Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 08/11/19 Living By Faith

Episode Date: August 12, 2019

Homily from the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. A disciple is a decision-maker. Faith is more than belief. It “acts”. It can be seen. In fact, what we choose reveals our faith. And our decisions shape our lives, here on earth and in eternity. Mass Readings from August 11, 2019: Wisdom 18:6-9 Psalms 33:1, 12, 18-19, 20-22Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19 Luke 12:32-48

So this last week, I was able to be at Camp Survive, if you don't know, if you're not from our diocese. We have like this incredible week with, it's a middle school camp. It happens on at Camp Big Sandy. And so it's for bunch of middle schoolers and then a bunch of high schoolers serve as junior counselors and a bunch of adults serve as adult counselors. And it just started last Friday, two Fridays ago and did this last Friday. I'm exhausted. I'm a little tired. But it's just, it's so good.

Like there's so much opportunity for, not just for the campers to like to really pray. and really get into the relationship with the Lord, because that's the key, this whole thing. But there's also so much fun. In fact, one of the things that's really fun at this camp is they have a zip line that goes, like, from the top of the camp, almost all the way across the entire camp down to a kind of lower platform. And it's kind of one of the highlights for those who like to play like that.

Because it's, I mean, it's huge. And you just zip down the line. That's why it's so cleverly named. But, you know, the interesting thing about the zip line is, here's what they do. The campers, they all get, you know, harnessed up and everything. Then they hike up the big hill, cross the camp up the hill, and they get hooked in, and then they zip. But the part that's difficult for most people is not the zipping.

It's not the harnessing. It's not, you know, jumping off the tower at the top. It's when they get to the lower platform. They're still about 30, 35 feet off the ground. And so they get, you know, on harness from the zipline, and they get connected to what they call an auto belay. And if you know anything about an auto belay, it's like if you're an indoor climbing wall and you don't have a belay person to belay you, you just hook into the auto belay. So if you fall, you only fall about three feet,

and the auto billet catches you and then slowly lowers you to the ground. So that's what happens, this thing. They get to the platform, 30, 35 feet in the air, and then they're hooked up to the auto belay, and at some point they have to jump off the tower. And it's not going to catch them right away. You have to fall.

In fact, if they don't fall, it doesn't catch on. And so you can, like, you want to lower yourself, you want to want to do it slowly. Everyone wants to do it really slowly. And it doesn't work if you do it slowly. You actually have to do it. jump and it just it's the best to watch like all these you know sixth graders and like go just go I can't go just go and if you ask any one of them like do you have faith in the your harness you say yeah

of course I do do you have faith in the people who have been running this zip line for the last how many years and no accidents yet of course I do do you have faith that the auto bill will catch you yes because you saw a bunch of kids jump off and it caught them every single time do you have faith like of course I do so you have faith in the audible you have faith in this apparatus yes, then jump, no. And I would say in response to that, then you actually don't have faith. Because we're going to talk about faith today. A lot of us have a misperception of faith.

Our idea of faith is so limited. It's limited to what I believe. And so we say, you know, later on in a few moments, we'll say the creed, which is super good. And it is an articulation of what we believe. And that's fine. But faith is not just what I believe. In fact, faith doesn't become real faith until I act on what I believe. The other way to say it is, while faith is internal, right, so it's inside me in some ways,

it's also incredibly external in at least two ways. In one way, faith is relational, meaning I don't just have faith. I have faith in something or someone else, right? So faith is just something I possess, not just something I have internally. It's always outside of me as well. I have faith in the harness. I have faith in the auto-ballet. I have faith in the person who set up the harness and set up the auto-ballet.

So it's always relational, always relational. Faith is always relational. And secondly, it's always external. It has to be. It always has to be visible. Another way to say it is this. Faith is so much more than what we can articulate, so much more than what we say we believe.

Because a person can actually tell what we truly believe if they just watch us. Because I can say that I have faith. in eternal life, but if I spend all of my time investing in this world, then you see what I truly believe. I can say that, oh man, I love my family, and I desire them so much, but if I spend all my time away from my family, then you see what I truly believe, what I truly have faith in.

If I spend all my time, if I say, no, I believe that God listens to my prayers, I believe that my prayers make a difference, I believe that he hears me and he acts on what I pray for, but you don't spend any time praying, then we know what you really believe. We know what you really have faith in. Faith is something that is incredibly visible. Another way to say it is you can see what a person believes in. You can see what a person trusts and you can see what a person has faith in by their choices.

So you even have the second reading today, letters to the Hebrews. He says, by faith, he says, this faith is the realization what's hoped for. That word realization can kind of throw us for a loop because what, Maybe another better way to say it is, faith is the pursuit of what it's hoped for. Faith is not the realization in the sense of have it, but it's the pursuit of what it's hoped for. Faith is the choosing what I hope to have at some day. And so then it describes Abraham, and it says, by faith Abraham obeyed, he acted. By faith, Abraham went out, he acted.

By faith, Abraham sojourned. By faith he received, by faith he offered. It goes through all these things that by faith he then, it was external. You could see in whom Abraham trusted. you can see in whom Abraham had faith by how he lived his life. And the same thing is true for every single one of us. You can see whether we have faith or not based on what we choose. It's so interesting.

You know the word, you could say by what we choose. You can say what we really believe based off of what we love. You can see what we really believe based off what we decide. You might know this about the word decide. The word decide is, it comes from the word to cut off. De Chederay is what that is, to cut off. And so we all know that, right? That's why it's so hard to decide, because it means that if I choose this one thing,

if I decide on one thing, it means I cut off almost all the other options. One of the reasons it's hard to decide. It's Abraham, what did he do? In faith, he chose. In faith, he decided to do what? He decided to cut himself off from his family and homeland and go to a new homeland where there was. would be a new family. He had to cut that off in order to choose. He had to decide in order to live in

faith. And here's the key for all of us. To be a Christian, to be a person of faith, means you are a decision maker. To be a person of faith means you have to be a decision maker. Like, yeah, but Father, I've got FOMO and I just want to live everything. Yeah, fine. But to be a disciple of Jesus, to be a person of faith means you're actually choosing. It's actually someone who's willing to cut off what God does not want and to choose what he does want. Why? Because I always even say this, not even just as a disciple, to live is to be someone who decides.

Like just to be alive, is to be someone who continually decides. To exist, yeah, go ahead, set it and forget it, be a crock pot. Right? So, like, you remember the crock pot, set it and forget it, that whole thing? It's like, yeah, if you just want to exist, you just want to kind of just go through life, yes.

One decision, set it and forget it. Like that whole, you know, the old joke about, the married couple, they're married for 45 years, and the wife says to her husband, like, you know, how come you never tell me you love me anymore? And he says, listen, on our wedding day, I told you I loved you. If anything changes, I'll let you know. That idea, like, what would happen in a relationship? That's all it was. We just said it and forget it. Listen, I decided to be faithful and true to you at our wedding day. That's done. No, no, you all know this in a relationship. You have to decide that every single day or else it's a dead relationship.

To live is to continually decide. To live is to choose. And here's the thing. To cease deciding is to cease becoming. One of the whole points of life is to become a certain kind of person. The kind of person that God has created and called and consecrated you to become. But to cease deciding is to cease becoming. Decease deciding is to cease living. I said it like,

to cease deciding is to be on the side of the deceased. Oh, retweet, you guys, write that down, tweet it. Decease deciding to be on the side of the deceased. Drive up the mic. No. Because deceased deciding is to decide to become nothing. It's to decide to become no one. I'm done.

You know, it's funny, we've asked that question of our lives. Look at our lives right now and ask the question, are you moving? Like, I guess, man, a disciple is a decision maker. Person of faith is someone who decides, who chooses. So the question is, are you moving? And I know that maybe, probably everyone in the church this morning and be like, are you kidding me? Father, my life is so busy.

Like, it is just so full of stuff. And it's just like, I'm doing one thing after the other, after the other. That's fine. Here's the question. Are you choosing? Are you moving? Or do you just happen to be in a stream that's moving? So many of us just caught up in life.

So we're not actually choosing. It's just life is just carrying us. I was talking with a young woman who had graduated from college a number of years ago. She was saying, she's father, I just, it seems like, you know, every morning I get up and I work out, rush off to work, work all day. I come home, I make something, I eat something, I read, I go to bed, and then I get up, and then I rush off to work out, and then I rush off to work, and then I get home, and I make something, and I eat something, and I read something, and I go to bed, and all of a sudden, it's the middle of August, and all of a sudden, it's September, and all of a sudden a whole year has gone by, and I just think, like, the only reason I know that the whole year has gone by

is because I'm like, oh, wow, kids are going back to school. And it just seems like I'm just caught up in this extreme of life. And it's very, very busy. That's the question. Are you moving? Or is just the world around you moving? Another way to say it is, are you living what you believe? Are you choosing the life you're currently living?

Like actively choosing. Remember, a disciple, person of faith is someone who decides. Are you choosing the life you're currently? currently living. And I remember hearing a preacher talk about this once. He said that his grandma used to have a saying. And his grandma would say, when it came to a complaint, when it came to people who are like, I'm not living the life that I think God's calling me to or whatever. She said, he said, she said that she would say, never finish anything. You couldn't finish with the words and I wouldn't have it any other way. So like whatever you have, you and I have

said in the last week, like never say anything that you couldn't finish with the words and I wouldn't have it any other way. So like when I'm talking to the college students are like, oh my gosh, brother, I'm so busy, I'm so overloaded, and I just, you know, I just totally binge on Netflix all last week, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Like, man, I just, you know, here's my life. I just, I get up and I work out, and I go to work, and I eat, and I come home, and I go to bed, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Yeah, I find myself in this place where I'm just so busy, I'm just like, caught up in, like, the rat race, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Life is so stressful right now, and it's just overwhelmed with

all these kind of things, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Because here's the reality that although, although there are many things in our lives that are beyond our control, like many painful things, and I don't want to make this caveat, I know that there's a lot of painful things in almost every person in this church's life right now that you did not choose and you did not create and you have no control over. I realize that. I realize that's true. But for the most part, the painful truth is we are often the cause of our own misery.

Again, there are a lot of things that are out of our control and a lot of things in your life that are out of your control. But for the most part, we are the cause of our own misery. In fact, I love this saying, it was saying that goes like this. Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes that reason is you are stupid and you make bad decisions. But the reality, of course, is that we are often the cause of our own misery. And if I find myself in life and I'm like, okay, this is just so painful, this is so difficult,

this is so hard, then why don't you change it? If I don't want to, if I can't finish this sentence and I wouldn't have it any other way, then why don't we make a decision to cut off what is dragging you down? Or a way of communicating with your spouse that is dragging you down. Or way of communicating with their kids that is just dragging you down and make a move. I think a lot of times it's because it's only when the pain it takes to stay the same outweighs the pain it takes to change that we're finally willing to change. Sometimes it's only when the pain it takes to stay the same is outweighed,

it outweighs the pain it takes to change that we're finally willing to decide. But a disciple is a decision maker. Someone who actually makes those decisions. The person of faith is the one who what, who acts, who moves, who says, okay, this is what I believe. this is how I live. Now, at this point I can imagine people are like, okay, father, that's enough. That's fine for your high school students. That's fine for your college students. I am old. Yes, I can see that. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That was, no, no. But I get it. I get that.

I get that. But here's the question. You're not done, are you? Like, you're not done with life. Like, you're not done becoming, and that means you're still called. to live your faith. It means you're still called to decide, no matter how old you are. You're still, say another way, you're still flexible. You're like, okay, no, you really don't know me, Father.

So the ancient church would talk about this. They would say this, they would say that in a course of a person's life, and the ancient, I mean, early Christians would say that in the course of a person's life, you're like, we're like a pottery, right? That's clay that can still be molded. It can still be moved until one moment. And that one moment is when the clay is put in the fire. and then it's hardened, then it becomes unmovable.

That moment, of course, is judgment that Jesus talks about in the gospel today. The moment, of course, is when the master finally comes home and all the choices we've made, we're still pliable, we're still able to be moved, and that moment, the choice we've made is fixed. We're still flexible until the fire, and after the fire, now it's fixed. You, right now, all of us, by faith, we're still flexible. still choose. In fact, there's this guy, his name is Hans Urs von Balthasar, it's easy for me to say, and he was this just genius Catholic writer in the last century. And he said this. He said,

it is indispensable that every Christian be confronted in the greatest seriousness with the possibility of their becoming lost. I'm going to say that again because it's a big quote. It is indispensable that every individual Christian be confronted in the greatest seriousness with a possibility of their becoming lost. That while I'm still in this earth, I'm still flexible, I can still change, I can still become, I can either become a person who's just like Jesus, because that's what he calls us to be,

or I can become a person who has chosen something other than Jesus. And the reality is, in the end, as it says in the gospel today, God gives us what we chose. To be personal faith is to choose. And in the end, Jesus gives us what we've chosen. He gives us what we've decided. Now, sometimes people would say, like, I can't believe that anyone would choose, anyone would, you know, in the gospel. It's a lot about heaven and hell here.

I can't believe anyone would choose hell. I would say we do that kind of stuff all the time. Do that kind of stuff all the time. In fact, we did this, we had an admission trip this last month, I guess last July, and with a bunch of high school students. It was a really good trip, but we had a painful moment, a really painful moment where on the first couple days of the trip, we had made it really, really clear to all of the students, all the teenagers on the trip that there are some rules on this. And if you break some of these really important rules, I really highlighted, underlined, bolded, and italicized every one of these. He said, okay, this one rule in particular is very important because we know some of you have already done this. If we find out that you've done this kind of, this thing, we will call your parents and you have to go home.

Your trip will be over. And like two hours later, they did it. It's like, children, children, why do you do this to me? Why make me be the bad guy? Because they just decided. And they chose the thing. So it was really interesting. Some of their parents couldn't come pick him up for like the next, say, 24 hours.

So the next day, we're still doing the mission work, the still service work. And one of the guys, he said to one of the priests, who has a pretty good relationship with? He's like, well, yeah, Father. I mean, you guys are kicking me off the trip. And the priest was like, no, I mean, he knows him. So he's like, oh, no one's kicking you off the trip. You chose to be sent home. And that right there is the key.

When it comes to hell, God doesn't kick you to hell. He doesn't kick anyone to hell. It's I chose what I knew he didn't want. That's what it says in the gospel. Those who knew the will of the master and did what they wanted to anyways are making their choice. Because to live is to decide. To decide is to become.

And the reality is, any one of us, we're still flexible until the fire. But after the fire, we're fixed. and we get what we've chosen. To live by faith is to be that kind of person who continues to choose Jesus. This is the last thing. I don't want to get to that moment, the moment of the fire and be like,

oh, shoot, what if I chosen? Now I know. You know, the church doesn't want you either. God doesn't want you to do that either. And so what the church has given us is this really powerful tool, powerful gift that if you were to use this every day, I'm certain that if you were to utilize this gift

on a regular basis, not even every day. Because sometimes we have that perfection idea that if I don't do it every day, then I can't do it at all. if you did this on a regular basis, my guess is, my bet, I would wager that you would not be lost. Here's what it is.

It's called a consciousness examin. So a guy named St. Ignatius of Loyola came up with this idea. Basically, it's a way to live on purpose, a way to live intentionally, a way to ask oneself at the end of every day a couple questions. Here are the questions.

First, where was God in my life today? So often, we were caught in the stream and we're not making decisions, we're just kind of like being carried down by the river. But to ask the question at the end of every day, where was God in my life today? If I didn't go to church, he wasn't anywhere. Well, my gosh, when you went to the workout, was he there? When you went off to work, was he there?

When you drove home, was he there? When you made your food and ate it and read your book, was he there? Here's the thing, spoiler, he was there. Where was God in your life today? Where was he acting? Second question, how did you say yes to his presence today? Where did he show up and you had yes to him? And the third question is, where did he invite you?

you forward? Where did he invite you to move? Where did he invite you to decide? And you didn't say yes. So three questions. Where was God? Where did you say yes? Where did you say yes to him? And third, where did you say no to him? Where did you ignore his invitation? Here is my strong suggestion that if we were to do that on a regular basis, there is little to no way. Because God loves you. He wants you to be saved. He wants you to be with him forever. He's your defender. He is your savior.

There is literally, virtually no way that at the end of our lives, when we get to that place, where we are forever who we've become, that we become someone who's far from God. So, to live by faith is to make decisions. To be a disciple is to be a decision maker. To not just go through life and cease to become. to go through life and become the person God wants you to be, to come to the person like Jesus, simply three questions. God, where were you today?

Where did I say yes today? Where did I say no today? And help me tomorrow.