have heard: Do not kill.
I say: Do not harbor anger.
You have heard: Do not commit adultery.
I say: Guard the gaze of your heart.
Jesus moves morality from external compliance to interior transformation.
Saint Augustine famously said:
“Love, and do what you will.”
This is often misunderstood. Augustine did not mean love as sentiment. He meant love as the reordering of the heart toward God and neighbor. When love truly governs the heart, actions follow rightly.
The tragedy of our time is not merely public wrongdoing. It is interior corrosion — cynicism, contempt, emotional exhaustion, spiritual numbness.
Jesus addresses the root.
Because hatred in the heart eventually becomes violence in the world.
Contempt in private eventually becomes cruelty in public.
But love in the heart — real, cruciform love — becomes healing in the world.
The Merciful Heart
Saint Isaac the Syrian describes the merciful heart like this:
“What is a merciful heart? It is a heart burning for the whole creation — for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for every created thing… And from the strong and vehement mercy which grips his heart… his heart is humbled and he cannot bear to hear or see any injury or slight sorrow in creation.”
That is the heart of Christ.
And that, beloved, is the heart we are invited into.
In a time when many are wounded by economic uncertainty, by social fragmentation, by isolation, by fear of the future — the Church must not be another place of cold analysis. It must be a field hospital of compassion.
Saint Ambrose said:
“Mercy is the fullness of justice.”
Not softness. Not compromise. Fulness.
Justice without mercy becomes harsh.
Mercy without truth becomes sentimentality.
But Christ holds both.
Our Moment
We are living in a moment of heightened division.
Families strained by politics.
Communities fractured by ideology.
Global conflicts displacing millions.
Loneliness at epidemic levels.
The temptation is to retreat into tribes.
But the Gospel refuses tribal love.
The Law fulfilled in Christ is not about boundary enforcement. It is about heart expansion.
Pastoral love means:
- We refuse to dehumanize those we disagree with.
- We listen before correcting.
- We comfort before advising.
- We advocate for the vulnerable without hatred toward anyone.
And this begins not “out there” — but in here.
The Interior Choice
Sirach says: stretch out your hand for whichever you choose.
Today, I believe the Lord is asking each of us:
Will you choose guardedness or vulnerability?
Will you choose outrage or intercession?
Will you choose indifference or accompaniment?
The world does not need more clever Christians.
It needs Christians whose hearts have been softened by grace.
Saint Gregory of Nazianzus said:
“Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us.”
He entered our fragility.
He bore our confusion.
He absorbed our violence.
He forgave our betrayal.
And He calls us to mirror Him.
A Final Word
Beloved, if we truly receive Christ at this altar, then we must become Christ for one another.
Not in grand gestures alone —
but in quiet phone calls,
in patient listening,
in forgiving the offense that wounded us,
in refusing to speak ill of someone when it would be easy.
Life and death are before us.
The wisdom of this age tempts us toward self-protection.
The wisdom of God calls us toward self-gift.
May we choose life.
May we choose mercy.
May our parish, our homes, our relationships become places where the Law is fulfilled — not in rigidity, but in radiant love.
Amen.