Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 07/18/21 The Poison of Indifference

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

Homily from the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Indifference does not mean you don’t care; it just means you don’t care enough to move. There are many opportunities to waste one’s life. One of those ways is to allow one’s circle of interest to outstrip one’s circle of influence. Mass Readings from July 18, 2021: Jeremiah 23:1-6 Psalms 23:1-6Ephesians 2:13-18 Mark 6:30-34

So a little while back, I came across this quote that just, it stuck with me, and I'm going to share it with you today. It goes like this. It says, every person or every man has two lives. The second one begins when he realizes he only has one. Every person has two lives, and your second life begins when you realize you only have one. Which I think is really profound, right? Let's start the homily off with something profound, because that's, that's, that's, You look at it, you hear that kind of thing, you think, okay, that's true.

That recognition that I only have this one life, what am I going to do with it is a massive question. But then we have the second question, right? The second question is, what am I going to do with it? Like, yes, that is absolutely true. I have one life. I have one place I can maybe pull my whole self out. What am I going to do with that one life?

Because there's a painful truth that every one of us can experience, it probably so many of us have, is I can realize that this is true and I can still waste my life. Like I can realize, I only get one life, and I can still end up wasting it. And I just think of, see, the prophet Jeremiah today, we heard in Mass, it was, there's these shepherds, and the point of their lives is to govern the sheep. That point of their lives is to take care of the sheep. The point of their lives is to guide and to serve. And keep in mind, this is like code for, they're not like actual shepherds with actual sheep.

They are the leaders of the people of Israel, trying to take care of the people of Israel. But what they're doing is they've been given a task and they're wasting it. They've been given this life, this role, this incredible opportunity, and they've wasted it. They've spent their gifts on themselves. And that's one of our temptations. Every single one of us can end up spending our gifts on ourselves. We can see the pain of the sheep and end up saying, well, I don't really care. We can see their need and say, I don't really care.

There's a reality, right, in many of our lives that we just, sometimes we can, We see pain, we see something needs to be done, and we just don't care. In fact, there's this old joke. I don't know if you've ever heard this one, but I remember when I was first heard it was between a coach and a player, and the coach says to the player, Johnson, what's the difference between ignorance and apathy? And Johnson says, I don't know and I don't care. And that's, yes, that's the difference.

That's the whole thing. But another word for apathy, another word for I just don't care is this powerful word, and the word is indifference. I think that maybe there are a lot of things in our life that would be better if we had a little more indifference about maybe some pastimes, maybe our favorite sports. teams, maybe, you know, family game night, those kind of things can get pretty cutthroat. It would be nice if we're a little more indifferent there. But I think when it comes to the big things to life, when it comes to the big questions,

big issues, the big realities of life, too many of us, too many of us are indifferent when it comes to who God is and our promises that we've made and other people are truth. In the face of those things, we can find ourselves being indifferent and that indifference can be deadly. In fact, there's another quote from a man. His name is St. Maximilian Colby, and Maximilian Colby was a Polish priest at the beginning part of the 20th century. He was murdered in Auschwitz. But at one point, he looked at his world. He looked at the culture in which he was living and he said, indis-this-this-this-this. He said, indifference is the poison of our age. Indifference is the poison of our age. You think he was looking at a lot of stuff,

right? He was looking at a world in catastrophe. He was looking at the European world, just eating itself and all this war going on throughout the entire world. And he said, indifference is the poison of our age. He asked the question like, okay, why would you say that? Because he's a pretty smart guy. He was a very accomplished human being. He was incredibly intelligent. He knew a lot.

And he would also know that people are people, like all across the world and all throughout time, people are still just people. So why is indifference the poison of our age? Because in most ways, every age is kind of the same, right? So there's indifference that you can find anywhere. He said this, I think, because he realized that to be apathetic in the face of the biggest things in life, like God and others and tragedy and suffering, to be indifferent there, it denotes something unique. It could come from selfishness, right?

How many times have you and I not done something to help someone because we're just, we're too selfish? It could come from entitlement because that is something we also are afflicted with, an entitlement. But I don't think so. I think that there's something unique in our age that is, well, that makes it unique. And that thing is not necessarily we're more selfish or more entitled. I think we're more overloaded. What I mean by that is we have so much information at the click of a mouse, right? We have so much, so many problems that we can see just by checking out the newspaper,

not just locally, but globally. We have, there's so many, so much going on. There's so much pain, so much evil, and so much suffering in the world. And the result is our circle of interest. has vastly outstripped our circle of influence. Like the things that we're interested in, things we care about, things that get our attention, is massive compared to our circle of influence,

things we can actually do. And you think about it for previous ages, if there was a problem, it was most likely a local problem, right? If there was someone in need, it was probably your neighbor, or it was your sister, or was your parish. And yes, it was still possible to ignore those people. I can still ignore family if I want to. it's also still possible that you might not be able to do anything

in face of the problems of your neighbor or your sister or your parish. But it might also be that in those cases, you recognize this isn't someone else's job. This is my neighbor. This is my sister. This is my parish. And I think I wonder if back then, you know, back in the day, if there's anything that was different,

what might have been different is it's possible that one's circle of influence was more naturally kind of in line with their circle of interest. Because I think this, because I think someone could say, like, Father, this is not true. Like, here's one of the places you're wrong is that I look around and I care. Like, I look around at all the things going on wrong in the world and I care. In fact, I look at other people and they care too. I look at the youth, the young people of this world, and they seem to care a lot,

maybe even more than ever. And I would say, and you're even mad that I claim indifference in our age, but I would say, let's do this. Let's look at Jesus and see what real indifference versus real caring actually is. In the gospel today, here's Jesus, right? They sent out the apostles and they've been preaching, they've been exercising demons. They're exhausted.

Jesus says, let's go. Let's go away for a while. The crowd follows them and Jesus sees them. And here's the thing. True caring, true compassion and not indifference involves at least three moves and in one like secret move. So you're going to get the secret move in a second. But the three moves and one kind of secret move.

The first move is, it says that Jesus saw the vast crowds. So he noticed. And I think sometimes we cannot notice. I think sometimes we can hear so many voices that we've become deaf. I think sometimes we can see so many stories that we become blind. And so sometimes, you know, our heartstrings have been tugged on so much that we end up becoming numb. But Jesus didn't, right? He saw the vaskar.

That's the first move. We have to see, we have to notice. The second thing is he says it says his heart was moved with compassion for them. So he actually cared. And this is really key. This is really critical that he cared. But I think the problem is where most of us stop. That we see the problem and we care about the problem.

And so if someone were to say, you're being indifferent, we say, no, no, no, look, I care so much. And the reason I think is because we keep feeding this circle of interest versus paying attention to our circle of influence. And what I'll say it like this, I think that if more of us spent less time on our circle of interest and more time paying attention to our circle of influence, things will be really different. we might actually be people who care. Because I think the reality, of course, is that my circle of interest is often an escape. Like, I can surf the web and read all these stories and get all up in arms about this whole kind of thing. But, you know, when it comes to our circle of interest, like, we know that we can do little about it.

Every time you click on that article or listen to that story, you already know that you can do very little about it. And therefore, I get to be enraged, I get to be saddened, I get to be heartbroken, I get to be indignant, I get to feel all these emotions. and I don't have to do anything about it. I don't have to have any personal responsibility. And so I think one of the things that it gives rise to, I think this gives rise to a thing called slacktivism, right? So slactivism is this word that basically means you're a keyboard activist, you're a keyboard warrior,

where you get to say that you care without it costing you anything. This is a lot of us. And again, I'm not throwing this to other people. I get to say that I care and it doesn't have to cost me anything. And this is, it's a sneaky kind of, sneaky brand. of indifference because it appears to care. And in fact, for all of us, because I experienced this too, for all of us who experience it,

doesn't just appear to care, it feels like we care. And we're convinced that we do care, and we're not wrong, we care, but we don't care enough to act. And this is the problem with just those first two movements, and the problem with real indifference, is I see, I notice it, I move my heart and I care, but then I don't do anything. So indifference is not caring.

Indifference is I care, but I don't care enough to move. I don't care enough to act. I don't care enough to have it cost me something. And that's why there's the, that's the third move, right? I notice it, I see it. I move by it, I care and then I act. That's what true compassion, true caring actually is. That's what Jesus does.

But there's the fourth little secret one. And the secret is between caring and acting. And it means I see it, I care about it, and then I have to ask a question. And the question I have to ask, and everyone has to ask is, okay, I see this and I care about this. What do I have to offer? Like, what can I do? What can I bring to this situation? That is such an important question because otherwise, again, I realize this is just a circle of interest

and it's not even part of my circle of influence. You know, this is so important. this question, is this something I can help with? Because just helping is not, shouldn't be knee-jerk. It shouldn't be just knee-jerk reaction. It shouldn't be just something we just dive into because it shouldn't be something where there's no boundaries. Because if that's the case, we're just splashing all over, we're splashing all over, being really ineffective. The key is, I have to ask the question and then I have to choose. Okay, remember, I see, I care, then I ask this question, what do I have to offer? I get to choose. I have to choose. Because the reality for all

of us is we have to choose where you will pour yourself out. I have to choose where I will pour myself out. Or I have to choose to accept this is where I will be poured out. Because sometimes it's not our choice, right? Sometimes it's someone else's choice. It puts us in a horrible situation that we say, okay, I have to choose to accept. This is where I'll be poured out. And for a lot of people, a lot of people, just think of practical. For so many people, it's family. For so many people where you will be poured out, where you will have to give of yourself, your sacrifice is going to be, okay, this, here, these people. this is my spouse, these are my kids, these are my parents,

this is where you get to pour yourself out for priests, right? Jeremiah, I mean, as a priest to read Prophet Jeremiah, it's the worst, it's the best, it's awful because it's so convicting because he's saying you're spending your vocation on yourself. But for every pastor, every priest you know, he's called to pour himself out right here in his parish, right here for these people. And the same thing is true for,

every one of us. And think about the incredible honor that this is. Like this is a massive honor. Being able to choose where you will sacrifice. Because the reality, of course, is compassion, real care, not indifference, will always involve sacrifice. Remember, compassion, compassion involves these three moves with this fourth, fourth secret one. I see, I notice, I moved by it, I care. I ask the question, but then I have to act. Then I have to care enough to move. Not just care, but care enough to move. So what do I do?

I think there's at least two things in all this. Tonight, today, I need to make my circle smaller. I think I need to pay less attention to my circle of interest. I need to give more attention to my circle of influence. And then when I do that, I have to choose. I have to choose, is this where I'm going to pour myself out? Remember, every person has two lives. And the second one begins, when you realize you only have one.

This is the last thing. St. Maximilian Colby, the man who said, indifference is the poison of our age. So Maximilian Colby, he was, as I said, a prisoner in Auschwitz. And at one point, maybe you know the story. At one point, there were two men who escaped from Auschwitz. And so the National Socialist Guards, They, the Nazi guards, they came out and they arranged all the men in rows and said,

who was going to tell us who turned them in and no one did. And so they said, look, we're randomly selecting two, I think they selected 10 human beings, 10 men from the ranks to be executed, to be starved to death in a bunker. And the 10th man they chose, he fell to his knees. He started crying and weeping and crying out loud saying, like, please don't kill me, spare my life. I have a wife. I have a family.

And that's when Maximilian Colby decided. Just something was crazy. stepped forward and said, I'll take his place. Now, here's the crazy part. I remember hearing that story when I was a kid and thinking, that's amazing, that's awesome. Of course he would. Because even the Nazi guard said, why would you do this? Who are you? And he says, because I'm a priest. That's why. And just like, I remember thinking, obviously, but here's the thing. When you read more about Maximilian Colby's life, you realize this man, as I said before, he is incredibly intelligent. He was incredibly accomplished. He was an evangelizer in Europe that was

unparalleled at the time. He had done so much to advance the gospel that he was unstoppable. He had so much more to give. He had so much more life to live. He had so much more to offer to the church. You can just imagine him saying, wow, horrible. This is terrible news, but it's not my, it's not my issue. I imagine he could see it and feel horribly for this man and then say, yeah, but I'm going to stay alive because that's my job. I need to stay alive to be able to do more. But this is where he chose to pour himself out. And that part just blows my mind to say right here, this person. And I see it so often.

I see it with husbands saying that about their wives and their kids. I see that with wives who say it about their husbands and their kids. I see that with adult children who say that about their parents. Like, no, I know they need me now. So I'm going to pour myself. This is where I'm going to pour myself out. You get to choose your sacrifice. You get to choose where you're going to pour yourself out.

That is an escape from indifference. And it always involves sacrifice. We have to choose, like Maximilian Colby chose to choose, to say, here, this man, this place, this is where I get poured out. I am not indifferent. This is my sacrifice.