Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 05/12/24 Gift and Mystery: Build Up the Body

Episode Date: May 11, 2024

Homily from the Solemnity of the Ascension. Who am I building up? God has given us His promise of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us and makes us holy, but the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given to us so that we can participate in the work of God in the world. At His Ascension, Jesus promised the Holy Spirit so that we could continue His work here on earth. Mass Readings from May 12, 2024: Acts 1:1-11 Psalms 47:2-3, 6-9 Ephesians 1:17-23 Mark 16:15-20

Welcome to Sunday homilies with me, Father Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this in other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up at ascensionpress.com slash Sunday, or by texting Sunday to 33777.7. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless.

The Lord be with you. with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark. Chapter 16 verses 15 through 20. Jesus said to his disciples, Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned.

These signs will accompany those who believe. In my name, they will drive out demons. They will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands. And if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere.

While the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs. The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. I should have a seat. So this season that we're starting, it's kind of a new season for me, well in this sense. we're getting to the end of the Easter season. We finished a series last week. And for the next four weekends,

we have kind of this unique time where the church has given us Feast of Ascension today, Pentecost next Sunday, Holy Trinity after that, and then Corpus Christi. So these kind of four Sundays are not like your ordinary time. They're kind of still Easter, but they have their own themes. And one of the themes that keep coming back to

is for the next four weeks, this theme of gift, the theme of not only gift, but the theme of gift and mystery. because here we have Jesus at the very beginning of the very beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. And what happens? I love this part of the story where here's the apostles. They know Jesus has risen for the dead. They know Jesus is who he says he is. And so Jesus leads them to Bethany. And they're looking out over the city of Jerusalem and they can see all of it. They can see the story of

salvation, right? They can see the upper room where they first got the Eucharist. They can see Calvary where Christ offered himself. They can see where the tomb would be where Christ conquered death. And they know he is who he says he is. So they ask him this question. They say, Lord, are you at this point going to restore the kingdom to Israel? And Jesus gives this answer that is just, and it's a twofold answer, and it kind of both of them kind of boggle the mind. The first answer is, I'm not going to tell you when. You don't need to know when.

Okay, fine. The second part of the answer is essentially, no, I'm not. Because Jesus says what? He says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and then you will be my witnesses here in Jerusalem throughout Judea and Samaria to the end of the earth. So in response to the question, Lord, we know. know you are who you say you are, are you at this point going to restore the kingdom?

Jesus essentially says, no, I'm not. You are going to do it. And he says, he has this promise, right? He promises a gift and mystery. And this is the thing that blows my mind. The next four weeks, we're going to look at this. We're going to look at the depth of the gift and the depth of the mystery. Because Jesus makes a promise today. Makes a promise that they will receive gifts. It makes a promise that they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And I just think of about sometimes, okay, so when I was a kid, I often, I often, I was going to say when I was a kid, I used to read comic books often. That would mean, that would imply that I stopped reading comic books. I do not. I still continue to read comic books because there's something about these gifted people,

right? There's something about people who have people who just, they have the abilities that go beyond what normal people do. But it's not just the fact that they have superpowers. Because if someone just got powers, if someone just had a gift, someone just had abilities, they would just be themselves be able to jump high or fly or run fast or whatever. Kind of like Dave Ramsey talked about this. He talks about how money doesn't make a person greedy, doesn't make a person a jerk. It just might amplify the jerkiness.

Like if you are a jerky poor person, you're probably going to be a jerky rich person. If you're a generous poor person, you're going to be a generous rich person. These gifts don't change the heart. And so the question is, I here I am going, I wish I had those gift. I wish I had the power to fly to run fast,

to do all these kind of things. But I realize that that wouldn't change me. In fact, to have a super power does not make a person a superhero. What makes a person a superhero is, I have this power and I put it at the service of someone else. So this first step of this series on gift and mystery is here's Jesus who promises a gift. We have to ask the first question.

Why? Why does he do it? Because they ask the question, Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom in Israel? The answer could have been yes. The answer could have been, yeah, I did it all. I'm God. I can do it. I made this world without you. I can remake this world without you. Like, I brought this world into existence without your help. I could save it without your help. But he doesn't say that. He says, yeah, I brought this world into

existence needing nothing from you. But in order to save the world and bring salvation to the world and bring my grace to the world, I won't do it unless you help. So I promise you that we'll when you move forward, I'm going to give you a gift. And that gift is being shrouded in mystery. We have to ask the question. Why? Why does God promise a gift? Why does He promise the gift of the Holy Spirit

to be poured out next weekend, right, at the Feast of Pentecost? And again, I come back to it. I think it's made very clear in St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 4. It says it really clearly. It points out the fact that he gave, he says this, His grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

And some people were made apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, some teachers. But why? That's the big question. But why? It goes on to explain why. So here's the thing. We are praying for God's gifts. You might be the kind of person who prays for God's gifts.

God, I want this gift. I want to be able to live this gift. Why? Sometimes I want to be able to fly so I can fly. Sometimes I want to be able to do amazing things so I can do amazing things. Sometimes I want to be incredible so I can be known to be incredible. But Jesus says this. Now, Christian gift and Christian mystery is for a whole different purpose.

Jesus essentially says, I'm going to give you these gifts, an abundance of these gifts. Here's the point. They're not for you. They're my gifts to you, but they're not for you. why did he give him to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ that that's why god gives us gifts that's why jesus promises the holy spirit of the power of the holy spirit upon everyone who believed in him everyone who calls upon him is like god i want those gifts i want to be able to heal i want to be able to preach i want to be able to talk to people i want to be

able to give counsels god i want to be able to have knowledge why the answer to build up the people around me. To realize this, the promise of God's gifts, or God's promise of his gifts, given to you and given to me, it's not for you and not for me. It's so we can build up the people around us. And I think about, like, what could that look like? Well, two examples. One is from our world in fiction, and another is from the Bible.

The first one I just think of is, I don't know if you guys have seen the movie, the TV show, Ted Lassow. So Ted Lassow, I don't know, I've not seen the whole thing, so I can't recommend it completely because I'm sure there's controversial things there. The character of Ted Lassow, basically, he's an American college football coach who gets recruited or gets hired to be the coach of a soccer team in England. And basically, he knows very little about soccer. He cannot play soccer.

When it comes to giftedness, he's not gifted on the soccer pitch. That's not one of his gifts. But he doesn't have to have that gift to being on the soccer pitch. He doesn't even have to actually know, I mean, he learns over the course of time, like the ins and outs, the rules of soccer. But his gift is what? his gift is he can build people around him up. I mean, as the TV show kind of unfolds, it's everybody. It's everybody from the person who like, you know, washes the players' clothes to the person who owns the team, to all the players on the field, that he just has this gift

of seeing something in them and building them up. And this one of those kind of situations, one of the reasons I think people love the TV show Ted Lassow. There are some other things that get involved in there. But one of the reasons people love this show is because they think that's the kind of person I would love to be around. Not only that, that's the kind of person I need to be around. How many of us are starving for someone who could just build us up? How many of us are starving for someone

who just had that word of encouragement? How many of us are going through a place in life where we just think, man, if there was just someone who could help me through this struggle, someone who could help me through this trial, someone that just help me get closer to the Lord. I just needed Ted Lasso. someone who sees the capacity in you

and is willing to use their gifts, not for themselves, but use their gifts like St. Paul says to build up the body. Now St. Paul can say this, I think, for a couple of reasons, but one of the reasons St. Paul can say this is because the other example is actually a real-life example from the Bible.

If you know anything about Paul's life, Paul is known, he's called the apostle, like capital T, the capital A apostle. Like he's the apostle. He's the guy who, went out into all the world. I mean, he did exactly what Jesus commands to do in Mark's gospel today. He went out to the whole world and he brought the good news of Jesus. But the crazy thing is Paul didn't do it alone. That for the most part, many of his missionary travels, Paul had a companion.

Paul had someone who went with him. And that guy's name is Barnabas. And Barnabas is actually his nickname, that Barnabas is the nickname they gave to this guy who was a friend of Paul and traveling companion, co-missionary with Paul. And that name Barnabas actually means son of encouragement. Like Barr is son of and Barnabas is encouragement. So Barnabas is the son of encouragement. And I always thought like, that's what a lame nickname. Like here comes old son of anger.

Like sons of thunder from James and John, that's way better. Like, sun's and thunder, let's go. But the Thun of encouragement, I'm like, oh, hello. But why would he be known as the son of encouragement? Why would he be known as the companion of Paul? Why would Paul know that actually some of us have been given certain gifts not just to preach and not just to evangelize, not just to spread the gospel, but some of us have been given gifts to build up the body

because Paul knew exactly what it was like to go out to Athens and be rejected. He knew what it was like to go to Corinth and be rejected. He knew what it was like to go all over the world and be rejected, but then to be able to come back to camp and be with Barnabas. And those days when Paul was just like, how do I keep going forward? How do I keep being the apostle? I can imagine that there's this man, his friend, the son of encouragement, who's there to say, okay, Paul, here's what you need to know.

By the power, here's the gifts, here's the mystery given to Barnabas. And again, we could look at that and say, like, what a lame gift. I'd rather be the apostle rather than the son of encouragement. And then who would the apostle need? The apostle needed the son of encouragement so that the people in Ephesus and the people in Corinth and the people in Rome could come to know the person of Jesus. So the question of course is not whether or not God will out his gifts upon you. He wants to pour his gifts upon you. He wants to pour his gifts upon me.

The question is, who are you building up? His gifts are yours. I mean, he promised it. The gift is yours. The question is, who am I building up? Years ago, I've been on campus. I just concluded my 19th year on campus here at University of Minnesota, Duluth. And over the course of those years, I've had a number of students who have showed up a campus and they've said things like, oh yeah, my uncle's a priest. And whenever someone said, one of the first one of our student says, oh, my uncle's a priest, I always have the next question. Like, oh, were you close? And almost every time they say the same thing.

Almost every time they say, well, no, I mean, he's really busy. Like, almost every time. And so one of the things I learned was that in talking with these students whose uncles are priests, I was like, I don't know. I want to make a bigger spiritual impact on the lives of these people I love more than anyone in the world, my niece is his and nephews, more than, oh yeah, he was a good guy, but he's really busy a lot. And so that became, and years ago became one of the things like, I want to do this and to not

do this would be to fail. And so thankfully, thankfully, we have, I run a camp in the summertime that many of my nieces and nephews have come to and have had an encounter with the Lord. I have to be part of it, you know. We do retreats that some of them have come to and you have to be part of it, which is awesome. I got a couple of text messages from some of my distant nieces living in North Carolina who were like, hey, Uncle Mike, thanks for your YouTube video. really helped. I'm like, okay, praise the Lord.

Like, I, even those ones I don't see very often. Like, at least there's some kind of way that I can have some kind of hopefully positive spiritual impact on the lives of my niece's nephews. But I have a niece who actually transferred here to the University of Minnesota about a year and a half ago. And it's one of those things I remember I was so nervous when she was getting home. I was like, I'm so pumped and I can't wait for her to come to campus. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I want to have time. And like, I don't know. I'm kind of busy on weekends and stuff. And Lauren was like, do you think your niece is going to want to hang out with her uncle, the priest,

on weekends. I don't think so. I'm like, I don't know, maybe she will. Who knows? But, you know, she got involved in this is really amazing amazing because you could say, well, father, I get it. Like, you've made a good impact on your nieces and nephews because, I mean, you're a priest because you have a theology degree

because you have a YouTube channel, because all these reasons, because they're you, you know? And I talked to her about this a little bit. And she's someone who's just, she's pursuing the Lord Jesus, and she knows. that Jesus has pursued her. But it's funny because part of her story, yeah, part of her story of how she came to be in love with Jesus,

part of it is, yeah, she went to the camp that we put on, and that was very helpful. But the bigger part of the story is she mentioned that when my mom died, when her grandma died, she saw grandma face death with peace. And she saw grandma face death with this confidence and trust in Jesus. And that reminded her of, wait, I'm going to die.

And I want to have that same kind of trust. I'm going to die. I want to have that same kind of confidence. I'm going to die. I want to have that same kind of relationship with Jesus where I'm not afraid to see him face to face. So it wasn't like the priest who has a YouTube channel. It was grandma who had a relationship with Jesus.

She was willing to share that to build up her. her granddaughter. It was when she came to campus and wasn't us hanging out on the weekends, but it was she found friends who were actually willing to be genuine real friends that invited her to Mass, invited her to prayer, and just willing to walk with her. Friends who said, okay, the gift I have is my time, the gift I have is my heart, the gift I have is my attention, you can have that. You can have my time. You'd have my attention. And that was an introduction to what real friendship is. And here she is now just, again, pursuing the Lord, saying yes to him.

Long ways to go, but she's come so far. And you realize it wasn't because, like, the guy with the theology degree and a Roman caller was the one who invested in her. It was because grandma was willing to build her up. It was because just ordinary friends who themselves are pursuing the Lord were willing to build her up. It's because these people around her were willing to use their gifts and say, you're the one I want to build up. You're the one I want to encourage. You're the one I want to spend my life loving

so that you can love the one who already loves you. This is our call right now. For the next couple weeks, we're just going to have this call of saying, okay, God, give me the gift. But don't just give me the gift. God, show me how to use the gift. Don't just give me the gift for myself. Lord, God, give me the gift so that I can actually build up people around me.

Who are you building up? How are you building them up? And realize that the Lord loves you already, but there's people near you who they don't know yet how much he loves them. So these weeks we're going to be praying for the gifts. Praying for the gifts so that not just we have powers and abilities, not just we can do unique things,

but so that the people around us can be built up encouraged, and come to know that God has a promise for them, just like he has a promise, a gift and a mystery for us.