Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 06/26/22 The Call

Episode Date: June 27, 2022

Homily from the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Deliberate. Decisive. Definitive. God continues to call. God calls us to follow Him, making it clear that being a disciple is challenging...that it costs something. Therefore, we need to weigh out our response, we need to avoid hesitation, and we need to choose to follow Jesus in such a way that it actually changes something in our lives. Mass Readings from June 26, 2022: 1 Kings 19:16, 19-21 Psalms 16:1-2, 5, 7-11Galatians 5:1, 13-18 Luke 9:51-62

So for like a big part of my life, I've been relatively interested in polar exploration, like journeying, especially journeying to the South Pole. I think it's probably because I rolled Amundsen as the first person to make it to the South South Pole, and my mom's maiden name is Amundsen. And I was like, okay, that's a connection. He got there on my birthday, I mean, different year, but same thing, you know. And I was like, okay, I have this kind of connection. Also, northern Minnesota, I'm ready to polar explore.

Like, this is the kind of thing. And so you have people like Roald Amundsen. You have people like Ernest Shackleton. I don't know if you've ever read any of those stories about like, so Roald Amundsen, he planned out his trip really, really well. Everyone made it back alive. Shackleton, kind of different. But there's a story, this kind of legend,

a story that's become legend about Chackleton. He was planning one of these polar explorations all the way down to Antarctica. And the legend is that at one point he took out this advertisement in a London newspaper to recruit people to come with him to the South Pole. And the advertisement said this. He said this. Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness, safe return doubtful,

honor and recognition in event of success. That's all it was. And they say that in response to that ad, hundreds, if not thousands of men showed up, that the line for application wrapped around the city block. in London. Because there it was, you know, it was obviously, this is difficult, but it's also kind of inspiring, isn't it? It's kind of, it's very daunting. But because it's daunting, who does it attract? It attracts the dauntless. That there's a sense of like, here is this opportunity, here is this chance. Here, in some ways you could say, Ernest Shackleton was throwing out this call.

He was throwing out this invitation, and that's one of the things. Invitation always requires some kind of response. And I'm thinking about that a lot. Lately this one. weekend especially. I don't know if you know this in the Diocese of Duluth this last Friday. We ordained two of our seminarians. They're now priests in our diocese. So good. Yesterday, down in New Ulm, one of our UMD graduates, she just made her final vows down with the handmaids of the heart of Jesus. And so it's just so incredible to realize that this weekend, and also we have the first reading, the call of Elisha from Elijah to be one of the prophets of God. Or even in the gospel today. You have this call that Jesus throws out there to these people who are walking along

with them. Come follow me. And they're so hesitant. And yet, this weekend, from Shackleton's legendary journey and advertisement to the gospel, the invitation is clear. And the invitation is going to be a challenge. Because, I mean, we think about it. Elijah, first reading. Elijah's called him to be a prophet and Elisha knows the deal. To be a prophet is not to be called to an easy life. To be a prophet is, here's the thing. When you're called to be a prophet, you end up, no one likes you. This is just how the Bible goes. And I imagine Elisha knows this. You're called to be a prophet. You will not make friends as a prophet. Like zero, maybe one friend. But other than that, it's an incredible life, but it's not an easy life. And same thing is true with Jesus in

the gospel, right? We makes it clear. Come follow me. But here's the thing. The son of man has no place to lay his head. It is a clear call, but no one is soft peddling this. Like no one is, this isn't, this isn't a bait and switch kind of situation. And because of this, everyone who's called, what do we need to do? Well, the first thing we need to do is we need to deliberate. Like, I mean, what I mean is we need to weigh it out. We need to ask the questions. Do I want this? Is this worth it? What's my answer? because it's going to be tough. It's going to change your life.

At the same time, we say, but it's Elijah, I mean, for crying out loud, the greatest prophet of all time. We say, but it's Jesus. He's the one who's calling. So yes, we need to deliberate, but we also need to answer. You know, whenever we realize that God is that God is calling us to do something, I think sometimes some of us can kind of panic a little bit. And as I mentioned, I don't know if I mentioned this, but I'm the director of youth ministry for our dioces.

So I work with a lot of teens, and I'm also the chaplain at UMD, so I work with a lot of young adults. And a lot of times I can see them panicking when it's like, what does God want me to do? This is the big question that so many of them are asking, what does God want me to do? How do I know what Jesus is calling me to do?

And I totally get that. Like a big part of my life was trying to figure out what does God want me to do. One of the things all of us need to realize because here's the thing. Being called by Jesus is not just for young people. If it were, you might as well die. That was kind of funnier than I think you responded.

I mean, but maybe you're sitting there going like, yeah, you're right. I don't know, it's kind of serious. But it's true because here's the thing. If God didn't have a plan for your life now, it would be over already. I don't care how young or how old you are. If God didn't have a call in your life right now, you wouldn't be breathing. So it's like, oh, yeah, yeah. Well, Father, talk to the young kids right now this morning about this.

No, this is for every single one of us. Because if God wasn't calling you to take some step forward, you wouldn't be here. But remember, so if you find, like, oh, shoot, now what do I do? What is he calling me to? I don't know. We can get stressed out. We can panic. And one of the things we need to understand is this, is God always speaks in clarity.

If he's ever calling you to take a step forward, that's out of the, on the rails where you're all right now, He always speaks in clarity. What I mean by that is, if you don't know what God is calling you to do next, simply be at peace. Why? Because God is never inviting you to answer a question he has not yet asked. Like, what do I do? If he hasn't asked you specifically, clearly, God is never waiting for you to answer a question that he hasn't asked. So we just simply keep listening.

We simply keep talking, knowing that he will speak clearly. but at the same time, when we've been asked, then we need to act. When we've been asked, we need to deliberate, and then we need to ask. And here's the thing, the Gospels, that invitation, when Jesus was speaking so clearly, what was he met with? He was met with hesitation. When it was so clear, come follow me, he was met with hesitation. But after we deliberate, after we ponder this whole thing, we need to be decisive. It reminds me of a student we had at UMD.

a bunch of years back. He was raised Catholic, but not really, I mean, he was away from the church. And at one point, it was right before the school year started at the end of the summer, and he came up to Duluth, and we hadn't started a mass on campus yet. And so one of his friends, she said, hey, Paul, would you come with me to Mass at the cathedral? He's like, sure, all the way down, she's driving him. And she says, oh, by the way, if you're not a practicing Catholic, you can't receive communion, you have to get a blessing.

He's like, oh, no, no, I'm Catholic. She's like, yeah, but you haven't been going to Mass, so you're not really a practicing Catholic. And he was like, what the? He was so offended. You know, he was like, so what's a practicing Catholic? And she's like, I don't know. That's what our priest says.

Talk to him. So Paul contacts me. He was like, I want to talk to you about this. And so we met. He's like, so what's a practicing Catholic? So we went through this whole thing. And in the course of multiple conversations, Paul had this encounter with Jesus that changed everything in his life.

And he joined a Bible study. He was in discipleship with one of our focused missionaries. Like he just grew. And that was so pumped, not only because here's this man who had been baptized Catholic, but had not been living this. He didn't know the gift God had for him. But also, Paul, how I say this, the first couple of years of his being on campus at UMD, we didn't travel the same circles. He had a lot of friends that I have never seen. And I was so excited because now he's in discipleship. He's going to be a missionary the next year on our campus. And I'm like,

you're going to be able to reach out to all these people who never come to church, who would never even think about coming to church. I was so excited for him to come back the next year to campus. That was a whole plan. In the middle of the middle of the people, the summer, he calls me and he says, Father, I've got great news. What is it? He said, I've applied to go to the seminary, and that's where I'm going to go next year. I remember internally thinking, I should be happy. But I was so bummed because I'm like, no, we need you back on campus. I didn't say that because, you know, I lose my job. But the missionary who is discipling him actually said this, and he's like, he said, Paul, can't you just wait a year? Can you just, you know, do this

your last year at UMD, and then go to seminary. And Paul said something so profound. He said, I could, but delayed obedience is disobedience. Yeah, I could put it off, but I know that Jesus is calling me now. And so delayed obedience is disobedience. You know, in the gospel, you have all these people who want to say yes to Jesus. But what they actually say is, yes, later. I want to follow you, but later. And we realize that. Sometimes life is like this, right? Sometimes

life is. I could do it now or I could do it later. Mowing the lawn. No problem. You can do it now or you can do it later. But there are also so many times in our lives when now or later actually means now or never that when I'm asked, I need to act. Or else it's just a wish. When I'm an asked, I need to, even more than just even saying, saying I want to do this thing. In fact, I read about studies on goal setting. One of the things people talk about goal setting is like, hey, if you have a goal, write it down, and then share with people. Tell people that you want to run a marathon one day, or tell people you want to write a book one day, tell people you want to, whatever the thing is, whatever the goal is. Well, it's really interesting because that was the common thought

was write it down and then share with people because they're going to hold you accountable. They did some research. In fact, there's a man named Peter Goldwitzer. He's a psychologist out of NYU. you. He did this research, this study on people about goal setting and accomplishing goals. What he invited people to do was write down a goal. And then I'm going to give you 45 minutes to work towards that goal. And you can stop whenever you want to, or you can work the full 45 minutes. Half the group, he said, write down the goal and then share it and then work on it for 45 minutes. The other group, he said, write down the goal, don't share it, just start working on the goal. He said, those people who didn't share it, they not only worked for the entire 45 minutes.

When 45 minutes were over, they said, I have so much more to do now. Those who shared their goal that they'd written down, the average time they quit working on it was 33 minutes, and they thought, I'm more or less done. And he found out that he discovered that when you share your goal, it feels like you accomplish the goal. When you just say you want to do the thing, it feels like you've got to get the reward of actually having done the thing. When you tell people, like, yeah, next summer, I'm going to run Grandma's Marathon. You're like, I pretty much did it already, so I don't even have to train. I'm exaggerating, obviously.

But here's the crazy thing, is that can happen to us, even if we really want it. Even if we really want this thing, we can still say now or later, which means now or never. There's a story in the Book of Exodus. You probably know the story of the ten plagues that happen, right? Yeah, you know this one. Okay. So here's Moses. Comes along, all these plagues are happening.

One of the plagues is very fascinating. It's the plague of frogs. And in the book of Exodus, it describes, like, where the frogs were. They weren't just near the river. They weren't just in the streets. They weren't just in poor people's homes. In fact, it says that the frogs made it all the way into Pharaoh's home, into Pharaoh's very bed.

So, imagine this. Pharaoh's crawling into bed, and every night he has to get the frogs out of his bed. I would never sleep again. and at one point he calls Moses before him and he says Moses get rid of these frogs and Moses says okay sure fine no I'll do it and he asks him the question he says when when do you want me to get rid of these frogs for you and the answer Pharaoh gives boggles my mind because he says tomorrow it's so stupid it's like now how about yesterday how about last week he really wants this but we'll do it tomorrow.

You know, sometimes now or later becomes now or never. And sometimes we have a reason for later, right? I mean, sometimes in the gospel today, these people Jesus calls, they had a reason for later. Let me go bury my father. Let me say goodbye to my family. Those are good things to do. But Jesus was calling them to something better.

They had something good to do. Jesus was calling them to something better. Because the question, how often do we place the good above the best? How often do we use family as our excuse not to follow Jesus? Well, you know, we're on vacation and I don't really want to rock the boat and they're going to be mad at us if we have to go to Mass on Sunday and like all these kind of things. Like how often do we use good things as an excuse to not do the best things? Or me because we're afraid.

I'm afraid to say us to Jesus. I'm afraid to see us to him with my whole life because what is he going to change? In fact, so over the course of the summer, typically I do a bunch of summer youth conference. And at the end of some of these conferences on Sunday morning, we have like a vocation call. The idea that, hey, young ladies, young men, if over the course of this weekend, you might have the sense that God's calling you to be a religious sister or maybe be a priest or even just check it out. You know, come forward and we'll pray with you.

So one of the things I always say to the guys is because I, oh gosh, you guys, I've come back with so many young men who are like, yes, maybe Jesus is calling me to be a priest, or at least just to check out the seminary or pray about it, and then they never pray again. and the reason, we talk about it, and the reason they'll say, well, because I just have the sense that, like if I start praying, then Jesus is going to make me be a priest. Again, stupid. No, no, no. Because they're like, because I want to be a husband, I want to be a father, I don't want to have this, like, awful life of being a priest. So this is when I love this because we always have husbands

and dads who are chaperones at these events. And so there's hundreds of, and dads who were there. So I say, okay, man, they're standing in front of me. Behind me are all these priests. Behind them. I say, husbands and dads, just stand up for a second. And all these dads stand up. Everyone's like, yeah, dads. I'm like, yes. I say, okay, husbands and fathers, do you love your vocation as a husband? Yes. Do you love your vocation as a dad? Yes. Do you love being a dad and having your sons and daughters? They're like, yes, it's so good. It's a great vocation. Then I ask them the question, is it really, really hard? Yes. Do you have to die to yourself every single day as a father?

Yes. Is it sometimes so difficult you wish, you know, something we're different? No, you know, they don't want to admit that. But, you know, so point out to these young men, okay, here's the deal. You can either be one of these fathers, spiritual fathers, the priests, or you can be one of these fathers, the biological or adoptive fathers, these other men. If you be a priest, you have to die. To be a dad, you have to die.

So the call is the same. Pick your poison. The call is follow Jesus and die to yourself. Because that's all of our call. This is not about being a priest, not about being a religious sister. It's the call to be a Christian, right?

It's the call to be a disciple. It's the call to be someone who belongs to Jesus because that's Jesus as call today. It's not, hey, go, come be a priest, come be a sister. It's come follow me. This is the thing. The call for all of us this morning

is come follow me. But too many of us, maybe this is too many of us, we've settled into what you might call a cultural Catholicism or a comfortable Catholicism. I sometimes find students like this, where, again, they were baptized Catholic, and at one point they come to campus and they encounter Jesus. Like this is really who Jesus is, this is really the church he founded, and their lives are changed.

And they go to start praying on a regular basis, maybe they start going to daily Mass even, and they go back home and their parents are freaked out. In fact, I remember this one young woman. her dad was so opposed to her praying on a regular basis. Her dad was like opposed to her going to mass more than just Sunday. In fact, her going to mass on Sunday bothered him. And at one point after talking with him about it and after like trying to reason with him about it, she kind of like said, she said, listen, you're so upset, but you did this to me.

She said, you got me baptized. You made God my father and made me into a daughter of God. And now when I finally experienced what it really is like to live the joy of following after Jesus, the joy being a daughter of God, you're upset, but it's your fault. See, so many of us, again, we have to realize Jesus did not come, live on this earth, suffer on this earth, die and rise from the dead so we could be cultural or comfortable Catholics. He came that we might have life and have it to the full. Have it to the full. But I think most of us, we have our old lives with just like a dash of

Jesus. I live my life with just a splash of Christ. So what does it look like to have, to deliberate, to be decisive, and then to be changed, I think it looks like this third thing. It's the last thing. It means we made a definitive choice. So we've taken that time to deliberate. We've been decisive, but then it means making a definitive choice. It's not abstract. It's not abstract. It's concrete. It's not a thought. It's an act. It's not internal. It's measurable. So the verse reading today, what does Elisha do? He doesn't say, yeah, I feel like I'm following me, Elijah. He takes the 12 yoke of oxen, slaughters them, and burns the tools for plowing. He can't go back. He's made a definitive choice. When the disciples, if they were say yes to Jesus, what did that

look like? Didn't just look like they had a feeling they were following Jesus. They literally got up and started following after Jesus. meant that in the morning they wake up and look across the burned out fire and be like, Jesus, good morning. Where are we going today? And the same is true for us. Every single one of us. We hear Jesus' voice.

We deliberate. We're decisive, but we need to be definitive. And here's the, how do you measure this? How do we know if I'm actually following Jesus? What is it to be a disciple? I would say, I'm going to make it as simple as possible. As simple as possible. What is a disciple?

Something has to change in our lives. We have things, we have our attention, we have our tithe, we have our time. Let's focus on one, time. Here's the measure of a disciple when it comes to time. A disciple is someone who has changed their schedule in order to get closer to Jesus. That's it.

We'll start there, this week. A disciple is someone who's changed their schedule in order to get closer to Jesus. Because if I haven't changed my schedule, then I haven't changed my life. If Jesus is not on my calendar, then is he really in my life? If Jesus hasn't affected my day to day living, then how in the world can I have a life that is abundant? So that's the invitation this week. The invitation is to be a disciple, to deliberate, to be decisive, but also. to make a definitive decision and that simple yet practical intangible definitive

decision is how will I change my schedule this week in order to get closer to Jesus how I change my schedule this week so I can be a disciple of Christ