You Can Keep the Commandments

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Sirach 15:15-20

If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you;

if you trust in God, you too shall live;

he has set before you fire and water

to whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand.

Before man are life and death, good and evil,

whichever he chooses shall be given him.

Immense is the wisdom of the Lord;

he is mighty in power, and all-seeing.

The eyes of God are on those who fear him;

he understands man's every deed.

No one does he command to act unjustly,

to none does he give license to sin.

Sirach is a summation of the Israelite wisdom tradition after the convergence of Jewish piety and Greek philosophy that took place in the centuries immediately before Jesus’ birth. Similar to Proverbs before it, Sirach is a large anthology of practical knowledge for successful living, things that more often than not hold true in life. Its author, Jesus ben Sira, arranged the material into poems, moral exhortations, and wise sayings. The early Church used this book extensively in moral catechesis, often calling it “Ecclesiasticus” or “the Church book.” 

This selection focuses on human freedom and the do-ability of following the Lord’s commands. The message is that righteousness actually is possible, and in many ways is simply a matter of choosing to act rightly. You and I actually can be saints. Sirach maintains that keeping the commandments is the surest way to a full and happy life while violating them ruins our lives and those around us. He echoes the great Mosaic covenant where the Lord lays before Israel life and death, blessings and curses, and urges them to choose life (see Deuteronomy 30:15-20). Righteousness certainly does not depend only on human effort–that was the error of the heretic Pelagius who taught that we do not need grace and save ourselves by our own efforts–but human effort, human choice, is required to participate with the grace that God gives us to act rightly. That is the Spirit’s main point through Sirach: You can do it!

Sirach goes even further though: “To none does he give license to sin.” It is far too easy for us to rationalize our own sin, to explain it away with our laundry list of mitigating circumstances. But having a bad day, not getting enough sleep, having a difficult conversation, our baggage and woundedness from our past, all of it contextualizes what still amounts to a sin if we choose not to act rightly. While it is true that our personal culpability may be diminished by certain circumstances (see Catechism no. 1754), circumstances do not give us license to act unjustly, and they do not make a wrong action right. The circumstances do not matter as much as what we make of them, of the choices we make within them. The Spirit is reminding us that morality still boils down to personal choices, and “whichever he chooses [life and death, good and evil] shall be given him.” 

Acting rightly is difficult in the same way that exercise or personal finance or healthy eating or parenting are difficult. They all require the will to do something and then just doing it over and over and over again, in all circumstances. The habit of acting rightly, done almost without thought after immense repetition, the Church calls virtue, whereas the habit of acting wrongly almost without though she calls vice. Like beginning a workout routine or a personal savings plan, habitually choosing the good begins with smaller choices. “If you choose you can keep the commandments,” and if you do not choose you likely will not. This week, the Spirit is inviting us to examine our lives for the places where we are not habitually choosing to keep the commandments (our vices) and choose to act differently, to choose to grow in virtue. But do not forget to pray for the grace to follow through.