Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 09/08/19 First Thing First

Episode Date: September 9, 2019

Homily from the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time. Out of everything in life, Jesus has to be first. In our lives, we continually divide ourselves and divide our hearts by giving away our small “yesses”. Jesus calls us to experience freedom, joy, and clarity by giving Him our big “Yes” because He is the priority. Mass Readings from September 8, 2019: Wisdom 9:13-18 Psalms 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-14, 17Philemon 9-10, 12-17 Luke 14:25-33

So I don't know if you remember a couple weeks ago we had the student activities fair, which is just, isn't it, like right outside, you know, the window on the lawn out there. I don't know if you went to it. We didn't get a booth. We didn't get a table this year, which stinks. They told us there are 250 student groups on campus, and there's like 123 tables that they have, and we missed out. But we missed out on what? I mean, isn't it funny if you went to it? It's kind of this like love, hate, kind of torture fest type situation where you walk through it.

Like you're walking through the gaunt, like everyone's got their thing, like all the different clubs that are out there. And everyone's like, hey, come to our club, come join our club, throw a frisbee with us, you know. We like coloring. Do you like coloring? We have a coloring club, you know. We like Star Wars. Come do Kylo Rem with us. Whatever.

And everyone's trying to get your attention. And when you're walking through there, maybe this is you, it definitely is me. You're walking through and you never like look above the little sign in front of the table. Because you don't want to make eye contact with those people. Because everyone wants you to join their thing. You're like, no, no, no, I'll just see what you're all about. Like, I don't need to look up. I'll take your free stuff, no eye contact.

because there's all this pressure, like, come join our thing. And there's that thing of, like, sometimes you're the kind of person, I don't know if this is you, but you can be the kind of person who's like, well, maybe. I mean, that sounds pretty interesting, and that sounds pretty interesting. And you come back to your dorm room with this, like, mass of swag that you picked up, and like, I guess I'm part of all the clubs. I, like, signed up for 42.

Because I don't know how to say no. In the back of the room, tonight after Mass, we have this whole, like, you know, our ministries that we have at Newman, here are the Catholics on campus. We have, like, we have our prayer team, and we have a leader. leadership team, and we have service team, mission trips, we have Bible studies, all these things that you can say yes to right after Mass. So again, we're no better. But isn't it so interesting that you're just like, I don't want to say yes to any of these

things quite yet. We like to put off, I think sometimes a lot of times you like to put off giving an answer, not even saying yes, but just even saying no. I mean, honestly, when was the last time someone asked you if you could do something with them the upcoming weekend and was like, you? It's Monday. That's way too early. Okay, now it's Thursday.

It's still, ah, I don't know. You know, the best time to ask someone, what are you doing Friday night? Friday afternoon? That's the time. That way I can say, like, okay, I can commit to you. In one hour for now, yes, or one hour for now, no. You know, we're doing this next weekend on Friday. We're leaving for our first-timers retreat, so it's a retreat for,

this is also a little commercial. It's a retreat for anyone who's never been on retreat in college. And it's just, it's an awesome thing. But every, like, like, hey, would you want to come to the first-time retreat? Almost every single time, the answer is, answer is, oh, wow, yeah, sounds good. I'll think about it, maybe. I haven't memorized. That's why. I've heard it so many times. Hey, would you want to come to this retreat? Oh, father, that

sounds good. Yeah, maybe. I'll think about it. And I just want to ask the question. And I understand. Like, I get it. Like, it's going to a different place and it's making that commitment. But have you ever been in that place where you just say, oh, sounds good. I'll think about it, maybe. And ask yourself this question. Why can't I just say yes? Or even the question, why can't I just say no? Have you ever stopped and asked that question? Because I could go, well, do you want to? And almost everyone says, well, yeah, kind of.

Because that's it, that's every single time. When it comes down to all the choices we have, I mean, coming to what college you want to go do, all these options. When it comes to like you have the stack of like, these are all the majors that people offer in colleges. You have all these options, all these choices. Even when it comes to like after college,

What kind of job do you want to get? Where do you want to live in the world? Because you can actually pretty much live anywhere in the world you want. You have all these options. What we end up with is we end up with this thing that I'll call apparent freedom. Because on the surface, it looks like it'd be free. On the surface, it looks like you have so many unlimited choices. And because of all those unlimited choices, you should feel more free than anyone.

You should feel more joyful than anyone. I have all these choices. I have all these options. And yet someone comes along and they step in and ask the most annoying question. The most annoying question is, well, what do you want? Because our answer is, I don't know. Well, do you not want to do this? No, I do.

I want all of it. I just want all of it, kind of. At the end of the day, so often, that's supposed to feel like freedom, but it feels like being trapped. You know, what was supposed to feel like power, like you have the power to choose, feels like paralysis. And what was supposed to feel joyful, what was supposed to be like, how awesome is this, happy about the fact that I get to choose all these things? Instead, it feels like a burden.

It feels like stress. So what we end up doing is we try to hold on to this apparent freedom by just giving little yeses, like just dividing ourselves. And I'll just give a little kind of partial yes to this. I'll give a kind of partial yes to this next thing. I'll give another piece of my yes to this other thing. We end up with all these divided hearts and try.

to hold on to all these yeses and it's absolutely exhausting, just giving away all these little pieces, these little yeses. And here's the thing, if you're starting to feel bad about yourself, like, that's me, Father, I know. 21st century, it's not just a new thing. In fact, the first reading today, Book of Wisdom, Chapter 9, it says almost the exact same thing. It says this, it says, the deliberations of mortals are timid and unsure are our plans. are our plans and our deliberations are timid. I mean, think about, someone says, hey, what do you

want to do with your life? Like, I'm not sure. I'm not even sure what I want to do with this weekend. Or deliberations are timid. You know what timid means? Timid means fearful. Like, we're so often, we're just afraid to make a choice. So often we're just afraid to decide. So often we're, so often we're afraid to commit. Because we think that if we commit, well, I might choose the wrong thing. If I commit, I might commit to the wrong thing. If I say a big yes to this, it might be the wrong thing. And we associate this commitment with being trapped. But I will say this.

I would maintain this. I think we are unsatisfied because of our uncommitment. And I think that it's actually the case that we lack freedom precisely because we lack commitment. And many times in our lives, we lack joy because we lack commitment. And so often we lack clarity because we lack commitment. Because what have we been doing? We've been dividing our hearts, we've been dividing ourselves, we've been dividing all these

little yeses, but we don't know what we want. We don't know what we want. Because we have priorities. Everyone's got the priorities. It's such a funny word. Priorities is the word that I think is funny. Because I don't know if you knew this. Priorities, the word was invented like in the 1350s, the word priority was invented.

up until the 1900s, the word was priority. But in the 1900s, that word became pluralized. So, like, for, I don't know, I'm not good at math, 500 years, someone else do that calculator or something, for 500 years plus, when you had a priority, there was one of them. Because that's what priority means, right? It means prior. It means preeminent.

It means supreme. It means absolute. It means first. And if you've ever been in a competition, how many firsts are there? There's one first. someone's like, what about a tie? There's the door. You can leave.

We know this. We know there's only one person. There's only one priority. And yet, what do we do? We have all these goods and we have all these priorities, all these things. And it makes us miserable because we keep seeing all these yeses. And we want to hold on to all these priorities. And we're just exhausted. You ever go grocery shopping and you're like, oh, I'm just going to go get one thing? And you're walking to get the one thing.

And so you grab the one thing. And so you need something else and something else and something else. is because you only went in for one thing, you didn't take a cart. And so what happens is now you have all these 12, 14 things, you know, walking around on the grocery store like a moron. These adults are like, oh, a child. They have these things at the door called carts. You're like, I know I'm an idiot. This is my first trip here.

Because they're trying to juggle all these things. It would be so easier to do what? To put all those things down and go back and get the one thing, the first thing. That's what, you know, that saying is, right, put first things first. which is funny too. I would say that's a misnomer. It's put first thing first. That when we find ourselves

with all this stuff carrying it around, we're like, but I forgot to put the first thing. And again, we're just miserable. We're trapped. And that's actually what Jesus is talking about in the gospel today. So you might have heard the gospel. I'm like, man, Jesus is having a bad day.

Like, he's like, unless you hate your father and your mother and your brother and sister and even your own life, you're not worthy of me. And you're like, wow, this is angry Jesus. You're like, what is he, what if I was to do? Like, go back to my room tonight and call my mom, Mom, I hate you. In Jesus' name, you know.

Like, no, that is not the point. Jesus is not saying you have to hate your parents. In fact, he's speaking hyperbolicly. What he's actually saying is, okay, I know how miserable you are. Because there are so many good things, so many good people, so many good relationships in your life, and you're trying to hold them all together by dividing your heart up.

But what will give you joy, what will give you freedom, what will give you clarity, is you just put me for you. That's all he's saying. Put me first. And if put me first, I put the first thing first. Then you find that, oh man, all these other loves fit in my heart now. Once I go back and get the cart, oh my gosh, all these other good things are so much easier to hold on to. But only if I put him first. He's the first thing.

He needs to be first. So you might think I'll go first. Okay, that's good. I like that. Write that one down. How do I know if I'm doing that? Like, how do I know that I'm putting that first thing? How do I know I'm putting Jesus first? Good question. Most of you probably moved recently. Either you moved up to Duluth for the first time, or you moved back to Duluth.

And you moved back into this house. You moved to an apartment, moved to your dorm. And I know some of you are like, you get things exactly the way you want it in your dorm room. Have you seen it on Instagram how people make their super cute room? And they're like, oh my gosh, this is the most adorable thing ever. I'm the cutest person. Like, yeah, whatever, throw up. But that's how we do, right? We move into a place and we get everything just perfect.

If you're like, a haunted just person, you're like, okay, this goes here, and this goes here, and I have everything exactly where I want it, and it's awesome, because everything now is exactly where you want it, until roommates. Roommates are the worst. Because what happens? You get everything exactly where you want it,

exactly how you want it, and then you leave the room and you come back, and things have been moved. Milk has been drank. Your leftovers have been eaten. That pizza was for you later on, and now it's gone. You had everything exactly what you wanted, and they walked in, and they changed it. They moved stuff around. You know, when Jesus says, hate father, mother, you know, and father, and even your own life, you're not worthy of my disciple. Can't be my disciple.

I think sometimes we hear that, and even hate your own life, and we go to the extreme. We go to like the, okay, call to martyrdom. Like, I have to die for Jesus, which you might. But that's not probably this week. So how does this apply to me this week? What might Jesus mean now when you say, hate your own life? I think what he means is, you know, all of us, all of us have kind of designed a life for ourselves up here in Duluth.

We've all kind of built a life that we want. We built the life that we wanted, or we're in process of building the life we want. We want to get everything exactly where we want it to be. And I think one of the things Jesus might be saying in the gospel is, hey, I know you've built this life, everything's where you want it. Do I have permission to move stuff? Do I have permission to get into your space and kind of change things? Because if I'm going to be first, that means that's what it means. It means that I have permission to come in or do I have to run it by you first?

Now, the way to ask this question is, have I built my life around? following Jesus or have I fit following Jesus into the life I've built you know we just did I celebrated the wedding yesterday was awesome it was up for some former Newman people who met each other and got married so look around and who knows so it's one of the situations where you know he had a place and she had a place and now they're married and so this weekend and this kind of upcoming week they're moving into the new place I don't know if you've ever seen any married couples who, like, he moved into her house, which is, it's a recipe, I'm not going to say

a recipe for disaster, it's a recipe for issues. Because why? Because it's like, okay, she's got everything exactly how she wants it. And like, okay, my husband now come into my house and see where you fit, as opposed to like, okay, this couple from yesterday, they're moving into a new place and like, we're going to build this together. See, this is what Jesus wants to do with us. again have I built am I just fitting Jesus into the life I built or am I building my life with him? You know

if Jesus gets to be the priority if he gets to be first and he's the first thing that's first that means actually if I say yes that's a big yes then you get to be free you get to be whole finally let me think about it even when it comes

to that wedding when they say yeah that big yes to each other they're saying no to every other possible person. But at a wedding, no one's like, oh, those two poor people. Like, how awful. He will never date another girl. Tragic. No one's ever looking at her saying, oh, but there's other guys she could have possibly dated.

No one's ever mourning them at their wedding. They're saying, wow, the commitment they're making to the other person means now they're free to love. The commitment they're making to the other person means now they can actually experience the joy. The commitment they made to the other person means, like, everything becomes so much clearer because they don't have to ask that question anymore. They've given their big yes, and so all the other little yeses are just,

they fit in the cart. You just think about even the clarity that you get when you give a God your big yes. I don't know if you know a man named Dave Ramsey. You know Dave Ramsey? He's like the money guy. He has a podcast and a video show and whatever. So people call in to Dave,

and they ask him questions about money and they ask him questions about their lives. And so this man called in recently, And he said, Dave, I know that you're good with money. I know that you're a Christian man, and you've sent your life on Jesus, and you have a good moral compass. And so here's my issue. My wife and I just bought a home, moved in three months ago. And we recently, I was looking at the drop ceiling.

He prepped his head up above the drop ceiling. I found a substantial amount of cash that the previous owners had left here. And I want to know what you think I should do with that money. And he added all these, like, complex things. Like, what should we do? Because, I mean, they're really actually a pretty wealthy couple, so they don't really. need this money, but at the same time, we're pretty well off. And Dave's just cutting through all that. Dave, this guy's saying, this is a complex issue. And Dave's like, it's not complex at all.

He says, whenever I experience something like this, a question like this, I go back to the first thing. I'll go back to the fact that I'm a follower of Jesus. And one of the things Jesus has said is do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So, in this case, if you had accidentally left $6,000 in your home and the people who bought your home had found it. Would you want them and they have your phone number? Would you want them to call you? Well yeah, but they don't need the money. It doesn't matter. It's not yours. Well, I guess we don't really need it. It doesn't matter. It's not yours. What would you want them to do? This is the thing is when you give God that big yes, everything, freedom and joy and clarity. And so here's the big question. Here's the last thing.

If you're at that point, you're like, I want to do that. That's what I want to say yes. What's that look like? Because sometimes we go to like from zero to 120 miles an hour. Like, no, no, it's very simple. Here's the thing. If you want to say that big yes, I want to pick up the cart and say, okay, first thing first. What does that look like?

Here's what I think it looks like. It's really boring. So sorry. It's prayer. What I mean by that is, does he have time? in your schedule every day, like that you've scheduled, that you've actually written in a calendar.

Because you know by now, third week of school or second week of school for St. Scholastica, you know your schedule. To be able to say tonight on Sunday night, okay, tomorrow, first thing first, where is that 10 minutes or what is that 20 minutes I'm going to spend with Jesus? That's his time now. First thing first.

So, okay, Tuesday, where's his time? First thing first for Tuesday. To even gasp, go to fruit. Friday and say, okay, I can say on Sunday night, on Friday, this is his time. On Friday, no, first thing first. I give my yes to him first before anything else pops up. And here's the crazy thing, is what you'll find is when you give that, when you make that commitment.

See, unsatisfaction comes from uncommitment. But when you give that commitment tonight and put it in your calendar tonight. You find that that commitment leads to freedom. And that commitment leads to joy. That commitment leads to clarity of, I know what I'm about. Because you decided on Sunday night that every day this week, you are going to put first thing first.