Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 05/12/19 #Fail: Failure is Feedback

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

Homily from the Fourth Sunday of Easter. Failure either gives us clarity and conviction or course correction. Failure is not final and failure is not fatal. As long as we don’t stop, and as long as we are willing to learn from our failures, they have no power to defeat us but only to educate us and make us better. Mass Readings from May 12, 2019: Acts 13:14, 43-52 Psalms 100:1-2, 3, 5Revelation 7:9, 14-17 John 10:27-30 Download the Homily Study

So again, congratulations on like graduation. Whenever I say that, I just want to like rap or something because congratulations, the graduation. Got some adulation, United Nation. Okay, so whenever there's a graduation now, you know how sometimes you place yourself back in? When you come out around like a season or come around someone else is celebrating, you're like, I remember when, you know, it's your own thing. And so I remember. I remember when I graduated college.

The two days after I graduated college, you know, was weather like this. And I went to a course called Knowles. Knowles is the stands for the National Outdoor Leadership School. And so I got a couple of credits for camping in the woods, which some of you got a major on that. So well done. So for 30 days, I basically spent time in the North Cascades. And it was incredible. It was awesome because we just, you know, we hiked and just learned about how to lead people in the wilderness.

And it was cool because at first, you know, you're on this big path, on this big trail. And it's really obvious. and you're just, it's tough because you're, you know, Karen, if you've camped, you know this, if you hiked, you know this, that it can be difficult because you're carrying like an 80-pound pack and you're hiking up a mountain. That can be difficult. But there's a clear path there. When there's a clear trail, it's like, it's tough, but you know where to go. And then sometimes, like the trail forks, you've got to make some decisions.

And that's still tough, but you know where to go. And then after we did that for a couple weeks, what they said was, okay, we're not, we're not going to start a new kind of a way to hike and we're going to start bushwhacking. And so if you've ever done bushwhacking, basically, you leave the trail and you just, you make a way through the woods. When there's no path, there's no trail, you just find a way through the woods by reading the map, by reading the train, and making decisions. And I hated it so much.

It was the worst. Because all of a sudden, you know, instead of having it just be tough because you're walking on this trail and walking on this path, it was now tough because of three things, at least, you had to always pay attention to where you're going. Secondly, you had to always constantly make decisions. And third, you actually could make the wrong decision.

You could get lost. And I'm like, no, I really like the trail thing. I really like walking on a path where they say, Mike, take a left. Okay, I'll take a left. But now of a sudden, this bushwhacking, there's no more trail, and I have to pay attention now, and I've really got to make some decisions.

And the decisions, the stakes are relatively high because I could get lost in the middle of the woods, and who knows what happens then. I could fail. And that's the reality. You could get lost. You can make the wrong decision. You can fail.

I don't know if any of people visiting us today, no, we've been doing this three-part. This is the third part of a three-part series. Hashtag fail. We've been looking at just, What is it to fail? What does it mean when you fail? Like, how do you live in the midst of failure?

Because that's a normal, natural, it's a regular part of our lives. Especially when the possibility of failure is so present to us that it can be so intimidating that I'm afraid to take the next step because I know I might take this next step. I might be wrong. I might make a mistake. I could fail. You know, I was thinking about the bushwhacking thing because I'm thinking about all of our graduates and think about how you've, up to this moment, up to this day, really, in so many ways,

you've been on a track. When you're pre-k-kartan age, pre-K age, you get signed up, and you got on track right then. And then after pre-K, go to kindergarten, after kindergarten, go to elementary school. And the next thing is middle school, you're on track, you just stay on this track. And it's tough, right? It can be, middle school, the worst. It can be tough. But then middle school, you get to high school, and you just keep on track.

And then after high school, you've got to make some decisions. or you're going to go to work, you go to college, which college, you're going to go to the military, what are you going to do? But, you know, the track just diverges, but it's still on track until literally today where the track stops. Unless you are planning on going to graduate school and now you're just extending your track. But other than that, the track is over. Like the trail is done. And now you've got to make some decisions. Now, from now on, life is bushwhacking.

Like from now on life is like, okay, I got to read the map, I got to pay attention, I got to make decisions. I could be wrong. I can make mistakes. I can fail, which is exciting, but it's also scary, but it's also exciting. I think about like the apostles, Paul and Barnabas in the first reading today, Acts of the Apostles. And you know, sometimes the Bible just says things that are so, they seem so bland at first, but if you think about them, you're like, oh my gosh. It starts up by saying that, you know, Paul and Barnabas, they went from Perga to Antioch in Pisidia. And then after that, they went to the synagogue on the Sabbath.

And after that, they went to Iconium. And you're like, oh, yeah, because that was the map. That was the plan. That was the track. Paul and Barnabas, this is your life. From now on, you're going to go Perga and Pepilia. You're going to go, whatever. That is not at all would happen.

It seems so obvious when I read it, like, yeah, that's where they went. They had to decide Paul and Barnabas, these apostles following Jesus, they're bushwhacking. There was no thing that said, now, Paul, go to Pisidia. When you get there, wait to the Sabbath, then go to the synagogue. They had to make, they had to pay attention. They had to make decisions. They could be wrong. They could fail.

But here's the crazy thing. When you read the stories of Paul and Barnas, read the stories of any of the apostles, they seem utterly unconcerned with the reality that they could fail. They seem completely unbothered by the reality that they could fail. Like, how is that even possible? I think for many reasons it's because they know, what we know, that failure is not final. I think they know what failure really is. So what is failure?

And it's interesting, I've been thinking about this a lot, obviously, we've doing this series on failure. But have you ever thought to ask the question, what is failure? What actually is failure? How do you define it? How do you personally see failure? Because this is fascinating to me. When it comes to failure, you are in 100. 100% control of how you view it.

You're in complete control over how you view failure. And I think too many people see failure as final. I think too many people see failure as fatal. I think too many people see failure as their identity. Like I failed, therefore I'm a failure. And all of those aren't inaccurate. Because I will say this. I would say that failure is feedback.

That's it. Failure is feedback. And we have to realize successful people fail a lot. And I'd say this, only successful people fail a lot, and only people who fail a lot can be successful people. But successful people, when they fail a lot, they do two things. One we talked about last week. They fail but they don't stop.

And secondly, they fail, but they learn from it. Why? Because failure is feedback. You guys, we've all heard the story of Thomas Edison, right, when he invented the light bulb. It took him 10,000 times, 10,000 tries, 10,000 attempts to invent the light bulb. And someone asked him at one point, maybe you've heard this before. Someone asked him, like, what was it like to fail over and over and over again 10,000 times in creating the light bulb? And Thomas Edison, he apparently looked kind of dumbfounded by this question.

It was like, I've never failed. He said, I've never failed 10,000 times in my life. I just discovered 9,99 ways not to make a light bulb. Why? Because failure's feedback. Successful people, they let failure teach them something. You know, it's so crazy. Michael Jordan, again, successful person.

Remember that commercial years ago? Maybe you don't. I know some of you do. Where Michael Jordan, he was on the screen, and he's doing all those amazing things. His voice was coming in over the ear things. And words are hard. And he said this, he said, I've missed over 900 shots in my career.

I've lost over 300 games. He said 26 times I've been trusted to make the game-winning shot and I missed. 26 times I was entrusted to take the game-winning shot and I missed. He says, I failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed. Because for successful people, failure is feedback. It's not the end. Because what? I mentioned this last week, my sister, my sister Amy, who, Dr. Amy, that took her three times to apply to get to medical school.

And every time she got rejected, every time she failed, she would call up the admissions people and she would say, okay, I'm looking at my resume, looking at my application. What do I need to do now to make me a better candidate next time? They would tell her, well, Amy, your MCAT score is really low. So you need to get that up. And where it's really low is in the physics. So she would sign up and take physics classes to get the MCAT up. Why? Because failure was not final.

Failure was simply feedback. It gave her a direction and gave you the ability to course correct. I must be going on the wrong path if I'm doing this. So what do I need to do? And when failure is feedback, it gives you the possibility to course correct. But failure can also give you conviction and clarity. So my little brother, also named Matthew, Dr. Matthew, he also got rejected for medical school a couple times.

It apparently runs in the family. family. But Maddie, when he was applying to med school and when he got rejected, he would go and work in the hospital. And what he ended up doing for a couple years is he ended up working with a lot of nursing staff. And he realized he loved nursing. Like really, really liked it. He liked the nursing staff. He liked the nursing work. He really loved it. And he said, this is actually, maybe I want to be a nurse. Because they are incredible. And they're doing incredible work. And I really enjoy it. And so that attempt put him through this is failure. didn't get into medical school, brought him to a place of like he had to ask the hard question,

which is, okay, should I actually change my route, my, change my direction, should I change my path? Should I abandon my idea of medical school and go to nursing school? Because that is a real possibility for me. And it was that crisis, it was that failure that didn't course correct him. He decided to go medical school. But it was in the midst of failure that it gave him clarity and conviction. Yes, this actually is what I want. You know, so many times we don't know what it is we want until it's like, no, you can't do that.

Like, okay, how badly do I want to try again? How badly do I want to want to get my scores back up? How badly do I want to put my life on the line again and put the stakes out there when they're actually pretty high? Because if you're willing to see failure as feedback, you're willing to not stop but learn from it, it can give you either clarity and conviction or it can give you that course correction. and give you that direction where you realize I know where I'm going. You know, I would say this.

I'd say this decision to allow failure to be feedback is more important and more valuable than IQ, more important, way more valuable than intelligence. The willingness to try and fail and try again to let that clarify what you want or course correct. It's what the apostles did. Again, go back to the first reading today. They went to Antioch,

Pasidia. They went to the synagogue on the Sabbath. They went to the Jews and said, okay, here's the good news of Jesus Christ who's fulfilled every promise God has ever made to us, the Jewish people. And they failed. And they tried again. And they failed. And what happened was their course was corrected. Paul and Barnabas said, okay, Peter's going to continue to go. The other apostle is going to continue to go to the Jews. We're going to course correct. We're going to go to the Gentiles as well. Why? Because they were willing to see failure as feedback, not as fatal. And so they were willing to try and fail and course correct and move. And this is the truth. Only those who are willing to move will ever get somewhere. I know you guys. Profound

thoughts. But it's another way to say it is only those who are willing to fail will ever get somewhere. Only those who are willing to fail will ever get somewhere. Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite authors, maybe all-time. I think in the space of 10 years, he wrote a bestseller every other year. In one of his books, he's talking about what it is to be a gifted child, and why all gifted children, like those who are incredible when it comes to school, when they're on the track, don't always become gifted adults. So why is it those who have massive IQs when they're younger? And when they're on track, when they're in school, they don't, they have kind of lackluster lives when they become adults.

And what he found was he, in his research and his study, he came to this conclusion. This is a quote from him. He says, what a gifted child is, in many ways, is a gifted learner. What a gifted adult is, is a gifted doer. Like, when you're on track and you're doing well, that's awesome. Gifted student, you're a gifted child, you're gifted learner. But it makes an incredible life. It makes it a gifted adult is someone who's a gifted doer.

And he goes on to say, he says, and those are quite separate. domains of achievement. To be a gifted doer is someone who's unafraid to fail. Because you know that failure is not final. Failure is simply feedback. Because failure is going to be required if you're going to do your best work. Failure is absolutely required if you're going to do your best work. Which is another way to say that if you and I are going to create lives that actually honor God the way God deserves to be honored, you and I are going to have to fail in that process. Because when it comes down to it, it's not, success is not going to be about how much you have in the bank. It's not going to be about how many people know your names.

It's not going to be about how many people you influence. At the end of the day, success, our lives are all about honoring God, right? We say at the end of every mass, go and glorify the Lord by your life. At the end of every mass, the priest gives us like, this is what life is for. This is what life is about. This is what it is to be successful, to glorify God by your life. which means that I can't hand in my first draft. That failure is absolutely essential

if you're going to be able to at the end of your life hand in your best work. That's why in the gospel Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. It doesn't say, my sheep are on the path, my sheep are on the track. My sheep are like, man, they're so good. They're all walking right single file.

They look exactly the same. Like, no, actually, if you follow Jesus as a Christian who's committed to following Jesus, it's going to mean a life of bushwhacking. And that's what it's going to look like. It's going to look like a life of just, okay, Jesus, where are we going now? Because this is just, the path is over there. Everyone else is over there.

But he's like, no, no, no, no, no. Come and follow me. He says, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. So he asked that question, like, well, if you're bushwhacking, if you're not on the trail, how do you know it's Jesus's voice? How do you know it's God's voice? I think this is an important question to ask, especially as you go off into, like, a trackless world. How do you know it's God's voice?

Well, I would say this. whenever anyone asks me, how do I know if this is what God wants? How do I know if this is God inviting me to do this thing? I let them know that if you don't act on it, you will never know. If you don't do anything with it, you'll never, ever know whether that was God or not. So you have to take a step.

If you want to find out whether that was God or not, you've got to take a step, you've got to take action. I said, well, yeah, but what if that's wrong step? What if I make the wrong decision? What if I take the wrong step? What if I fail? Yes. Question.

What if you fail? You belong to Jesus, which means that you know that failure is not final. You know that failure is just feedback, and you'll learn from it. And it will either give you clarity and conviction, or it'll give you course correction. But you're called off the track right now. You're called to start bushwhacking. And this is the last thing. When we were on the Knowles thing, the National Ultra Leadership School, and it was time to bushwhack,

I hated it so much that I would get in the middle of the woods and I would just like stand there. And the people are supposed to be leading because they divide us into groups and like one of us would be like the mini leader for the thing. They'd be like, Mike, you can't just stand there. But I want to just stand here. But I don't know where to go. What if I'm wrong? You can't just stand there because someone's counting on you. You can't just stand there because someone is counting.

on you. And yeah, you're probably going to get lost, but here's the crazy, great thing. Such good news. If you get lost a lot, you can become really, really good at finding your way again. In those woods, I could get lost so many times that by like the fifth day, sixth day, I was so good. I'm like, oh, here's where we are. There's that mountain peak. There's this river. There's this whatever. I know where we are. Let's get back. Because if you get good at getting lost, you can get really, really good at finding your way again. If you get good at failing, you can get so good at continuing to move. You are free to fail.

In Jesus, you are free to fail. And you have somewhere to go. You have someone to become. And someone is counting on you. God has placed a call on your life that no one else can answer. And failure is not fatal. And failure is not your identity. And failure is not final.

Be at peace. and try and move because failure is merely feedback.