Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 08/23/20 Influencer

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

Homily from the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time. Homily from the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Church has influence even when it isn’t considered important. We can often confuse influence with importance; authority with power. But the Church has been given the very influence and authority of Jesus Christ. Even when the world does not listen to the voice of the Church, She still has the influence and authority of Jesus. Mass Readings from August 23, 2020: Isaiah 22:19-23 Psalms 138:1-3, 6, 8Romans 11:33-36 Matthew 16:13-20

So I've been thinking recently about, I don't know, if you go on social media, you occasionally will come across these things of like, it's not, you've heard of the term influencer, of course, right? That's the thing is like, it's, I have to say, I don't know, how do I say this? So if you are on Instagram, you're on YouTube, if you're on any one of those social media kind of platforms, a lot of times people consider you to be an influencer or they, people, that's not so bad. What's kind of annoying to me is when people say, I'm kind of, I'm an influencer, so it has an influencer. here's my product or whatever the thing is.

Like whenever when someone claims it for themselves, it seems really, doesn't that seem weird to you? Or maybe it doesn't, maybe you're like, no, it's totally normal. It always bothers me. Like when someone's like, well, as an influencer, I have a responsibility to blah, blah, blah. And I guess, okay, let me disclaimer. That's good insofar as it goes, right? Because insofar as someone's taking responsibility and saying, okay, I have responsibility for what I say, I have responsibility for what I do,

I have responsibility for the influence that I've been given, or the power that I've been given, That's not a bad thing, obviously. But too often, I think we conflate influence with importance. Or we make the same thing like, influence is having power. That's what it is to have influence. Or influence, even worse, is fitting in. It's like, no, you're a spokesperson. And a spokesperson is always someone who just fits in.

That's someone who says what not necessarily needed to be said, but what was expected for them to say. In fact, like, I don't know. I have a YouTube channel. Here we are, obviously, doing mass. And how many times in the course of that time of having a channel have people said, well, Father Mike, you need to use your influence to say something about X? And it's just so interesting because, like, sure, there's such a thing as taking responsibility

for one's words, what we say, what we do, all those things, absolutely. But a lot of times I think what people mean when they say, you need to use your influence to say X. I think what they're saying is you need to use your influence to say what everyone else is saying. Because rarely, I don't know if you've ever noticed it, but rarely is someone going to stand up as an influencer, they're going to go against the grain. Typically, when someone stands up, quote, again, boldly stands quote out, I'm saying this sarcastically, boldly stands up as an influencer, they boldly stand up and just say what everyone else is saying. It is rare, incredibly rare that someone uses the influence to actually make a difference. And so it turns out, I think sometimes that influence doesn't necessarily mean power.

And influence doesn't necessarily mean importance. I think real influence, real influence, means oftentimes saying what isn't being said. You know, in the gospel today, it's Matthew 16. It's a powerful gospel. But here Jesus takes the disciples up to Caesar Reap Philippi. It's 29 miles north of the Sea of Galilee where they've all been living for the last however long. And he asks them the question, who do people say that the son of man? is, who do people say that I am? And there's all these answers. Sometimes Jeremiah, Elijah,

John the Baptist, one of the prophets. That's what people are saying. That's what the important people are saying. That's what the not important people are saying. That's what folks are saying. That's the line. Jesus, I don't know, people say all these, maybe all these prophets. And then Jesus says, but who do you say that I am? And it says, later on, Jesus says, flesh and blood does not reveal this to you, Simon, son of Jonah. But Simon, son of Jonah, going to be named Peter in a second. He stands up and he says something contrary. He says, now what everyone else is saying, he says you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And we have to stop and realize, we're going to press pause on this and say,

the world around us. Who does the world around us say Jesus is? Well, they say he's a holy person, he's a good person, he is a lover of humanity, that he's a great teacher, great prophet, all those things are partially true. But then what God is going to ask us is, okay, that's what is being said, But who do you say that I am? Who do you say that Jesus is? And if our answer simply matches up with the world's answer, it's going to be the wrong answer.

Because Jesus isn't Jeremiah, he's not Elijah, he's not John the Baptist, he's not one of the prophets, he is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Again, if our answer matches up with the world around us, then we might fit in really well, but we will be fitting in by giving the exact wrong answer And the potential that you and I would have had to actually speak the truth, to actually have influence, will be given away.

Because why? Because we too often confuse authority with importance and influence with popularity. Let's back up for today's gospel, though. Just like to get into this. As I mentioned, this is Matthew's Gospel. And this is not like out of the blue. This is this question in Matthew 16, right in the middle of the gospel, is not kind of out of the blue.

In fact, Matthew's Gospel is all about, if it's given you any one thing, Matthew's Gospel is all about this one thing. It's all about the kingdom. It's all about the fact that God had promised all the way back to Abraham at the very beginning of this whole show, the whole story, as beginning of the Bible, God promises to Abraham that he will make of him a great nation and through that great nation, the entire world will be blessed. And so Abraham has a son, Isaac, and Isaac has a son Jacob.

Jacob's name gets changed into Israel and Israel slash Jacob has 12 sons. those become the 12 tribes of Israel. That was 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 sons of Jacob, become the first kingdom of Israel. And so here is this growth in power, this growth in influence, right? This growth in the world of, like, importance of the kingdom of Israel. But what happens is they're not faithful to the Lord. And so the kingdom breaks off, 10 tribes to the north and two tribes in the south.

After a couple hundred years, the Assyrians coming from the north, and they obliterate, completely destroy those 10 tribes in the north. And the only two tribes that are left are tribe of Judah and tribe of Benjamin in the south. That's where Jesus comes from the tribe of Judah, of the House of David, right? And that's why Matthew starts out his gospel by talking about this whole story. You've heard it every Christmas where it's like, it says, here's the genealogy of Jesus. And you're like, oh my gosh, this is a long list of names. It'll end up with Jesus.

What's the whole point that Matthew's trying to make? The whole point that Matthew is trying to make is he starts with Abraham and he ends with Jesus. and what he's trying to say is Jesus is the one who's going to fulfill the promise that God had made to Abraham, that through his descendants, the entire world will be blessed. And even though those 10 tribes on the north were obliterated and there's no kingdom of Israel, that Jesus is going to reconstitute the kingdom of Israel. Again, this is kind of a circuitous route, but just follow me on this one. So the entire point of Matthew's Gospel is that Jesus is the one who's going to reestablish the kingdom.

He's going to be the king. If you're questioning, you're like, wait, are you sure that's the exact heart of the message? The very first words Jesus proclaims in the beginning of his public ministry is in Matthew chapter 4, after the death of John the Baptist. Jesus goes to the north of the Sea of Galilee and his very first words he ever proclaims in his public ministry, it says from that time on Jesus began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Everything Jesus does in the entire Gospel Matthew is all about this, that he is the king,

he's here to establish a kingdom. and that kingdom is going to spread throughout the world. And through that kingdom, the entire world will be blessed. So is that what's to have to do with today? What has to do with today is in Matthew 16, where do they go? They go up to Caesarea Philify. Who do people say that am? They all say this.

Who do you say that am? You're the Messiah, the Son of God. And Jesus looks at Simon and he says, blessed to you, Simon, son of Jonah. For flesh and bill has not revealed this to you. My heavenly fathers reveal this to you. And so I say to you, your name is now Rock. Peter, Kaffai.

Kefa, that word in Aramaic, means rock. He says, you are now Kefa, and upon this Kefa, I will build my church. This is the very first moment where Jesus actually, the only time really, in the gospel where Jesus says, I'm going to build a church. And he says, I'm going to build it on you, Peter. He changes Simon's name to Peter and says, I'm going to build my church upon you, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. But here's the critical thing.

As he says, I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, whatever whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth should be loosed in heaven. For us, we're like, cool, nice. Keys of the Kingdom, I got it. That's like the whole, like the foundation behind every single joke you ever hear, but like, so-and-so died and went to heaven and there's Peter at the gates. It's not what this means.

What Jesus is making a reference to is not the future jokes that'll be told about Peter at the gates. What Jesus is referencing is a specific place in the Old Testament. It's in Isaiah chapter 22 where there's the story, we heard it today in the first reading, the story of this man named Shabna, who was the prime minister, of the kingdom. Right, so in the kingdom of Israel there was a king, duh, and then there was a prime minister.

Actually his title in Hebrew is the al-bayit, which means the over the house. Al is over and ba'it, like beth is house. So beth lecham is house of bread. So bet means house, the al-ba'at, the al-Bet is the over the house. The one who's not the king, but the one who's in charge when the king is away, the prime minister. And his name was Shabna. And Shabna was not good.

He was a wicked person. And so God says to Shebna, I will eject you from your station. And I'll give your position to a man named Eliakim, son of Hilkaya. And then he goes on to describe what Eliyakim's life is like, what Eliakim's not life is like, what his role is as the al-Bai'it. And he says this, he says, I will clothe him with your robe and gird him with your sash. I will give over to him your authority. Now this is, let's stop for this, for this moment.

what God is saying he's going to do in the life of Eliyakim. In making him the al-Bayyte. He's not making him the king. There is a king. He's making him the al-ba'i, the prime minister, the second in command to the king. He gives him a robe and a sash which are signs of authority and even says, I'll give him your authority, your power, or another word, your influence. He'll be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to the house of Judah. I will place the key to the house of David on his shoulder. What he opens, no one shall show. shut, what he shuts, no one shall open.

See, sometimes people will say, like, your idea of the Pope, your Catholics, your idea of the Pope is like in a medieval invention. You invented it like, you know, hundreds of hundreds of years after Christianity was established. Like, no, absolutely not. In fact, Jesus invented the idea of the Pope in Matthew 16 when he was referencing this role of the al-Baiete in Isaiah chapter 22. And he says, here's the king is, keys the kingdom of David. What he opens, no one shall shut, what he shuts, no one shall open.

And he goes on to say, I will fix him like a peg in a sure spot. be a place of honor for his family, and on him shall hang all of the glory of his family. Jesus, all he has to do is say to Peter, to Simon, your name is now Rock, I build my church on you. Gates of hell not prevail against you. Give you the keys, which you bind on earth, to abound in heaven. What you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. This is incredible. Again, we can hear this gospel and not know this Old Testament,

but I guarantee you those disciples who are with Peter at that moment. They knew their Old Testament. They knew Isaiah chapter 22. And they knew exactly what Jesus was doing when he says to Peter, you are now the one with the keys. You are now the one who opens, no one shall shut. You are the ones who, when you shut, no one shall open. They knew at that moment, here is Jesus. He's the king.

He's reestablishing a kingdom. And he just made Simon, I mean, new nickname Peter, into the al-Baiet. Essentially, he just gave him power. He just gave him authority. he just gave him influence. And this is the reality of the Catholic Church. And this is this, the reality of the Catholic Church is that when Jesus says, you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church,

the fact of the matter is that the Catholic Church is not just one church among many denominations. There are many Christian denominations, over 30,000 in the United States alone. But out of all of the Christian denominations throughout the entire world, only one is not man-made. There's only one Christianity that's not manmade and it's the Catholic Church. It's in Matthew 16 when Jesus says, I will establish my church on you, Peter. There's only one church. Yeah, people say, well, all religion is manmade. Almost all religions are manmade except for one.

And that religion is the Catholic Church. In fact, I would say this. I would even say, I would venture to say that every Christian, whether they know it or not, believes in the authority of the Catholic Church. Every Christian, whether they know it or not, they believe in the influence of the Catholic Church. What I mean by that is every Christian professes to believe that the Bible is the Word of God.

Every one of us, if you ever are talking to a Protestant brother or sister and say, like, you know, to believe in the Word of God? Absolutely, I believe in the Word of God. Do you believe the Bible's inerrant? It has no errors, absolutely, it has no errors. And you say, okay, that's wonderful, but where did you get this page? Like, this is the table of contents.

Where do we get this page in the Bible? Because as Catholics, as non-Catholic Christians, we all believe, we all agree that, yep, these are the books of the Bible, we all believe the Bible is without error, but question, where do we get this table of contents? In fact, we didn't even have the Bible completely assembled until roughly the fourth century. Is that saying that there were no Christians until the fourth century? No. Why?

Because we realized that the Church predates the Bible. And not only did the church predate the Bible, all these hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people becoming Christians in this first couple of centuries. of Christianity, not because of the Bible, because of the Church. And the question comes up, where did you get this page? Where did you get the table of contents? And the reality is, you got the table of contents of the Old and New Testament in the Year 350 in the Council of Rome.

Later on ratified in the Year 398, the Council of Carthage. And then a bunch of years later, it was ratified again, if you can ratify something more than once, at the Council of Trent in the 1500s. the 1500s. But even from the 4th century, it was the Catholic Church that said these 73 books, and only these 73 books, are the sacred and inspired Word of God. And even though in the 1500s Martin Luther took out seven of those books, for more on that, I don't know, there's maybe more videos on this kind of thing, but you know, 1,11, 100 years after the church

established the Bible, Martin Luther took out seven books. Even though that happened, the remaining books, the remaining 66 books, are there for one reason only, is because the Catholic Church said these are the books you can trust. In fact, in the 4th century, there's a guy named St. Augustine. St. Augustine, this massive convert to the church, to the faith, who did so much to advance the understanding of who God is and what it is to be Christian, St. Augustine himself said, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't believe the Gospels. I wouldn't believe Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

I wouldn't believe the Gospels unless the Catholic Church had told me that I can believe the Gospels. We realized that this church Jesus found today in Matthew's Gospel, Matthew Chapter 16, with the Pope, has had so much influence throughout the course of these last 2,000 years. I mean, honestly, not only giving us the scripture, but shaping our culture. I mean, the idea that every one of us believes that every human being is made in God's image and likeness, that comes from one place, the Catholic Church. The idea, the belief that we profess that regardless of your race, that we're equal in dignity,

that comes from one place, that comes from the Catholic Church, comes from nowhere else. The idea that women and men are equal comes from one place, that's the Catholic Church. The idea that children matter, the idea that even though, even if a child is sick, if a child is deformed, if a child is lame, if a child is orphaned, that that child deserves love, that comes from one place that comes from the Catholic Church. In fact, the Catholic Church is the only place, the only institution, the first institution that ever looked at orphans and said, we need to take care of them. The Catholic Church is the first organization, first institution that ever looked at people who were sick

and said, regardless of whether or not we're related to those people, we need to take care of those people. The Catholic Church founded the hospital system. The Catholic Church is the first organization to say, regardless of your wealth, regardless of your class, regardless of your race or ethnicity, you deserve an education. The Catholic Church was the first group to start education for all. And when it comes to science, how the church invented science, you'd even say this, the Catholic Church right now, even today, is the single largest charitable organization in the entire world as influence. And really now at the end of the day though, right now in 2020, you can look at all those things.

Look at all those things. Look at the Bible. You can look at the way it's shaped culture, way it's shaped human dignity, approach to other human beings and we could ask the question, so what? Like after all this, after 2,000 years of influencing the world around it, you can look at the church and say, okay, so what? Because people can look at the church now and say, well, the church is just full of hate, the church is full of oppression, the church is full of errors, it's full of sins. What has the church done lately? And they wouldn't be wrong. Like this is important, they wouldn't be wrong. I've

been reading the Old Testament prophets lately. I was reading the prophet Jeremiah, it's chapter 7. where Jeremiah is talking about the people of Israel, who are the chosen people of God, the people of the covenant, that God brought into the covenant with him, and Jeremiah is really against them saying, yeah, yes, you are a blessing to the world, yes, you have relationship with God, yes, you have God in your presence. Like they have the temple.

But Jeremiah has this line that's just so powerful and so eerie, he says, you keep on saying, this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, and yet you are not living like that. What he means to say is, he's like, basically you keep saying that God is in your presence, but you're not living like he is. You keep saying that God has promised you all these gifts, but you're not living like he is. You keep saying you belong to God himself, but you're not living like he is.

Like you do. The fact is, you have been blessed, but you've wasted your blessing. And so, maybe you had influence, but so what? I was thinking about this a lot lately, not only because of Jeremiah, but also I came across something that Archbishop Fulton Sheen had once said. He said it about 45, 46 years ago, in 1974. He said this. He said, he's giving a talk and he said these words. He said, we are at the end of Christendom. We're at the end of Christendom. We're not at the end of Christianity, we're not at the end of the church, but we're at the end of Christendom. And he asked the question,

he says, now what is meant by Christendom? He says, Christendom is economic, political, and social life as inspired by Christian principles, and that is ending. And we have seen it die. It's almost 50 years ago, here's our spiritual machine standing up and saying, like, no. Like, you're used to, our grandparents, our parents were used to raising children in the midst of a world that like affirmed their Christian beliefs. Your parents and my parents, our grandparents, were used to raising people, sending them off to public school.

Where at the public school, what they'd be given was something that would confirm and affirm what they were teaching at home, what they were teaching on Sunday. political life, that if you were a Catholic, if you were a Christian, that would be an asset. Because it would mean like, oh yeah, maybe you're honest, maybe you're striving for truth, maybe you're striving for goodness. Right now it is looked at as a liability. That's something that some people have even said would disqualify a person from serving on the Supreme Court if they were a Catholic.

We are living, as Fulton Sheen said, at the end of Christendom and the church is growing smaller. I mean, not just because COVID and no one's going to Mass, but the church is growing smaller. And the church is having less influence. And even in our diocese, we're having to close, I mean, imagine we're closing schools, we're closing parishes. Imagine your diocese, they're closing schools, closing parishes. You don't have the buildings used to have. Don't have the influence used to have. Maybe even as a Catholic, you say that out loud and you look that mildly askew because the church doesn't have influence anymore.

And that can be kind of scary, but I would say, imagine being at Caesarea Philippi in the gospel today. And you know that Jesus is the Messiah, the only son of God, the Holy One of God, and you just heard that Peter now was made the Al-Bait, the prime minister. But what do you have? You have nothing. You have nothing about Christ's promises. You have nothing about Christ's presence. In fact, I was reading this book.

It's his book that's printed by You Mary. U. Mary out in Bismarck. It's called From Christendom to Apostolic Mission. And in it, there's a page here, page 36, where it says, okay, here's our agenda as the Apostolic Church. Here's the, at Matthew 16, at Caesarea Philippi, our agenda. What's our agenda? Our agenda is to bring the gospel of Christ to the world. Okay, so what are our resources?

What do we have? And it goes to this whole list of things. You can see it maybe here, right, this whole list of things. It says, okay, how many bishops do we have? We have 11. Total. No more than that. We have bishops, 11.

How many priests? Same number. How many deacons? None. How many trained theologians? None. How many religious orders? None. How many seminarians? None. How many seminaries? None. How many Christian believers? Couple hundred. How many countries with Christians in them? One. How many church buildings? None. How many schools? How many universities? None. How many written gospels? None. How much money? How much money? very little. How much experience do they have with foreign missions? None. How many influential contacts in high places next to none? And what is the societal attitude towards us? Ignorant? To hostile. So they start out, they didn't start out with influence. The church, when it started out, it did not start out with influence. And that's what we get to be right now. That's like where the church gets to be in the United States,

now is yeah we might have to close some universities but we still have universities we have to close some parishes we still have parishes we might have to there might be some bad apples in the bishops and in the priests and in the people but at least we have more than 11 of them you get to start fresh and we get to start in some ways without influence we get to start without power we get to start without authority we get to start with nothing but Christ's promise and his presence and you and I get to start start as his apostles. So the fact that we don't have influence is not something that should get us discouraged. In fact, Fulton she went on to say, he said this, he said, these

are great. The same days, he said, the end of Christendom, end of Christendom, not end of Christianity, not an end of the church, he said, but these are great and wonderful days in which to be alive. At the end of Christendom, with no influence, these are great and wonderful days in which to be alive. It is not a gloomy picture. It's a picture of the church in the midst of increasing opposition from the world and therefore live your lives in the full consciousness of this hour, this hour of testing, and rally close to the heart of Christ. At the end of Christendom, this moment right now, at the beginning of a new apostolic age, Fulton Sheen said, like what do he say? He said, these are great and wonderful days in which to be alive. And not only are

these great and wonderful days in which to be alive, it is not an accident that you get to be alive in the midst of them. Other generations, they got to be alive in the midst of Christendom and got to be alive in the midst of a culture that supported their parenting, in midst of a culture that supported their Christianity, in the midst of a culture that gave them influence. But you and I get to be alive in this time. And Jesus Christ, the Father and the Holy Spirit chose us to be alive in this time to live with or without power, but to live with his power. To live with or to live without the respect of the world, but to live with his love. To live with or without influence, but only with his promise.

And what is his promise? This is the last thing. Because it's hot in here. It's the last thing. He said one of his many promises, this promise. He promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church. The gates of hell will not prevail against his church. What's the image you have when you hear those words?

I know for me, for years, I mean, until it was maybe, I don't know, 20-something, I used to think that the gates of hell not prevailing against his church. church meant that the gates of hell will not be able to infiltrate the church. The gates of hell will not be able to break down the church, but that's not how it is. The gates of hell are the gates that keep heaven out of hell. They keep life out of the place of death. That keep light out of the place of darkness. And Jesus is saying that the gates of hell cannot, will not be able to possibly withstand

the power, the authority of Christ, the influence of his church to break into the darkest of places in this world and in the nether world. and defeat it. Whether we have influence in this world, Christ has promised that we have his power in this world, and that the gates of hell will not be able to stand against his church. And that means that if you and I are the apostles, we're the disciples that God had chosen, has chosen from all eternity, to be alive in this hour, in this time for this mission, that means that we need to move. That means that we need to march. That means that we need to be on mission

to bring His gospel to all places, to bring His light into the darkness, to bring his hope where there is no hope, to bring Him past the gates of hell and into the hearts of all who find themselves in the realm of death. This is how God wants you to use your influence to break down the gates of God. of hell and bring life to all those who are enslaved by it.