Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 06/09/19 The Peace of Christ

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

Homily from Pentecost Sunday. I know I have what I need. The promised Holy Spirit gives many gifts, but few are more powerful and profound than the Spirit’s gift of peace. Mass Readings from June 9, 2019: Acts 13:14, 43-52 Psalms 100:1-2, 3, 51Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13 John 20:19-23

So I'm very excited to be here with you all this afternoon. Earlier this week, we have a totus to us. You guys have totus to us in the various areas of your lives? Yeah, so three of you. So what that is, is there are teams of like usually four, two guys, two girls, and they do vacation Bible school all over the diocese. So I met with our team. We got trained all last week, and they asked me this question.

It's very important question. Father Mike, what is your opinion on practical jokes? It's a very important question because we need to establish right up front that I hate practical jokes with the fire of a thousand sons like just there's no there's never a good end to practical jokes

here's the thing because all they do all practical jokes ever do is they make you late they make a mess and they make you have something to do and you typically because of the same thing right back till jokes will make a mess

therefore you have a chore and now you're late. And that's the thing. The other thing practical jokes do is they escalate. And I've lived that, I've lived that life. I lived the prank life and the prank life is not for me. When I was in college, the guys in my dorm, our apartment, we had this prank war with the guys who lived in the next dorm over. And it was benign at first.

And at first we started pranking each other because we were friends. Here's the thing. We didn't stay friends. Because that's the thing. You start pranking friends, and then you end up becoming, you end up cranking your enemies. Why? Because the whole thing is they escalate. Now I'm not going into the details about it,

but just so you know, the last prank involved one of the two of the groups. How would I say this delicately? Urinating all over our door. in the winter, and telling us about it two months later. So, we call the truce. No, that's the thing, you call it truce. When things get that serious, then you're like, okay, truce ceasefire.

That's the whole deal, right? Because now, again, we're not friends anymore. You think we're friends. We're no longer friends. We are what they call enemies. That's what we are now. Because things escalate to a point where it's like, okay, all we can do now is all we can do is call a truce. And now here's an interesting thing I think about truces

is when you call a truce, it's just, all it is all it is a C-spire. You don't trust the people you just call the truce with. So you're always like, what did they do this time? You're walking home and like, okay, are they going to do something next? Because sometimes our experience with truce is not they lead to trust. It simply means it's an absence of violence. What I want to talk about this morning, this afternoon, today, on Pentecost Sunday.

I'm going to talk about peace. I want to talk about the truth that God is declared with us. And here's the interesting thing. Like on Pentecost Sunday, all of the things we could talk about. Like the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit himself being poured out to renew the face of the earth, the Holy Spirit of adoption that makes us cry out Abba Father, that we are God's sons and daughters,

the Holy Spirit of power and of love and self-control. There are so many gifts of the Holy Spirit, the gift of healing, the prophecy, that is alive today. All of these gifts we could talk about forever. but there is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. First one is love. The next one is joy, but the third fruit is peace. To recognize that the gift, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, is peace.

And if you were to ask me, I would say that peace is the most underrated fruit of the Holy Spirit we could possibly imagine. In fact, I would call it the nuclear power of the Holy Spirit's gift of people. peace. It's almost unimaginable. I don't think we understand it, because we understand, typically we understand peace as simply an absence of conflict. Peace is simply an absence of violence. Peace is like an absence of the bad thing. It's the ceasefire. We call the truce. And on one hand, that is actually true. We call the truth because we were enemies. And this actually is the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is actually true. I don't know if you realize, if we show up here, realizing that until Christ came, as it says St. Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians,

he says, until Christ came, we were without hope and without God in the world. In fact, as he writes in the letter to the Romans, he says, we were his enemies. We were his enemies. You and I are born into this world enemies of God. Until Christ came, all humanity had an enmity with God. that God made us his beloved creatures, and we made ourselves his enemy. And it's only by what Jesus did on the cross that we're... He calls the truce. In fact, it's only by the power of the cross that Jesus can send us the power of the Holy Spirit. I wonder his first words to his disciples today.

He shows up and it says in John's Gospel, he said to them, peace. This is so important. And if we don't know how important this is, then we don't know how big of enemies we were. to the Lord. Again, he made us his beloved creatures. We made ourselves as enemies, and then we killed him. And what are his first words? Jesus comes back after everything he did for us. And he says, his first words, I'm not your enemy. His first words, I'm not your enemy. I made you my beloved creatures. You made me your enemy. Peace. And he calls this truce. In fact, St. Paul says he describes us. He says, he broke down the enmity that was between us and him,

that it was the Holy Spirit. That the presence of the Holy Spirit in us is Jesus saying, all those who have my spirit belong to me. Think about this. Pentecost, all those who have my spirit belong to me. Those who don't have my spirit remain my enemies. This is the bad news. This is the sad news, that all those who don't have my spirit remain my enemies.

but all those who have been given the Spirit's gift, you're no longer my enemies. And he calls a truce. But the great thing is this, that we realize that biblically speaking, that peace is not simply the absence of conflict, it's not simply a ceasefire, the peace is something more. It's not just the absence of tension,

not the absence of conflict. Peace is the presence and the possession of every good thing that we need. another way, say it like this. Peace is having what Jesus has. Peace is being in stable possession of what Jesus has.

Think of it this way. Jesus knows what he needs. He has what he needs. And he knows he has what he needs. In John chapter 14, what does Jesus say to his disciples? And this is his last supper. And he looks at his disciples and he says, peace I leave you.

My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give my peace? It's a whole different thing. Well, I'm giving you my peace. So we have to have to ask the question. What does Jesus' peace look like? Jesus' peace is this. He knows what he needs.

He has what he needs, and he knows he has what he needs. That last part is so important. Because you might know what you need, and you might have what you need, but you might forget that you have what you need. But if you're going to have the peace of Jesus, what does it look like? It looks like being at the last supper, knowing that this is my last meal, knowing that this is the last time I'm going to see my friends, knowing that after this, my friends will betray me, they will abandon me, they will leave me, and still saying, I no longer call you slaves, I call you friends. And this is the kind of thing where Jesus has this, I know what I need, I have what I need, and I know I have what I need.

And he says, my peace, this reality, I give it to you. This is what I want you to have as well. What's another word for that? Trust. Another word for peace is trust. Here's Jesus in the midst of the Garden of Githemite, in agony, truly suffering. I know what I need, I have what I need, and I know I have what I need. The Spirit's gift of peace, that same gift, that same peace is what Jesus wants for you. Question. How many of some, when we pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit, we pray for the presence of the Holy Spirit, when we pray for the power of the Holy Spirit, how many of us are asking for, God, give me more trust?

When we're praying for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our teens, on the people we love, how many of us are actually saying, God, help me to know what I need, give me what I need, and let me know that I have what I need. Because the Spirit's gift, the fruit of the Spirit, is peace. And that peace is trust. I absolutely trust the Father. In fact, when you receive the Holy Spirit, Paul writes this in his letter to the Ephesians in chapter 2,

to a people that he says, before you knew Christ, you were without hope, you were without God in the world, there was no way in the world you would ever trust God. He says this, for Jesus is our peace. Jesus is our peace. He who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, enemies, we were enemies of God through his flesh.

Abolishing the law with his commandments and his legal claims that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, thus establishing peace and might reconcile both with God. Because this truce is not just a ceasefire. Reconciliation. It's not just let's not hurt each other. It's now we now trust each other. This is the Holy Spirit that he gave to you.

It's a question, do you trust the Father? I sometimes think we say we do, but the gift of the Spirit is this peace. The gift of the Spirit is this trust. And he goes on, St. Paul goes on, it's so good. He says, reconcile us with God through the cross, putting that enmity to death by it. And this is so important. His last line, Ephesians 2, 17, and 18. Jesus came and he preached, peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who are near. Through him, we both have access in one spirit to the Father. This is the last thing. The Spirit's gift of peace does what? It means we can trust God.

But when you have the Spirit, you have this other thing that St. Paul says right here. Through Him, we both have access in one spirit to the Father. What does the gift that Pentecost do? Jesus gives us His peace, which means his trust in the Father. That means in the midst of suffering, we can still say, I know what I need, I have what I need, and I know I have what I need. but also we have something even more. We have access to the Father.

When you've been given the Holy Spirit of God, you have access to the Father. You can trust the Father, you have access to him. So when I was growing up, my dad was an orthopedic surgeon. And so he had a clinic about a mile from my home, home, house. It wasn't my. I didn't know on it. I had a room.

And so whenever we were hurt or something, he'd say, okay, coming up to the clinic and get an X-ray. X-rays must be inexpensive, I guess, when you don't have to pay for him. And here's the thing is my dad's clinic. So I actually, I've been in a waiting room three times in my life because I was out of town and needed to go to the hospital or to the clinic. But when I go to the clinic, my dad's clinic, I walk in the back door, walk up to the x-ray lady

and say, hey, hi, my dad wants me to get an x-ray at my leg. Okay, sure, hop on the table. My dad would, I need stitches. So come on up, walk in the back door. Hey, my dad says I need stitches from my arm. Okay, go in that room. I need anything. Walk in the back door.

There's no waiting room. In fact, one of the most frustrating things in my life was, well, I'll get that in a second. But this is the reality. I have access to my dad. I don't need to wait in a waiting room. I have access to my dad. If you have the Holy Spirit, if the Father's adopted you, you have the Spirit of God that lets you cry out, Abba, Father, Dad, then why do you and I live in a way?

waiting room. After my dad retired, my sister, older sister became one of his partners before he retired, then he retired, then she was still his partner. And so I went up to the clinic because I needed some medical attention. That's one of the three times. I was in a waiting room. It was a situation where I'm like, well, I don't know, I don't know the rules now because maybe I lost it. Maybe, you know, I'm no longer family. I mean, I am family, but I'm not the son of the dad, I'm the brother of the sister. I don't know what the rules are now. And they went in the waiting room like an idiot until my sister came out, she's like, what are you doing here? Just come back in. I'm like, well, I don't know. No one knows me here.

She's like, you don't need to wait in the waiting room. Your family. You do not need to wait in the waiting room. Your family. It's a question. Where do you live? Do you live in the father's house, knowing that you can trust him, or do you live in the waiting room? Well, now, I used to be able to go right to the father's house, but I messed up stuff so bad. the Lord comes out and is like, what did you do not hear? Just come back in. The Spirit's gift is peace.

And not any peace. The peace of Jesus, who completely trusts his dad and has absolute access to his dad's heart. That's the thing that Jesus says, that peace is yours. The peace belongs to you. in this Mass and for the rest of this conference,

for the rest of the summer, for the rest of your life until the end of this life, and you get to go to the Father's house and have access, live knowing that Christ has declared a truce by the power of his cross, not merely an absence of conflict, not merely a ceasefire, but a truce that says you can trust your dad because you know what you need.

You have what you need, and you know that you have what you need. Access to the Father in one spirit. So why wait?