These readings today present a pretty “hard sell” about the importance of keeping the commandments of God.  St. Paul describes this as a wisdom of those who are mature, in contrast to the wisdom of the current age.  From the very start there’s been a caricature of Christianity, a misunderstanding of what our Faith is about: that because we’re a religion of love, that means you get to do whatever you feel like at any given moment.  But that’s childish and immature, says St. Paul.  Those of you who are parents, I’m sure have experienced certain manipulative tactics from your children; I certainly made extensive use of this strategy as a kid, although it never actually worked: If you really love me, you’ll buy me this expensive toy I don’t need.  If you really love me, you’ll make me a huge milkshake, even though it’s 7:00 in the morning.  If you really loved me, you wouldn’t make me go to school, or practice the piano, or whatever.  It’s childish.  But it’s exactly what probably all of us do sometimes, or at least are tempted to do, when we’re faced with a commandment of God or a requirement of Faith that doesn’t sit well with us.  Yeah, but God loves me, so I don’t need to worry about that.  There is always a hazard before us, to consider ourselves to be some kind of exception, excusing ourselves from observing the commandments if it’s hard or takes sacrifice to do so.  And I can convince myself that just about anything is actually just some form of love, I promise, that maybe God just didn’t anticipate or think about.  Or at least, he won’t care that much that I ignore his instruction, if he really loves me.  Childish.  Immature.  And actually, even a little blasphemous.  And it doesn’t work.  You eat too many milkshakes for breakfast, and skip school too often…you will not end up living a happy life.  This is why St. Paul says that God’s mysterious wisdom is predetermined for our glory.  It’s why Sirach says, “If you choose, you can keep the commandments: they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live.” 

That brings up another important point too, because another immature thing that we sometimes do is to excuse away the moral law as some kind of ideal that we can’t actually fulfill.  But Sacred Scripture says, No: “if you choose, you can keep the commandments…He commands no one to act unjustly,” says Sirach; “to none does he give permission to sin.”  It won’t be easy; you’ll stumble and fall sometimes; but God will always be there to pick you up and help you to keep walking forward.  Don’t wallow in the ditch you fall into, as if being there is somehow inevitable or even a good thing.  Get up; keep walking.  And Christ teaches us another thing in the Gospel reading today that’s very profound as well.  The morality Christ calls us to live, all those teachings of the Church that seem so foreign to the society we live in…they’re not just rules of conduct.  God doesn’t just want to convert our behavior.  He wants to convert our minds and our hearts.  “Thou shalt not kill” doesn’t mean just, “thou shalt not commit murder.”  It means, “Thou shalt not have death in your heart at all.”   “Thou shalt not bear false witness” doesn’t just mean that we don’t tell lies under oath.  It means that we live authentic lives and are always honest with others and with ourselves.  “Thou shalt not commit adultery” doesn’t just mean that you don’t cheat on your spouse; it means that you protect and reserve the beauty of your body wholly and exclusively as an expression of fruitful love within marriage, and you give it over to nothing selfish.  And so, we don’t just keep the commandments because God tells us to, or because we’re afraid of him, afraid that he might send us to hell.  We keep the commandments because that’s who we are and that’s who we’re made to be.  The more we follow these guidelines that God gives us for our good, the better habits we develop, the more virtuous behavior becomes natural to us: the more peaceful we will be and the more true joy will rest within our hearts. 

Without God, of course, this would be impossible.  Our world is too full of hazards, and our temptations can be too powerful.  There are too many ditches to fall into, and they can be too deep to crawl out of.  But if we rely on Christ and on our relationship with him, if we remain very close to him in prayer and in the sacraments, we can truly enter into this transformation of our souls that God desires for us and that gives us peace and true joy.  God wants to give us everything.  He wants to immerse us in his love, if we will just let him.  If we do, we will become more and more like Christ, who is our example and our guide.  And we will know the joy that comes from keeping the commandments faithfully, from never giving up in the face of our own weaknesses, and from living life with an eye firmly fixed on our eternal destiny with God in heaven.