Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 09/05/21 Seen. Known. Loved.

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

Homily from the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time. Transition always involves destruction. Jesus heals the man who was deaf and mute. In doing this, He was destroying something in the man���s life…his identity. Jesus has to take away the false identity in order to tell us who we truly are. Mass Readings from September 5, 2021: Isaiah 35:4-7 Psalms 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10James 2:1-5 Mark 7:31-37

So, I come from, I guess, a relatively big family. There are six kids, six of us kids, and I'm the fourth of six. So I'm like in the middle. So two girls, and then two boys, and then a girl and a boy. So these two are me and my older brother. So I'm the middle of the middle, right? That makes sense? He and I are the middle, but he's the oldest boy, so I get to be the middle.

And I care about this. Why? Well, because it's my life, that's why. I care about this because I recently came up, well, not recently. When I was growing up, I came upon, like, theories about birth order? Have you ever done any of those reading about your personality is determined by where you fit in your family? So there's this guy named Alfred Adler. He was a psychotherapist back in the 19th, 20th centuries. He was a contemporary of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. And he came up

with this theory that birth order determines your personality. And so his theory was the oldest sibling in an oldest child in a family was often the most neurotic. And if you're the younger one, you'd say, yep, yep, that's right. No, he said he, his, his The theory was they're the most neurotic because they spend a portion of their early life on earth being the center of the family. They're the little king or they're the little queen and they get dethroned by the little sister or the little brother. It goes on to say, he went on to say that they're also the most dutiful. You know, they're in charge because they're the oldest. They're often the most conservative.

That's his theory. He said the youngest are the most spoiled. No, he didn't say that. He said, the youngest are often their personalities marked by they're the most ambitious or the free spirit or they're the risk taker. and again you might look at your family and say, yes, that's totally it. He said the middle child, though, this is what concerned me. He said the middle child was the most emotionally well-adjusted out of the entire family. And I said, absolutely.

Alfred Adler knows what he's talking about. Because I used to think, I used to honestly, before I even knew who this guy was, I would say, yes, I'm the most well-adjusted of every one of my siblings because I had older siblings who cared for me than I got to care for the younger siblings. at older siblings who tortured me, then I got to go torture the younger siblings. It's all about balance. I'm the most emotionally well-balanced

of my entire family. Turns out, of course, that at some point someone put his theory to the test. They actually did the studies with control groups and samples and all these. And it turns out that it's not a real thing. Actually, the one thing they found out from doing birth order and studies

is that the oldest sibling, the biggest difference they found that across the board consistently, the oldest sibling typically had a one point on average higher IQ than the rest of the siblings, and I don't like that. So I am going to ignore it. Of course, so maybe the birth order affecting personality is not a thing. But every one of us knows that at some point in your family,

regardless of your personality, you have a role. There's some kind of place, some way you fit into your family, and that could be anything. Again, regardless of where you find yourself in the lineup, Every individual has certain roles in their family. There's the peacekeeper. There's the funny one, the one that breaks the tension. There's the one who always like pokes the bear and then runs away.

There's, again, the troublemaker. There's the good one. Guess which one in my family that was? There's the overachiever. There's the black sheep. And here's the thing, is that not just for our families. Like even friend groups have these roles, right? Sometimes your friend group has like, no, this is the one who always gets us in trouble.

This is the one who's always like, no, have one more. This is the one who's always like, you guys, we need to go home right now. Like, in friend groups, everyone has a role. And even think about, here we are, after the first full week of classes, or right before the first full week of classes for our CSS students, in high school. How many have you had a role in high school? And the thing is, it's interesting, because when you go back,

when you go back to the family, when you go back to those friend groups, when you go back to high school after you've changed, one of the rules, unwritten rules, unspoken rules, one of the rules is that you can't change your role. No, this is how we know you. This is who you are. And that's so interesting that one of those unwritten rules, you can't change your role. But you have to leave, right? We have to go move on to the next place. We have to enter into transition. Transition. And I wonder if this isn't one of the reasons why

transition almost always brings about destruction. Transition almost always brings about destruction. Not just because transition is tough, right? Transitions can be stressful. Transitions can bring about a lot of anxiety. but because the identity that we crafted just gets taken apart when you move on. The identity that you had with that family, the identity you had with that friend group, the identity you had in high school, it just gets torn apart when you make that transition. And oftentimes what we were known for is often often immediately and totally gone. What you were known for is immediately and totally gone.

So in high school, this is a high school. This is just, okay, I'm just going to say it. In high school, I, as a senior high school, I was voted Homecoming King. I know, you guys, it's okay. You sit back down. And I remember thinking, like, at the time, it's no big deal. It's just a popularity contest. And I thought I believed that.

And then I went to college, and I, kid you not, on my floor, my freshman year, almost every other dorm room had at least one guy in it who also was the homecoming king of their high school. And I was like, oh, it really isn't a big deal. Like that actually is means, it means literally nothing. It's, that's what happened then. No one cares anymore. It means nothing. I was known for that in high school and no one cares.

Or maybe that's a popularity thing. Maybe you have someone who worked hard for something in high school. Maybe you worked so hard, you were number one. Maybe you worked so hard in high school for a long time, you were the Battle of Victorian. You were the number one student in your entire class. Well, you know, every single year. there are 26,000 number ones in their class. Every year there's 26,000 valedictorians across the country.

That's not including homeschoolers. And if you were to go on to be part of an Ivy League, if you went to an Ivy League school, 47% of students in Ivy League schools were either valedictorians or salutatorians. And you're like, I was a big deal in high school, like, not anymore. I had the lead in my school play.

That's nice. At a solo in a cappella or in band, like, mm-hmm, great. but that thing you were known for, no one cares. This idea that, like, back then in the other group, I was seen as, I was seen as a nice person. Back then, I was seen as the funny person. I was seen as a jock.

I was seen as the nerd. I was seen as the band geek. Or, you were known for this accomplishment or that accomplishment. Maybe you're known for the one, you're the one who loves art. Maybe you're the one you're known for being the one who loves science or the one who you're known for being the one who loves athletics. Or you're loved because, you won.

You were loved because you were the nice guy. You were loved because you were that girl who helped anyone out whenever they needed help. So where you're seen as something, you were known for something, and you were loved because of something. And then what happens is you make the transition, and all of that is gone. That's why transition almost always means destruction. It's a destruction of the life we've crafted. It's destruction of the identity that.

we built. I've been thinking about this in relation to the gospel today, it's Mark's gospel. And he tells this incredible story of these people who bring this man who's deaf and he's mute, he's unable to speak, and they bring him to Jesus, you heard the story, so that he could heal him. And then Jesus does this whole string of strange things. I remember even as a kid reading the story thinking, this is so weird. Why is Jesus doing all these weird things? He's doing all these strange things. He takes him off by himself. Then he touches the man's ears. He sticks his fingers in the man's ears. Sorry, Mark makes it clear. He spits. He touches his tongue. He groans. He says epitha, he opened.

Now, some of those things that make sense, right, that he would touch his ears. He's going to heal the ears. Like, I'm going to heal your ears. Like, he spits, you know, I found this out later on that the tradition was, the understanding was that the Messiah, when he came, there would be healing properties in his saliva. That's what they actually believed. And so it makes sense that he would spit and touch your tongue with a spit. It makes sense if he'd groaned because it's a big deal. A big moment for Jesus healing this guy. It also makes sense that he said, Ephitha, because that word means be opened.

But the thing that I never could understand, the strange thing that Jesus does, that he doesn't do in virtually any other healing, is why does he take him off apart by himself? Because he's been healing people right and left in the midst of crowds. Why, when it comes to this man, does Jesus take this man off alone by himself? And I wonder if it... I think it's because of this. I think it's because Jesus knows that he is going to be able to be.

going to destroy something in this man's life. Jesus knows he's about to destroy something in this man's life. He wasn't just going to heal him. He was going to immediately and totally destroy this man's identity. If we think about it, in the ancient world, if you were deaf, if you were unable to speak, I mean, you could get by, but there's no such thing as American Sign Language in ancient Israel. Again, you could probably communicate some things, but think about this. For this man's entire life, even the people closest to him, his inner world is a complete mystery to everyone around him. What he actually thinks.

Nobody knows. What he actually likes or doesn't like. What he dreams about. Nobody has any idea. This man's inner world is completely unknown to the people, even the people closest to him. He was just seen as the deaf guy. He's just known for being a burden.

He was loved because, well, we feel bad for him. And all of that is about to change. Jesus is going to take all of that away from this man. You know, there's a guy named James Baldwin. He once said, he said, nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. Nothing is more desirable than to be released of an affliction.

Yeah, take it away. But nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. Because what do I do now? Who am I now? And I think it's interesting because, you know, I think of the things that we allow to define us, they're not just our successes. They're also, some things, some of us here in this church tonight,

what we allow to define us are our failures. That we don't just allow our wins to define us. I think we sometimes allow our wounds to define us. We don't just allow our triumphs to define us. We allow our tragedies to define us. It's not we don't just allow our accomplishments to define us. And this is say, this is who you are. We sometimes allow our embarrassments to define us and say,

that's who you are. And we say who I am is the failure. I'm rejected. I'm alone. I know there's people who they had that spouse that was that was taken away or that spouse who just walked away. And so here I am. I'm just seen as a failure.

I'm known for being a screw-up. I'm loved because, well, I don't even know if I'm loved. So what does Jesus do? Jesus takes this man away because he's not only going to take his problem away, He's going to take this man's crutch away. Jesus essentially is saying, you're no longer going to be seen as the deaf guy.

You're no longer going to be known as the one who begs. You're no longer going to be loved because people have pity on you. Isn't it so interesting that sometimes we take consolation to those things? Like sometimes those crutches that we have, that identity that we have, as rough as our pains can sometimes be, we have a knack for getting comfortable with them. As awful as our crutches can be.

Sometimes we just become used to them, and so someone takes away the crutch, and we just find a new crutch for a new season. So maybe it was in the past, it used to be my identity, I found success in athletics. Now that's over, so maybe I need to find success financially. Or in the past, I got my identity from being attractive, and that's gone. So now I get my identity from having a lot of cool, expensive toys. Maybe in the past, you were known for being a burnout. So now I'm hyper-responsible. People know they can count on me.

That's who I am. Or maybe you're known for being a nobody. So now I'm going to be somebody. I'm going to be significant. See, we just replaced these, when these identity gets taken away, we come up with another quick identity really quickly. When someone takes that crutch away, we can find a new crutch really quickly. And so Jesus takes this man away, off by himself, basically saying this.

I just imagine Jesus saying this to the man. As he gives him his hearing back, and he says this, He says, you are going to hear new voices, and they're going to try and tell you who you are. But I took you off by yourself so that the first voice you ever heard would be my voice. I took you up by yourself, so that the first voice you ever heard

is me telling you who you really are, not seen as the deaf guy, or even now seen as the guy who got Jesus healed. Not known for begging or now not known for begging, or now not known for being someone who proclaims, and not love because we had pity on you, or not love because now you're popular after you're having been healed.

But simply, this is who you are. You are seen, period. You are known, period. You are loved, period. That's it, nothing more, but absolutely nothing less. you know, this is the last thing. It's pretty incredible that Jesus does this massive healing. It happens like immediately, right?

His ears are immediately open and he can hear. His tongue is immediately loosed and he can speak. But the thing that strikes me every single time I read this healing is it says very clearly that as the man's ears were opened, he could hear as his tongue was loosed. It said he immediately began to speak clearly. So Jesus didn't just heal him. He didn't just make it so he could hear.

He gave them the ability to un-examination. understand. He could understand what people are saying around him. He didn't just make it so he had the ability to speak. He gave him the power to communicate. That's a pretty massive miracle. In an instant, he gives this man not just the ability to hear, but the power to understand, not just the ability to talk, but the ability to speak clearly, which is a huge risk. Because now the man, he gets to reveal to people around him. This is what I think. He has revealed people to people around him.

This is what I believe. This is what I feel. This is what I like. This is what I don't like. He actually gets now, he has to take the risk because he's been given the power. And this is every single one of us in this church tonight.

At one point in your life and in my life, Jesus reached out his hand and he claimed you as his son. He claimed you as his daughter. He said, that's free. He healed. us from the power of sin over us. But then he gave us power. And he gave you power. He said, okay, this is the thing. You're going to hear all these voices. They're going to tell you

who you are. This is who you are. You're my son. You're my daughter. You are who I say you are. And now Jesus gives us the power to live like this. Now Jesus gives us the power, not simply to be freed, not simply to be healed, but the power to live freely. The power to live as someone who's been healed. Jesus, he has got some competition, I think, though. Because, man, we walk out these doors. There are so many voices. Say, no, no, no, no, no.

This is who you need to be seen as. This is what you're known for. This is why you're loved. I think it's one of the reasons why in this gospel, Jesus takes the man off by himself because what he's telling us is you're going to have to go off by yourself and listen to nothing but my voice every day.

If you want to live in power, if you want to live in freedom, then you're going to have to go off by yourself. It doesn't have to be super long. It might even just be the walk from your car to campus. It could just be from the time where you're brushing your teeth to you're getting into bed. But at some point, you need to go off by yourself with Jesus and listen to his voice so he can tell you, this is who you are.

that voice, the first voice, the voice of Jesus that took him off by himself, who tells the man who he really is, is the voice that tells you and me who we really are, that you are who God says you are, and nothing less, not seen as this or not known because of that, and not love because of the other thing,

but simply, you are, seen, known, and loved.