Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 09/29/24 Desperate for Freedom

Episode Date: September 28, 2024

Homily from the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Restriction is the first step towards freedom. God is good. God wants all of us to have the fullness of life and of joy. God wants all of us to have HIM. But there are things that suffocate joy. There are things in our lives that rob us of God. There are things that we choose to keep in our lives that strip us of freedom. And Jesus calls us to be ruthless in how we approach those things. Mass Readings from September 29, 2024: Nehemiah 11:25-29 Psalms 19:8, 10, 12-14James 5:1-6 Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48

Welcome to Sunday homilies with me, Father Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this in other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up at ascensionpress.com slash Sunday, or by texting Sunday to 33777. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark. Chapter 9, verses 38 through 43, verse 45, and verses 47 and 48. At that time, John said to Jesus, Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us. Jesus replied, do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.

For whoever is not against us is for, us. Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were placed around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gahena into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you

to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. The Gospel of the Lord. Wait you to have a seat. So there are four things that I virtually will never do. Because I have more than one. Very straightforward. Board games, I will not play board games. I will not play card games.

I will not go fishing. I'm not play golf. All four of those hard pass every single time. Because many reasons for all this. But like board games, I will spell board games, B-O-R-E-D. They're just like, I just, I get so frustrated. People say, let's enjoy yourself, just talk. I'm like, yeah, put down the board games and we'll talk.

Same thing with card games. I don't know if it's just me. cribbage, I can't count that fast to 15. It's fishing. People like, just enjoy yourself, sit in the boat, enjoy the sun. I'm like, I love that. You put a pole into my hand,

and all of a sudden, you've given me a job to do. I'm like, I love sitting in the boat. I love just hanging out, just enjoying the sun. But now you've given me a task. And if they don't bite, I'm failing. And I do not like failing. Same thing with golf. Golf is a, my parents used to have a magnet

on their fridge that said, golf is a wonderful walk spoiled by a little white ball. I could not agree more. because every one of those things, what happens is here's, this is, the issue I understand is me. Like, I get the fact that I'm a little competitive. And so you introduce some kind of task, some kind of thing to accomplish you. You introduce some kind of competition and I'm like, I can't do it. You guys, I have ruined multiple birthday parties because we had, they made, because they made me play a game.

See, the thing is, I know myself. And so what I do is I avoid playing these things. I avoid doing these things and I keep my friends. That's basically the thing. I keep my peace. I keep my friends. I don't ruin anyone's birthday party because I just stay away from it. You know, I think that's a wise thing to do.

If I know this is going to ruin my peace, I know this is going to ruin relationships, just don't do the things because I'm smart. That's why. You know, we have a problem. Our problem is this. God is good. That's not the problem. But that's the truth.

God is good. Like here's how good God is. God wants us to have more life than we want. God wants us to have more love than we want. God wants all of us to have more joy than we actually want. So what did Jesus say? John chapter 10, verse 10, he said, I came that he might have life and have it to the full. Like have more life than we actually desire. That's what he wants for us. In fact, joy, here's Jesus. He says, I came that they have my joy and your joy may be complete. God wants so much good for us. Because he is so good. The prime. The prime. The That's not the problem. The problem is this. We have a tolerance problem. We have a tolerance issue. And what I mean by that is we are often willing to tolerate the things that are in our life that we know kill joy.

Every one of us are willing to tolerate the things that we know. If we keep them in our lives, they will suffocate love. We're the kind of people that our problem is we're willing to tolerate the things that we know destroy happiness. and we know we're willing to tolerate the things that if they stay, we'll stay stuck. We're willing to tolerate the things that we know that if they stay in our lives, then we'll stay stuck. Back in 2003, there's a man named Aaron Ralston. You might have heard his story. In 2003, Aaron Ralston was 27 years old. He had just quit his job the year before because he wanted to do all 14ers.

He wanted to climb all the 14ers, the 14,000-foot mountain peaks in North America. And so he was doing this. As he was climbing these mountains, he also got into camps. And so he would just, you know, trek through these canyons. He went to Utah in the summer of 2003 and went by himself. And as he was canyeneering, he jumped off a ledge as an 800-pound boulder shifted and trapped his hand risk in forearms, crushing them against the side of the canyon. And his story is fascinating.

In fact, to listen to him to him talk about it is kind of telling. He says, people ask me if it hurt, which I think is kind of funny. Like, no, I was fine. No, he said this. He said, if you've ever crushed your finger in a door accidentally, he said, this was that times 100. And he said, in an adrenalineized rage for 45 minutes, he cursed like a pirate. He just like so angry.

Then he settled down. He said, okay, what I need to do is this a stop, this is a stop, think, observe, and plan phase of rational problem solving. So what I need to do is, how do I get out of this? Now, the first thing that, the first solution, quote, solution that appealed to him was suicide. He immediately ruled that out. He said, no, I'm not going to kill myself. The second thought, though, he's like, okay, I'm not killing myself.

The second thought immediately came to him, I need to cut off my arm. And, in fact, he talks about how this happened. He said, this is the conversation I had with myself. Aaron, you're going to have to cut your arm off. I don't want to cut my arm off. Dude, you're going to have to cut your arm off. And I said to myself a little back and forth. Then I was like, wait a minute, stop.

I'm not talking to myself. That's crazy. You're not talking to yourself, Aaron. He continued to talk to himself. He panicked, he started drinking water. He had only one liter of water. He had two burritos and a little bit of chocolate. He was trapped there for six days.

On the night of the fifth day, he knew what he needed to do. And so as the sun rose on the sixth day, he took out his leatherman. And he opened the blade, and he cut his arm. Now, when he got to the bone, the leatherman wouldn't go through the bone. And so he knew what he had to do. He braced himself against the boulder and pulled as hard as he could until he cracked both bones in his forearm. And he was free.

And he lived. He realized, if I stay here, I'll stay stuck and I will die here. And he was willing to do anything. He is now 48 years old and still climbing mountains. Because he got to that place, right? he got to that place and they realized, I cannot tolerate this. If I stay here, I'll stay stuck and I'm going to die. Jesus in the gospel today, that's what he's talking about.

He says, if your eye causes you to sin, your hand, your foot causes you sin, cut them off. Now, clarification, we don't need to say this, but we're going to say this. Jesus is not talking about literal amputation. If whoever needs to hear that, hear me now. What Jesus is saying is, whenever you discover that there's anything that keeps you from Jesus, be ruthless with that thing. If you find there's anything in your life that is suffocating joy,

be ruthless with that thing because he wants you to have joy. If there's anything in your life that is crushing love, then be ruthless with that thing because God wants you to have more life, more joy and more love than we want to have. Because the stakes are so high.

No matter what it takes, the stakes are so high. So years ago, I read this book by Malcolm Gladwell. And he was writing about the doctor who came up with a cure for leukemia. He writes about it like this. He describes, he says, you know, back in the day, he said, he said this, he said, one day you'd have parents, one day you'd have a healthy child, and the next year child will come down with a fever, and then start hemorrhaging from all parts of their body.

In fact, he said it was so bad that doctors would almost refuse to round on leukemia words. Nurses would come home after a shift with their clothes completely drenched in blood, and there was no cure. And so this doctor, he said, listen, we need to fix this. And so we had this combination of four different chemotherapy drugs, and he mixed them together and he administered them to these kids, hoping that he could possibly save their lives. The problem is this, the chemotherapy drugs that kill the cancer kill the kids. And so you're walking this dangerous line of giving so much drugs

that they're going to kill the cancer, but not so much that it's going to kill the child. And he said he would pace all night up and down the hallway of the hospital. Outside the hospital rooms of kids who were just weeping, crying out, throwing up, being sick. And everything in him wanted to stop doing this thing. But he realized if I stop, they'll still die. When they finally approved his cocktail of four different chemotherapy chemotherapeutic drugs, it transformed treatment of kids with leukemia. And right now, because of his discussion,

because he was willing to do whatever it took to save the lives of these kids, even bringing them to the brink of death, the survival rate for kids with leukemia is over 94%. Because there's some situations that are so desperate, some situations where the stakes are so high

that you have to take these extreme situations. There's Jesus, and Jesus is saying, keeping these things, if I know they're crushing life, if I know they're stealing my life, if I know they're stealing joy, keeping these things in our lives that are able to kill us

is a recipe for misery. And the reality, of course, is we all know. that. We all know that we have things in our lives, that we keep in our lives, and every single time they lead us to sin, every single time they lead us to death, and we think, I should get rid of it. Nah, I'll be fine. We think, no, tonight, today's a day when I'm going to, I'm going to do something about this. Nah, I'll be fine. I'll have more willpower. You have to realize this. This truth, environment will eat willpower for breakfast. If we keep something that we know crushes life,

we know suffocates joy in our lives, that environment will eat our willpower for breakfast. I heard this priest talk about it like this. He said, imagine, imagine the devil sent you an invitation. The invitation was, I invite you to join me in my rebellion against God. I invite you to join in my rebellion against the source of all good, source of all life, source of all love. Join me in my misery. Join me in my perpetual anger against God. It's guaranteed to lose.

Come to my side. We'd look at this invitation and go like, no way, I'm not joining, but I'm not going to throw it away either. I'll just hold onto this. I'll just put it on the fridge. You know, maybe we'll see. I don't want to do it. I'm just going to keep the invitation around. None of us would do that because that's crazy.

But that's what we do. Whenever we're willing to tolerate something that we know hurts us, we tolerate something we know keeps us from God, that's what we're doing. So a bunch of examples. Years ago, I remember talking to a student. And he said, he said, I know it. I know, I know when I have that third beer, here's the sin that follows. And I had the third beer, and then I did the thing. Some people, it's the third beer.

Some people, it's the first one. If you've ever been around AA, they always say it. They always say that one drink is too many and one thousand drinks is never enough. So why would I keep this in my life? If I know that this is always going to lead me to a place of slavery, why would I keep it in my life? Gambling, for many people, gambling is fine. You can have a thousand people who say, no, I can, I can bid on the Vikings. For crying out loud, they're 4 and O.

Or people say, I can go to the casino, no problem. I can leave when I lost 20 bucks, no big deal. But if you know that, like, for when it comes to me, I can't gamble. Why? Because I've let it ruin my day. I've let it ruin my life. I've let it ruin my finances. I've let it ruin my checkbook.

Then you realize, I can't keep this in my life. There's some relationships that we know, they're not good. I mean, think about how many times there's a coworker, And you can, that relation with that coworker is completely unnecessary and unhelpful because every time you're with them, you start complaining. Or that coworker, every time you're with them, it's unnecessary, it's unhelpful because every time you're with them, you start gossiping. Why? Why keep that relationship in your life? Or even romantic dating relationships. I mean, there are some people who they've been dating so long, they realize this person is, we're not good for each other. We don't help each other. But we've been dating so long, we might as well stick around. So often we're willing to tolerate something we know isn't good for us.

And some people aren't affected at all by music. Some people definitely are. There was a guy we had years ago, and he loved, like, I don't know, rage rock. It was like kind of death metal kind of thing. And he was kind of an angry guy. Like he was always walking around with this look on his face. Like he was just mad at the world, mad at himself, mad at everyone. One of his friends challenged him and she said,

I bet that if you didn't listen to your music for two weeks, you'd be much happier. He's like, okay, challenge accepted. So two weeks, he didn't listen to any of his angry music. And at the end of two weeks, she said, how do you feel? He said, I feel great. She said, so are you going to not listen to that music anymore? He's like, no, I did the two weeks. I'm done now.

I'll go back to it because we're willing, because we're stupid. And we all have this little magical rectangle in our pockets. Talk about a source of frustration and insanity. You guys, when it comes to that rectangle, man, how many times we lose. our time, we lose our joy, we lose our peace. Comparison. When that rectangle, when that phone or that computer, then going on social media, I mean, they've done so many studies that have demonstrated that when people go into social media, they return with higher rates of depression, with higher rates of disordered eating, with higher rates of poor body image, with higher rates of overall

well-decreased overall well-being. And yet we still do this. Or what do we do? We do. We We do the scroll, doom scrolling. And we know what it is to doom scroll, where it's just like I go to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And not only does that steal my time, but also steals my piece. No one's ever gotten done with a scrolling session and been like, wow, that was amazing. I'll do it again. But we keep doing it.

Or that phone or that computer is a source of lust. And yet, what are we willing to do? We're willing to just keep holding on to this because I'm not willing to let go of it. Why? That's the question. If I know that this kills life. I know this suffocates joy, why do I keep holding on to them? I think one of the main reasons is because of what if. Well, you know, I shouldn't have alcohol, but what if I have someone over

and I want to serve them something? Like I know I don't need to like constantly be watching CNN or Fox, but like what if what if I need to make a decision? What if the president calls and he needs some advice? Like I know that, that these apps, I shouldn't be on social media, but But what if someone reaches out? What if my friend from eighth grade needs me all of a sudden? Like, why we hold on to it because we think, well, what if, what if I need this? And we also hold on to it because it's difficult to get rid of it. We know that.

When we can identify the thing that is suffocating our joy, that is stealing our life, it's hard to get rid of. And yet the truth is, every one of us wants more freedom. Every one of us. It doesn't matter where we're sitting right now. We all want more freedom. The problem is this. Freedom often starts with restriction.

The way to say it is, restriction is often the first step towards freedom. And we need to take that first step. Of course, it won't be our last. So going back to golf a couple years ago, my family is all going golfing one day. And I was like, no, I know myself. I'm not golfing. I said, I'll go walk with you. And my mom said, like, you can't walk with us.

You have to golf if you're going to come. I said, well, then I'm not coming. She said, never mind then. you can come. So I got to go. And I had an awesome day. It was like a day like today. It was beautiful gorgeous. I was at peace. I was talking to my family. They were swinging away. I was walking away. Got to the second last to last hole. And I said, hey, can I just borrow a club and borrow a ball? Let me just tee up and hit a drive. So yeah, here you are. My brother gave me a club, borrowed a ball. I lined up, hauled off immediate, massive slice right into the, into the woods.

And I had instant rage. I mean, it was Hulk. I almost broke. by Brothers Club. I wasn't even playing. It made no difference. You guys, I know that the problem is not golf. I know the problem is not a game. It's me. Hi. I'm the problem. It's me. Because that's the thing. It's like freedom begins with restriction, right? Restriction is the first step towards freedom, but it's not the last step. We need that first step. Why? So you can have some room. We need to cut the thing off. Why? So we have some space. We actually can see what's going on. Here's the thing. If we were willing to take that step

and cut off whatever is suffocating our joy, it wouldn't solve the problem, but it would give us the space to actually feel what the actual problem is, to see what's really going on. I have a number of family members and some really good friends who are in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I remember one of them, he came back from his first AA meeting. And he said, he was upset. And he said, yeah, this guy got up. And he said, hi, my name's Tom, and I'm a grateful alcoholic. And he was so mad. He was like, what a dumb thing to say. What a stupid attitude.

Like, you're a grateful alcoholic. Because this guy, this is his first meeting. He was like, I am not grateful. I'm an alcoholic. Fine, I'll admit it, but I'm not grateful. He said, how in the world could anyone be grateful that they're an alcoholic? This person, as at the stage, he was at the stage where it just cut it off. Hey, get rid of the, pour out the booze.

And we all know this, right? We all know that if you have an addiction, just cut it off. Fine, you might not have access to that thing, but you're not any better. You're just a dry drunk. You haven't been healed. You've just been given some space. And in that space, what happens? In the space, all of a sudden you start to feel the pain.

And the reason why you're numbing yourself in the first place. This is almost true for every addiction. Whether that's workaholism, alcohol, pornography, pornography, sexual acting, out, you take that away and all of a sudden you're like, no, well, now I feel anger. No, I actually feel my frustration. Now, I'm not numbing anymore and I feel the pain. I feel the hopelessness. I feel the sadness. I feel the meaninglessness. Restriction is often the first step towards freedom, but it's restriction to have the space to see. You have the space to actually deal with what's going on. It's the first step, but it's not the last. Restriction is that first

step towards freedom. How many of you heard of it? You heard of it. You heard of it. You heard of a guy named Jaco Willink. Jocko is a podcaster. He's a former Navy SEAL. He owns a company. He's very famous. I'm surprised more of you. You guys seem very hip, but maybe not. Okay.

Jocko has a saying. He has a phrase. It's three words. And the phrase is, discipline equals freedom. What it means by that is, same thing as restriction as the first step towards freedom.

If I want to be the person that God made me to be, I can't just do whatever I want. I have to do what I ought. but discipline sometimes has a bad connotation because I think sometimes we hear the word discipline we think like again just white knuckling and let's you know just hey I have a really strong iron will

and maybe you can do it I don't think I came across a really good description of discipline that I just want to share with you and it came from the internet so it's not all bad but he said this this guy said this he said everyone says discipline is so important but they never want to tell you why I'll tell you why discipline is so important

It's the strongest form of self-love. It's the strongest form of self-love. It's ignoring something you want right now for something better later on. Discipline reveals the commitment you have to your dreams, especially on days you do not want to. And then he said this. The future you is depending on the present new

to keep the promises you made to yourself yesterday. The future you is depending upon the present view to keep the promises you made to yourself yesterday. We all know the things that are suffocating our joy. We all know the things that are keeping us trapped. What could your life look like in three months by Christmas? If tonight you decided, that's it. I've been tolerating this thing in my life that I know is enslaving me.

I've been tolerating this thing in my life that I always say, oh, what if I get rid of it? I've been tolerating this thing that I know. What if you just closed the door today? Like, what do you just actually cut it off today? And that's what I mean. This is not the difficult no. The difficult no is in the moment,

in the moment where it's really tough to say no. I'm talking about the easy no. I'm talking about tonight when there is no temptation. I'm talking about tonight where there is, it's not hard to say, I don't need this. What could your life look like if you just shut the door?

The future you is depending upon the present view to keep the promises you made to yourself yesterday. what could that look like this is coming to the last thing here quick I think I mentioned C.S. Lewis's book The Great Divorce last week it's one of my favorite novels it's actually

the difference between heaven and hell and Lewis tells a story of all these people in hell basically who travel to the plains of heaven and they're given a choice they're given a choice you can go back to hell or you can go to heaven and so as they get into the bright light of heaven they look like ghosts they're just spread too thin they're not even like fully formed people they're just ghosts of a people of a people, and then they're met by these either angels or saints who are trying to convince them

to go to heaven. It's so compelling, it's so fascinating. Spoiler, no one says yes. Everyone goes back to hell, except for one guy, one ghost. And Lewis describes seeing him as he's talking to an angel, like a burning angel, angel on fire, like one of the cherubim kind of a situation. And this man, this ghost, has this little red lizard on his shoulder. keeps whispering into his ear.

And Lewis says that that little lizard is the spirit of lust that just bound this man. And the lizard just keeps whispering to the man's ear. Like, listen, I'll be quiet. I'll be good. And I know that I sometimes went too far, but I'll just give you only nice dreams from now on just keep me.

It'd be so weird if you got rid of me. Don't let him kill me because what would you do without me? And the angel says, let me kill it. Can I kill it? Can I have your permission to kill this thing? And the man's like, well, I don't want to be so drastic. I don't want to cut it off completely. He'll be quiet.

It'll be fine. He says, if you kill it, it'll kill me. The angel says, it'll never, it won't kill you. He says, yeah, but it hurts. He says, I didn't say it wouldn't hurt. I said it wouldn't kill you. And finally, this man in this moment of truth, this moment of death, brokenness, he says, God, God help me, just kill it, just go ahead and kill it.

God help me. And the angel reaches out his burning hand, wrenches the lizard from the man's shoulder, squeak, breaks its back, throws it to the ground, and then something happens. The man falls to the ground as if he's dead, but he's not dead. He begins changing, freed from this thing that had been enslaving him and suffocating every ounce of joy out of his life. Lewis describes it like this. It's a longer quote. He says, for a moment, I could make out nothing distinctly.

Then I saw between me and the nearest bush unmistakably solid and growing every moment solider, the upper arm and shoulder of a man. Then brighter still and stronger, the legs and the hands, the neck and golden head materialized while I watched. And if my tension had not wavered, I should have seen the actual completing of a man, an immense man, naked, not much smaller than the angel. What distracted me was the fact that at the same moment, something seemed to be happening with the lizard. At first I thought the operation had failed so far from dying,

the creature was still struggling and even growing bigger as it struggled. And as it grew, it changed. The hindered parts grew rounder. The tail, still flickering, became a tail of hair that flickered between huge and glossy hindquarters. Suddenly, I started back rubbing my eyes. What stood before me was the greatest stallion I've ever seen. silvery white

with mane and tail of gold it was smooth and shining rippled with swells of flesh and muscle whinning and stamping its hooves at each stamp the land shook and the trees dindled and the new made man then turned and clapped the new horse's neck

it knows his bright body horse and master breathed into each other's nostrils the man turned from it flung himself at the feet of the burning one and embraced his feet when he rose I thought his face shown with tears but it might have been only the liquid love and brightness which flowed from him

I hadn't long to think about it. In a joyous haste, the young man leaped upon the horse's back, turning in his seat, he waved a farewell, then nudged the stallion with his heels. They were off before I well knew what was happening. There was riding, if you like. I came out as quickly as I could from among the bushes to follow them with my eyes, but already they were only like a shooting star far off on the green plain.

And soon among the foothills of the mountains, then still like a star, I saw them winding up, scaling what seemed impossible steeps and quicker every moment, till the dim brow of the landscape, so high that I must strain my neck to see them, they vanished, bright themselves into the rose brightness of that everlasting morning. This could be your life. More joy than you want right now.

More love than you could imagine right now. But only if we're willing to have the courage. If only we're willing to have the courage, take that first step. Restriction is the first step towards freedom. Now remember, I take that first step and I'm still the same person. I cut the thing off and I'm still the same person. That's why it's the first step, it's not the last. And here's the real news, the hard news.

You may never be done in this life. That's no reason to be discouraged. You know, a farmer or a gardener, they have to go out every day and they have to weed the field. But they don't go out the day after they've weeded, and they're not shocked and they're not discouraged when they have to weed again. They just realize this is how it goes.

I weed and I weed again. And if I weed again and again and again, Again, if I am ruthless with my environment, soon the fruit will grow. And that could be your life. That could be our lives. A life of freedom. A life of joy. A life of more love than you and I want right now.

So we just need to take the first step. Tonight to take the first step. And restriction is the first step towards freedom.