Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 09/12/21 Not Mine

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

Homily from the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Faith must be lived, not merely believed. It is wise to take responsibility for one’s own time, resources, and family. And yet, we must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. This demands faith. Real faith is more than belief, but involves renunciation of any claim we might have on our lives in favor of the absolute claim Jesus has on every aspect of our lives. Mass Readings from September 12, 2021: Isaiah 50:5-9 Psalms 116:1-6, 8-9James 2:14-18 Mark 8:27-35

So this is the season, like when you come back to college and you're meeting everybody, maybe some people from the first time, we have the same conversations like a thousand times in a row where it's like, hi, where are you from, what's your major, all these kind of things. Those are important conversations because you have to get to know people. But there's that follow-up question to like, what's your major? And basically, what's your major? What do you want to do with it? So, because that reveals a lot, right?

That idea of like when I was in college it was, what's your major? Theology, what do you want to do with that? I don't know, go on food stamps, I think, is the, or be a priest, one of the two. Those are your options if you major in theology. But even like you don't even have to be a freshman, it could be your, maybe this is your last year. And people ask the question, okay, so what are your plans for after graduation? What comes next? And you need to have an answer.

If you don't have an answer, I don't know, maybe this or that. People are, they judge. They judge hard. They judge fast. They are the best, they should get black robes. They're such good at judging. or even if you're in medical school, like I know I have some siblings who went to medical school

and some of their friends, you know you're expected by the time you're not even done with rotations when you should have an idea of how are you going to specialize in medicine? What do you plan to do with your life as your career as a medical professional? And again, having a plan, those things,

having the next step worked out for yourself, that's not bad, that's actually what we call responsible, that's being a responsible adult, that's being reasonable, that's being prudent. It's basically saying, okay, this is my life, I'm going to plan for it. That's smart. It's saying, okay, this is my future. I'm going to be intentional about it. That's wise. It's saying, this is my family. These are my friends. I want to be able to take care of them.

That's loving. That's a really good thing. So it's a good thing to say, okay, this is your time. Use it well. Or to say, this is your life. Have a plan. But I came across this quote that just, it slapped me across the face because it just, I love plans. you guys, I love plans, I love calendars, I love schedules, I love control. And then they came across this quote that said, we must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. Say that again. So we must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. And I was like, who the heck said this, I want to find.

Turned out that this was said, this quote was by a man named Dietrich Bonhofer. Dietrich Bonhofer was born in about 1906 in Germany, and he was a German, that's what happens. He was a German Lutheran theologian scholar. He was basically, you know, he was growing up in Germany. He was Christian like everyone else was a Christian. Kind of that sense of like, well, my parents are, my family is. And so we're just going to, I'll go to church on Sunday, and that's how it goes.

But at some point, Dietrich Bonhofer, he became convicted, convinced about the idea of God. He was convinced about the truth of the idea of God. And so he spent a lot of his time studying theology, hoping he went and going welfare. He's been a lot of time studying who God was. In fact, he got his first Ph.D. at the age of 20. So, you're a classic late bloomer. Your underachiever there. He only spoke seven languages.

Whatever. No big deal. But his job, like his entire job was to think about God. His job was to talk about God. And he did it really, really well. But something happened when he was in his 20s, he studied abroad in the United States of America. And he not only toured over the whole country, he at one point, he kind of put down roots in New York City. And one of his favorite things to do was on Sundays, he would go visit a bunch of different churches and see what they were preaching.

And he said he came back thoroughly unimpressed. He said, they're just, they're preaching this watered down version of Christianity. He says, as they're preaching, where is even Jesus? But then he went up to Harlem, and he started going to these black Christian churches, and what he found there, he was struck by something in these churches that had been missing from his entire life. It was almost like this, almost like in the gospel today,

where Jesus asked the question, who do people say that I am? That was Dieter Bonhofer's life up to that moment, where he's studying theology, just like, yeah, what do people say? What do people say about Jesus? What do people say about God? And he was reporting what people said about God, And it was like when he went to these black Christian churches and they were proclaiming Jesus,

and he was like, wait a second, here's the next question, which is, who do you say that I am? And what used to be this kind of abstract, yeah, the idea of God, Bonhofer was convicted by the reality of God. What used to be just kind of a theology, this abstract concept became deeply, deeply personal. And he realized he had to answer the question. He realized he had never answered the question. He was kind of like those first people who would say, you know, if the answer is, well, you're Elijah, you're John the Baptist, you're one of the prophets, those are all good answers. I mean, well, they're wrong, but a good effort, you know, D for effort. But if Jesus was John the Baptist, if he was

Elijah, if he was one of the prophets, he would have relative authority. He would have a relative claim on our lives, because those are important people, right? And for Bonhofer, up to that point, God, Jesus had a relative claim on his life. But if the answer is the answer Peter gave, when Jesus says, who do you say that I am? And the answer is, you're the Christ. In fact, in Matthew's Gospel, Peter Gzahn says, you're the Christ, the only son of the living God.

If that's the answer, then Jesus doesn't just have a relative claim on our lives. If that's the answer, if Jesus actually is God, then he has an absolute claim on our lives. And Bonhoeffer realized this. He had been living his life up to that point, even with two PhDs at this point, in theology, he realized he had been living as if Jesus had a relative claim on his life

and all of a sudden, everything had changed because he realized, no, actually, if Jesus is who he says he is, he has an absolute claim on my life. And you guys, that changed everything. He began to realize not only who Jesus was, but that he got to have a dynamic relationship with God. That the Bible was alive, that prayer was full, and that he had a mission, that God had given him a mission to be lived.

And the D.J. Bonhofer, who returned to Nazi Germany, was a different person than the D.J. Bonhofer who left Germany? And I think for us, you know, I think for us tonight, until that question is answered, who do you say that I am? I think until that question is answered, Jesus can be important, but he's only relatively important. Until we answer that question, Jesus can be important in our lives, but he can only be relatively important. He might have a claim on our lives, but he only has... a relative claim. Like we might say, like we're going to say in a couple minutes, oh, I believe. That's good. Again, that's good. We realize that faith has to be lived, not merely believed. Faith has to be lived, not merely believed. That's the whole point of the second reading today,

James Chapter 2. I love James, because James is sassy, right? James is talking about faith and he's like, okay, what good is it if you believe? That doesn't do anything. What good is it if you believe who Jesus is? In fact, we didn't hear it today, but James goes on to the script, say it like this. This is why I love James. He's so sassy. He's salty, a little salty James, salty Jimmy. He says this. He says, okay, you believe that God is one.

You do well. I love it because I just imagine James saying like, oh, you believe Jesus is God. Congratulations. You want a cookie? A little gold star for yourself on the top of your page. He goes on and he says, you believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble.

So we can stand up in a second and say, no, I believe Jesus is the son of God. Realize, whenever Jesus came across someone possessed by the devil, what did that demon say? I know who you are. You're the holy one of God. We can say the same thing. I know who you are, Jesus.

You're the holy one of God. Well, congratulations. You've just been raised to the level of demon. He says, goes on. This is where he gets extra salty. He says, do you want proof? You ignoramus. Do you want proof?

It's in the Bible, you guys. So if accidentally later on this week, I might let it slip that, I call you, anyway, go ahead. Do you want proof to ignoramus that faith without works is useless? Faith without works is dead. That faith is meant to be lived, not merely believed. And not only that, but some of us can be tempted to believe this because it makes us feel better.

You know, the idea, the notion that God is and that God is love and that God cares about me, sometimes we believe that because it makes us feel better. It consoles us. But the hard thing about that is that might offer consolation. It doesn't offer salvation. Just believing that might offer consolation, but it doesn't offer salvation. In fact, James makes a big, huge point. He says, faith without works is useless.

I was watching this YouTube shorts. You know what YouTube shorts are? They're basically recycled Instagram reels, which are basically recycled TikToks. Since I don't have TikTok, I have to do the YouTube shorts. So I was watching this YouTube short, and I was watching this guy, How would I describe him? He's kind of a money-making guy, the kind of bombastic people who would make YouTube shorts.

Anyways, he was talking about how he was, I was talking to this billionaire the other day, that kind of guy, who had dropped that he was talking to a billionaire the other day. He said, I was talking to this billionaire the other day, and the billionaire, the billionaire told me, money is useless. And I went, huh?

The billionaire said, money is useless. I said, explain yourself. And the man said, money is useless unless it is used. It's just paper. There's paper with ink on it. Can't feed you, can't keep you warm, can't fill that empty, aching, black, dark hole in your heart.

Money is useless unless it is used. And James would say the exact same thing about faith. Faith is useless unless it is used. So we know this. Faith needs to be lived, not merely believed. So let's go back to the gospel. Here's Jesus. And, of course, he asked the question,

who do you say that I am? And then he predicts his passion. He says, yes, I am the Messiah. And what's going to happen is, I will suffer greatly, die, and rise again. And then he says these words that are so powerful. He says, if you want to be my disciple, after knowing all this, after knowing who I am,

if you want to be my disciple. Now, I want to pause on this for just a second. Realize that Jesus is giving you a choice. He says, if you want to be my disciple, knowing who I am, knowing I actually am the only son of God, if you want to be my disciple. No, none of us are Christians because we inherited that. None of us are disciples of Jesus

because someone else wants us to be that. In fact, Jesus puts it on the line who says, if you want to, if you don't, you can leave. No one else is going to choose this for me. Not anymore, at least. Not now that I'm on my own. Now I have to choose, and Jesus says, if I am who I say I am, then I have an absolute claim.

And if you want, if you want to be my disciple, he lays down three things. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. I only want to talk about the first one. He has an absolute claim, so he says, if you want to be my disciple, deny yourself. You know, when I first read this, obviously for years, I thought, well, deny yourself, yeah, it's like self-denial,

have discipline, no, I won't have that second piece of cake for love of Jesus, you know, that kind of idea. But that word deny in Greek is actually, it's not self-denial, it's not discipline. It's actually a legal term that means complete disownment. It's like renouncing something. Basically, say, you've been given an inheritance, and that renouncement means that inheritance is not mine. I have a claim on this inheritance, but deny that word that Jesus uses is that inheritance

given to me is not mine. It's looking at my property and saying that's not mine. I'm renouncing. It's like my life is not mine. It's saying my future is not mine. It's saying my plans are not mine. It's taking that word mine and renouncing it. Here's what it is.

Jesus is saying, if you want to be my disciple, everything that was mine is now not mine. It's looking at everything you once had a claim on and saying, because Jesus has an absolute claim on me, this is no longer mine. Imagine what that would look like. To be able to look at my life,

do you able to look at your life and say, not mine, my time, it's not mine. My resources, not mine. My gifts and talents, even those gifts and talents that you've spent so much time honing and developing, not mine. My plans, not mine. My future.

not mine. Jesus says, if you want to be my disciple, you look at everything in your life and you simply say, not mine, to renounce everything I previously had a claim on. This is the last thing. That's kind of a big deal, I think. It challenges me quite a bit.

And so I'll have to admit, I'm a little intimidated by this. I don't know how I can look at my life and be like, okay, I mean, I'll give Jesus my TV. He can have it, but like everything. And I wonder, like, how do we actually do this? how do we live a life that's not mine? And I would say, I think it's this.

I think we just practice, not mine. Here's my invitation for this week. Let's do some rehearsal. Let's do some training. Let's do training and faith. And what I mean by training and faith is I mean, let's practice not mine. How do we do this?

By choosing to do things that remind me that my life is not mine. Classically, in Christianity, we have three things. prayer, fasting, and giving. Every one of those things are reminders that this is not mine. So, for example, prayer takes time. I look at my calendar and I'm like, no, no, no.

I only get 24 hours each day, Lord. I mean, I've got to be pretty strict about this thing. And then I look at those 24 hours and say, actually, those are not mine. At least some of that time, God, you get. That's training and not mine. That's practicing faith. To look at my stuff and say, okay, this stuff is not mine.

How can it be used? Because it's not mine. To look at whether it be, you know, any kind of fasting, stuff in my life to be able to say, okay, this thing doesn't, I don't have ownership of it. And even this is going to be the hard one for me this week. I want to be intentional about this is if I look at my life and say not mine, one of the things that means is I have to be open to being interrupted, which just drives me crazy.

But that's what training and not mine looks like. It looks like what Dietrich Bonhofer said. We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. You know, when Dieterik Bonhofer returned to Germany, a changed person, it was remarkable because Hitler viewed him as a threat. I don't think we consider too many university professors who talk about theology to be threats. He wasn't a threat because he thought about God. He wasn't a threat because he talked about God.

He was a threat because he belonged to God. Imagine if we were considered to be a threat to people who are trying to do evil in the world, not because we showed up on Sunday nights at the cathedral, but because we lived like we belonged to Jesus. He was arrested. He was thrown in prison, and he's so remarkable because even in prison, Dietrich Bonhofer trained, not mine. He practiced not mine. And so what we would do is get up extra early. And he would pray in those extra early hours.

when he got allowed to take a shower, he would take cold showers, which I think is bonkers. I mean, I'd be like, Lord, I'm in prison already. At least get me some heat in my water. But Bonhoff was like, no, I'm training faith. I'm practicing not mine. He spent his time writing letters to people who needed encouragement, even though he was the one stuck in a jail cell. And he was so willing to practice, not mine, to be trained in faith.

That when the day came when Hitler executed him, Tjjek Bonhofer was able to say to his friend, this is the end. But for me, this is the beginning of life. He was so trained and not mine that he was stronger than any other person in that country. There are a lot of Christians in Germany that completely capitulated to the National Socialist Movement because they weren't trained. They hadn't practiced faith.

And so when evil came, they couldn't stand against it. But Bonhofer every single day. He trained himself in faith. He practiced not mine. He was the only one among a very few number that was strong enough to stand against evil. So this week, that's what we do. This week, you say, okay God, okay, God,

I'll look at my stuff, my time, my gifts, my life. And I'm trained in faith. and I practice not mine.