Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 07/10/22 Simple Things First

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

Homily from the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. I can know all I need to know and still not do all I need to do. There are so many things that we know that we ought to do. There are even things that we know that we want to do. And yet...we just can't seem to act on what we know. How do we start? How do we become people who do what we know we ought to do? Mass Readings from July 10, 2022: Deuteronomy 30:10-14 Psalms 69:14, 17, 30-31, 33-34, 36-37Colossians 1:15-20 Luke 10:25-37

So I came across this study from the Pew Research Center that said that when it comes to our smartphones The average human being the average American touches their smartphone 2,617 times a day Which is a lot. It's like it's so many two times I'm thinking about that touch your smartphone 2,617 times a day so it was so many that I like went to do more research on it not research I read more articles on it and I guess research for me and someone said that this article I read said well if you did that that would mean you touched your smartphone 100 times an hour, over more than 100 times an hour for 24 hours straight. So, like, it would be 2.4 times per minute per hour in a 24-hour period.

That's how many times you have to touch it. So it might not be exactly. So it might be the researchers. They were thinking they were encountering like every time you tap your phone might be a touch. I don't know. But nonetheless, I think the fact that we know is that we spend a lot of time on our screens. In fact, there was another study that is completely accurate because everyone says big brother's watching. so they know what time we're on our screens.

And the average, worldwide average, for people on screens, is six hours and 47 minutes a day. So across the world, the average is, every single day, six hours and 47 minutes, with about half of that being on your phone. In America, it's a little bit more, where seven hours and four minutes,

again, with about half of that being on our phone, and two of those, two hours and 14 minutes of those hours being on social media, which is, I know, we know it's bad. We're not the worst. That's actually good to know. South Africa, They spend an average, an average, every single day of 10 hours and 47 minutes on their phone, almost 11 hours, or on screens, almost 11 hours every day.

What that means? That means if a person got eight hours of sleep a night, which if they did, wow, that's impressive. But if a person got eight hours of sleep a night in America, 44% of your waking hours would be on a screen. In South Africa, if you got eight hours asleep, 70% of your waking hours would be on a screen. which is just it's bonkers. And so, again, we talk about that. And I think the upshot is, like, something needs to change, to which we all would say, I know, right?

I mean, it's not like, it's not that we don't know that. In fact, that's almost with everything, right, when it comes like, you know, you guys, we need to get more rest. Like, I know. You guys, we need to get outside more and just, you know, be in nature. I know. Yes, we really need to stop eating processed foods,

eat healthier. I know. We really need to move more. I know. We need to spend more time with your family. I know. And if you're a Christian, it's even more stuff, right? It's like, okay, we need to read our Bibles more.

I know. We need to pray more. I know. You need to serve more. Last week, we talked about the goal of life is to be a saint. Like, what else is there? That was the thrust of the whole deal. We can get to the end of that and say, yeah, I know.

Like, tell me, you're not telling me anything that I don't already know. Which brings us to today's gospel, right? Here's the scholar of the law. He comes to Jesus. And he knows the goal, the goal to be a saint. He wants to inherit eternal life. that's what it is to be a saint, to get to heaven, basically. And he asks Jesus the question, how do you do it?

What must I do to inherit eternal life? What must I do to become a saint? And Jesus is great, right? Jesus asks him the question, well, you know the law. How do you read it? And the guy says, well, love the Lord your God with basically everything you've got and love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus is like, good answer.

Yes, awesome. The guy, he already knows. So, question, what's the problem? because he already knows exactly what he needs to do to become a saint, to inherit eternal life, what's the problem? See, let's pause in this for a second. Because I think as human beings, we do a really, really good job of complicating things. That's not to say life isn't complex.

It's not to say that sometimes we don't really legitimately know what God wants us to do when it comes to like vocation. There are people like, I don't know. When it comes to like, do I stand up here, do I draw a line here? Do I speak here? How do I speak in love? Like, how do I love people around me? Sometimes we literally don't know, but there are other times when we absolutely do know what God wants us to do.

Like there's other times where it's like, okay, they'll go to Sunday Mass or do we, you know, sacrifice Mass and go to the soccer tournament? You know, go to Mass. I really want to gossip and I know I'm not supposed to say gossip. What do I do? Zip it. You know, I'm attracted to someone other than my spouse. What do I do? Stay away from them.

Like it's, it's, we complicate things. When it's just so clear, we just, simple things first. Like when it comes to life, just do the simple things first. So what does God want me to do? I love the first reading today from Deuteronomy chapter 30. Here's Moses in Deuteronomy. And he's saying to the people, he says, if only you would heed the voice of the Lord and keep his commandments.

And he goes on to say that these commandments, like what God wants for you, it's not too distant from you. It's not remote from you. It goes on. You don't have to go to the mountains to find it. You don't have to go across the ocean to find it. It's near you. It's in the depths of your hearts.

It's in your minds. Basically, Moses is saying, when it comes to what God wants you to do, you already know. But then Moses drops the bomb. And he says, you have only to carry it out. Oh, is that all? Great.

That's the problem. See, the thing is, like, we all know this. That part, that's the hard part. Like in so many of our areas of our lives, we already know. We already know exactly what we need to do. Our problem is I can know all that I need to know and still not do all that I need to do. So yeah, Moses can say, you have only to carry it out. That's the part that's so tough.

But also we know this. That's the part that matters. Because we all know, right? We know that we're surrounded in this world by so many heroic men and women, like in this world, and so many heroic men and women in the church. And while they all have varying starting points, they all varying circumstances and different skills and different strengths, also these heroic people

that you can read about, these hear about on a daily basis, they have different obstacles, they have different struggles, they have different challenges. But all of them are united in at least one thing. All of them could have stopped, but they didn't. All of them could have turned around, but they didn't. All of them have this one thing in common

that you and I absolutely need. And you might call it like this. You may call it integrity in the moment of choice. Because just like them, we know exactly what we need to do more often than not. What we need is what they have, which is integrity in the moment of choice. Because how often do we find ourselves there? Like, okay, I know what I need to do. Like, I know what God asks of me.

I know what I said I would do. And we realize, okay, I have only to carry it out. I have only to do it. I intend to. But we know this. intention is nothing without action. I have the greatest plan in the world, but that plan is nothing unless I execute on it. That's what, so I have to hesitate, I hesitate to use this example, but keeps coming back up and my

reflection on this and I'm just like, okay, so we had the national distraction in the end of spring, beginning of summer of the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial. So we all got distracted at this and it fed our voyeur's sick tendencies that are just so bad. But at one point during the trial, there was this question about, of Amber Heard. So when she, She and Johnny Depp got divorced. She was awarded $7 million. And so right after this, she pledged to give half of that $3.5 million to the ACLU. And so in the cross-examination, the lawyer was asking Amber Hurd, like, have you donated that

money? She said, yes, I've donated that money, but she says, the lawyer was saying, you haven't donated any of it. In fact, I guess there's $1.2 million that's been given. I don't know, more money than I've ever given. Nonetheless, she's saying, you didn't give the money. And Eber Hurd was saying, no, no, I have. I pledged it.

I pledged to give it. Like I made a plan to give it. And the lawyer was saying, but you haven't given it, though. And Amber Heard was saying, yeah, but I pledged it. It's the same thing. And I remember thinking, like, this is ridiculous. Because she was saying, for me, a pledge and a donation and actually giving it, it's all the same thing. And first, I was struck by two things.

One was, I should stop watching. Like, I just, it was really clear. Like, I, why do I? I don't need this. I don't need to, like, take pleasure in someone else's pain. Like, that's nothing us as Christians need to do. The second thing I was struck by was like, oh, shoot, that's me. Like, you know, kind of laughing at her.

Like, oh, I pledged it. It's the same thing as giving it. No, it's not. But I think, how many times have I known? Like, this is what I have to do. Like, if I want to be there on time, I have to leave now. Or I said it was going to get up really early. My alarm's going off.

That's now. Or I want to eat healthy. And yes, I understand that baby carrots and Cheetos are roughly the same shape, and they're both orange, and they both crunch when you eat them, but they're not the same thing. I know this, and I have an intention. My intention is, okay, I'm going to act on this.

That's the plan. And then I stop. Like, I know, sweet. I have an intention, great. I have a plan. It feels good. But then in the moment of action, in the moment of decision,

I don't act. I don't decide. Because here's what I think. I think probably what Amber Hurd said. I might need this later. I'll pledge it. I intend to give this when things are different. And that's me.

This is not about her. This is completely about me. Like when it comes to having, I know what I need to do. And I have an intention, a plan to do it. I don't do it. I come up with an excuse. And I think this is, again, it's not just me. It goes back to the gospel.

Here is the scholar. Asked Jesus, how do I inherit the kingdom of God? Two great commandments. Second one is love your neighbor as yourself. So he asks the question. And who is my neighbor? Now, in the scholar's defense, he might have just been asking who is my neighbor to clarify things. Like, just he wants a definition.

Like, where does neighbor start? Where does neighbor stop? I want to know who I need to love. He could have been simply asking that question to define it. But if he was anything like me, he might have been asking that question to delay, having to act. Because he just maybe looking for an excuse. Again, I think one of my spiritual gifts is making excuses. I think there's something good about excuses.

Not like making excuses or avoiding things because of excuses, but when you notice that you've made an excuse, I gave across this quote from Dr. Peter Craft, he's a professor of philosophy of Boston College. I think he might be recently retired. But Dr. Crave said this. He says about excuses. He says, when you start making excuses,

that proves that the time has come for you to do the thing you're making excuses for. And that hit me hard. When you start making excuses, that proves that the time has come for you to do the thing that you're making excuses for. And then any one of us, every one of us can find ourselves in that place. I know all I need to know, and I still don't do what I need to do. There's a kind of a case study in the Bible of someone who's like this, who knows everything. In fact, there's a lot of people in the Bible who are in this exact situation as you and I.

But there's one person in particular. this person is virtually known in the whole world, not just in the Bible, knew more than this person. And yet there are very few people who ended in disaster worse than this person. So go back to ancient Israel. You have the first king of Israel, King Saul, right? Then you have King David who unites all the 12 tribes of Israel, one united kingdom. David has a bunch of kids, a bunch of sons. One of those sons is going to be the heir, going to be the king, and that's King Solomon.

And you might remember the story, right? David's died and Solomon's in prayer. And Solomon, God appears to Solomon and says, Solomon, what do you want? Like, what can I give you? And Solomon says, I'm young. I don't know how to run a country. I don't know how to run a kingdom.

So give me wisdom. And God responds, like, hey, good answer. I like the way you think. And he says, because you've asked for wisdom, not for a long life, not for the life of your enemies, not for wealth and riches, I give you this wisdom. In fact, scripture says,

God gave Solomon great wisdom, discernment, and breadth of understanding as fast as the sand in the seashore, that's First Kings chapter four. It's just like he starts out amazingly well. And he lives it, right? Solomon wrote 3,000 proverbs. Like, here's how you should live, and here's how to live really well.

He wrote 105,0005 songs like Psalms. He amassed incredible wealth. He built the temple. People will come from all over the place just to listen to the practical wisdom. He knew so much about the world, about people, about relationships. In fact, there's a story about how the Queen of Shiba

came to visit King Solomon. It describes her visit, and it says this, it says, When the Queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon, the palace he had built, the food and his table, the seating of his officials, his attending servants, cup bearers, she was breathless. Because I always just imagine this and being like, her fanning herself, like, oh, you're going on and on about mathematics

and about trade policies, give me the vapors right now. That's what I always imagine. Because Queen of Sheepa is just from the south, so she had an accent. But the obvious part is this. Solomon had the truth. He knew what to do. He started so well, and it ended in disaster. Why?

How did that happen? Well, 1 Kings 11, first line says this. When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart to other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord, his God. Disaster. Now, for us, like the fact that Solomon turned to other gods, we live in a 21st century Western pluralistic culture, like, well, that's not that bad.

There's almost nothing wrong. Almost nothing worse. First, because when you know, to not do is really serious. Secondly, it wasn't just like Solomon switched churches. Solomon not only built the temple and worshipped the Lord God, he also built other temples to other foreign gods. The god of the Ammonites was a god named Molok. And Sullivan worshipped there. Part of worship of Molok was child sacrifice. here's Solomon who knows exactly what to do, and here he is doing exactly what he's been prohibited to do. How did it get that bad? I think there's at least two reasons, maybe three. One is Solomon had 300 wives and 700 concubines. Now, go back to the beginning, the first chapter

of the Bible talks about, listen, here's how it goes. One man, one woman, that's it. No more. He knew that. You know, I think it's so interesting when it's comes to relationships. It doesn't have to be about wives and husbands, just relationships. It wasn't as if Solomon came upon like new arguments against the Lord God or new evidence against the Lord God. He still knew everything with his head. He just followed his heart. And I think one of the reasons why Solomon is still so relevant to us is because I work with high school students and college students and people just recently graduated from college. And that's one of the things like so many of them have encountered Jesus. They know the truth about

Jesus, but then they get into a relationship, and that relationship just leads them further and further away from Christ. Or they have new friends, and it's just like those friendships, those relationships, they just lead them further and further away from the church. See it's so often where I know this, but I don't do this. You know, it's so important who we surround ourselves with. Yes, of course, we live in this culture, but that doesn't mean we have to give into this culture. Like, if we want to do what we know, we have to be smart. You know, I have a friend who's, um, He and his wife are raising their sons and they have a daughter. And one of the things they do is they homeschool.

Now, they're really smart. He teaches at university. They both written books. The mom and dad are both written books. They're very intelligent. So the homeschooling is going to go well, I imagine. But one of the things that he does, he takes his sons and their daughter to Brazilian jiu-jitsu a couple hours a week.

And they do it for a bunch of reasons. One is to get them strong. One is to teach them out to defend themselves and have that camaraderie. But he also says, I do this because there's a lot of different people who come to Brazilian jujitsu from different. backgrounds, different belief systems, different ways of interacting, different levels of speech around kids. And he's like, this is really good for my kids to be exposed to different kinds of people for a few hours every week. But the bulk of the time they spend with their mom and me.

And he made the decision. He said, no, it's me and my wife that are raising our kids, not the culture. I thought that, yeah, if we want to do what we know, who we surround ourselves with is very, very important. In fact, Jim Rohn is known to have said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with, which turns out is true, but actually is truer than we think. There's actually been a study in one of the largest and longest-running medical studies on health, done by two researchers, Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler. They discovered how powerful and influential our social groups are when it comes to our health, that comes to long life or it comes to shorter life.

They started by examining heart health, but then they realized as the expansion, it's been on for 30 years, the study's gone on for 30 years. They found that who we associate ourselves with impacts every dimension of our health in one particular area, which is just really easy to monitor. It's really objective is obesity. And they concluded, after, again, in the middle of this 30-year study, they said, if you have a friend who has become obese, you are 45% more likely to gain weight in the next two to four years. That's crazy. 50% almost 50%. If you have a, here's a crazy thing. If you have a friend

of a friend who becomes obese, you are 20% more likely to gain weight in the next two to four years. What blows my mind is if you have a friend of a friend of a friend, someone you might not even know if they become obese, you have a 10% higher likelihood of gaining weight in the next two to four years, which is bonkers. And when it comes to smoking, it's even more extreme. If you have a friend start smoking, you're 61% more likely to start smoking. A friend of a friend starts smoking. You are 29% more likely to start smoking. Again, if you have a friend of a friend of a friend, you don't even know, start smoking,

you're 11% more likely to start smoking. It's just crazy to think. There's also positive news when it comes to happiness. Happy friends, help. So, like, if you're a friend who's happy, you come more happy. But it does jump to the friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. if a friend of a friend of a friend who's happy, you are 11% more likely to be happy yourself.

Now you might think, well, 11% that's nothing. Actually, sorry, 6%, 6%, 6%, 6% more likely to be happy. You might think, that's so small. The article I was reading pointed this out. They said, it might seem small. But the research has also indicated that if you get a $10,000 raise in your salary, that only increases your happiness by 2%. So even having a friend of a friend of a friend who's happy,

increase your happiness by 6%. That's pretty good. So it turns out you're not merely the average of the five people around you. You're the average of everyone around you. So the question is, who do you surround yourself with? It doesn't have to be complicated.

You just do the simple things first. Do the simple first. The other reason Solomon wasn't just relationships, wasn't just people he surrounded himself with. The other reason I think Solomon ended in disaster is because he didn't do the simple things first. Here's what I mean. Remember, the beginning of the relationship.

of chapter 11 highlights the fact that Solomon's many wives led his heart away from the Lord God. But at the end of chapter 10, it indicates something, it indicates that Solomon was already on his way. It says this, it says almost a throwaway line if you don't know what you're looking for. It says, and Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen. He gathered 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen. And also Solomon imported horses from Egypt and from Q. Goes on to say that he amassed silver and gold. He said he got so much gold that silver was like stone in those parts. Now we asked the question, well, why is that important? He got a lot of horses, got a lot of gold, got a lot of silver? Because all the way back in Deuteronomy 17, remember the first reading today

is Deuteronomy 30. And back in Deuteronomy 17, there was instructions for kings. And it says this, the king will be led by the Lord. The king will be blessed by the Lord. Only, this is Deuteronomy 17, only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire horses. Solomon knew exactly what not to do. Now the big things, 300 wives, 700 concubines, that's big. How about to start simple? Do the simple things first. Just don't get horses from Egypt. Because the next line says, and he shall also not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. It's not complicated for us either. It's not complicated. Just do the simple things.

Simple things first. You know the line right after this in Deuteronomy 17. Right after this instruction, three things. Just don't do these things. It says this, when the king is seated on his royal throne, he must write for himself a copy of this instruction on a scroll. So with his own hand, just write this down.

And it is to remain with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to fear the Lord His God by carefully observing all the words of his instruction. Just do the simple things first. It's copy this out. Keep it in front of you every single day. Like this is for us too.

We're the people we surround ourselves with. Do the simple things first. And also, how about this last one? Keep God's word close by. This is the last thing. This is when it comes to, I can know all I need to know and still not do what I need to do. Just do the simple things first.

It's not complicated. In fact, the gospel today is so simple. Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Love God. Love people. Start there. I can finish there. I know that can get us stressed.

They get us anxious. There was a man in the Old Testament. It was Micah, the prophet. And Micah was stressed. He was like, I want to do what you want me to do? God, what should I do? Should I give you gold and silver? Should I give you thousands of rams or bulls in sacrifice?

Should I offer you my firstborn in sacrifice? And God's like, whoa, whoa, calm down. It says, you've been told, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you. Three things. Only. Do the right. Love justice.

And walk humbly with your God. That's it. So simple. Love God. Love others. Start there. Finish there. Do the right.

Love goodness. Walk humbly with your God. We don't need to complicate it. We just need to do it. And for your sake, make it easy. For the people around you's sake, Make it easy. You know what you need to do. Do the simple things first.