NOTES for Sir 6:5-17
Jesus, son of Sirach, shows us yet another trap. A fairly common human mistake is to think that good relations and friendship are the same thing. Are they not? Here is what today's reading says: "Let those who live with you in peace be many, but let your adviser be one out of a thousand." Peaceful relationships are important and necessary. Yet for some reason we often think that everyone with whom we have good relations needs to be told every detail of our life and asked for advice in every situation. On the other hand, some of us consider anyone who speaks kindly to us our best friend and demand openness and complete trust from that person. Jesus, son of Sirach, speaks to us today about distance. We need to remember that degrees of trust should differ. We must neither impose our openness nor demand openness from others; neither impose our advice nor listen to every piece of advice. And it often turns out that this is not nearly as obvious as one might think.