Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 03/28/21 The Truth and the Choice

Episode Date: March 29, 2021

Homily from Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion. Christianity doesn’t offer comfort. It offers something else. In our culture today, we are able to avoid thinking of death. But death is the inevitable reality of living. Still, the fact that we will all die is not the problem. The problem is that we pretend that we won’t. Mass Readings from March 28, 2021: Isaiah 50:4-7 Psalms 22:8-9, 17-20, 23-24Phillipians 2:6-11 Mark 14:1—15:47

So, obviously, the church this weekend puts death before us in a really pronounced way, obviously, right? There's this whole, I mean, it's called Palm Sunday, but it's also called Passion Sunday, and we know that the passion of Jesus ends where we just ended right now. It ends with his death. And I think there's something so powerful about the fact that the church says, okay, I know what you want to do, because what we want to do typically as human beings is if you don't want to think about death. I think, again, so many of us, we aren't exposed to it.

think of other ages, other times, other places of people live right now even, where it's on a daily basis you're exposed to death, whether that be the death of animals on a farm or death of family members or death are just people. It's a reality that a lot of times I think for us, in many ways, we're maybe we're blessed that we don't have to be exposed to death all lot. But the problem is because I think a lot of us don't think about death. We're not necessarily always exposed to death. I think a lot of us have the misfortune of being taken by surprise by death.

I think death takes us by surprise. When it really shouldn't, if you think about it, there was a student from the College of St. Scholastica who was taking a class on death and dying. Maybe some of you have tabed that class, and she had some questions. So she came up with all these interview questions. They were really, really well-worded.

And at one point, she asked the question, she asked me, have I ever seen as a priest? Have I ever seen people who are terminal come to faith? And the answer is, absolutely, I have. People who are terminal coming to faith. She asked the question, you know people who have a terminal illness come to faith, and I've definitely known people of that. But one of the things I said to her is like, well, everyone I work with is terminal. That everyone in this church is terminal.

And again, that's not meant to be a joke. I mean, yes, whenever I say that the mortality rate for human beings, however it continues to hover roughly around the 100% range, that's a joke. But I mean it. We're all dying. Every one of us right now, we're all dying. We're all in the process of dying. We're all going to die. But that isn't the problem.

The fact that we're all going to die, that's not the problem. Our problem is that we pretend that we're not. We're all going to die, and that is not a problem. The problem is we pretend like we're not all going to die. But when tragedy happens or when death comes close, what happens is that oftentimes that cuts through the illusion, the illusion that this will go on forever. Oftentimes when tragedy happens and when death comes close,

it cuts through the illusion that our choices don't actually matter. Because if there's anything that this gospel reading is about, I mean it's about so much, right? But if there's anything that's got this gospel tonight that we stood to proclaim this massively long story, if it's about, it's about choices. It's about the fact that choices that we make matter. We have all these characters, right, in the gospel today who are making choices. We have Pilate who absolutely, if you read all the Gospels, it becomes absolutely clear that Pilot knows that Jesus is a good man. It's so clear that Pilate knows that Jesus has done nothing wrong, nothing deserving death,

but he makes a choice in the face of the reality that Jesus has done nothing wrong, he chooses to give in to the voice of the crowds. He chooses just go along with everyone else. He chooses to concede to his fear of Caesar. We have the crowds, right, who at the beginning of mass, we proclaimed Palm Sunday. On Sunday they're saying, Hosanna to the son of David, and on Friday they're saying, crucify him. Here again is a choice being made.

And maybe even sometimes, like the biggest choice is, okay, sitting before you, the whole crowd, sitting before you, Barabbas, who's a murderer and Jesus who's come to save everyone's life. Who do you want? And that crazy thing is every one of us gets to choose. If there's anything that this day is about, it's about the fact that we have to make a choice. But again, if we keep death away from us, then we keep getting the chance to live under the comfortable illusion that we don't have to choose. Like, again, that's a comfortable deception. They can say, I just don't have to choose.

I'm just going to walk through life and I'm not going to make a decision. but it's interesting. So back to the student who had asked a bunch of questions, one of her questions was so good. She said, do you think that religion offers comfort to those who are dying? The question we asked before Mass started. Do you think religion offers comfort to those who are dying?

And the answer I gave her was, well, yes and no. There are some religions that offer comfort to those who are dying. In fact, C.S. Lewis wrote about this. C.S. Lewis said, he was asked the question, which religion makes people the happiest? Here's what he said. It's kind of like the same thing as comfort, right? He says, which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness?

He says, while it lasts, the religion of worshiping oneself, that's the best. He goes on to say, he says, I have an elderly acquaintance about 80 years old, who has lived a life of unbroken selfishness and admiration from his earliest years, and is more or less, I regret to say, one of the happiest men I've known. From a moral point of view, it's very difficult because I'm not approaching the question from that angle. He says, as you perhaps know, I've not always been a Christian. C.S. Lewis wasn't always a Christian. For a long time, he was an atheist.

And he said, I didn't go to religion to make me happy. Because I always knew that a bottle of port could do that. If you want religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity. Because Christianity, does it offer comfort to those who are dying? Does it offer comfort to those who are alive? No. What's the heart of Christianity?

The heart of Christianity is the cross. It's today. It's this whole week. What does Christianity offer? It says, it proclaims loudly that God became man out of love for you, that he suffered out of love for you, that he picked up a cross out of love for you, that he died on the cross out of love for you, that he went to hell out of love for you. And if we're going to be Christians, that means that what did Jesus say, that we're called to deny ourselves, out of love for him? That we're called every day to take up our cross out of love for him. That we're called

to follow him and even die if we need to out of love for him. So the last thing that Christianity offers, The last thing Christianity offers is comfort. And that's a good thing. That's such a good thing. Let's go back to C.S. Lewis for the last time today. He says, in religion as in war, and in everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you might find comfort in the end.

But if you look for comfort, you'll not get either comfort or truth. Only soft, soap, and wishful thinking to begin with, And in the end, despair. So if the church, if Christianity, Christ doesn't offer comfort, what does he offer? What does the church offer on that day like today where we proclaim this massive story? What is the church offering every one of us who showed up to Mass today? Two things, at least two things. The church offers to us truth and a choice.

These are the two things that the church always offers, also the grace to make the choice, but keeps it simple. Truth and the choice. Because realize when it comes to truth, that's the only reason. the only reason to believe anything is because it's true. We don't believe anything, we don't believe something because it makes us feel good. We don't believe something because it makes us act good. We don't believe something because it gives us comfort.

The only reason to believe anything in our lives is because it's true. And what we believe is the almost unbelievably, incredibly true story of a God who loves us to the point where he actually was willing to die for us. and in light of that truth every one of us came to here today and we're given a choice do you want that love that the life that he made possible by his death

like do you want that life do I want that life or do we not I mean that's the thing is like so hard because we have to we have to make a choice you know I got a letter um we've been doing this this podcast called the Bible in a year and and in the Old Testament there's a lot of times where God makes it very very clear

if you choose me and obey my to keep my laws, then you'll be blessed. And if you choose to disobey my laws, then there's punishments that come, there's consequences there. And I got a letter from someone who was so deeply upset about this reality that if I, they said, it seems like God is trying to trick us into something that if you choose him, then you get goodness. And if you choose not him, then you get badness. But that's the choice. The choice is, God says, if you choose me, you get me. And if you choose not me, then you get not me. Hard truth today. Every choice has a consequence.

Obviously, some are arbitrary. Like, you remember growing up when your parents would say, okay, if you came home, come home late, break curfew, then you have to clean the house tomorrow. Like, there's no connection. That's not a real thing because I know that's not a real thing because my little brother was late for a curfew. He didn't have to do anything.

So some choices and consequences are arbitrary, but there are some choices that we make that are the opposite of arbitrary. They're intrinsically connected. What I'm choosing is actually the consequence. In fact, there's a psychologist. He's out of Canada, and he talks about this. He's not even a religious person, but he says this.

He said, I'll never in all my years as a clinical psychologist. And he says, and this is something that really deeply terrifies me. I've never seen anyone get away with anything at all, not even once. Again, he's just a clinical psychologist. He says, in all my years, being a clinical psychologist, I have never seen anyone ever get away with anything, not even once. And he says, well, maybe you disagree. Maybe you think that people get away with things all the time.

well, I tell you, I've never seen it. What I see instead is that this thing happens, right? He says, someone twists the fabric of reality, and they do it successfully because it doesn't snap back at them in that moment. We do this all the time, right? We make choices, and we don't experience the consequence right away. He says, then two years later, something unravels, and they get walloped, and they think, oh, my gosh, this is so unfair.

And he says, they're meeting with me, and we track it. And it's like, well, what happened before that? They say this, and what happened before that? well this, and what happened before that, this. And then he says, oh, that's where things meant wrong. Because you can't twist the fabric of reality and not have it snap back. They're connected.

Consequences in our choices are connected. In fact, I would say this. I would say consequences reveal what we're actually choosing. The consequence reveals what we're actually choosing. So I lie to get out of something. Well, what I'm actually choosing is I'm choosing to not be trustworthy. I allow to get out of something. What I'm choosing is be the kind of person

who can't be trusted by my friends. I can't be trusted by my family. If I choose to gossip, what I'm choosing, I'm choosing to break relationships all around me. When I choose to do something that I know is wrong, I am choosing to make myself divided. I'm choosing in that moment. I'm choosing to make myself weaker.

Again, our consequences reveal what we're actually choosing. And I think that's one of the reasons, as I said, why we put off choosing. We say I'll just, you know, I'll avoid, I'll avoid choosing because then it's just too hard. I don't want the consequence. I don't want any of these things. But the hard truth is not to choose, is to choose. Not to decide is to decide.

Not to choose is to be pilot saying, I just, what does he say? In John's Gospel, he says, I wash my hands of this. I just, I'm not going to weigh in on this. I'm stepping back. Not to choose is to choose. That question, does religion? offer comfort, not Christianity. Why? Because we have the opportunity to choose heaven, which is awesome. But Christianity also points out the truth that we have the chance to choose hell as well.

Not to choose God is by default to choose hell. Some of you are familiar with Dante Allegory, right? Dante wrote Dante's Inferno, the Purgatorio and Paradiso. It's Dante's Divine Comedy. And we're going to talk about this again on Holy Thursday back here. But in the beginning of Dante's inferno, what happens is Dante is escorted through hell, through purgatory, into heaven. But when he gets to hell, he has a guide. His guide is Virgil, I think he's a Roman poet. And Virgil is showing him, ushering him into hell.

And as Dante enters hell, there's that sign above hell that says, Abandon Hope, all you who enter here. And the interesting thing is the very first thing Dante sees in hell is what is called the vestibule of the futile. So the first, like, not even in the rings of hell. That's a whole other thing. Again, Holy Thursday, stay tuned. But the plains of hell, the very first thing Dante sees after this sign abandoned hope is the best of view of the futile.

And it's filled with people. In fact, Dante writes in his poem about it, he says, I had not thought that death had unmade so many. He said, I was surrounded so many unmade people. He called them. the uncommitted. And he said they were destined, the consequence of their life, they were destined to spend eternity chasing after a blank flag

that they could never catch. Because they had spent their lives never standing for anything. They spent their whole lives never choosing something and saying, this is what I believe, this is what I'll stake my life on, this is what I, this is who I am. This is what I'll live for, something other than myself. And so because of that, they spend eternity chasing this flag that is constantly eluding on this blank flag that means nothing.

And in fact, Virgil says to Dante, he says, he says, let us not speak of them. Just look at them and pass them by because they're not even deserving recognition. He goes on. He says, these are those, those on the plains of hell. He says, these are those who have lived without disgrace and without honor. They weren't good. They weren't bad.

He said they lived only for themselves. They weren't villains. They weren't heroes. They were just, meh. That's it. Remember what C.S. Lewis said about the happiest man he knew. He lived for himself. Didn't make a choice to live for anything or anyone other than himself. He even says that in this, on this vestibule of the futile, he says, there were angels who are neither rebellious to God nor yet true to God. And every one of these people had lived a blind life because they just didn't want to look at the choice that was right in front of them. Last thing he said is he says,

fame of them the world has none, nor suffering. They didn't do anything in the world that left a mark, and they also didn't do anything in the world that would condemn them. Mercy and justice both scorn them, the uncommitted, futile, never choosing. And this is the last thing. but that's not your destiny. Like this is not your destiny.

That's not where you're made for. That's not what any of us are made for. To be in this place where the consequence of our non-choice is this living as non-living that we have to choose. We get to choose. In fact, even more, we get what we choose. Because God has chosen you, because God has chosen us,

that if you want to choose him back, you get him. This is the most incredible news ever. But if we don't choose him, then we get not him. But this is the truth. There's one last character in the gospel today who had a choice to make. It's the main character of the entire book. The main character of this entire thing, this entire story is one main character. And this character has made his choice as well.

That Jesus, he's the reason why we exist. And what did we hear in the gospel today proclaimed that Jesus, he made his choice. and he chose the cross and he chose you and he did this so that you and i wouldn't have to spend eternity chasing after a blank flag he did this so you and i wouldn't have that that we wouldn't be so cowardly as we wouldn't actually believe in something that he gave us this truth so that we could make a choice and he did this so that you and i he chose us so that you and i would have the courage would have the courage to choose him back