Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 01/26/25 On Purpose: Off Purpose

Episode Date: January 25, 2025

Homily from the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time. You've been given a great work, and must not come down. Since you have been made on purpose, there are two ways to live: on purpose and off purpose. But if a person has been made to be great and set apart for a purpose, why would they ever choose to live off purpose? The common culprits are distraction, forgetting, comparison, and living a shadow mission. Mass Readings from January 26, 2025: Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10 Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 151 Corinthians 12:12-30 Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

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. 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 Luke. Chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, verse 4 and verses 14 through 21. Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who are eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received. Jesus returned to Galilee, in the power of the Spirit,

and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all. He came to Nazareth where he had grown up and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He enrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind and to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, today, this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.

The Gospel of the Lord. Might you have a seat? So ever since I've a kid, ever since I was a kid, I have loved stories of like explorers or stories of exploration, like whether it be explorers in the jungle or the Arctic explorers, explorers of the new world. But I remember as a kid, high schooler, hearing the story of someone of modern explorer. His name was Thor Heardahl. So Thor Heardel is a Norwegian guy, was a Norwegian guy. And he had this theory. His theory was that the inhabitants of the Polynesian Islands in the Pacific that they originally came from.

South America. And that his theory was that they basically just used the resources in they found in South America and shoved off of the coast of South America and drifted to Polynesia. And so in 1947, he actually did this experiment where it's good. They called it the Contiki expedition, where he and a number of other men, they took nine 45 foot balsam logs, lashed them together. They had a couple small sails. But basically they shoved off the coast of Peru. And essentially, again, they used the winds, but mostly they just drifted with the idea, the theory, the confidence that they would drift to the islands. And even though they showed up exhausted and dehydrated and starving, three and a half months later, they arrived in the Polynesian Islands. And so he

kind of like proved his theory. I mean, not the entire theory, the other theory, some parts of the theory were really weird, but he proved the theory that you could drift from Peru all the way to the Pacific Islands, which I think is remarkable. Now, what's remarkable, to me at least, isn't the fact that he did it. I mean, people have been navigating the oceans for a long time.

What's remarkable to me is that he drifted there. What's remarkable to me is they had the goal, the goal of the Pacific Islands, and all he did was essentially drift. And he still reached his destination, which he realized just never happens. Like, when it comes to life, that never happens. No one ever has a goal and then just drifts toward their goal.

No one ever has a destination and just drifts toward their destination. No one drifts to rightness. You know, last week we started this series and as beginning of the series, I submitted that I think every one of us should have a goal and that goal should be to be great. And the reason why I think this should be your goal, all of our goals, is because you've been created on purpose. That's our series. Our series is called On Purpose.

the theory behind this or the foundation behind this, the principle behind this, is that if God didn't exist, this entire world would be an accident. If God didn't exist, you'd be an accident. But because God does exist, this whole world has been created on purpose. And you have been created on purpose. You've been created for a purpose. And even more, even more, I think about this, even more than this, if you're a Christian, you've been set apart.

I mean, you've heard this before, but for something to be holy, right, it gets blessed. But what does that even mean to be holy? It's mean to be blessed. So, say, for example, someone came to me and said, hey, Father, I have this bracelet, I have this necklace, I have this cross, I'd like you to bless it. Now, it's not just means, okay, now that's holy in the sense of it's got sacred power. It's holy in the sense that now it is set apart. That's what it is to be holy, is to be set apart for a purpose.

Like when something gets blessed, that's what it is. it's now set apart for a purpose. So that bracelet, that necklace, that cross, it's no longer jewelry, it's no longer merely an accessory. It is now set apart for a purpose. It's been blessed. It's been consecrated. And that's you.

That if you're a Christian, you're blessed. It doesn't just mean you're holy in the sense of you have some sacred power, although you probably do with the Holy Spirit living inside of you. What it means is that you have been set apart for a purpose. you've been called and consecrated for our purpose and now because of that because you've been made on purpose and set apart for a purpose

we have one of two choices. We can either choose to live on purpose or we can choose to live off purpose. We can either live with direction or we can simply drift. And I would say this, I would say one of the greatest dangers to Catholic Christians today

is the reality that we've been set apart to live on purpose and simultaneously we choose to live off purpose. Isn't that crazy just to realize that if I know this as a Christian, like I know God has set me apart for a purpose. He's made me on purpose and yet I can at the same time choose to live off purpose. And we asked the question why. Like what is it in us that regularly chooses to live off purpose? I think it can be one of four things. I think the first thing, it may be the most obvious is I choose to live off-purpose when I choose to live with distraction. And this is true in big tasks and in really small tasks.

The first reading today is from the book of the prophet Nehemiah. So this is Nehemiah chapter 8 we heard today. I'll come back to that in a second. But Nehemiah 1 through 7 actually tells us, we heard the story of Ezra today. Nehemiah 1 through 7 tells the story of Nehemiah himself. So what happened is Nehemiah's a Jewish man. At one point, the Babylonians came in and they overran overrun Jerusalem.

and they basically exiled the majority of the population, brought them to Babylon. Now, at this point, the Jews have been living in Babylon for about 70 years. And finally, at one point, the Persians, invaded the Babylonians and conquered them. And King Cyrus, whose name was actually in the book of the Prophet Isaiah, King Cyrus said, okay, Jews, you can go back home.

So after 70 years, here's these Jews, and they'd come back home. Now, Nehemiah, at the same time, he was working for the next king. His name was Artaxerxes, in case you're taking notes. And at one point, Nehemiah hears this news. The news is, yeah, some Jews have gone back to Jerusalem, but the city is defenseless. The city has no wall. The city is open to bandits.

It's open to robbers. It's open to attack. And Yama is in the presence of the King Artaxerxes, and he's looking sad. He's grieving over the fact that his city, he's never been to before, his city, the city of his people, is defenseless because there's no wall. And so Artaxerxes asks him what's going on. And he tells the whole story. He says, here's my plan. I would love to be able to go back to Jerusalem and build this wall.

I think I want to do this. I think God's called me to do this for my people. And miraculously, our desert seas says, great, you can go. And not only can you go, you have my permission, you also, I'm going to pay for it. I'm going to give you all the resources you need, and I'm going to give you an armed guard as you travel from Babylon all the way back to Jerusalem. So Nehemiah goes back in this incredible, 1 through 7, chapter 1 through 7, tell that story. But there's a moment in chapter 6.

Here's Nehemiah. Now, he has been building this wall, working on this wall, because that's the mission. That's the purpose God has given to him. And there are these three enemies. And these three men, they come to Nehemiah, they send word to Nehemiah, and they say, Nehemiah, hey, come down. Stop here working, because we have something we'd like to talk to you about. And they're just trying to, Nehemiah had been given a purpose.

He had been given a mission. And here are these people. Hey, we have a really good idea for you. Come down and talk with us. And you guys, we know this is us, right? Every single one of us, given a mission, every single one of us, given a task, every single one of us, having a purpose, every single one of us, experiences distraction.

And of course, you know, we realize that one of the many problems with distraction is distraction can be anything. Not only can it be anything, distraction is not always even a bad thing. Sometimes we're often distracted by good things, right? It's called, I don't know if you've heard this phrase before, but it's called strategic procrastination. Where, like, I have a task to do, right, have a mission. I have to write this paper. But, you know, I should probably do those dishes.

You say like, okay, no, I need to study for this test. I, you know, I've been standing should call my dad. I'm going to call my dad. Or it's time to pray. This is the moment. This is the task I've been given. It's called to pray. Well, just first let me check dot, dot, dot, right?

That is our lives. Anything can become a distraction. And any, an distraction is anything that takes our attention off where it should be. That's what a distraction is. Anything that takes our attention off of where it should be. Anything that says, you're in the middle of it, you're living on purpose. anything that says, hey, come down. Anything that says, hey, just look over here.

Anything that, anything that invites us and says, hey, just, I know you're doing something, just stop. And it's crazy because that is not like mere distraction. But ultimately, it is the temptation to live off purpose. And if we give into that, we can become so distracted that we actually end up forgetting our purpose. because one of the first reasons we live off purpose is because of distraction. One of the second reasons, the second reason we live off purpose is because you just forget.

We forget what we were doing. We forget our mission. We forget our purpose. We can even forget who we are. Actually, that's what's happening in the first reading today. Remember, this is Nehemiah chapter 8. And these are the people of Israel. These are the ones who for 70 years, they were in Babylon and they've come back to Jerusalem.

Now, think about this. Why did they come back to Jerusalem? They came back to Jerusalem because they were like, hey, we're Jewish. That's it. They came back to Jerusalem because, oh, I guess we're the chosen people. I came back to Jerusalem because apparently this is our homeland. The remarkable thing is they knew they were Jewish, but that's all they knew. They knew that they were the chosen people. That's all they knew. Why? Because in that time in Babylon, away from their home, they lost their scriptures. They lost their story, and they forgot who they were. And I think about this,

How many Catholics are exactly like that? Why are you Catholic? I don't know. Raised Catholic. Why do you believe in Jesus? I don't know. My parents, grandparents took me to church. All I know is I'm Catholic.

I don't know what that means. Just like these people in the Emma chapter 8. All I know is I'm Jewish. I don't know what that means. Why? Because they've been living in such a way. They've been living off purpose for so long that they've actually forgotten

who they were. And again, this is us. What can cause us to live off purpose? What can cause us to forget who we are? Well, I think the obvious one is sin, right? So often we can find ourselves in this place of sin and we forget who we are because we believe that we're disqualified. Man, I can no longer, I can't belong to God.

I can't be a saint. I've fallen so badly. There's no possible way. I could still be his. where I know people that they knew they were Catholic, they knew they belonged to the Lord, they actually had a relation to Jesus,

but then they got into some kind of relationship and that relationship, you've probably seen this before, their relationship has taken over everything in their life, like every other thing, every other hobby, interest, every other relationship, even their family is like second fiddle to this relationship.

And so in that relationship, I just forget, I forget who Jesus is, I forget who I am in that. And it's one of those things that sometimes even we just get so busy, How about this? That I got so busy I forgot that I was called to live on mission.

I got so busy with all these other things, I forgot that I was called to live on mission. Or maybe even this. Sometimes people just come to campus and they just, well, how come you don't go to church anymore? I don't know, I just stopped. How can you not living that life on mission? I don't know.

I just stopped. And this, you guys, this can be any of us. Even if we're busy, even if we're full of church things. In fact, I've been convicted by this so much in the last six months to a year. So much so that about a month and a half, two months ago, one of our former missionaries, his name was Father Joshua. Father Joshua is a priest over in Michigan.

Father Joshua, he sent me this text out of nowhere. He said, hey, bro. He said, I was just praying. And he came up in my prayer. And as I was praying about you, the words of this old priest came to mind, and I wanted to share them with you. This old priest had told Father Joshua that he said, I was in prayer once.

And he said, I just heard. I heard Jesus say these words, heard Jesus say, you used to love me, and now you just work for me. And Father Josh just said, you know, I remember that in prayer, and I just, I wanted to share that with you in case that was the case, you know, in case that that resonates with you. Which is powerful because I've been praying about that, that sense of like, Jesus, I want to love you so much. but just like the church in Ephesus in Revelation, Jesus speaks to that church and says, listen, you're so good. Like you believe everything.

You believe the right things. You're working really hard. You've suffered for my name. But Jesus said to them, he said, but I hold this against you. You've lost your first love. In fact, he says, you've forgotten your first love. How easily that could be any one of us,

whatever it is in our lives, that can cause us to forget our first love and cause us to forget our purpose. So what's the remedy for that? What's the remedy for forgetting? I think the remedy is to be reminded, really. Nehemiah chapter 8, what happens? This whole story is these people have forgotten who they were,

they've forgotten their purpose, and then they discover God's word. And Ezra the scribe stands up and reads God's word. The reason they're weeping is because they're being reminded, maybe for the first time in their lives. here's what it means to be God's chosen people. Here's who this God is who has called you out of nothing to belong to him. Maybe for the first time they've ever heard, you've forgotten this whole thing.

But you've been made on purpose. And they're weeping because they realize, oh my gosh, I have a purpose. And that's why Ezra is able to say, rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength. Because that's the reality, right? When you know your purpose, when you know that you can live that way, The answer, the response is joy. So live off purpose, distraction, forgetting.

You need to be reminded of the joy that we've been made on purpose, and yet that joy can be stolen. In the third culprit, I think, to get us to live off purpose, it can be stolen by comparison. You probably heard the phrase, comparison is the thief of joy. Here are the people of Israel. Like, no, I have joy because why?

Because I've been chosen. I mean, even think of the early Christians. The second reading today, is to 1st Corinthians chapter 12. And here's Paul was talking about like, oh, remember last weekend? Paul's saying, you've been given all these gifts, these gifts, these roles, these opportunities. You have so many gifts. You've been made on purpose.

Now, go use those gifts. Imagine. Imagine realizing you've been given a gift. You have joy. And then you're like, ah, I'm just really bummed. Well, why? I'm not an eye. Like, like, that sense of like, ugh.

I'm not an ear, which might sound silly, but like keep reading what Paul wrote to the Corinthians. He said, he talked about, but there are those among you who have been given gifts of healing and mighty deeds and who are preaching and tongues and our prophets and apostles. And say, well, what's your gift? What's your role? What's your opportunity? And someone's like, ah, assistance. I've been given the gift of mighty deeds. What's yours?

Administration. It makes sense in someone. ways that would steal us of our joy, that comparison would steal us. And yet, this is just the truth we have to remember. To wish that you are someone else is to waste the person you are. To wish you had a gift that belonged to someone else is to waste the gift you've actually been given. And I would say this, to live with someone else's purpose is to live off purpose. So distraction, forgetting, in comparison. And lastly, the fourth thing, I think that moves us from living on purpose living off purpose is to slowly give away your heart.

So many of us do this. To slowly just start living off purpose. Basically, it's this, to have a mission and then to begin living what is called a shadow mission. See, if you go back to First Samuel, the second Samuel, what you have is you have a story of David, right?

Think about David. When he's a kid, just the way he's the youngest son of his father, Jesse, At one point, as a kid, the prophet Samuel goes to Jesse's house and says, the next king of Israel is coming from your sons. So David, as a young man, a boy, is anointed the king. So he is consecrated, right? He is set apart for a purpose.

What's the purpose to be the king? And he starts living that. First, he lives it at home, right, by tending his father's sheep. And then he lives it by fighting Goliath. Then he lives it by working under Saul. then he lives it by uniting the tribes, then he lives it by being their king. David has been given a mission.

He's living on purpose. He's been anointed, he's been set apart for a purpose, and it's amazing. He's a legit, is a hero. But then something happens in 2nd Samuel chapter 11 that begins this downward slide. The beginning of 2nd Samuel chapter 11 says this, at the turn of the year, when kings would go on campaign,

David stayed at home in Jerusalem. Remember, David's been set apart. He's been set apart for a purpose. What's the purpose to be the king? What is the job of the king? The job of the king is not to sit on a throne and have people with their palm fronds and peel the grapes and eat servants.

The job of a king is to fight for his people. He's been set apart for a purpose. That purpose is to fight for his people. And 2nd Samuel 11 says, at the turn of the year, when kings go out to campaign, when kings go out to fight, what David do? just stayed home. No, nothing massively wrong, just slightly wrong. That's why we know that a shadow mission isn't like 180 degrees off. It's more like 10 degrees off. But he just starts.

I'm supposed to go out there, but I'm not going to go out there. We all know that. I know I'm called to do this thing. It's called to live on purpose. I should take that step, but, you know, just not right now. That's his first move. Then second thing, it says then when David, one day he rose from his siesta. Like, okay, pause, David. Let's take a moment here. Now, not only is he not going on campaign, he's not only fighting. It's not like he stayed back in the city

because he had so much work to do. He has finance council meetings and construction things. He was taking a nap in the middle of the day. David Rose from his siesta, right? He's already off mission. And what's he do? We all know the story. He sees a young woman bathing on a rooftop across the way.

Now, in that moment, David could be like, okay, stop. You know, my parents would say, ceiling scene, like look away. but he doesn't. He keeps going down that path. He makes inquiries. Finds out, oh, that's Bathsheba, the wife of Yariah, your armor bearer.

So not only does he realize in that moment, oh, sorry, whoa, bro, she's married, sorry about this. She's married to one of his mighty men. She's married to one of the men who is a hero in the people of Israel. And not only that, but has fought for David on countless occasions. That would be the moment that David, you'd think, okay, pump the brakes. like this is the wrong thing. But David is locked in on a shadow mission. And what does he do?

It didn't start off going crazy, but here's at this point right now where he goes and sends for her and then abuses his power, takes advantage of this woman, someone else's wife, this woman who on her own would not have sought David out,

but he uses and abuses her and then sends her back home. We all know the story, as we said. She gets pregnant. So then David tries to cover his tracks. Ultimately, we know, the story that he sends Yariah out to the front lines so that he can be struck down in battle. And this man, this hero, right, who was living on mission, when he's living on purpose, anointed, set apart for a purpose, he was a hero.

And then just because he started living a shadow mission, again, not 180 degrees off, just 10 degrees off, it led him steadily further and further and further off purpose and further and further off mission. and just think about all the ways that that could be us. You're living on purpose, and then I would take that second glance like David, right? Or take that second drink, or a third drink, or a fourth drink, or went through the whole bottle tonight. I mean, for you was back, I remember meeting with a number of men and women who happily married, who saw a number of. Facebook, you know, their high school sweetheart. And they just reached out. And from people living

on mission, loving their spouse and loving their children to all of a sudden, I'm so far off, living this shadow mission. I remember when I first heard about shadow mission. It was reading a book about this whole thing about living on purpose, living on mission. And there was a men's retreat. And at the men's retreat, they were talking about shadow mission. And so as these men are working through things, there's this one scenario that they shared, this one man, they were sitting at night and then around a campfire and things got quiet. This one man had been quiet this whole time. He spoke up and he said, guys, I just need to tell you that my shadow mission, you need to know my shadow mission. He said, my shadow mission is that while my wife and children are in bed and

asleep, my shadow mission is I get up and I go to my family computer and I engage in destructive behavior while the rest of the world and go to hell. And I said a couple of guys chuckled, you're kind of uncomfortable. And he said, no, you need to know this. My shadow mission is that when my wife and children are in bed and asleep, I get up and go to the family computer and engage in destructive behavior while the rest of the world can go to hell. Every one of us have been given a mission.

Every one of us has been made on purpose. When we live off purpose, we can be so lost. And we don't even recognize ourselves anymore through distraction, through forgetting, through comparison, and through that shadow mission. So what do we do? This is the last thing. What do we do? I think one of the things we do, first thing is we do what Nehemiah did. Right back in chapter six, when those three guys come to him and say, hey, Nehemi, come down.

Nehemi had this answer. And his answer was this. He says, I've begun a great work and I cannot come down. The three come back again and again. They come back to him five times and say, Nehemiah, come down. We have other things for you to do. And he repeated his line, I have begun a great work and I cannot come down. This has to be our conviction. If we're actually going to live on purpose, we have to, when it comes to distraction, when it comes to forgetting, comes to comparison, when it comes to shadow mission, we have to be willing to say, no, no, I have begun a great work. And I cannot come down. How do we notice this? I'd say this. How do you know your purpose? How do you know your mission? How do you know your work? How do you know if you're off purpose? My last year's seminary, in fact, the last month of seminary, we were invited over

to the Archbishop's house. The Archbishop's Harry Flynn. And we had a holy hour before dinner, kind of like a celebration. You guys are going to get ordained. And so we prayed with him for a holy hour just in front of Jesus and the Eucharist. And afterwards, when they reposed the Eucharist, the archbishop said, gentlemen, I am going to invite you and challenge you. If you do nothing else with your priesthood, make a holy hour every single day. And then he told us why. He said, because you're going to get so busy that there are going to be days where you don't even know what you said, you won't even know what you did. There will be days when you didn't say what you should have said or you said what you shouldn't have said. There'd be days you did something you shouldn't have done

or days that you didn't do something you should have done. And unless you take that time and spend it in front of Jesus and look at him and let him speak to you, you'll never know. You'll never know if you're actually living on purpose or if you're living off purpose. That's my invitation to all of us. Take that time.

Look at the Lord Jesus. Let God's word speak to you like Ezra, read the word of God to the people of Israel. I'll let it remind you, this is a moment we're just getting distracted. This is a moment you're just forgetting. This is the moment we're just losing joy because of comparison or this is the moment where you're living a shadow mission. You guys, there's still time.

Why? Because your story is not over. Even if you've been drifting. Even if you've been distracted or been forgetting or be giving into comparison or be living a shadow mission, your story is not over. You've been made on purpose. You have a purpose. You have a mission.

You have a work. In fact, you have been given a great work. And you cannot, and you must not come down.