Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 01/14/24 Claimed and Called

Episode Date: January 13, 2024

Homily from the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time. God has a claim on your life...and God has a call for your life. We can often be hesitant to make decisions in life. Not only because we do not want to make the wrong decision, but also because we want to make the best decision. But the point of life is not merely to optimize our happiness. We experience a new freedom and meaning when we realize that our lives are not our own...and we live to respond to God's call. Mass Readings from January 14, 2024: 1 Samuel 3:3-10, 19 Psalms 40:2, 4, 7-101 Corinthians 6:13-15, 17-20John 1:35-42

Welcome to Sunday homilies with me, Father Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this in other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up at ascensionpress.com slash Sunday, or by texting Sunday to 33777.7. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless.

The Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Chapter 1, verse 35 through 42. John was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, Behold, the Lamb of God. The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them,

What are you looking for? They said to him, Rabbi, which translated means teacher, where are you staying? He said to them, Come and you will see. So they went and saw where Jesus was staying and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon.

Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus. He first found his own brother Simon and told him, we have found the Messiah, which is translated Christ, then he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, You are Simon, the son of John.

you will be called Kefa, which is translated, Peter. The Gospel of the Lord. I'd you have a seat. So as a kid, I was kind of a reader, not kind of a reader. I really liked books a lot. And there was a kind of a book. It was a type of book. I don't know if you guys have heard of it.

It's called The Choose Your Own Adventure Books. You guys ever? They would give you options. And so here you are. You wake up in your little village and you have an opportunity to go off to a distant land or to stay home. If you want to go to a distant land, turn to page 28. If you want to stay home, go to page 72.

And then you'd like make the decision. Then you say, say, I wanted to leave. So I go to page 28. And then, you know, you come to this river and there's this old woman who says, if you give me such and such, I will take you across the river. And then it's, do you give her the thing or do you not give her the thing? If you give her the thing, go to page 112, you know, this whole thing. So the problem with that is, well, I loved them.

They were so much fun. But I only have 10 fingers. And so what I would do is I make a decision and I put my finger to mark the page because if I didn't like what I decided, I would just go back and go to the same, you know, and then I would make all these decisions because I was fine with the decision, right? It was kind of like, okay, yeah, I'll leave the village or yeah, I'll stay at home. Yeah, I'll cross the river. Yeah, I won't, no, I won't cross the the river. But the idea was if I kept marking all these pages with my fingers because it was kind of about risk. I mean, the risk is pretty minimal. But I was like,

What if I make the wrong choice? And the wrong choice isn't even just like you end up dead, although that happens a lot in those choosing your own adventure books. But what if there's just something better? This is fine. You have success. But what if I made a different choice and the opportunity to actually have something better was there? And I missed the opportunity for something better, not even just disaster, but just the optimal,

I want to be optimally happy. And this is one of those things where, you know, as we begin this new semester for our students right now, this new year, I think a lot of times we find our students are solidifying their decisions, right? They're making decisions because it's either if you're a freshman, it's okay, are you going to commit to a major at this point? Sometimes or are you going to have an internship this summer? What is that internship going to be? You have to kind of decide that around now.

Where are you going to live? Are you going to live with your roommates from last year, roommates and new roommates? Are you going to live an apartment, a house, on campus, off campus? Some of our students are graduating. And so they're making interviews and they're making decisions, all these decisions, not just about who they're going to work for, who they're going to interview with, but also where are you going to live? Are you going to try to stay in town?

Are you going to try to go off and go back home? All of these decisions can leave us with this place of like, I am in a place of uncertainty. Well, all I want is clarity. Because it seems like every choice I make is a risk because what if I make the wrong choice? And again, not just the wrong choice and I have disaster. What if I make the wrong choice and then miss out on something better? Because that's us, right? We want the best.

how do I make how do I live my life in such a way that I can be optimally happy like what what's the what course will make me optimally happy that's the the fact that so many of us we become paralyzed by these choices not just because our life can be a disaster but because it might just not be the best it could be but here's the question is that the point of life like is that the goal of life is the purpose of life to be optimally happy. And maybe it is. Maybe it is. Maybe the purpose of life is just make whatever decision you think will make you the most

happy and pursue happiness. Which is, you know, it's funny because I wonder if that's one of the reasons why some people I talk to, I've spoken with them, heard of talk. That's one of the reasons why they reject God. One of the reasons they actually become atheist. In fact, there is this comedian. and his name is Shane Smith. I heard Shane Smith's set years ago.

He was on a YouTube channel called Dry Bar Comedy, which is the world's largest collection of clean comedy. It's really good. His look is, Shane has a lot of tattoos. And not only tattoos on his arms and body, he has tattoos on his neck and on his face. In fact, one of my favorite jokes of his, he said he gets up in this clean comedy act

and he has all these tattoos again, all of his neck, all of his face. And he says, you know what? When I got tattoos in my face, I knew that there would be positives and negatives. I gotta tell you guys, it's been mostly negative. Just really, really good. But Shane reached out about, I don't know, a month ago, a month and a half ago, and to me,

and he said that he's becoming Catholic. I've never met him. I've only seen his act, but he's been atheist for most of his life, and he's on his way to become Catholic. Even more than that, I didn't realize he was at Sikh with us two weeks ago, and even better last week, he was on Pines of Aquinas with Matt Fred, and he told his story. And his story was so remarkable because at one point, I mean, he had a lot of a pretty rough childhood, rough adolescence, rough young adult time. I mean, the kind of

difficulty that not a lot of people, a lot of people live through, but not a lot of people make it through. But he even described himself, I'm paraphrasing, he described himself. He said, even as a kid, as a young man, I knew God existed. But I'm choosing to be an atheist because I know that if I admit that God exists, then I owe him something. That if I admit that God exists, then I just can't do whatever I want. And what I want to do is I want to do whatever it is I want. If I admit that God exists, then he has a claim on my life. That's what we hear today, right? In 1st Corinthians chapter 6, that's what St. Paul says. He says, it's so clear. He says, you're not your own. You've been purchased at a price. And this is, this is for some people,

like Shane earlier, that's bad news. You are not your own is bad news. The truth, that God has a claim on your life for some people that makes us sad. Because why? Because, well, because it means, I can't do what I want. It means I owe something to God. And yet, think about this. Again, here's the first, more or less, first Sunday of ordinary time after Christmas season just concluded, what did we celebrate?

At Christmas, we celebrated the truth that God so loved the world that he gave us only sons so that we might not perish but might have eternal life. But sometimes we resent that love. why because that love means that your life is not your life that that love that loved us all the way through the cross through the grave to the resurrection that love means that you are not your own that love means that God has a claim on your life and again as I said we can that can make us upset we can reject that but here's the crazy thing in rejecting that and rejecting the truth that God has a claim on your life, we're also rejecting the love that claimed us.

I mean, how crazy is that? To be so, what are we trading? We're trading in love for selfishness. We're trading in a God-sized life for a me-sized life. Because not only are we rejecting love, when we reject the fact that God is a claim on our lives, not only are we rejecting love, we're also rejecting the truth that God has a call for your life. This is the truth. God has a claim on your life. God has a call for your life. And in some ways, these are the two ways to look at reality. These are the two ways to look at our lives.

If God doesn't exist, then do whatever you want because nothing means anything. But if God does exist, then you can't do whatever you want because your life means something. And if it's true, and I believe it's true, that everything we've celebrated over Christmas and everything we celebrate here on these Sundays. If it's true that God so loved you and so loved the world that he gave everything, you've been purchased at a price, that God has a claim on your life, then it also is true that God has a call for your life.

And that's the first reading in the gospel today, right? We have Samuel, and here's Samuel, who encounters the living God in the middle of the night, and he realizes, not only does God have a claim on him, right? He's been consecrated in the temple, but now God wants to call him. You have John and Andrew and Simon Peter in the gospel today and they encounter Jesus and they realize that this is the one we have found the Messiah and immediately

not only do they have to come face to face with the fact that God is a claim on their life they also have to come face to face with the fact that God has a call for their lives and that's the truth for us too and so here's the question how do I figure out what that is? I think that's a big question right for any Anyone who has embraced the truth that God has a claim on their life and God has a call for their life, the big question is, okay, so how do I know that?

Because it seemed really easy for Samuel. He just woke up in the middle of the night and God was talking to him. Really, really easy for John and Andrew and Simon Peter because they just asked Jesus, what do we do next? And he just told them, like, what do we do here living in 2024? How do we actually live this truth that God has a claim on my life and God has a call for my life? Well, here's some principles. If we're going to live this way, if we're going to live this truth with joy,

Then here's some things to know. One is this, these are basics. These are basic principles. Number one, God knows you better than you know yourself. So the reason why you're made, like that call, he knows what it is. The things that bring you joy, he knows what those things are. How you learn, he knows exactly how you learn. What you're going to need to move, he knows exactly what it is you need to move.

God knows you better than you know yourself. The second piece is, and God loves you better than you love yourself. So that thing you're made for, he wants that for you. the things that bring you joy, he wants that for you. He knows how you learn, so he's going to speak to you in a way that you can hear. So this is the truth. God knows you better and loves you better than you know and love yourself. And the result of that is the meaning of that, the ultimate, the consequence of that is that you can trust him.

That's first principle. Second principle is this. There is no perfect plan. Like when it comes to God, what's your plan for my life? Well, okay, the perfect plan was Eden. So Genesis 1 and 2, after that, there's no perfect plan. After that, it's just we're in this life and God is with us. So if you're thinking, okay, I'm going to do my Tuesday or an adventure book,

but I want to figure out the way to be optimally happy. I have to figure out the exact perfect decisions to make. There is literally no such thing. There was such a thing, and then sin happened. Because of that, there's no such thing. And then the third principle is, okay, first principle, God knows and loves you better than you know yourself. The second principle is there's no perfect plan.

The third principle is a reality to realize that God made you in his image or likeness. One of the many things that means is you have freedom. That means you have freedom to choose this or that. Now keep you this in mind. There are sometimes when God has said, okay, I want you to do this and I want you to not do that. In those cases, you don't have to discern. That's just the thing to do or thing not to do. For example, when God appeared to Samuel in the first reading today, in 1 Samuel,

He said, Samuel, here's what I want you to do. Samuel didn't have to say, like, I'm going to use my freedom to do something else. No, he uses freedom to do what God asked him to do. For most of us, a lot of life is exercising your God-given gift of freedom. The God-given gift of your intellect and your will to look at the world, try to understand it, and then take a step. So how do we do that? I always like to look at it really simply.

And the simple thing is, when you need to make a decision, knowing that God knows you better and loves you better and loves you better and the other of yourself, knowing that there's no perfect plan, knowing you've been given freedom, how do you use that freedom? How do you actually respond to God's will? How do you choose to live out God's call for your life? Looking at a decision, I ask four questions. It looks at like, ask them about as if they're doors, like a door you're going to step through.

Some of you've heard of this before, but I think it's worth repeating. So the first question, the first door is, okay, is this a good door? Here's a choice that I have for my life. is this a good door? Meaning, has God prohibited be going through this? So here's a married man, and he's really discerning whether or not he should date his secretary. Well, that's a bad door. God has already said, do not date your secretary if you're married. Like that is a commandment from the Lord. We know it's in the book of Exodus. I'm paraphrasing. But we realize there are some things God has said, don't do this. So that's not a good door. But the reality is, a lot of our choices

that we're trying to discern are either good or neutral. If it's a bad thing, I don't have to discern that. So, is it a good door or neutral door? Okay, you can go through it. Second question, not only is it a good door, second question is, is it an open door? This is where we get to use our intellects as well to realize, okay, I need to discern this.

Is this even an option for me? So here's an example. The example, I do not have to discern whether or not I should try out for the NBA. Not at all. Is it a good door? Sure, it's neutral at the very least. Is it an open door? Not for me.

That is not an open door. That is not an option for me. So I don't need to discern that. So I can look at any kind of decision. Is it a good door? I can walk through it. Is it an open door? If it is, yes, you can.

If it's not, well then I discern that. Now, it might be temporarily shut. It might be something where I may be in the future, but not right now. That's fine. So we only live in the right now. None of us live in the future. So is it a good door? It's an open door.

The third question gets a little more dicey. The third question is, is, is this a wise door? Because we really need to use our intellect. What I mean by it is that the wise door is, knowing my past, knowing who I am right now and knowing who it is I want to be, would it be wise for me to make this choice? Would it be wise for me to walk through this door?

And so this is where it's like, well, who knows? I don't know. And you might not know until you actually try. So is it a good door? Is it a good door? Is it a wise door? And the fourth question is the one people really, really hate because they want an answer. I want to know, just tell me what to do. The fourth question is, is this a door I want to walk through?

The reality is, God has given us so much freedom that in so much of life, he says, well, do you want this? If you don't, you don't have to do it. If you do, you can choose it. Now, I think sometimes we want certainty and we want certainty for many reasons, but one is because then if this is not something I want, but it's what God wants, then that'll make me optimally happy. And that's not the case. Or if it doesn't make me optimally happy, then I have someone to blame.

Well, God wanted me to do this as opposed to, I chose to walk through this door. This is a door that I thought was good, was open, was wise, and I wanted to do it, and I made that choice. I took that step, and that's the reality. That's just what we have to do. Whenever we're making these decisions, again, God knows you and loves you better than you know you and love yourself. There's no perfect plan. You have the freedom to be able to ask these questions. then we have to actually just, we have to move.

Like the whole idea of discerning God's voice and discerning God's call for our lives is we have to actually move. So move in one of two ways. One is gathering data, the other is taking action, making a decision. When I'm going to gathering data is, I talk to a lot of people who are trying to discern things like, am I called to marriage, am I called to the convent,

I'm called to the priesthood, whatever that kind of thing is. And they're looking at this, and they're trying to figure out the problem, but they're not getting any more data. They're just thinking in their head. They maybe go online and like, let me check out this religious community

or ask some frequently asked questions about seminary. But to actually go, talk to a religious sister, to actually go and visit a seminary, to wonder if, like, should I ask, should I marry this person? Well, how about ask them on a date? That's called gathering data. The same image I have is of algebra, trying to solve an algebra problem.

So say in your algebra problem, you need to solve for X. and you're looking at all these things, but there's all these, there's W and Y and Z, and there's not any numbers yet. What you might need to have in order to solve for X is you might need to know what Y is. You might need to just gather data. And I won't know what X is until I have more information. So I think a lot of times when someone goes on a date, this is not high pressure. This is just gathering data.

When someone visits the seminary or visits the convent, this is not high pressure. This is just I'm gathering data. I now have more information to work with. That's the first thing. And the second thing is I need to make a decision. Now, the second image after the algebra thing that I have is, I don't know, have you guys ever cited in a gun? Yes.

They both, here in the room, we've all cited in guns. So if you ever do this, you have a rifle, if you're not familiar with this. So before deer season or something like this, a lot of times your gun has been in storage. And so because of that, the scope might be a little bit off. And so what you need to do a couple weeks before opening of hunting. is you go to the range. And what you do is you get it all set up and you put the target in the middle of the crossairs. And you don't just walk away then. Oh, it's all set. They're targets in the middle of the crossairs. You put the target in the middle of the crossairs and then you actually

have to pull the trigger. At some point, you line it up and then you have to shoot. You say, well, what if I missed the target? That's the point. Because you're citing it in. You line it up, pull the trigger and see if you need to make adjustments. And if you need to make adjustments, you make the adjustments. That's part of the process. Now, what you don't do is you don't not set your gun in, and then on opening day, line up the deer in your crosshairs, you do that when it's low risk, when it's low stakes. And this is the reality. For so many of us, we have to understand that faith is rarely a leap. Faith is almost always simply a step. And so as we're living, trying to find God's voice, he has a claim on my life, he has a plan for my life, a call for

my life, to be able to just take the simple steps. Again, it's steps rarely a leap. but I know the same thing. It keeps coming up. What if I make the wrong choice? What if I mess up? Two things. One is you already have. I mean, just, sorry, just honestly,

if you've ever sinned, you already have. Like, what if I'm ruined God's plan for my life? Every time we sin, we're saying no to God's plan for our lives. Every time we sin, we're saying no to God's call in our lives. So here you are, right now, praying to him, things are not over. Like, your life is not over, even though you might be missing out on the original plan,

original call. God can meet you where you're at. You know, there was a young woman who was here with us years and years ago, and all signs pointed to her being called to be a religious sister. I mean, just like her prayer, her discernment, her life. I'm just, it seemed like that was very, very likely. And I don't know if it was or not, but it seemed like it. At one point, though, she got pregnant.

And in her discernment, she and the young man ended up marrying each other. Now they have a family. It's beautiful. It's incredible. But it's one of those situations where it might have been the case that God, God's call for her life, he has a claim on her life, he had a call for her life. His call for her was to be a religious sister. But then circumstances were such, you know, her choices were such, that she wasn't able to choose that. Now, here's the thing, her life's not over.

God still has a claim on her life. God still has a call for her life. You know what he does? Every morning he meets her where she's at. And this is the truth for us. What if I make the wrong choice? If you make the wrong choice, then I'll tell you what. God will meet you where you're at.

What if I like wreck everything? I'll tell you what. if you wreck everything, God will meet you where you're at. That is just what God does. Well, yeah, but I'll be less happy. Again, the point is not to be optimally happy. The point is not to have the perfect life. The point is to do what he's asking.

Let me think about this. Jesus never, ever made a wrong choice. If there's anyone in the world who did God's, the Father's will, perfectly, it is Jesus. Where did that lead him? did it lead him to be optimally happy, or did it lead him to the cross? It led him to the cross. Samuel. Yeah, he says, yes, speak Lord, your servant's listening.

Do you know the very first message that God gives Samuel is to deliver a painful, horrible, terrible message to Eli? Say yes to God's will doesn't mean we're going to be optimally happy. To say yes to God's will means we're saying yes to God. John, Andrew, and Simon Peter say, it's him. virtually all of them died for our Lord. God has a claim on your life and God has a call for your life. That doesn't mean you're going to be optimally happy. It just means you're going to be optimally his because here's the reality is this. It's just this simple. Life is just this simple.

The Christian life is just this simple. You simply realize that your life is his and you start walking. That's it. God has a claim on your life. God has a call for you. God has a call for for your life. The life of the disciple is, it's so easy. You simply realize your life is his. You've been purchased at a price. You're not your own. Your life is his and you start walking. Jonah Vark said it like this. She said, act and God will act. And it's the last thing. I know at this point, so people are like, I'd be the same way. You're like, yeah, but I just, but I just want to know. Like I just, I just, but I just want some certainty. Just want some clarity. and I get that.

You know, it's so fascinating. This last week I heard a story, a friend shared about Mother Teresa. Actually, the story is about a man named John Kavanaugh. John Kavanaugh was an ethicist, and he went to Calcutta to live with Mother Teresa to actually work in her home for the dying for three months because he had the big question. What does God want with my life? He had already crafted a life. And God had put on his heart this burning question of, I just, God, you've claimed me,

you've called me to what? And so after three months of working in Calcutta in the home for the dying, he finally had a chance to ask Mother Teresa to pray for him. And she said, what do you want? What do you want me to pray for you for? And he said, very simply, this is it. I just, clarity.

Pray that I have clarity. And Mother Teresa looked at him and she said, no, I will not do that. And he was like, wait, why? That's why I've been, that's why I'm here. I want clarity on God's will. She said that. She said, clarity is the last thing you're clinging to.

And you must let go of it. So he looks at her and says, wait, but you always, she said to Mother Teresa, you always seem to have clarity. You always seem to know exactly what God wants you to do. And in that moment, Mother Teresa revealed something about her relationship with the Lord. She revealed something about deep and profound about her heart. because she looked back at John Kavanaugh, and she said, I have never had clarity.

She said, I have always had trust. I have never had clarity. What I always have had is trust. And she said, so I will pray that you trust God. Because that's it. Realize that your life is his and start walking. Realize that he loves you and knows you better than you love and knows. yourself and move. Realize that you have been purchased at a price and your life is not your

life. Make some decisions. Not because those decisions will make you optimally happy. But because those decisions saying yes to him, living as someone who has been claimed by God and called by God, is the only kind of life that's worth living.