Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 08/02/20 All We Have

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

Homily from the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Do I have an attitude of scarcity or an attitude of abundance? All of us have gifts in our lives and all of us have real struggles in our lives. What weight do we give our blessings and what weight do we give our struggles? Mass Readings from August 2, 2020: Isaiah 55:1-3 Psalms 145:8-9,15-18Romans 8:35, 37-39 Matthew 14:13-21

So, I keep falling into this bad habit. I think I have this bad habit of, it happens whenever I see new people, like people haven't seen in a while. And they're like, hey, how is this going? Like for example, this whole summer, not having a chance to really see a ton of our students. When I have seen them, I've seen a couple in the last couple weeks. So how have things been? And my default is almost always like, oh, it's kind of been rough, you know.

Let me clarify. If I look back over the last however long, right now, my life right now, I'd say like 95% of it is like good. Like 95% is just life, like normal life. It's just, yeah, you've got to work, you got to do this thing, you got to. It's just, it's good. It's life. I exist. That's awesome. And maybe 5% are kind of a struggle. Like 5% are the kind that just like dregs it down. But when someone asks, how are you doing, I always, I almost always emphasize the 5%. Like even though the rest, 95% of life is, This is good. I will give so much power to that 5%, the power I give it is the power to poison the 95.

So someone says, how is it going? And I focus on, instead of focusing on this is life, this is gift, this is good, I focus on the 5% that is hard or that is harder. And I think about this today as I was reading the gospel, because in the gospel, there's, I mean, the whole story is marked. marked with difficult things. The whole story begins by saying that when Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he went off by himself.

So he is in grief. We've encountered death and not just death but unjust death, that Herod has now killed John the Baptist. You can imagine Jesus' exhaustion, just, I need to get away from the crowds. You think all these, like these heavy things that are there, and then the crowd shows up, and they're hungry. And I just love the recounting of the crowds. the story that Matthew gives us actually all four Gospels tell us this same miracle.

The disciples, they go to Jesus. What did they say? Dismiss the crowds. Like they're focusing on this lack. Dismiss the crowds. It's late. They need something to eat. And Jesus says, you give them something. And they have this line where they say, as you know, five loaves and two fish are all we have. And just those three words, all we have are the words that just stick out so powerfully.

Because they're looking at this whole thing is saying, yeah, That's it. This is it. That's all. All they can see is the lack. They see these massive crowds, thousands upon thousands of people. But they focused on their limitation. They saw this incredible opportunity for all these people, but they focused on their lack. And they said, this is all we have. This is all we have. And it was interesting when we do that, because we do this all the time, the 5% that I just give all this attention to. I focus on the lack. I look at the thing that is poisoning the rest of the 95%. When I focus on the lack, when I look at the lack, essentially, that almost always leads to discouragement. It almost always leads to this sense of like, well, what good is it?

And that's, in fact, what the disciples say in John's Gospel, John chapter 6, he recounts the story. And he highlights this fact that in the midst of this, while the disciples are looking at their lack, they go to discouragement because they say, yeah, five loaves and two fish are all we have. And then they ask the question, but what good are these for so many? Like, what good is it? And again, that's so real, because that's actually a real thing.

Like, I don't think five loaves and two fish are actually anything for thousands upon thousands about thousands of people. But what it does is this, it leads them into the trap of having an attitude of scarcity where they say this is all we have and what good is it? This attitude of scarcity we say this is all we have and what good is it?

And when we fall into the trap of an attitude of scarcity, it's a real trap because you fall into a trap and it's hard to move. It's hard to act when you're in a trap and here are the disciples and they're in the trap of just looking and saying, yeah, this is all there is. It's all we have and they don't move. And I think that because you can look at this to say, well, these five loaves, two fish is all we have, and this is for us.

Like, this is our food. If we share it with anyone, if we move, if we're generous with this, then we won't have anything else. These others, they need to go take care of themselves. And that in so many ways is, you know, we're afflicted in the church as, gosh, as Catholics, we're afflicted with at least two things. We often fall into these traps. Not only the attitude of scarcity, but the idea of being a consumer Catholic. The idea of kind of like I need to be fed, I need to be more preoccupied with getting what I need and getting what I want and getting myself taken care of than I am with taking

care of anyone else. And so if I don't get anything out of Mass, then I'm just a consumer Catholic. I think it's, you know, it's not worth my time. If the priest doesn't serve me in the way that I want him to, then yeah, I'm a consumer Catholic and I can just dismiss that. Or if the church doesn't act the way I wanted to, then again, I'm a consumer Catholic. I just go somewhere else and find where they're going to give me what I want. I'm just here. I'm here to consume.

And that's like in so many ways. Here's the disciples. Or here the crowds. And I'm just here to take in. Here's Jesus. He's teaching. Here's Jesus. He's feeding. All I'm doing is I'm here to take that in. I'm just here to consume.

Or I'm a critic. I'm either the consumer or I'm the critic. Because the critic does what? The critic basically points out other people's faults, but also the critic wants someone else to do something. something. The critic isn't the person who takes action and does it themselves. The critic is the person who watches the scene and says, here's what they need to do. That's in fact what the disciples are saying. They're saying Jesus, hey Jesus, you

need to do something and then they need to do something. You need to tell them to go away and then they need to go get their own food for themselves. And so how often is that us even in the church or maybe generally in life, but especially in the church where it's so, we can be so quick to say here's what, again, our priest needs to do. Here's what the bishops need to do. Here's what the church needs to do. And like we forget that we're actually the body of Christ. We forget that when it says the church needs to do X, that, oh yeah, shoot, we are the church of the living God, living stones in his temple. But again, this is the trap.

The trap we fall into, either being consumer Catholics or mere critics who keep pointing out what someone else needs to do. And I just love this because in the gospel, Jesus breaks them out of this trap. They say, yeah, this is all we have, and so we're stuck. And Jesus turns to them and he says, okay, give them something to eat yourselves. And in doing that, he breaks them out of both the trap of being the consumer and the trap of being the critic. Because the consumer, right, is like, I want to keep this food for myself.

And he says, no, no, you give. You give them. And the critic says, someone else needs to do it. And Jesus says, no, no, no, you give them something yourselves. Like he gives them, basically gives them permission to act. He says, actually, in doing this, I think he's saying that your acting matters. And this is one of the things. It's so crazy. Last week, we had the psalm for the Mass with Psalm 119.

It's the longest Psalm in all the book of the Psalms, a book of Psalms, and we just read a little snippet of it. If you remember this last week at all, one of the lines strikes me every time I read the book of Psalms. And it takes me back to when I was maybe 50, 15 or 16 years old, we, in the summertime, we'll go to like our summer Catholic parish out in Niswah, Minnesota. And there was a visiting priest there when I, again, I was, yeah, 15 or 16, somewhere in there. I had just kind of become more like aware of the Lord and like he had touched my heart. And so I paid a little bit more attention.

But I remembered the priest's homily because it was summertime, obviously, and we read that psalm and he preached on it and he said, sorry, here's what the psalm says you might have forgotten. The psalm says, Lord, your commands are worth more to make. than silver and gold. It goes on multiple times says, Lord, your law to me is more precious than refined gold. And I remember the priest at that time said, we all just stood up and said this. Is that true? Is it true that I value the commandments more than money? That I actually, when I read even the Ten Commandments, I'm thinking, but I love these even more than my lake home. I love these even more than going on vacation. And he says, that's probably not true.

true for a lot of us, but we said it. How can we just stand here and say it? But then also he said, how would that possibly be true for us? How was it true for the guy who wrote Psalm 119 for him to be able to say, actually, it's true, Lord, I love your commandments more than any kind of Roth IRA, right, kind of investment, any home I could ever own, any car I could ever drive, he wouldn't say that, but any donkey I could ever purchase. Like, how could that be true? It I prayed about this, well, for the last hour long, I've been 30 last years about this because why? Why are God's commands more precious than any amount of money? And I think one of the reasons why is because when God gives us his commandments,

one of the things that's implied is that he's saying, I want you to live a certain way. To the Jews, I want you to act as, I want you to dress a certain way. I want you to eat a certain way. I want you to cut your hair a certain way. Why? Because it matters to me how you live. Because your choices actually matter. Why? Because here's God declaring over his people because your lives matter. Your life matters to me. And this is so important.

Why are the commandments so valuable to the person writing in the Psalm more than money, more than any possession? Because the commandments mean, they're proof that how I act on a daily basis matters to God because I matter to God. you matter to God. And so it's not okay to just be a consumer Catholic. It's not okay to just be a critic, but it's the kind of thing of doing your breakthrough to be a real Christian.

And to be a real Christian is where Jesus says, okay, so you give what you have. You give what you have. But this is all we have. They say it again, this is all we have. Jesus says, no, break out of that trap of that attitude of scarcity. Break out of the trap of the consumer Catholic, but break out of the trap of being the critic.

And you give what you have because this can often be a mind. a matter of perspective. I might not be able to change my problems, but I can change my perspective. In fact, a respect of matters a lot. I had come across this, I guess, so I was born in 1974, and it was the idea of this, someone who wrote this thing down and said, what if I was born in 1900? And instead of being born in 1974, I died in 1974.

And I said, for a matter of perspective, the Americans living right now in this day and age in 2020, Imagine you were born in 1900 and it went through the course of person's life. So here's how it goes. It says, imagine you were born in 1900. On your 14th birthday, World War II started. And it lasts until you were 18 years old. So your teenage years basically interrupted and completely upended by World War I.

During that war, 22 million people die. Later that year that you turned 18, the Spanish flu epidemic hits the entire world and last until your 20th birthday first. two years, 18 years old through your 20th birthday, over 50 million people die from the Spanish flu. That's 5.0 million people die in those two years. So your entire teenage years are upended by World War I and by the Spanish flu. But your 20s are okay. So your 20s, you keep trucking along. But on your 29th birthday, the Great Depression hits the United States. And unemployment then goes up to 25%. So imagine this. Imagine, yeah, you got things.

you got your feet underneath you and you started making making your way in your 20s and then you're 30 years old and the Great Depression runs until you're 33. When you turn 39, World War II starts and by the time you are 41 America is fully invested and fully involved in World War II. That lasts until you are 45 years old. So from your 30s, 39 until your 45, 75 million people die. Actually, this whole time up until your 40s, from 1900 until your 40s, smallpox is a big deal. And over the course of your lifetime at that point, it has killed over 300 million people during your lifetime. Your 40s are relatively uneventful.

At least 45 to 50 are uneventful because then when you're turned 50 years old, the Korean War breaks out and 5 million people die. Don't forget that every year until you're 55, every summer, polio makes a resurgence among the population. And many people that you know and many people that you love contract polio, and either they get paralyzed or they end up dying. When you're 55 years old, the Vietnam War begins and doesn't end until you're 70 years old. During that time, 4 million people die during that conflict, all the while the Cold Wars happening. And when you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally stops. So think about this, like your teenage years taken away, interrupted. Your 20s are there great and you

can establish something and build something, but when you turn 29, it's taken away for the Great Depression. And then it just goes into World War II, into Korean War, and the smallpox, and the Spanish flu, and all these other epidemics that are happening around the world. And here I am born in 1975, 1974, after all of that happens. And yes, there's real challenges in life, but that it's often a matter of perspective. Like oftentimes our attitude about this is going to be a matter of perspective because I can look at this and look at my life, we can look at our lives with an attitude of scarcity and say, this is all we have.

Or we can look around at our lives, even with the pain and even with the lack and even with the things that are limitations. And we can have an attitude of abundance and say, oh my gosh, this is all that we have. That's the difference. Having an attitude of scarcity is all we have. Having an attitude of abundance is saying, oh my gosh, this is all that we have. Go back to the apostles, go back to the Gospels. And they're like, oh, we really wanted to get away, have an opportunity, just get away with Jesus. And what they're given here, as thousands of people are showing up, they have an opportunity to minister to thousands of people. We just wanted some quiet

time. Well, there's thousands again of people who are coming to encounter Jesus. We're just so tired. And they're still. I mean, imagine Jesus has been preaching and healing all day, and I'm tired. That's what I want. But they're staying. That's incredible. And yeah, I just want to sleep, but there's this crowd here and they want him. So this is this incredible difference that saying, oh, this is all there is, versus this

is all there is in your life and my life. Your work might simply be drudgery, it might be difficult, but I have a job for crime. out loud. I know right now you might be going through a time of real loss, and that's real. Again, that's painful. But having lost something means you had something to lose. And there's real grief and there's real death and there's real mourning. But in the midst of that real morning, it means you had someone to love. You had someone who loved you, even if it was imperfect. Not to mention something a hero mine pointed out. This is someone I look up to. He said not to mention the indescribable privilege of existence.

Let me just stop this for a second. You and I, we didn't have to exist. It is an incredible privilege to simply exist, to simply be, to be able to look back on your deathbed, to look back over your life, knowing that you justified this unspeakable privilege of existence. that you existed, that you were. But this is critical, too, because it's not merely that you were. You are. You are.

Which means you still have something to offer. Because this is it. This is all we have. And so we can look at this and we have two responses. Instead of being consumers, instead of being critics, our responses are, this is all we have. Gratitude. To not just look at the lack and let the 5% poison the rest of it. Or maybe you say, but father you don't understand, my death in my life, the pain in my life is 50%, it's 65%, it's overwhelmingly.

Yes, but you can also look and say that this is all we have with gratitude. And then to respond with generosity, because this is the last thing. Again, this is all we have. Here's Jesus who says, you give them something to eat. And they say, we have five little two fish are all that we have. And I imagine I'm looking at them going, really? That's all you have? Yeah, five loaves and two fish, that's all we have.

Really, that's it. You don't know anything else. No, five loaves and two fish, that's it. It runs out right there. You don't have anybody, anybody kind of around you, anyone near you, who might happen to be the son of God, like the divinity incarnate, who might be the second person of the Trinity, who might be able to do a little something with your five loaves and two fish

because you're right, what good are these for so many? They're not very good. But five loaves and two fish plus him? Well, now you've got something. Because we realize Jesus, it's so clear in Scripture that we can do all things in Christ, and we can do nothing without Him. So what he's inviting us to do is saying,

okay, look at all you have. Give it to me. Look at all that you have. And give it to him. I just invited us to do this today on this Sunday just to look around. This is all we have. And to look around again

and ask, what are the people around you need? Well, be that. What are the people around you need? We can do that. And what are the people around you need? From all that we have, we offer that.