God’s Love Raises the Bar

February 15, 2026

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Sirach 15:15–20 | Psalm 119:1–2, 4–5, 17–18, 33–34 | 1 Corinthians 2:6–10 | Matthew 5:17–37

It is said that the average human makes around 35,000 conscious and semi-conscious choices per day. When I was a little kid, a difficult decision was whether to buy Sweet Tarts or Wacky Wafers when I visited my grandma working at the five and dime — yep, I'm dating myself here. In adult life, it tends to be bad financial choices that stand out the most. Buying property at the peak of the real estate market comes to mind. Of course, the best decision I ever made was my choice of Valentine thirty-plus years ago, and thanks be to God, she chose me too!

Our choices inform our path. They shape who we become over time. Today's scriptures speak powerfully to the importance of these choices, and to what happens inside of us when we make the right ones.

Sirach doesn't mince words today. He lays it out like a man who's seen enough to speak the truth without reservation: Before you are fire and water; reach out and take whichever you choose. Before you are life and death, good and evil; you get what you choose. God has set reality before us, and He respects us enough to let us decide what we want in this life.

That's free will; that's agency; and it's both a tremendous gift and a tremendous responsibility. Sirach makes it plain: you get what you choose. Not as punishment, but as consequence. The universe has a moral architecture, and our 35,000 daily decisions either build with it or against it.

So the question becomes, how do we choose well? Across a lifetime of Sweet Tarts, real estate, and the decisions that really matter, what tips the scales toward life instead of death, toward our God and not away from Him?

The Psalmist gives us a clue, and it's a weird one. Listen to this prayer: "Open my eyes, that I may consider the wonders of your law." I don't know about you, but I personally have never put "wonder" and "law" together in a sentence. Laws are things you follow, rules you try not to break on your way home from work. The wonders of the Grand Canyon, maybe, but wonders of the law? It's a phrase that assumes something most of us miss entirely: that God's commandments aren't a fence keeping us penned in. They're a window he has thrown open.

Paul really brings it this week. He tells the Corinthians about a wisdom that is not of this age — a hidden, mysterious wisdom that God predetermined before the ages began; a wisdom that rulers of this world couldn’t see, and that philosophers couldn't figure out with their reason. Paul reaches back to Isaiah and lets this line fly: "Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, nor has it entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him." 

We hear that verse often — usually at funerals, or in other moments requiring comfort. Paul isn't just being comforting here. He's making a bold claim. He's saying there is a type of understanding that will not come through study or effort or cleverness. It comes through love, specifically God’s love. Paul can speak about this love with conviction because he has experienced it.

That brings us to today’s Gospel. Jesus, standing before a crowd including both scribes and Pharisees who have memorized every syllable of the Torah, says something as only Jesus can: "I have come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it." Then, he proceeds to do exactly that — not by relaxing the requirements, but by intensifying them. You've heard, "Thou shalt not kill"? Don't even harbor anger. You've heard, "Thou shalt not commit adultery"? Don't even look at another person with lust in your heart. On the surface, it sounds exhausting, really. It sounds like Jesus just took an already demanding moral code and cranked the dial up to eleven! If we're already struggling with the basic commandments, how are we supposed to live up to that?

Here's where all of today's readings come together into something truly beautiful: Jesus isn't piling on more rules. He's describing what happens inside a person who is filled with the love of God. When the “Spirit” Paul talks about actually dwells within you — when you've made the choice Sirach talked about, and you've chosen life, chosen God — then the law isn't a burden anymore. It's a wonder. It describes how a person filled with divine love naturally behaves.

You aren’t stopping at "don't murder" because you don’t carry rage in your heart. You aren’t stopping at "don't commit adultery" because you see people the way God sees them as sacred gifts, not as objects for your use. You don't need elaborate oaths because your word already means something. The law becomes the floor, not the ceiling, and that is the wonder the Psalmist proclaims.

Think about it in terms of the choices we started with. Thirty-plus years ago, I chose my Valentine. But here's the thing: in a marriage based in real (God’s) love, you don't wake up every morning and consult a rulebook. Nobody in a loving marriage has ever said, "I did the bare minimum today and I feel great about it." No. Love overflows with abundance. Love gives more, shares more, even sees more when we do so through the eyes of God.

That's love exceeding law, and that's exactly what Christ is inviting us into — not a heavier yoke, but a higher life. A life where the Spirit fills the gap between what we're commanded to do and what we're capable of becoming.

Thirty-five thousand choices a day. Most of them small, but some of them pretty big. Here's the good news: when we choose God, when we open ourselves to His love and let His Spirit take up residence within us, we don't have to power our way through each one alone. Grace transforms us. Love raises the bar and then gives us the strength to clear it.

Eye has not seen. Ear has not heard. We cannot even imagine what God has prepared for those of us who love Him. We can start choosing it. Today. Right now. One small decision at a time.