Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 02/23/20 Defiant Love

Episode Date: February 24, 2020

Homily from the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. If we are going to love like Jesus, we must love differently…we must love defiantly. The Universe is indifferent to us. People can be vicious to us. The Christian’s response is not indifference nor viciousness. The Christian response is to love in the face of indifference and evil. Mass Readings from February 23, 2020: Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18 Psalms 103:1-4, 8, 10, 12-131 Corinthians 3:16-23 Matthew 5:38-48 See the Picture of Saint Maria Goretti

So this happened on October 2nd, 2006, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It's an Amish community in that area, and there was this man. These kids, the parents dropped off their kids at this one-room schoolhouse because the Amish. These kids are anywhere from 6 years old to 12 years old. And you imagine, October 2nd. So the weather's kind of going from hot in Pennsylvania to be a little bit cooler. And his parents dropped these kids off, said goodbye to them. And a little while later, this man that most of them knew he was a delivery man in the

area, he wasn't Amish, but he made deliveries to the community. He walks into the school and looks around, talks to some of the teachers, and then walks out, and he walks back in with a gun. And he ties up 10 of the kids, again, 6 years old, 7 years old, 9 years old. Some kids ran away, some adults ran away, but he had these 10 here, and he took out his gun, and he aimed the gun at them, and he shot 10 of them. Five of them died. And then he shot and killed himself.

And you just imagine how, like, absolutely devastating. It devastating to these moms and dads. It just dropped their kids off. Devastating to this Amish community. Devastating, I mean, devastating to the country. I remember when this happened, it was, like, instantly that news, that morning was so big. But then there came out news. Then news came out that night.

News came out that afternoon and that evening that this community had come and they'd rallied around these families who had lost their children. and these parents who literally were holding their dead children in their arms that morning were then on the news that night saying, we are praying for this man, we're praying for his family, and we want the world to know that we forgive him. A couple days later, they had the funeral for their kids. I mean, you can imagine.

So many of these parents showed up, and they buried their own children, and the next day was this man's funeral. And so many people, these parents and these members of the community, they showed up at his funeral too, not to protest, not to like to, yell at him not to scream anyone down, they showed up at his funeral to pray with his wife, to pray with his three kids, and to pray with whoever knew him and to let them know that we forgive him. And I remember one of the dads, he was on the news and he said these words. He said, this man, he had a mother, and he had a wife, and he had a soul. And now he is standing before a just God.

I remember just being so blown away. And the whole country, I remember, it was one of those things like, this is amazing to see this act of forgiveness out of these parents, these moms and dads, and this community. But it was so interesting that after people were inspired by this, and after people were so moved by this, then came the people who were critical of this. People who were like just, they were outraged, not at the guy.

They were outraged at the guy, but they were also outraged at the moms and dads. They were outraged at the community. They were outraged at the audacity of these people who are willing to offer forgiveness to the man who murdered their children. They said that's not just they were just scandalized. They thought, no, those parents, that community, they're wrong. He doesn't deserve forgiveness. And you giving him forgiveness, you're wrong.

Because how they saw it, how they saw it was maybe how most of the world sees us as Christians when we offer forgiveness. It's just you're condoning evil. You're just being passive in the face of evil. You're just looking away in the face of like what is horrible in this world. And that's why I think people can think of Christians, especially when we talk about forgiveness, when we talk about mercy. I think sometimes we can think about that as Christians.

Like, aren't we, are we just blind to the evil? Are we just passive in the face of, like, a world that actually can crush us? Because in fact, that's actually, that's how the world is. I mean, after you know this, like, the universe is pretty indifferent to us. I mean, the universe doesn't care at all about you. Doesn't, you know, people like, oh, Mother Nature, yeah, she's a bad mom. She does not care at all about you or about me. The universe is absolutely, absolutely indifferent to us.

And so maybe in this universe that has disease, in this universe that has tornadoes and hurricanes and things that can crush us, maybe we should be indifferent to that. Like, maybe that's the answer. The universe is indifferent to us. Maybe we just are indifferent to the universe. Or like we realize this,

we're walking in this world where people can be vicious to each other. We walk in this world where people are vicious to each other. So maybe that's how we should be. Maybe we should just be vicious back. Because those seems like our two options, right, in the face of an indifferent, universe be indifferent. Just I don't care, whatever it is. Or maybe in the face of vicious people, we're just vicious back. Or maybe we're just passive. I think it's so interesting because

Jesus is under no illusions. So remember last week we talked about Jesus beginning the sermon on the Mount, and we talked about these six antitheses where Jesus goes and says, you heard it was said, but I say to you. Right? We had four of those last weekend. And those four antitheses, those, like you heard it was said, but I say to you, are all about Jesus trying to tell us, letting us know that we're supposed to have hearts that are unwilling to use other people, right? He wants us to have hearts that are unwilling to demean other people, unwilling to deceive other people. That was those first four antitheses were about last weekend. But this weekend, those two antitheses, what they're about is this,

Jesus saying, you're living in a world, you're living in a universe that is indifferent to you. You're living among people who will be vicious to you. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to have the kinds of hearts that when the world is indifferent or when people are vicious to you, I don't want you to be vicious back. and I don't you can't be indifferent back this is remember last week your heart do not be willing to demean others to deceive others to use others but today Jesus is saying okay but here's the thing you're living in this dangerous broken world and there are people who will be willing to demean you

and they are willing to deceive you and they are willing to use you and so this has to be the kind of heart that you and I have when that happens it's not a heart that is indifferent and it's not a heart that is vicious. I don't know if you ever ever wondered about, so what kind of heart is it? What kind of heart is it that Jesus says, okay, when you hit, when the world hits you, when people hit you, what kind of heart do you and I have to have? Because Jesus begins by saying, you heard it was said. Well, what was said?

The Old Testament vision of what you do in the face of an indifferent world, what you do in the face of vicious people is very, very good. It's so wise. The answer is justice. Right? in the face of this, in different world, in the face of people who are vicious, the Old Testament answer, the Old Testament wisdom, and it is wise, it is so good, is justice. So what's justice?

Justice given to us by the Old Testament is giving someone what they deserve, giving someone what is owed to them, giving someone their due. Also means getting what's owed to you. It means getting what you deserve. It's getting what is your due. That's basically why, you know, this command was an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Basically, basically, if you're not got a tooth, like, here's the thing, because here's what I want to. to do. If someone knocks out my tooth, I want to take all of their teeth, right? So I knocked at one eye. Scripture says, no, no, no, no, no, no, one eye. I'd be like, you have five eyes,

I will take all five eyes. Because that's what happens, right? Someone is vicious to us, and we want to overcompensate. And the justice of the Old Testament says, no, no, no, no, I get it. That's what you want, but here's what wisdom will do. Does you give what is owed? So one tooth, one tooth, one eye, one eye. One life, one life. In the face of an indifferent universe, ambitious people, I need you to be that kind of people. God is just, right? And God is saying, I need you to be just as well. And this is, this is so, this is so important for us to understand this. Because justice, living justice forms us into the kind of people who are like God, and it affirms two things. Justice affirms at least two things. It reveals at least two things. Number one,

it affirms the goodness of the person. So think about this, if you just had the, like, if Jesus came along and out of nowhere just said, you guys, forgive those who hurt you. Without first having justice, it would be basically like, be a dormant. You don't really matter. When someone takes something from you, just give it to them. It's fine. You don't matter. What justice does, justice affirms the goodness of the person. Justice affirms your value. Justice affirms the fact that, no, no, they hurt you and that was wrong. Just the first thing justice affirms is the first thing that's taken when someone wounds us, isn't it? How many, how many, how many, times have you or I or anyone we know has been actually wounded and the first thing to go so often

is that sense of self-worth like wait a second I don't know if you've ever been someone or been with someone who has been truly victimized truly used truly abused one of the things we begin to believe about ourselves is maybe I deserved that we start to begin this lie that we question ourselves like wait a second maybe I did do something that actually maybe this is what I'm worth maybe that's all I'm worth justice steps in the middle of that and says no no no the first thing justice says is it affirms your goodness and says that shouldn't have happened to you. What they did was wrong. What justice affirms is the fact that your pain is just as real as anyone else's.

That you matter. It affirms the fact that you count. Again, sometimes the first thing that's taken away from a victim is that belief that you matter. And sometimes it's the last thing that's brought back that you didn't deserve this. It was wrong. Justice affirms your goodness. It has to do something else. Not only does justice affirm your goodness,

it also then restrains our vengeance. Because if you start to believe that, wait a second, I'm worth more than this, then all of a sudden you get pretty ramped up, right? When someone does something against you, it's like, wait a second, I'm actually not the worst thing in the world. You're the wrong person,

and then what happens is we want to take our revenge. Like, what justice will do is not only affirm your goodness, but also restrains our vengeance. Because, again, when it comes down to it, like, no one wants to stop with one-on- Why? I don't just want to make you equal. I want to get as much out of you as I possibly can.

That's why justice is so smart. It's so wise because it restrains that impulse. Again, the universe is indifferent to us. You don't matter. Justice says you do matter. Vengeance says, I want to be as vicious as possible. And justice says, no, no, give someone what's owed to them. Basically, be like God, be just. But then today in the gospel, Jesus goes even further. Remember, justice is giving someone what's owed to them. But Jesus goes even further.

He steps out and he says, actually, I need you to give people what they don't deserve. I don't know if you ever pause to, they go through the list that Jesus walks through. He says, if someone strikes you on their right cheek, turn the other one as well. No, if you might not know this, maybe you heard someone explain this at one point. So in the ancient world, if you hit someone, if you slapped someone, you would slap them with your right hand. I don't know, it was one of the customs, just in case you ever go back in time, like, right hand only. So, typically hit someone with your right hand, you slap them, you're slapping with an open hand, you're hitting them on the left side of the face.

Again, just slapping etiquette in the first century. But if you slap someone on the right side of the face, Jesus says, if someone strikes you on the right side of the face, what he's describing is someone hitting you with the back of their hand. Which is not just injury, it's insult. It's not just hurting you. it means basically you're humiliated. It means you're less than. It means they're demeaning you.

And when you think about it, even like the notion of like or the motion of slapping someone with the back of your hand, isn't that just, I mean this is like, yeah, I hate you. This is like, I tend to even be bothered. You know, that kind of a situation. That is a, it's a movement of humiliation. And Jesus says, yeah, when you're humiliated, give them your other cheek as well. And he says, if someone sues you or goes to law with you over your tunic. Your tunic is like your underclothes, your underwear.

If someone sues you over your underwear, Jesus basically says, give them your cloak as well, the top layer. No, people were not permitted to sue you in the first century for your top cloak because you needed that to stay warm. Apparently, they could sue the underwear off of you. But Jesus is saying this. If someone takes your underwear, give them everything. And lastly, he says, if someone presses you into service for one mile,

go which miles? Now, the Roman Empire, when they occupied Israel, they had a legal right. They could make Jews carry their stuff for at least one mile. that was the law. Roman soldiers can make Jews carry their burden for one mile. And here's Jesus. He says, the law says one mile. I'm telling you to go even further. What is Jesus saying in this? One of the things he's saying is, gosh, this is so important for us. When you're struck and humiliated, when you're stripped and naked, when you're forced to carry someone else's burden,

here's the thing. You need to know this. My friends, you are not a victim. They force you to do this, they humiliate you like this, they strip you naked. You are not a victim. Because there's nothing they can take that you're not willing to give. There's nothing they can take from you that you're not willing to give. You can't take a mile. I'm going to give two. They can't take your tunic. I'm going to give my cloak. They can't take my dignity. I'm going to give everything. I'm going to allow myself to be humiliated. There's nothing they can take that I'm not willing to give. Why? Because Jesus is saying, you need to love differently. Another way to say it is you need to love defiantly. First, the Old Testament

is like, be like God. He is just. And now Jesus is saying, but be like me. And Jesus loves differently. Jesus loves defiantly. Not in anger. But in the face of injustice, in the face of indifference, in the face of viciousness, Jesus is saying, what

you have to do, if you belong to me, you have to love defiantly. Because why? Because love must be stronger than the evil in the world. It's not passive to evil in the world. Like our love cannot be passive in the face of the indifferent universe. or in the face of viciousness of other people. But loving defiantly means it has to be stronger

than the evil you and I are going to encounter. It's not passive, it's active. Because that kind of love, it defies the world as it is, indifference to your pain. That kind of love defies viciousness. So I refuse to be stripped. You can't take anything from me that I'm not willing to give. And if we do that,

not only do you preserve yourself from being a, victim, but we become like him. I mean, honestly, think about this. If we do that, we're not only, are we not a victim in this moment? There's nothing you can take from me that I'm not willing to give, but we become like him. Jesus, we're going to celebrate this at the end of Lent in just a few weeks. He allowed himself to be struck. His face, he did not shield from buffets and spitting. I gave my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard. could Jesus be humiliated? Not at all. You humiliate me? I'll give you my other cheek.

Take your tunic, give your cloak away. Here is Jesus, naked, stripped naked and made to walk through the streets of Jerusalem. Stripped naked and placed upon a cross. Defiant. And here's Jesus. Carrying a burden that was not his. He's carrying this cross on his back. He's carrying a burden that was not his. When Jesus goes to these three examples, what he's telling us to do, is you need to love differently, you need to love defiantly.

You need to love like I love. You need to do this not by being indifferent to evil or by excusing it or by becoming evil, but by looking right at it, like being just about it, affirming the good, affirming the worth, affirming the value of the person, but restraining the vengeance. That's what you guys, that's what forgiveness really is. Forgiveness is not condoning, forgiveness is not excusing.

Freedom is not telling someone, oh, it's fine, I don't, isn't bother me anymore? forgiveness is not being hurt. It's not not being hurt. Forgiveness is looking at what someone's taken from you, looking at what they took from you, looking at what they cost you, like adding it up and saying, I'm not going to make you pay me back. These parents in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, how could they forgive? They did not just say, it's okay. It wasn't okay. They were not just passive in the face of this evil thing, the most evil thing that happened in their entire lives.

What they did is they counted the cost, like not just the life of my child, but the future life, like my child could have had. The other days he or she could have had, the years they could have had, the grandchildren you could have had, taking all of that and adding it all up and saying, this is what you cost me, this is what you can never pay me back. And here's forgiveness. I'm not going to wait until you try. I release you from your debt.

That's what forgiveness is. It's justice adding up what you cost me and then saying, I'm not going to wait until you pay me back. And this is the kind of thing that if we don't have it, we end up not looking like him, but if we have it, it not only transforms us, it transforms everything. Like if we're willing to love differently, if we're willing to actually love defiantly, it is the kind of love that doesn't just change us. It changes the people around us. In the front of this podium, the front of this is an image, a painting. It's not normally there. It's your first time here tonight. There's a, the The woman on top is our lady, it's Mary, and the young girl is a woman named Maria.

Maria's story is back at the beginning of the 1900s. She lived in northern Italy. He was Maria. And she had some siblings, and she had a mom. Her mom's name was Assunta. And she had a dad. When Maria was nine years old, her father died. And it was just her mom and the kids trying to work the land.

And they had hired some farmhands, basically. One of these farm hands was just a little older than Maria. He bought 16, 17, 17 years old. was Alessandro. And when Maria didn't have a father anymore, Alessandro stepped in, not as a, not as a savior, not as a helper, but as a man who wanted to use this little girl. And when Maria is about 12, 13 years old, Alessandro, he admitted, he later on, he admitted that he had gotten caught up in pornography, even back in the beginning of the 1900s. He was just warped by this. And his mind, the way he looked at other human beings, we looked at women, was so distorted by his encounter with

pornography that he started looking at this 12, 13-year-old girl. like this and started making advances at her. And she'd be like, Alessandra, are you kidding? That's a sin. Get away from me. And finally, Alessandro saw his moment when everyone was out in the field except for Maria. She was babysitting her baby sister. And Alessandra made an excuse to go back to the house to get something where he knew that Maria would be by herself and defenseless. And he came on to Maria and tried to sexually assault her. And when she said, no, Alessandro, that's a sin. You'll go to hell. I don't want you to go to hell. Don't do this. He took out a knife and he stabbed Maria 14 times around the neck and on the chest, and he ran off, leaving her on the ground bleeding with her baby sister crying.

It took Maria 20 hours to die. It took this 13-year-old girl, 20 hours to die. But that entire time, her mom was there. Asunta was there, and she's like, Mom, we have to pray for Alessandro. Think of that's crazy. As she's dying, there's her mom and there's her priest, and she's like, father, you have to pray for Alessandro, that he doesn't go to hell for this. Mom, you have to pray for Alessandro. You have to forgive him. So he doesn't go to hell for this. And 20 hours later, she was dead. And they caught Alessandro. And because he was a minor, still, he's about 17 years old because he was a minor. He only got 30 years in prison. He would have got life, obviously, for that. But because he was a kid, he didn't. But he was not just the

normal kid. He was angry. He was so angry. He blamed Maria. He said it was her fault that he had had to come onto her. They had to kill her. Even in prison. He was blaming her. The priest that Maria had said, Father, don't give up on him. Please forgive him. He made a point of going to Alessandro's cell every single week. And every single week, Alessandro would swear at him, and he spit at him, and he'd do this thing. I remember reading a story. He'd, like, store up his urine in a cup and throw it at the priest when he got there. I would not go back after one time. But the priest kept coming back. And finally, after a few years, Alessandro, whose heart was absolutely This scene happened in front of the podium, where there's Mary, and Maria appeared to Alessandro.

And Maria walked up to Alessandra, and she began handing him these lilies. Lillies are a sign of purity. She was handing him these lilies, one after the other. She handed him 14 lilies, 14 lilies, one for every stab wound that took her life. He's saying, Alessandro, Jesus loves you. Osandra, he wants to forgive you. And Sonner woke up and he was just shaken to his core. And he called out for the priest.

The priest did show up. Again, I don't know if I would have, but he showed up. And he had this massive conversion. He had incredible conversion where they said before he had been this, like almost an animal in prison, he became like a lamb in prison. He became an angel in prison. He just did he doored his life to penance, door to his life to prayer. 27 years later, he got out of jail.

As he walked out of that prison, the first place he walked to, was Maria's mom's house. And he knocked on the door, and he stood there, his hat in his hand, and Asinta opened the door. She recognized the murderer of her daughter standing there. He said, Asunta, years ago, I took everything from you. Maria has forgiven me. Will you forgive me? Now, this is something you need to know about Ascinta.

It took 20 hours for Maria to die. But in the 30 years that followed, everything was taken from you. Asinta, not only her daughter, her other kids, she was so destitute, she was so poor, she was so heartbroken that they took all of her other kids away. She was robbed of everything. That day, that man took everything from her. Not only was her, had her husband died earlier this, not only was her daughter now murdered, but all of her other kids were taken away because she was so heartbroken,

and so mind broken that she couldn't function. This man destroyed her life. And now he's standing at her door saying, well, you forgive me. And in that moment, Asunta knew that justice meant that he owed a debt he could never, ever pay. That he had taken everything from her life. But she also knew that she was called to love differently and to love defiantly. She looked at this man, her daughter's murder, and she said, Maria forgave you 30 years ago.

How could I not forgive you today? when St. Maria Goretty was canonized in St. Peter's in Rome. Her mom was in the audience, sitting next to the Pope, as he declared St. Maria Goretta, a saint, and seated next to Asunta, her mom, was Alessandro, her murderer. Because this is what it is to love differently. This is what it is to love defiantly. This is what it is. To love with a heart like Jesus. It doesn't excuse. It's not passive.

It's not indifferent and it's not vicious. But it is defiant. And it not only changes our hearts, it actually has the ability to change the world.