Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 03/03/19 Talking and Trials

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

Homily from the Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time. What reveals the heart. We often are a mystery...even to ourselves. But Christians must come to a place of self-knowledge so we can present our true self to the true God. Mass Readings from March 3, 2019: Sirach 27:4-7 Psalms 92:2-3, 13-161 Corinthians 15:54-58 Luke 6:39-45

So I mentioned this before, but one of the great blessings of being on campus for the last forever has been being part of people's relationships because, you know, marriage prep stuff and then also like non-marriage prep, like almost dating prep stuff, which is great. It's so good. Even post-marriage prep, that's not the right word. But just being invited to relationships because I get to see all the fun things that I get to avoid as a celibate priest. I remember there was this one couple that just, oh gosh, it was so good. They came and she was really upset. And one of the reasons she was really upset.

There was a lot of things she could be upset about, but she was upset about the fact that he wouldn't share with her. She would want him to, you know, reveal his thoughts to her, reveal his heart to her, and he just wouldn't do it. And so she started getting suspicious because she said that I would ask him, you know, we'd be sitting together and I'd ask him, hey, what are you thinking about? And he looked back at me and say, well, nothing. And she says, she says, he always says that.

And she's getting this suspicious. Like, again, like, what's he trying to hide from me? Like, what are his thoughts where he just keeps deferring the, saying nothing. Because if there was how we would go, she would ask, what are you thinking about? He'd say nothing. No, no, seriously, what, what are you thinking about? And he would have to think and think, I guess I was, I guess I was just looking at that umbrella. You were just looking, what were you thinking about when you looked at the umbrella? He's like, I guess I was thinking umbrella. No, it was really funny because they've done like brain scans of women and men,

just kind of sitting there, relaxing, like staring off into space, like not doing anything. And apparently the scans come back. This is like, I'm not making this up. This is like a scientific thing. The scans come back. And a guy just sitting at rest, his brain activity is essentially keeping him alive. Like, it's his brain's working, but it's just saying like, breathe, breathe, breathe, blink, breathe, breathe. So when, ladies, when you ask, you.

Ask him. Like, what are you thinking about? And he says nothing. He's probably telling you the truth. You're like, how is that possible? You're like, how is that possible? I would love to even slow down my brain rather than even like much less stop it.

But we're different. And sometimes, again, we're not thinking anything. So what are you thinking about? I'm not going to reveal my thoughts to you because I'm not thinking about anything. That's a real guy thing. But sometimes we don't reveal because we don't want to reveal what we're thinking.

Why? Because if I say it, I could get into trouble. I mean, this is the fact of the matter is, right? Have anyone here ever, has words, have words ever got you into trouble? Testify? Okay, yes, amen. Like, yes, all of us have been in this situation where our words have got us into trouble. Which is one of the reasons why I love Psalm 141. Psalm 141 starts out with the words, Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth.

Keep watch over the door of my lips. For so many of us, maybe two, many of us, that's a great prayer to start every day with, or every conversation with, Lord, keep a set of guard, oh Lord, open your foot, before my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips. And I love it because, I mean, you ever hear that saying that better to remain silent and be thought of fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt? Like that, sometimes that's us, because sometimes guarded speech is wise. Sometimes it's really wise to have that, like, oh, man, Lord, guard my lips, guard my mouth, guard

my speech. it can be wise because words can get us into trouble, but the question is, is that the goal? Is simply guarded speech the goal? Because guarding our tongues yet can be a useful tool, can be helpful for us, and it's useful, and it's helpful all the way up until the time,

until the moment when it ceases to be useful and ceases to be helpful. Guarded speech is really good until it becomes a way to avoid real intimacy. Guarded speech can be really good until it becomes a way to hide. Guarded speech can be really good. Watching what we say, can be really good

until it becomes a time for us to pretend. And we start to pretend. To be a pretender. You all know this. You know what Jesus has. Some of his harshest words are for those who are pretenders, in the gospel today even. He says hypocrites.

You know, hypocrite, as you probably know, is the word, it means actor in Greek, which doesn't just mean like people on stage. It means those who are just simply pretending. So whenever Jesus says, hypocrite, what he's saying is, you're just pretending. And some of Jesus' harshest words are for those who are pretending. And sometimes what we do, we guard our words because we want to pretend. And of course, as we know, at some level, that's all of us.

We don't simply merely pretend to those people around us. We even pretend to ourselves. Like our capacity for self-deception is so massive. You ever had the conversation with someone where they're like all into something you kind of just join in because like, I don't know, you didn't even think about it. Someone's like, oh, I love NASCAR. Like, me too. Why?

Well, because I, you know, I was invited over to a friend's house one Sunday that I was watching the Indy 500 and I caught the last laugh and I thought it was fun. They're like, really, you're into NASCAR? Absolutely, yeah, it was super fun, super cool. Who's your favorite driver? That one guy sponsored by Pepsi did the commercials? Like, that guy hasn't driven cars for years. Like, I don't know. Love NASCAR.

We can deceive ourselves. You even believe what we just said. You ever have that situation where someone says, oh man, I hate when people do X, whatever X is, interrupt other people, and you're like jumping in. Absolutely, me too. Like, did you realize what just happened? Yes, I hate myself.

No, but that capacity, our capacity for self-deception is massive. We, I think sometimes even at the end of the day, we don't even know ourselves. I think at the time at the end of the day, we don't even know ourselves because we're so good at self-deception, but the problem is we have to let self-deception give way to self-knowledge. For almost all of us, the first step in the spiritual life is that, is self-knowledge. It's one of the reasons why Syrac, the first reading today,

points out two painful sources of self-knowledge. The first reading today points two painful sources of self-knowledge. Here's what Syrac says. When a sieve is shaken, the husks appear, he says, so do one's faults when one speaks. So one source of self-knowledge is when we talk. The truth of our heart is often revealed when we talk.

He says one's speech discloses the bent of one's mind. We're revealed when we talk. But he also says the test of what the powder mold is in the furnace so in tribulation is the test of the just. Trials also reveal the truth of our hearts. So the two places that Scripture points out today this morning, that if you want to be someone

who's not giving into self-deception, but someone who's actually living in self-knowledge, we have to be fearless about entering into these two often painful places where we can get to know ourselves, talking and trials, talking in trials. Because our speech shows what's in our hearts. Our speech reveals what's in our hearts. You know there's two kinds people when it comes to speech, the people who don't like to share and the people who have to share, no matter what, like always, that's why Twitter was invented. The people who don't like to share, often that's, you know, why don't people like to share? I think there's a ton of different reasons. One reason I, when I talk to people who don't like to share, it's, they often say to me,

it's because I haven't formulated my thoughts yet. Maybe you're one of those people, like, no, I don't want to just say what I think, because I don't know what I think yet. And if you know someone like that, you say, no, just tell me and tell me what you think. And they're like, I don't know what I think. I have to figure it out before I speak. Well, others, they figured out by speaking. You know some person like, I don't want to say anything until I know exactly what it is.

Others are like, I'm just going to talk and talk and figure it out along the way. It's really fun when those two people are in a relationship. Man, that's awesome to be on the outside of the relationship looking in. because someone says something and the other person's like, is that, is that what you really think? Because when you're in the process of working it out, you just say whatever it comes to you. Is that what you really think? And the other person's like, I'm not sure. I don't know.

Then why did you say it? Because I'm working it out. You know, there's two kinds of people that I have to share those. I cannot possibly share. And sometimes when we can't, we have a tough time sharing, it's not just because we need to formulate it. Another reason can be because I don't want to be criticized. I think all of us have had that experience where we said what we thought,

we said what we believed, and we were corrected, or we were laughed at, or we were criticized. You ever noticed, you know, Chandler Bing, right? Like, who? No. Chandler Bing from Friends.

So he's like the funny one in the whole show. Two things to note about Chandler Bing. One is, even though he's the funny friend, none of the friends ever laugh at anything he says. Number two. Just watch. Rarely that. But the other, number two, is this. I'm not a mathematician, but I would say that a majority of the times when Chandler Bing has his funny thing to say, it's almost always a sarcastic remark based off what someone else said. Could he be more rude? But that's it, right? Is that someone else says something, and he has to say something about that. Someone else does something and has to criticize it or correct it or have something sarcastic about it. And none of us want to be there. Because why? Because we know that that kind of comment, that kind of talk. talking, it gets in the way of real intimacy, gets in the way of real friendship.

In fact, after I graduated, I left seminary, priest, Father Bill Baer became the head of the seminary. They call him the rector. And one of the first things he recognized was he said all these new guys would show up out of high school or out of college to this seminary. And they would talk to each other in a certain way that Father Baer called, he said they all have a sitcom accent. And the sitcom accent or the TV accent was someone would just be saying what they were thinking,

would be just sharing something, and everyone was kind of waiting to have that one-liner to kind of step in and kind of have a zinger. And so he was like, okay, that's it. Sitcom accent is outlawed. Like, if you're going to say something, it may not be sarcastic. Why? Because if it might be sarcastic, if I'm going to say something and you might have some really funny but critical or sarcastic thing to say to me, I'm going to stop saying stuff.

If I start revealing what I think and your response is to always have like the zinger, that I'm going to stop revealing who I am and I'm stop revealing who I'm. what I think. And that can get in the way of friendship. So there's all these reasons, right? I haven't formulated my thoughts. I'm afraid of it looking stupid. But sometimes we don't say what we think

because I don't want to reveal my heart to you. I don't want to show you what's inside. What does Jesus say in the gospel today? He says, from the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks. And when I speak, what I'm truly doing is I'm showing you my heart. I'm showing you what's inside there. If you have a rough time, a tough time sharing, it could be because you're like, I don't,

I'm not sure what's in my heart. Problem is the fact of the matter is, I think, I think that we don't often know what we think until we try to put it into words. Do you ever have that experience? Someone asks you, what do you think about X? You're like, well, it's dumb. Why do you think that?

I don't know. I don't know. I think about this. What do you think about why? It's amazing. Why? I'm not sure. We often don't know what's in our heart. We don't know what we think until we try to put it into words. So it's a great exercise. It just invites you to do this. You ever think you know a thing? Try to write down what you believe.

You ever think? Like, you know, I get this. I know what this is. I know what I believe about X, Y, or Z. Try to write down what you believe. Let me tell you, that's a hard exercise because all of the inconsistencies inside of you become apparent. Like all the assumptions that you made, they become super obvious. All the self-contradictions and like half thoughts, they just like rise to the surface. You're like, oh, I guess I don't really know. Why? Because words reveal what's in our hearts. Words reveal actually what it is we think.

And they even reveal what it is we think even if we don't believe them. Words reveal what's in our hearts, even if we don't believe the words we just said. Here's how I'm going to make... Have you ever had this situation where someone does say, you just make a statement? And they say, do you really believe that? And you say, I... Wait, I don't. Maybe you've laughed at an off-color joke.

Maybe you've laughed at, say, a marginalized group. Maybe they've told a joke about a marginalized group. Maybe you've made fun of someone. And someone's like, wait, wait, do you actually believe that? And you would say, well, no. And the next question is, then why did you say it? And then you have to ask, I don't know. Because apparently some, I don't believe this, but something in my heart is broken.

Oftentimes, our words reveal what's broken or something even deeper. There's one of my priest's heroes. His name is Father Walter Chizek. I talk about him all the time. So if this is a story that you might have heard before, it's just, please forgive me. Father Walter Chisak was in the seminary back in like the 19th, early part of the 1900s. And at one point, he was going to be a priest in the United States. And the Pope at the time said, you know what, we need missionaries to Russia.

Russia was under Soviet occupation and was militantly atheist. And so here is Father Walter Chizek, who is like he was a football player, he's like a rugby player, he's like just kind of a man's band. And he's like, I'm going to do that. Pope says we need missionaries to Russia. Pope, I'm your dude. So he begins learning Russian and begins learning how to become missionary, does it. He gets into Poland, gets to the borders like, how am I going to sneak into Russia,

become a missionary to the Russians? And then Russia invaded Poland. And he's like, well, I'm in. Two weeks after he's like now in Soviet-occupied Poland, and I'm going to be this missionary that changes the world, he gets captured. He gets accused of being a Vatican spy, a United States spy, and he's kept in solitary confinement for one year, and every day he's taken out of solitary confinement and is interrogated. Now he wasn't tortured, he was just simply interrogated, this like mental wearing him down.

And after one year, this like massively super tough, you know, gung-ho priest, crack. And he said, they put documents in front of me that disavowed the church, that disavowed the United States government, that accused the Pope of X, Y, and Z. And I just signed my name to everything they put in front of me. I didn't even read it. I just signed it, because I was just so broken. And from that moment, he had, he signed everything they gave him, and he got up and he walked down this hallway, back to his single cell room, back to the solitary confinement, and he had no one to console him.

All he had there was his own heart, and the truth of his own heart. of his own heart and the truth of his own self and Jesus. Because yes, our words are talking sometimes reveals our hearts, but so do trials. He didn't say what he truly believed, but that trial revealed what was in his heart. Syrac says this, right? He says, the test of what the potter molds is in the furnace. The test of what the potter has molded is in the furnace. Then when it's a great day, Jesus, I'm yours.

I'll be your man, I'll fight for you. But here now, after a year of solitary confinement, I just, I realized now the depth of my weakness. And for Father Chizek, the trial revealed the weakness of his heart. Maybe that same thing has happened to you, where you got into a place of trial? Well, things were great. When things were great, you're like, okay, I know what's next.

I know what's next. I know the next step for my life. I'm going to UMD. I got accepted. I went to CSS, I got accepted, and I'm just going through classes. I'm taking these, and it's going well. And I trust God because, wow, I'm here. and I'm getting to know people. It's not easy. It's hard, but I'm making my way.

And then all of a sudden, at some point, you're like, oh, my gosh, I don't know what the next step is going to be. Everyone else is applying for jobs. I have not gotten a call back yet. Everyone else is putting their resume in for applications for school. And like, I haven't heard back yet. And all of a sudden, like, I know, God, I really trust you, but this trial reveals my heart to me.

What it reveals is, yes, you do trust God. It reveals the truth that you do trust God. but then you can also see how far it goes and you can see where it ends. So God reveals our hearts to us and self-deception gets burned away when self-knowledge takes its place through talking and through trials.

And here's the thing, those trials, they're a mercy of God. This is so important for us to understand. When God allows us to go through those trials, when He allows our talking to reveal our hearts to us, that's not a punishment. That's not him trying to say, busted, see, I knew you sucked and now you do too.

Like, that's not what God is. trying to say. It's a mercy because we can go through our days so oblivious. When that self-deception, we can go through our days so oblivious to the depth of our need for God. And if we do that, we go through our days oblivious to the depth of his love for us. So why does God reveal our hearts to ourselves? If you're talking through trials, because he wants to cut through that self-deception to a place of self-knowledge where you know, you know, when I know the depth of my need, the depth of your need for God, but also the depth of his love for you. So what do we do?

Thanks, Father. Now I know. I stink at life. What do I do? I'd say this. When in those unguarded moments, in those moments of unguarded words or those moments when trials like reveal our heart to ourselves and we ask the question like instinctively, we almost reflexively ask the question, whoa, where did that come from?

You ever done that? You ever asked that question? Like you said something or did something? You're like, where did that come from? Okay, two of you. Thank you. Me too. I invite you to stay with that question.

We're like, whoa, wait, where did that come from? Stay with that question. Like, answer that question. Where did that come from? I did say that. I don't know that I believe that. Yeah, I did, Lord, I did, I fell in this way. I thought I'd be so strong and I failed.

Where did that come from? Where's that weakness reside? Because here's the thing, it always has an origin. It always has a source. What Jesus says in the gospel today is he says from the storehouse, right? He says, a good person out of the store of goodness in our heart produces good, but a person with evil not out of the storehouse of their evil produces evil. We have to realize that I've been storing up things in my heart,

and you've been storing up things in your heart. You ever have that situation where you go to the fridge? And maybe not for you guys, because you might not live alone. But you go to the fridge, though, and you're like, I just, why isn't there more food in here? and you realize after a while if you're getting kind of upset like what's that? Why is there more food? Why is there not more food in here? You realize, wait, you

only find in there what you put in there. Or you're like, in my house, I'm like, where did all these bottles of ranch come from? How come there are 20 bottles of ketchup in my refrigerator? Why do they get up so much space? Because you only find in there what you put in there. It's our hearts are the same. When you look in your heart and God

cuts through the self-deception and cuts right to the self-knowledge. Wait, why is this there? Okay, I only find in there what I've put in there. I only find in there what I put in there. And as Syrac says, the fruit of the tree shows the care it has had. The fruit of the tree, what I find in there

shows the carrot has had. This is the land. This is the end, ish. You guys, we have so much influence over the storehouse of your heart. You have so much influence over the storehouse of your heart. You have so much influence over what you find in your heart. And we have to, every one of us has to be careful what we do with our hearts, what we do with our souls.

As Andy Dwyer said, or Chris Pratt, as Chris Pratt said, like a year ago, two years ago, he said, you have a soul, take care of it. You have one heart, take care of it. What are you putting in your heart? And so there's a thing, we have so much influence over what's in our heart. There's a thing called the Law of Exposure. The law of exposure is very simple. It's what we expose ourselves to is what we become.

What I expose my mind to is what my mind conforms to. What I expose my heart to is what my heart begins to love. The law of exposure. So I say like, yeah, gosh, I find all this brokenness in my heart. Okay, where's it coming from? Where did that come from? Well, here's these people I intentionally choose to hang out with that I know are not good for me.

I find these lies running to my mind all the time. Why? Well, because there's certain media that I consume. There's certain songs I listen to. It's just, they put these, and that's the law of exposure. My mind begins to conform to the lies that I imbibed or expose myself to on a regular basis. You guys, this is not, this is, I'm preaching to myself right now, because I have to tell you, you probably know this.

If we've ever had a conversation that lasted longer than 30 seconds, I have most likely quoted the office. There is not one conversation that I cannot have where I do not find a line from the office that is relatively appropriate to it, even if it's just a line that reminded me of another line, that reminded me in the office. the law of exposure incarnate because what do I do? I meditate on the words of the office day and night.

I find myself planted like a tree next to Dundermifflin on Slough Avenue. I know it's on Slough Avenue because I've seen the TV show too many times. I also know that Slough Avenue is named after the original British office city, which was set in Slough, England. Why do I know this? The law of exposure. I have a friend

named Father Tim. As often as I quote the office in conversation, Father Tim quotes scripture. It makes me feel like crap every time. But he reminds me. He reminds me, and I'm like, wait a second. That's what I want. Like, yes, I think it's fun to be able to quote Michael Scott at drop of a hat. But I think it's amazing. to be able to quote God at the drop of a hat. So what I've been doing for the last, I don't know, say 40 plus days is I've been, in my free time, I haven't been watching the office, except for like one day a week. I haven't been watching the office, but what I'm doing instead is I've got these air buds,

but that's not, that's a movie but a dog who plays basketball, these air pods. And when I listen, I just, I have the Bible on my phone. I've been trying to just say, okay, Lord, I have this ticker running to me. my head of all these things that I've exposed myself to, I want to expose myself to your word. My eyes get tired, so I'm going to do the audio Bible. Because I want to expose my mind and my heart to you, because I want to store up stuff. I only get one shot, we only get one shot to store up good in our hearts. So what am I exposing myself to?

What are you exposing yourself to? We're heading into Lent, and I'd say that this is maybe the time, if this is a convicting moment, like the time of self-deception is like, that was over. That was last season. that was done. That's a thing of the past. Self-knowledge is the current reality. Self-knowledge is the current goal. Then I'm going to let my talking and my trials reveal the truth of my heart so that then I can present my heart truthfully to God himself. Trials and talking, revealing my truth, revealing the truth, so that we can walk in the truth.

before our father.