A Fundamental Choice

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sir 15:16-21; Ps 119; 1 Cor 2:6-10; Mt 5:17-37

There are some people like me who, when they go into a hawker centre, would generally look for particular types of stalls because those are the kinds of food that I like. There are occasions when I surprise even myself when I make an odd (in my opinion at least) choice but there’s a certain stability in the kind of stalls I gravitate towards. Choices come from our preferences, our personalities and sometimes the situation. There can be some choices that are more stable than others, choices that are more fundamental than what we want to eat, fundamental choices that can guide how we think and act on a daily basis.

^{Photo by Ian Romie Ona (Unsplash)}

Today’s First Reading tells of the choice we have to keep the commandments, that it is within our power to behave faithfully. The commandments, important as they are, are not couched as something that we have no choice about. While it’s true that we must keep the commandments to live a life that is consonant with God’s call for us, the consoling thing about this is that we’re given a choice. And having that choice shows that God recognises our intellect and free will, giving us the freedom to keep the commandments or not.

We need wisdom to guide our choices, a wisdom that comes to us through the Spirit and that aids us in seeing where God is leading us. I feel that this wisdom in making the choice to keep the commandments allows us to avoid the problem that the Lord brought up in dealing with the Scribes and Pharisees. They saw the law as something to be followed externally – not a choice that is made but a set of regulations to be followed. Following laws without understanding or truly embracing them can make us soulless automatons or worse, hypocrites who do things just for show, not because we want to do them.

We’re called to choose to keep the law and to recognise why these laws are important. I’ve grown to see that the law of God is not a set of restrictions but more of a way of living well, instructions that help us order our lives and decisions in ways that can allow us to flourish. Choosing to keep these commandments is thus not an act of submission but a choice made in freedom for further freedom to act and love as God wants us to. This is the fundamental choice that needs to be made – how can we move towards this choice in our lives?