Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 02/09/20 Good...For Nothing?

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

Homily from the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Refuse to live as salt and light, and the Father remains unknown, unloved, and unglorified. God trusts us with being His representatives in this world. He has made us His and He has made us good. But to what end? God has made us good for a purpose. Do we live in such a way that we have been made good for nothing? Mass Readings from February 9, 2020: Isaiah 58:7-10 Psalms 112:4-5, 6-7, 8-91 Corinthians 2:1-5 Matthew 5:13-16 Download the Homily Study

So I've been thinking recently about, like, you know, you know how on people's social media they have the profile, like description of themselves? You know, under your name, you have like what you're into or whatever the kind of things. Do you ever ever notice this thing? I never have anything. It just says my name because I can never think of anything creative enough.

And so that I also am free now to look at other people's and judge them really harshly. Because I don't know, if you ever notice this that when it comes to like the Instagram, there's this one, gosh, I don't even know why. It doesn't bother me. It just makes me chuckle. Someone's Instagram page, and then it has their name, and all it says is, just for fun.

You ever seen that? Someone's Instagram page, just for fun. Maybe that's some of you, and you're looking at me, like you're really angry at me. But I always think like, oh, so you're not, this isn't your professional Instagram page? Like this, oh, this is just the fun one. I get it.

Of course, it's Instagram. It's all just for fun, for crying out loud. It was funny here in my head, maybe before I said it and shared it out loud with you. It's just maybe one of those things you noticed as you're scrolling. There's one in Twitter that just always is so, interesting to me. When people have, here's their name, all the descriptions, and then

says something like, tweets are my own. And again, I'm like, who else would they be? There's your name right there. Of course they're the tweets of your own. But one of the things they're trying to do, right, is they're trying to kind of distance themselves from like maybe the organization, their employer, if they work for a university. Like, no, these aren't the universities. They don't reflect the views of my employer. They don't reflect the views of like a group I'm part of, like, I don't represent them. Of course, you can say that. You can put down tweets are my own and say, make a distance between you and whoever else is, you're connected with. But we all know there's a bunch of stories of people who might say the tweets are my own

and they make a bad tweet and they're fired. Because it's like, listen, you might say that you're not representing them, you're still representing them. You know what I mean? Because we can always claim like, no, no, no, no, these are my own thoughts, this is my own thing. I don't represent the university. I don't represent my employer. I don't represent this team. But in some ways, it's like, no, actually, the truth is you do. And I was thinking about this, this, this, this reality that we might try to go through life and say, no, no, listen, what I say, what I do, it's my own. I don't represent anything in particular.

Until we get to today's gospel. Like, I'm not a representative of anyone in particular. Until we get to today's gospel, because the last line of today's gospel, here's Jesus who says this very clearly, you're the salt of the earth, you're the light of the world, and he concludes by saying this, just so your light must shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify my heavenly father.

like this is how you're supposed to live. It's such a way that your words, your actions are seen and people will glorify our heavenly father. I just think about, I mean, honestly, I'm overwhelmed by the humility of God. Like the humility of God who says, actually, there aren't too many ways in this world that people will get to know me.

But the idea is, if you're a Christian, you're the light of the world, you're salt to the earth. How will people know who I am, the father? How will people know who the father is? Because reality, of course, is you can look at the world, you can look at creation and know that God exists. You can know that God is just by looking at the world. That's obvious. By doing philosophy, you can know that God exists.

And of course, we know that Jesus is the fullness of revelations or Jesus reveals the Father fully. And yes, we know that Jesus established the church and has given us the scripture to be able to know who he is. But the reality, of course, is that most people won't come into the church. Most people won't pick up a Bible and read. In fact, the truth is, then often said like this, realize that your life is the only Bible that most people will ever read. Your life is the only Bible that most people will ever read. Here is the humility of God who says,

it's up to you to live in such a way that I'm known, that you're the salt to the earth. It's up to you to live in such a way that I'm loved. God himself is saying it's up to you. To live in such a way that I'm glorified. I just think like crazy that the humility of God, the trust he has. because the converse is true. But if you don't,

if you and I don't live in that way, the father goes unknown. But if we don't live in that way, the father goes unloved. And if we don't live in that way, the father goes unglorified. So, no, no, no, God, my tweets are my own. He's like, no, no, no.

They're not. Because why? Because you're salt of the earth. Because you're the light of the world. You guys, there's something in today's gospel. It kills me every time I come across it. It really actually kind of shakes me. Jesus looks at his disciples, and he says those words,

you're the salt of the earth, but if salt loses its flavor, it is good for nothing. It's good for nothing. Like those words, they actually, they kind of haunt me. They're scary words. Because salt is good, right? In the ancient world, salt is what preserved foods. Preserved food,

alive. It's really important. Salt, ancient world, with added flavor. It actually adds flavor in the modern world as well. I don't know if you know this, but that's why French fries and ketchup exist. They are a salt vehicle for getting salt into my body. We all know this. That salt is a commodity. It was a commodity, at least. They literally called it white gold back in the day. We actually get the term salary from salt. Like people, you get paid

in salt. It has value. But if it loses that, what happens? It is, Jesus says, it is good for nothing. No, just stop here for a second. Jesus isn't saying, he's not trying to be like a raw, raw speech, like, hey guys, so go out there and be salt, go out there and be light. He's saying, you are salt. I don't know if you caught that in the gospel. He said, you are already light.

Because here's, we're born into this world broken. Every one of us is born into this world with broken hearts, broken lives. We're not the people we should be. And what does Jesus do? He claims us as his. He raises us up. He makes us sons and daughters of the Father. He's made us good. And this is the key. He's made us good for a purpose. He's made us salt for a purpose. He's made us light for a purpose. You and I are meant to be good for a purpose. And that purpose is to reveal the Father, to reveal his love, to reveal his who he is. So the question, has he made me good for nothing? Has he made me good for no end? is he may be good for no purpose? Can people look at my life and not be attracted to God at all?

That is, he made us good. But for what? I discovered this this week. I don't speak Greek, not my native language, or my second, or I don't know it at all. But I found out this about Greek today, or this earlier than today. When Jesus says that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Heavenly Father, there's two words in Greek for good. One is Agathos, which means goodness.

like a good deed. The other is this work Kulos. The word Kulose doesn't just mean goodness. It means attractive. It means beautiful. And Jesus is saying,

live in such a way that people see your beautiful works. They see your beautiful life. That people can look and see your life is actually attractive. As Catholic Christians, we're meant to have lives that when people look at us

are like, what the, wow. Because why? Because we live in such a cynical age. Don't we live in such a cynical time? There's so much skepticism. I mean, I get to a lot of high schools. I got to tell you, there are a few places in the world that are more cynical and more skeptical than high schools,

except for one place, Catholic high schools. No offense, but it's true. Because honestly, think about this, maybe you did this, maybe you went to Catholic high school, and you know that this is true, because why you have religion class, and people talk about God all the time. You take tests on Jesus.

Like, if anything can make you cynical about religion, it's taking tests on Jesus and like getting a D in Jesus. Right? So, and so people are always talking about him, but very few people actually get to meet him. Why? Because there's so many opinions. We live in this hyper-opinion age.

How do you break through that? Well, this is nothing new. In fact, Paul's writing to the Corinthians today. You might know this. Before Paul went to Corinth, he was in Athens. And Paul is a really smart. He's very, very intelligent. And he went to Athens where they had all these philosophy, all these thinkers, all these great ideas. And he said, listen, I've got not only a great idea, I've got the greatest truth I've ever encountered.

And he went to this place called the Ariopagus on Mars Hill, where people would just battle out ideas and debate and stuff. And he told people about how God became one of us. He actually suffered, died, and rose from the dead. Their response was, cool story, bro. come back tomorrow. We'd like to hear you again. They were like, neat. Just another story. Just another idea.

Just another claim to the truth. And so Paul basically, he left Athens. And when he came to Corinth, what did he say? He said, when I came to you guys, I resolved. I'm smart. I'm intelligent. I have arguments. But I'm not going to try to convince you by arguments.

I'm going to convince you of the truth of God by this thing called beauty. By the spirit, by power, by something more important and more powerful than a debate. And we don't know exactly what he did in Corinth, but we do know what he did in Ephesus. Because he went from Athens to Corinth to Ephesus. When he got to Ephesus, Acts Apostles talks about this, says, Paul walks in and he basically starts doing miracles all over the place. So rather than just saying like, here's the story, here's the presentation, he's like, listen, here's the power. Here's the beauty. Here's what attracts people. In fact, they said Paul was so, he was working so many miracles. People would take handkerchiefs,

touch them to Paul's body, and then go touch people who were sick and heal them all over the city just because they had touched Paul's body. There was this time where all these sorcerers, these magicians, were in the city of Ephesus. And they were so convicted by Paul's power, by the beauty of Paul's life that they converted to Christianity, they took all of their like sorcery books, brought them to the city square and destroyed them. And actually Apostle says those books were worth over 50,000 silver pieces.

This is like Harry Potter taking his trunk and Hedwig and the wand and breaking it all. Like, dude, you don't have another job. This is all you know how to do. What are you going to do now? Pick up trash? Because you were a magician, that's how you made your living. Now you have nothing.

But it was the beauty. It was that koulos of Paul's life, that power that transformed them. I had this friend named Andrew. And he went to a Catholic high school recently, a couple years ago. And at this Catholic high school, there was this young woman confined to a wheelchair.

She had three spinal conditions. that had debilitated her. She had spina bifida, she had spondylosis, and she had spondylophysis. She was in its brace and she was unable to move, unable to stand on her own.

Almost virtually incapable of walking. And here's Andrew, and Andrew's like, you know, I can tell you all about Jesus. You've already heard about Jesus. You've already had a class in Jesus. Some of you might even pass the class on Jesus. Why not show you what Jesus can do?

So he called this girl, say, would you like us to pray for you for healing? Yes. So we asked some of her classmates to gather around her. No, these classmates, all cynical, all skeptical, hyper-opinion age. And this began to place hands on her. And in Jesus' name, we pray. Jesus, heal this woman.

And after a few minutes, she said, she described this power, this healing going through her spine. Her mom was there, too. And now her mom was one of the, just normal human being who, like, I'm going to send my kids to Catholic school. I don't really go to Mass myself, but it's good for them, you know? She was there. She said, you can pray with my daughter.

Just do whatever you do, don't take off her back brace. So Andrew's like, let's take off the back brace. And this mom across the room, she can hear like the Velcro ripping of the back brace being taken off. She runs over and she looks and she sees her daughter. I mean, gosh, man, this mom's heart had just been broken, right? You can imagine seeing the person you love the most in so much pain you can't do anything about this. This mom runs over and she sees her daughter for the first time, maybe in forever, touching her toes, walking around.

This girl started running around the gym in which they were. where all these high school kids are going, oh my gosh, we just prayed in the name of Jesus, and this girl has healed. This has been medically verified. It happened two years ago. She has consistently joined the track team, the cross-country team. This woman's life has been changed. But even more importantly than her spine being healed, her mom goes to mass every Sunday.

Even more importantly than being part of this prayer, all those teens, so cynical, so skeptical, every one of them, started going to daily mass. Started praying every single day. because yes, I can debate an idea. When I encounter beauty, when I encounter power, I either ignore it or I let it overwhelm me. I can debate, I can dismiss an idea. Man, you encounter the power of Jesus, the beauty of Jesus,

the koulos of Jesus, and you either have to ignore it or you have to let it overwhelm you. And it overwhelm them. And it changed their lives like it changed the lives of those Ephesians. so much so they were able to stand up and say, actually, I belong to him. I belong to Jesus. They were able to stand up and say things like, I'm a Catholic. I don't have you ever had a tough time saying that?

Sometimes I know for myself when I got done with college, I would say I was Christian. I would have a hard time saying I'm Catholic out loud in public or even just in a private conversation. Because everyone knows about Catholics, right? Everyone knows how, what are Catholics? Haters. Right? Go say no. You know, we all know Catholics, haters.

Catholics are bigot. I know people who are afraid to bring up that they're Catholic in job interviews. They're afraid to bring up the fact they're Catholic when they're applying for graduate school. Because everyone knows. See, we've allowed the world to describe us to the world. And so we're haters. We're bigots. We're hypocrites. We're homophobic.

That's crazy. You know how crazy that is? To let the world describe who we are to us. You know the real story? of who we are when the AIDS epidemic first became known, it became prevalent.

It was widely thought to be something that simply targeted homosexual men because that's the only people who had cases of AIDS were homosexual men. You know, leading up to this time, leading up to this time, what happened is people like, no, let's live and let live.

Let's leave them alone, let them do whatever they want to do. But then the moment this became this disease that was afflicting these human beings, no one wanted anything to do with these men. The world couldn't care less about these men. In fact, they told them to get as far away from the rest of the world as possible. You know there was only, when AIDS came on the scene, there was only one organization in the entire country that was willing to say,

what can we do for these men? Only one organization in the entire North America that was willing to say, these men deserve to be loved. They deserve to be cared for. If they died, they deserve to die with dignity. That organization was there was a Cardinal Archbishop of New York City. and the Archbishop of New York City said, these men are our brothers,

and everyone else is turning their backs, and we can't. So they set up the very first place to reach out and serve men who are dying of AIDS. Regardless of what the world would say. You know, I just heard about Colonel Dolan, he's the current Colonel Archbishop of New York City. When he was installed,

there are a number of these places around the Archdiocese of New York, and one of these houses is run by Mother Teresa's sisters, their missionary sisters of charity, and one, a Good Friday, they said, Cardinal, could you come to visit the men here in this home for men who are dying of AIDS? And absolutely, I will. He went there after the Good Friday's service, and the nuns are walking around. He's bringing Holy Communion to these men, his brothers. And the nuns warned him as they were going into one room, she said, now, Cardinal, be careful when you go in here. This man, he's very angry. And when we go into his room to try to care of him, we try to bathe him, try to clean him. He always tries to, he

spits on us and tries to bite us. Like knowing that if he could puncture the skin, he could possibly give them AIDS. That's what he tries to do on a regular basis. So Colonel Dolan walks in and man immediately just began swearing at him cussing up and down. Ourst Bishop Dolan just says, you're my brother. I'm just here to pray with you if you want. He said swears get out of here of this whole thing. He says, we'll always be here. Why are you coming here? And he said, coming here. Because you matter. Why do you want to spend time with me? And he said, because of Jesus. He said, if you ever want me, just ask for me.

And he left that good Friday night. Saturday morning, it gets a phone call from the sisters. What had happened was that night after Cardinal Dolan left. This man was lying in his bed. He's just in agony. But he kept hearing his words. And so he called one of the sisters in. And he said, he asked her the same question.

Even though I'm so mean to you, why do you keep loving me? Even though I've lived this life that you don't agree with, why do you keep serving me? And looked at him and said, because of Jesus. because he loves you. And he said, but why do you do with so much joy? I looked at him and said, because of Jesus. Because he loves you.

And he said, well, that's who he really is. This man had hated religion. He'd hated Christianity. He'd absolutely hated Catholicism. But he said, if that's who Jesus really is, then I need him. That's Koulos. Because it's, again, you can, we can,

debate an idea. but when you're staring love in the face, you either have a choice to reject love or receive love. And that day, that man said, please get Archbishop back. Our bishop doling came to his room. He baptized him that day, gave him first communion that day. And on Easter Sunday, that man stood in front of Jesus as he died on Easter morning.

But he didn't die alone. Again, because you can debate an idea. every one of us can parse out like what about this teaching what about that teaching but when it comes to love when you're staring love in the face you either reject it or you receive it when you're staring beauty in the face you either ignore it or you let it overwhelm you and this is the last thing these are the stories of ordinary Christians sometimes I think we think about like these being like superhero Christians, like extra strength, Christian, whatever. These are just ordinary Christians.

Salt, light, who are willing to walk in beauty, are willing to walk in love. Here's my prayer. I've been praying about this for a bit. I just, I pray that that love conquers your heart. Like my prayer is actually that, that beauty overwhelms you and overwhelms me too. so that coming here is no longer

kind of a picking and choosing like what do I agree with here so that coming before the Lord it's no longer kind of like a I kind of sort of sometimes maybe do it but being overwhelmed by beauty

being conquered by love because of Jesus what he's doing to be won by koulos so that we can be salt so that we can be light and so that when people look at you they say, I know what the Father looks like.

People look at you. I know what the Father loves. So when people look at you, they can't help, let's say God is good and give glory to our Father.