Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 07/28/24 Give and Gather

Episode Date: July 27, 2024

Homily from the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Give the first fruits and gather the fragments. We are given two commands in this weekend's readings: to give the first fruits and gather the fragments. Our temptation, however, is to do the opposite; to give the fragments and gather the first fruits. In order to have a heart like Christ, we must become givers. Mass Readings from July 28, 2024: 2 Kings 4:42-44 Psalms 145:10-11, 15-18Ephesians 4:1-6 John 6:1-15

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. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Chapter 6, verses 1 through 15. Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him. Because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick, Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that the large crowd was coming to him,

he said to Philip, where can we buy enough food for them to eat? He said this to test him because he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him. Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have even a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, There was a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what good are these for so many? Jesus said, have the people recline.

Now, there was a great deal of grass in that place, so the men reclined about 5,000 in number. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining and also as much of the fish as they wanted. When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, gather the fragments left over so that nothing will be wasted. So they collected them, and filled 12 worker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.

When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, this is truly the prophet, the one who is to come into the world. Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone. The Gospel of the Lord. Let you have a seat. So occasionally someone will ask the question.

I love answering the question. Like, what's your favorite food? And I realize that I have like three kind of, three answers of my favorite food of all time. So two of them are kind of kind of bougie, for lack of a better word. That's, there's better words in that. But steak and sushi, like I realize, I get it.

It's kind of a rare thing. But the food that I could probably eat for multiple meals is, it's common food. It's everyone eats this. Everyone loves it. it's pizza. I love pizza. I feel like Michelangelo. I feel like one of the Tennis Meat Ninja Turtles because I love pizza so much. In fact, there have been many times, multiple times in my life,

when I have had pizza has been the only meal life eaten for multiple days in a row. Again, it's not rare. It's actually happened many times where it's like, oh, since Monday, you know, whatever day it is, Thursday, I've only had pizza. I had pizza for supper, then I had leftovers at lunch, and then we had pizza play. And like, and I'm not even embarrassed by that. I'm actually kind of proud of myself for that because I love pizza. But here's what I don't like. I don't like crusts. In fact, I, if you ever want to know how many slices I've eaten, just go to my plate and count the crusts because, I don't know.

I think the crusts are a waste of space. The best part is part with the sauce, part with the cheese. It's amazing. You have a pizza with no sauce and cheese. That's just crunchy bread. That's all it is. Now, some people say like, father, the crusts are the best part of the pizza. And to you, I would say, awesome.

You can have my crusts. because that's the reality, right? Like, I, that's, because that's the kind of person I am. I just want to let you know this. The kind of person I am is the kind of person who I don't care who you are. I will give you my crusts. Because I just have that kind of heroic generosity, right?

Because, I mean, obviously, it's a joke, because how heroically generous is it? Like, how good is it if I just am willing to give you something that I don't actually want? But that's me. That is true. I'm willing to give you. I don't actually want, yeah, you can have it.

Like literally outside this little chapel, there is a table and things will come to the house. Like here's a sweatshirt, here's a book, here's a, it doesn't matter what it is. And it's great, I'm grateful someone gave me a sweatshirt. I'm glad they gave me a book. But I don't want it. So what do I do? I give it away because that's what we do. We have something we don't want.

We just give it away. And yet in the readings today, we are given very, very clear commands. commands. And the two commands, in fact, and the two commands are to give and to gather. Give, give what? Well, we're supposed to give what we have. And we're supposed to gather. Gather what? Gather what? Gather what we have left. But this is the dual role. This has actually been the call of every person who has been called by God, everyone who follows Jesus, is this two-fold command. To give your first fruits and to gather the fragments. And our lives are meant to be marked by this.

It's to say, okay, I give what's best and I gather what's left. And yet here's the reality of my heart. And I imagine probably your heart too. My temptation, my heart is to do the opposite. But the intention of my heart is to gather the first fruits and to give the fragments. And then I even call myself generous because I'm willing to part with what I don't want. And yet that second reading today, Ephesians chapter four, I've been praying with this for weeks now.

It's St. Paul says that first line, he says, I, Paul, right, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the calling you have received. And he says, yeah, gentleness, humility, patience, all those things. But to live in a manner worthy of the call we've received basically means that we don't just come to church because we want to be slightly better. We don't follow after Jesus because we want to be just better people.

We follow after Christ. We come to Mass and we allow the sacraments to transform us. Because we know the truth. And the truth is we're actually meant to have the heart of Christ. But that's the high call. The Paul says, I urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you've received. What's the call? To live like God.

And at the very, very heart of God, we know this. Not only, yes, is God has humility and gentleness and patience. The very heart of God is God is a giver. If there's anything that would define God, you know, the heart of God is he's love. And what is it to love? To love is to give. And so if we realize, realize this, that the call, every one of us has been given, is to become a giver.

And that means something has to change. Because we've been called to give the first fruits and to gather the fragments. And it's even in the gospel. I love this in the gospel. Here's this. Jesus says, well, feed them. How are you going to feed them? In one of the other gospels that says, you feed them yourself.

And what do you have? And so they have this boy. And he has what? He has five loaves and two fish. Okay, give that. And they don't say, okay, hey, young man. Eat what you can, whatever you don't want, give the rest of us. No, it's give what you have.

Give your first fruits. In fact, the first reading today from Second Kings. What's to say is, here's Elisha, who wants to feed 100 people with 20 barley loaves. But it says not just any barley loaves. It's 20 barley loaves made from the first fruits. It's a technical thing. I don't know if you know this from the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, you were required to tithe.

And tithe means not just give something. Tithe means 10%. That's your first fruits. And so if you had animals, you would offer, you'd sacrifice, you'd give to God the very first animal that was born to the female animal. So the first sheep born to the female sheep, the first cow born of the female cow. Like that first fruits, that was gods. That was your sacrifice. That's the first fruits. That's the tithe. If you were raising crops or olives or grapes, whatever the thing was, that first 10% of your crop, of your yield, that went to God.

That's what it is to give the first fruits. And I think this is, and I think this is, is really fascinating in the church, right? The Catholic Church, the church doesn't give us a number. The church doesn't say, okay, you guys, you're Catholic, you're Christian, you've got to get 10%. The church says, no, in the new covenant, we're actually called to do something deeper, not less. The church says, you don't have to give merely 10%. Every one of us is called to give according to our means. And the catechism of the Catholic Church, that's what it says. We're called to give according to our means and according to the need of the church and the people around us. Now think about that.

What that means is that for some people, 10% is vastly too small. But what do I want to do? I want to gather my first fruits and give my fragments. The church doesn't give us a number, but it gives us the kind, right? It doesn't give us the number of gifts, but it does give us the kind of gifts. The church still says, whatever your first fruits are, that's what you're supposed to give. So if I'm going to become someone, remember not just a better person, and if I'm just a nicer person, if I'm going to become someone who actually lives and looks like Jesus

has a heart of Jesus, that means I have to be a giver. And if I'm going to be a giver, I have to do two things. I have to basically weigh up, okay, ask the question, what do I have? And the question, what do I owe? This is for every one of us. This actually, they make it really practical. This Sunday, to be able to sit down at some point and say, okay, if I'm going to have the heart of Jesus, I have to be very, very practical and ask the two questions, what do I have and what do I owe? Because if I don't know what I have, then how in the world could I ever possibly give my first fruits? If I actually have never actually weighed out, okay, what are my resources? How do I know if I'm giving wisely and well of my first fruits?

Not just giving my fragments. I have to ask those two questions. What do I have? What do I owe? In the gospel, they say, what do we have? We have five loaves and two fish. It's not a ton. But the difference is they took what they had and they gave it to Jesus.

That's the difference. That's why it doesn't matter whether it's 1%, 10% or 90%. It says, just take what I have and give that first fruits and give it to him. And so classically, again, really practical here. What do I have? What do I owe in three areas? And this is the, you probably heard this. If you grew up in the 70s, you definitely heard us.

Or maybe 80s. Basically, the church says, okay, what are the three areas? The areas, three areas are your time, your talent, and your treasure. You ever heard of this before? Okay, so at least a couple people. So the three areas, your time, your talent, your treasure. what do I have when it comes to my time? Well, and what do I owe too? You might say, okay, this season of life, there is very, very little time. Okay, then weigh that out. You might owe

a lot of time to your job. I mean, I owe a lot of time to whatever project you're working on. You may it owe a lot of time to your family. So you might say, okay, what do I have? I have this much time, but also I owe this and I can't actually get out of that because someone is counting on me. That's wonderful. So out of what you have, minus what you owe, the first fruits of what's there. I mean, and this is, like, when it comes to time, I think one of the first questions we have to ask is, how much time do I give to the Lord in prayer? Because we know this about a disciple, right?

A disciple is someone who's willing, make it really simple. A disciple is someone who's willing to change their schedule in order to get closer to Jesus. So am I willing to change my schedule and give some time to get closer to Jesus? The reality, of course, is anyone can do this. So we just started, this last weekend, we just started a camp that we put on for our middle school students here in the Diocese of Duluth. It's called Camp Survive. And years ago, years ago, so, sorry, let me rewind. One of the MCs for the camp is a young man, his name is Max. Max is my nephew. Nepotism, fine, whatever. But Max is the MC, co-Mc with another guy. And when Max was a camper, he's sixth grade,

your sixth grade, we had told all the campers. We said, you know, if you want to know the Lord, if you want to get close to the Lord, you all have Bibles and then most of my Bibles. He said, our invitation from one of our priests and Father Ben was to pray, read the Bible 15 minutes a day. And so when he was a sixth grader, Max came home and he decided that's what he was going to do. He was for 15 minutes every day, he was going to read the Bible. And it was one of those situations where I'm sure at 6th, 7th, 8th grade, he read probably parts of the Bible, had no idea what's going on, kind of like us right now. We read the Bible. Like, I have no idea what's going on. Imagine trying to do that as a seventh grader. But he just showed up again and again and again.

And he just said, okay, I got it. I can give you 15 minutes. What do you have and what do you owe? Here's a sixth grader who says, well, I have 15 minutes to read the Bible. What do you have? And what do you owe? What kind of time could you give to the Lord? And I would say this. I'd say probably for everyone listening to this, it is between 50,000. 15 minutes to 60 minutes every day. For everyone listening to this, what I have to give to the Lord, my first fruits, is between 15 minutes and 60 minutes.

So what do I have? And where am I going to give God those first fruits? That's time, right? Talent is another one. I think the talent one is really fascinating because talent is like, where am I going to serve? And I would say, because there's so many ways to serve, so many places to serve,

start with who's closest to you. And say, okay, ask that question. What do I have? What do I own? How can I help the people closest to me? I think about the last three years of my mom's life. My dad was her primary caregiver. And his whole life was defined by, okay, this is the woman that I have covenanted my life to.

This is the woman that I will care for 24 hours a day. He was able to, right? That's what he had and that's what he owed. Now, sometimes people can't do that. But he knew that these last three years are the years. that I need to clean up after her. These are the three years that I have to help her to the toilet. These are the three years that I have to help her down the stairs.

These are the three years that I have to get up in the middle of the night and take her to the hospital. Because who's closest to you? What do you have and what do you owe? Who can you serve? I think about my little sister. My little sister, maybe six months ago, had her sixth child. And so for she and her husband, they want to volunteer at their church. And I'm like, you probably can't.

You want to serve in other ways. I think you've got six people you need to, they need you a little bit more, because that's the first, that's where the first fruits need to go in this season of the life. But here's the thing. I love the ministry group called Life Team. One of the great, great strategies Life Team has is it has a core team. And these core teams are made up of adults who typically have grown children. And what they get to do is they say, okay, I already raised adolescents.

Now I can go back and volunteer in this Life Team, this junior high program, the high school program, because I know what it's like to raise adolescents. and now I'm free because they're out of the house. I'm now free to invest deeply into the lives of these teenagers. So what season are you in life and where are your first fruits where you can serve? So time, talent, service. And then, of course, there's treasure. What do I have and what do I own?

There's a couple that, I maybe mentioned them before like years ago. When they first got married, they were doing Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, right? And so they went all in. They had the envelopes. They did only cash. Cash is king. And they had one envelope every month that they set aside for giving. Because they had gone through before the year started and before every month started

and they put that cash in each envelope. This is for groceries. This is for rent. This is for whatever the thing is. And this envelope gets to be forgiving. And I talked to the man. And I remember him telling me this so clearly he said, you know, we don't have a ton to give, but we can't wait at the end of the month to get into that envelope.

like throughout the course of the month even to be able to say okay they may have had like 60 bucks they could give each each month at that time in their lives and just starting out but they kept saying like we're so excited to be able to say where do we get to who do we get to bless with this 60 dollars but they had made that decision and said 60 bucks for us that's our first fruits that's where we get to give our first fruits and not just our fragments for me this is one of the things I love as well I started the beginning of the year and I say okay we're actually middle of the year, kind of fiscal year for the Diocese of Duluth is June 30th and July 1st. So I start right right around there and I say, okay, where can I give that at least 10% minimum?

And then what I'd love being able to do is, okay, if there's anyone who comes up with a need in the meantime, it's like, okay, it's all gets to be gravy after that. Like after that, it just gets to be the joy of giving. For us, for you, you get to ask that question and answer that question. What do you have? What do you owe? with a hard time and talent and treasure with regard to prayer and serving and giving. Or do we still love those twisted hearts?

But we give the fragments and gather the first fruits. But if we give the first fruits, we have a heart like Jesus. But here's the last thing. We give the first fruits and we gather the fragments. How cool is it in the gospel today that Jesus says, okay, gathered the fragments left over so that nothing will be wasted. I don't know that I do this very often. I don't know that I look at, okay, here's why I gave that time, here's where I gave that

service, here's where I gave that money, here's where I gave that whatever it was, and then go back and gather the fragments. What I think is this, I think sometimes I look down on the fragments. I think sometimes I underestimate the fragments. I think sometimes I think, well, the fragments are so insignificant that they can be forgotten. They can be lost. But Jesus says, gather the fragments so that nothing will be wasted, so that nothing will be lost. What do I mean? How do we gather the fragments? I think we do this every single day.

So last March, we were on a group trip to Poland, a pilgrimage to Poland with our students. And one of the things that we've taught our students to do for years and years, we teach those campers at camp survive in middle school and high school to do this thing at the end of each day to ask the question, do some self-reflection, take a few moments. and basically have a consciousness examin and ask the question, okay, what's my high, what's my low, what's my God moment? Like the three questions, really quick. Some people say like rosebud and thorn, but what's a high, what's a low, what's a God moment? And even though I've taught that probably for roughly 21, 22 years, I realized that when we were in Poland, I don't do that very often.

What I do is I'm trying to give during the course of the day. I try to give that first fruits, it's not always success, I'm not always perfect at it. But what I don't do, and I rarely do, what I struggle to do is at the end of the day to gather the fragments, at the end of the day to say, okay, what was given to the Lord? What was the high? Where did I fail to give to the Lord? Where was the low? And where did God show up and multiply the gift?

Where's the God moment? Since last March, I've been trying to incorporate this more and more because what I see it is this. I see that if we don't do this, what we're saying is, there are such a thing as significant moments. I think we don't do this. What we're declaring is something along these lines of, there are some things that are given to God that can be wasted.

There's some things that are given to God that can be lost. But the truth is this. Nothing given to God is ever wasted. It's just sometimes forgotten. So here's the invitation. To have a heart like Jesus. Which means we give the first fruit. and gather the fragments.

It means we give what's best and we gather the rest. That at the beginning of each day we decide, okay, God, here's where you get my time. Here's where you get my service. Here's where you get my money. At the end of each day, we say, okay, God, where was the high? What a gift. Where was the low? This was a cross.

And where were you? Give the first fruits. Gather the fragments. And end up with a heart like Jesus. Thank you.