Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 10/11/20 No Difference

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

Homily from the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time. There are many goods. There is only one best. Modern indifference is the inability to take joy in in one's situation regardless of the circumstances. It is seeing "no difference" between the awesome and the awful...as well as the awesome alright. Mass Readings from October 11, 2020: Isaiah 25:6-10 Psalms 23:1-6Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20 Matthew 22:1-14

So, I had recently come across a story of a man named, well, I heard of his story years ago. His name is Ruben Hurricane Carter. If you've ever seen the movie Hurricane with Denzel Washington, you know the story. Or Ryan Holliday has a book called The Obstacle is the Way and he recounts this story. So if a boxing fan, you know the story of Hurricane or even a civil rights fan. You might know the story of Hurricane Carter. But the deal is he was a championship boxer back in the 1960s. And at one point, the height of his career, he was like winning, winning, winning, incredibly

He got wealthy off of this, and he was accused of this horrible crime of a triple homicide. And without much to go on, they convicted him. He was found guilty even though he was completely innocent. The story goes that when he was brought to the prison, he had this, you know, super expensive tailored suit on. He had a gold watch on. He had a diamond ring worth over $5,000. And he had to hand over all these things.

And he asked to speak to whoever was in charge of the prison. And when the warden came in front of him, he said, I just want you to know that I won't He treated like a prisoner while I'm here. Now he was a prisoner, but he was saying, but he's basically saying, but I'm not a prisoner. Meaning that I'll be here. I'll be in my cell. I'll be in this prison, but I'm a free man who happens to be living in a prison. And he spent the next 20 years, 19 years, spent the next two decades doing everything

he could to educate himself in the law and to appeal his unjust verdict. He had two more trials and finally after 19 years of being wrongfully in prison, he was found declared completely, absolutely innocent. And when he got out, this is incredible. And when he got out, he didn't even pursue, like, a civil suit against the government, against the judicial system. He didn't look, he didn't ask for money to be paid for all those years that he lost in prison. And he did that because he said, no, if I asked for money from you,

I would be admitting that you took something from me. But you took nothing from me. Because, yes, I had to live those years in the prison. But in that prison, in those circumstances, I became. the kind of man that I wanted to become. You didn't take any, you didn't steal anything for me. And that's just one of those like BA stories, right? Like, whoa, that is so cool.

It's what you call stoic indifference. So I don't know if you heard the stoics, like this is a philosophy. Like stoic indifference, the ability to say, like, I can encounter obstacle and I can make it through the obstacle. That's why the book's called the Red Holiday, the obstacle is the way. It's this ideal of the stoic ideal of stoic indifference, meaning that regardless of the situation, regardless of the circumstance, I will only, I will control what I can control, and I'm going to let go of what I can't control. And again, it's just really cool. Like, it's really inspiring. And it can sound a little bit like Philippians chapter four that we heard of today in the second reading, St. Paul.

He's in prison as well. And he says this, he says, he says, listen, brothers and sisters, I've learned how to live in abundance. I've learned how to live in want. I've learned how to be well-fed. I've learned how to go hungry. Like, I've learned how to feast and have learned how to starve. Like, I know the secret. And at first glance, we can think like, oh, hey, just like, just like, like Hurricane Carter. Here is St. Paul, who has this secret of St.oic indifference, but it's remarkable because St. Paul's indifference is not Stoic indifference. It's a Christian indifference. And Christian indifference is different in more than one way. For one, stoic indifference is I can encounter obstacle and not be broken. Stoic indifference is I can

encounter obstacle and I can have, like, calm. I can retain myself. But Christian indifference, St. Paul says, listen, in bad times, I don't just have this calm. I don't just have self-possession. In bad times, I have joy. Stoic indifference is, yep, I can go through trials, and I can emerge on the other side of those trials. St. Paul says, I can go through trials, and in the middle of trial, I have peace. Like, I have actually something positive, not just the lack of something negative. Christian indifference is remarkably different than stoic indifference, and it's even more remarkable than that because

Stoic indifference is when I encounter obstacles, when I encounter hard times, I can make it through. But St. Paul, what's he saying in the second reading? He says, yes, when I encounter hard times, want, when I'm hungry, when I'm starving. When I'm in need, I can make it through with joy and with peace. But he also says, I also know how to live in abundance with joy. I also know how I can live in feasting with joy. So that's the difference between Stoic indifference and Christian indifference.

Not only is there joy present, but also I can live in the hard times and I can live in the great times with joy. Like this is the distinction. Christian indifference is when we are capable of experiencing joy, of holding on to joy, of living joy regardless of our circumstances, both bad and good. And there's a third kind of indifference. There's the soic indifference. There's the Christian indifference.

And now there's the modern indifference. And I want to talk this morning about modern indifference. because if Christian indifference is one of the greatest gifts, one of the greatest secrets of Christian life, to follow Jesus and to say, like, no, I'm capable of having joy, holding on to joy, living joy, regardless of my circumstances, modern indifference is the exact opposite. What we experience now, for us indifference means this. I'm incapable of experiencing joy regardless of my circumstances. This is so many of us.

I can still act indifference. I can make it through. Christian indifference is I make it. I make it through both good times and bad times with joy, and modern indifference is I'm incapable of experiencing joy not only in the bad times, but also I'm incapable of experiencing joy in the good times. And there's bad times. There's examples of this. When the bad time numbs us, when the bad time renders makes us indifferent. Some of you might know a man in Elie Vesel. Aliviselle wrote a book called The Knight.

He was a Romanian Jew living in Romania when the National Socialists, the Nazis, came to power. At one point, he and his father, his mother and his little sister were rounded up by the National Socialists and brought to Auschwitz. He was 15 years old, 15 years old. When they arrived at Auschwitz, the Nazis immediately murdered his mom and his little sister, and they put his dad in him on a train to Bukenval. which is a work camp. And for the next number of years, he spent so many of those years,

every day, every moment almost, just slaving away in the work camp. But he noticed something that others have noticed. What Victor Frankl has noticed, what other authors, other people who lived in those work camps, what they noticed, is that there were some people who were able to survive,

there were some people who were able to have that kind of stoic indifference, but there were some people that the work, the slavery, the imprisonment, it did something to them inside, that before they actually were killed, they had already died. And they were called like the Walking Dead, or they were called, the German word was they were called the Musulmen.

And these were people that had already given up. They were indifferent. That the trauma had made it so that they didn't even feel. In fact, there was a book that describes them. It says this. It talks about how they sank into indifference. And it describes it like this. It says, to sink is the easiest of matters.

It's enough to carry out all the orders one receives, just to do what they tell you to do. To eat only the ration. To not look for more food because, like, why? Indifference, right? To observe the discipline of the work and the camp. Just like, this is how it is. And it's too hard to care.

Goes on. The author said, experience showed that only exceptionally could one survive more than three months like this. Just indifferent, just numb. And all the Muslim's who finished, who died in the gas chambers, have the same story.

Or more exactly, they have no story. They followed the slope. down to the bottom like the streams that run to the sea. He said their life is short but their number is endless. The drowned anonymous mass continually renewed, more people who come in, always identical, of non-men, of people who are alive, right, human beings who are like non-human beings who march and labor in silence, that divine spark dead within them already too empty even to suffer, right? That trauma made it so that they're completely indifferent, this modern indifference. One hesitates to even call them living.

One hesitates to even call their death, death, in the face of which they have no fear because they're too tired to care and they're too tired to understand. That kind of indifference is maybe what we might have experienced. You might have experienced that kind of indifference. At some point, it's just like, life just hurts so much that you're just like, you know what, I just don't care.

I just don't care. I don't care if this happens or that happens. That kind of indifference is what a difference means, right? Indifference means literally no difference. And maybe trauma has done that to you. Maybe hurt has done that to you where you got to the point of like, what did it even matter? Just I'm walking dead.

As the author said, they have no story because they're not pursuing anything because why. There's no difference. Now that might be some of our story, some of our experience that we encountered trauma and we got to the point of like this modern indifference of like that, whatever. I don't care.

But I think most of us, especially in this country, in this culture, we experience this, what you might call a soft indifference. And it's the indifference that we have so much. We have so much good around us. We have so many distractions around us. We have so much entertainment. If there's anything, it's, I don't know if you guys remember. There's a band called Nirvana, and there's a song called It Smells Like Teen Spirit. Okay, thank you, two of you.

They were a revolutionary band, you guys. They defined any age, whatever. I'm not hurt. disappointed. Okay. But in the song, they capture this, this, this modern indifference, the soft indifference, which is, it's here we are now, entertain us. That's the line. Here we are now, entertain us. And how much of our lives looks like that, right? It's just like, okay, how many of us get done with our series on Netflix or whatever the thing we got into is like, this is so great, it's so great, so great. And the series ends, you're like,

okay, what next? Like, you can't even sit for 30 minutes and like, oh, that was fun and just enjoy, go outside, like, breathe air. We have to, like, what's my next show? Or like with the shutdown of Hollywood, like, come on, Hollywood, like, get with the program, like make new movies for me. Here I am. Entertain me. We need this constant distraction. And so we keep saying this, what's next?

What's next? What's next? What's next? And it's led to this modern soft indifference where there is no difference because, like, who even cares? It's just the next thing. In fact, you know, Japan is kind of ahead of us in a lot of areas, like technology maybe, even civilization. But the harm that civilization that this kind of mentality has done is also ahead of us. In fact, in Japan, they are going through a crisis right now,

where people aren't having relationships, people aren't getting married, people are not having kids, because of this constant state of being entertained, this constant state of being distracted, this constant state of what are modern indifference. Like, there's no difference, I'll just go to work, I'll watch movies, I'll play video games, and just, there's no difference between life and living.

So much so that I don't want you know about this, that in Japan they actually have rent-a grandparents, that you have some young people who are like, I just want someone in my life, like a grandfather or a grandmother, and you can actually rent grandparents for a day, vice versa. So many old people in Japan, they don't have any grandkids, and so you can rent grandkids, just like a child that you can spend the day with and just kind of live on and treat as if they were your grandchild. Because there's these lack of relationships.

In fact, when they ask some of these people, like, why not? Why not? Like, step out of just this, go to work, come home, go to work, come home, come home. home. There's a term for it in Japanese. It's Mundukasaai. That's my best Japanese impression. Mandukasai, which simply means, I can't be bothered because what's the difference? So this is the modern difference that comfort does. Like I just need the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, and I can't be bothered. I'm indifferent to even incredible things. And that's the gospel today, right? The gospel is remarkable because you have Jesus telling this parable

of the king sending out invitations to a royal wedding feast. And we might be focused on the people who get invited, who, you know, manhandle the people inviting them and then abuse them and kill them? Like, well, that's an overreaction. Like, he just invited you to a wedding feast and you're going to kill the messenger. But I want to focus on the first group. And the first group it says they went to them and some of them, and they were invited to the wedding feast. And some of them, it said this. It said, some of them ignored the invitation. And they went home, one to his farm and another to his business. And you might say, well, I'm not someone who's going to like, I'm not going to abuse them.

messenger, I'm not going to kill anybody, but what we see is ourselves in that, those who ignored the invitation and went, I'm going back to my farm, going back to my business. And think about that, going to my farm, I'm going to my property, going to my stuff, I got stuff. I'm going to my business. I got stuff to do. Like how many times? No, keep this in mind, what are they being invited to? They're not being invited to this torture chamber, not being invited to an awful place.

They're being invited to a royal wedding feast. like the most, the biggest party any of them have ever been invited to, the biggest feast any of them ever been invited to, they're being invited to. Again, think about this, if the royals in England said, hey, personally, I want you to be part of this, not just in the crowd of thousands, I want you to be part of the reception afterwards, like, no, I got stuff,

I got stuff to do. Like, this is kind of what we're dealing with. These are people who are being invited to the greatest event of their entire lives, and it's like, no, I got stuff. And I got stuff to do. and is this indifference? It says, I think one of the reasons why indifference is can be worse than hate.

That indifference can be worse than hate. Because I can't recognize the difference between the awesome and the awful. Eli Vesel mentioned. He wrote, he said indifference. He said, indifference is what's worse in human nature. One of the worst things we have in us.

He says, and some people like being indifferent because it's easier. But he says the problem is it's not even the beginning of a process, it's the end of a process. It's almost worse than hatred. You can fight hatred. Like, you know how. You don't even know how to fight indifference because the person doesn't even realize that he or she is indifferent. Like, you can fight hatred, but like, what do you do with indifference?

It reminds me of a wedding reception that I did a bunch of years ago. So I always make this clear. I'll just say this. Okay, I love wedding prep. Like, I love wedding prep working with couples, getting ready for their wedding. I like weddings less, just whatever. It's my personal preference. And I really dislike wedding receptions.

It's just one of the things, personal confession right now, you might hate me for it, whatever. Might come from this one wedding reception that I was at a bunch of years ago, here in Duluth, where bride and groom, we had the wedding. And I did at the wedding what we always do here. Like if you're not Catholic or not practicing, come up and receive a blessing. So anyways, I get to the reception and the father of the groom. I'm sitting with the bride and her family, her parents and grandparents. So the six of them and me.

and the father of the groom comes up and he is like livid like his face is red his hands are already shaking in and balled up into fists I will tell you this and he sits down and he says what's all this come up for a blessing he swore a lot I'm gonna bleep myself out a little bit

he's like what's all this you know come up for a blessing bologna sandwich and I was like oh yeah you know well we have this thing we're coming out he's like I was raised Catholic and I got the F out of there the F as fast as effing could and I'm like okay okay talking about this and here's what else is wrong with the effing church and this and that and I'm like okay just listening. Meanwhile, the family of the bride are just staring at their plates. Like good

Minnesotans just kind of like we married into this family. Okay, this is our life now. At one point, the brothers of the groom, the son and daughter of the dad came over and they're like, dad, come on, just, you know, we're sorry about our dad. And he's like, no, I'm not going effing anywhere until I tell this effing priest, what I effing think. And I'm like, it's okay. Like I can handle it. But at one point, like, honestly, I got to confess, his fists were like, he was shaking. And I'm like, he's raising him up. Like, he's raising him up. going to swing. I genuinely thought he was going to try to take it. And I was like, what do I do? Like, what do you do? You're a priest at a wedding reception. Here's the father of the groom who's

about to punch you in the face. I'm like, I have three options. I wouldn't just let him punch me. Jesus would do that probably. I'm like, I could just duck, you know, I see it coming. Or I could like block it and like counter punch. Like that, I don't know if I could do that, but I kind of want to. And at one point, basically he spent himself and he got up and he walked away. And I was like, okay, okay. And then the son and daughter came over. And they're like, oh, gosh, they sat down. Like, we're so sorry for our dad. like he gets really riled up about religion, really cares about this whole faith stuff, and we're so sorry.

But we just like, we know, like it doesn't even matter, really. I mean, whatever you believe is fine, whatever we believe is fine. It's all the same anyways. And I was like, man, bring your dad back. Like, at least he fought. At least he cared. At least it mattered. At least he didn't have this poison of indifference.

Because you know how to fight indifference. If you're not to fight hatred, I mean, but how do you fight indifference? This is the thing. It's why indifference is called the cancer of Christians. How do you get someone who says there's no difference who doesn't care to care? Sometimes God has to take extreme measures. Sometimes what God does is he tries to wake us up by allowing us who are so distracted by comfort. He allows us to experience pain and sometimes that wakes us up.

In fact, C.S. Lewis writes about this in a book called The Problem of Pain. He says, we can ignore our pleasure even. Like pleasure is fine. Pleasure can make us indifferent. He says, but pain, sometimes suffering, insists on being attended to. And he has this famous line where he says, God whispers to us in our pleasures. He speaks in our conscience, but he shouts to us in our pains.

That pain is often God's megaphone to rouse up a deaf and drowsy world. I wonder if this is one of the things that happened to Jimmy Fallon. I don't know if you know. Jimmy Fallon, obviously, you know him. I mean, you're close personal friends. But super talented guy who like pursuing, he's got stuff. He's got stuff to do, right? this kind of like this super good nature, super talented talk show host, who it seems like just

kind of went through life and keeps going through life and distracted and maybe indifferent to the bigger questions. But I don't know if you know about this. About five years ago or so, he was in his apartment and he tripped and his ring finger got caught on something and it almost ripped his finger completely off of his hand. And so he had to go to the hospital. Actually, he was in the ICU for 10 days. They took a vein from his foot and that threaded it through his finger.

And after maybe, I think, eight weeks, two months, he finally got feeling back in this thing. But in that process, you think it's just, well, it's just a finger, but it's your finger. You're like all 10. In the process, he asked for a particular book. He asked for the book, Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel. Because in the middle of, like, just my life, I got stuff and I got stuff to do, all of a sudden there's this pain that's like, wait a second, is my stuff and is my stuff to do,

is that where I should spend my life? Is that where I should give my life? Isn't there more to life than this? And all it took was a finger. Sometimes God has to do that. And for us, for myself, for us here, what's the thing he has to do when we say, here's this great invitation,

great invitation to give our whole lives to Jesus to go through the wedding feast. And we're like, yeah, but Lord, I got stuff. I got stuff to do. How many of us regularly are tempted to trade it in eternity for like this, whatever this is, this moment, this stuff. And it's not even that great. Sometimes it's not even that great, right?

So like even, let's just take an example of Sunday Mass. Like, okay, I'm going to skip Sunday Mass for one hour and instead do fill in the blank. Typically, we get to the end of that hour that we would have been at Mass and like, okay, that wasn't even amazing. There's no difference, right? This modern indifference of just, we not only can't tell the difference between the awesome and the awful, we sometimes can't even tell the difference between the awesome and the all right. That we're so surrounded by good stuff that we are incapable of seeing the best.

We might even trade in the best for the okay. Which reminds me, coming to the end here, reminds me of, this is a story in the Old Testament in the book of Genesis. There's a man named Isaac, and he has two sons, twin boys. One is Esau. He was born first, and one is Jacob. And so since Esau was born first, he gets the blessing gets the birthright. So not only does he get the blessing of his father passed on from this father to firstborn son, he also gets the birthright, meaning like virtually all of the father's property, his whole estate,

everything he has, basically goes to that firstborn son, Issa. But at one point in the story, Issaa isa isa is coming in. from hunting and he didn't get any food. And Jacob is there at the outskirts of the camp. And he's cooking what the scripture says is red stuff, like red porridge, red oatmeal, something like this, red stuff. And Esau is hungry. And he says, hey, give me some of that red stuff. And Jacob says, I'll give it to you if you give me your birthright. Now, think about this. This is what he, this is everything. This is everything the father has to give. and Jacob says, okay, I'll give you this porridge for your birthright.

And Issa says, fine, I don't care. There's no difference to me between my birthright from my father and this red stuff. I think about how often is that us? But here is God himself who's given us. He's invited us to the wedding piece. Like this is your destiny. Like this is his gift to all of us to be able to him. He's our destiny.

He wants us to have him, but we're like, ah, red stuff, though. I mean, how can you argue with red stuff? This is essentially, so many of us live like that. It's the hard to understand part at the end of today's gospel. Where there's a guy who comes in without a wedding garment. You're like, what does this mean? What it means is, here's someone who's been invited into the house of the father. He's been invited into the royal wedding feast.

He's been given all the gifts that you and I have been given in baptism that Lord has said, basically, you're my child, you're my son, you're my daughter, everything I have is yours. And that person said, okay, fine, I'll show up, but I'm not going to give you my heart. Like, I'm actually, I have faith, but I'm not going to love. That I'll be here, but listen, I got stuff and I got stuff to do. So I'm here half-heartedly.

I'm here, but I'm pretty indifferent. And I have to wonder, like, how many of us are showing up, and that's my heart right now. Where I just can't wait to the end of this because I got stuff and I got stuff to do. You know, St. Paul, and this is the last thing, St. Paul, he says, this is the secret. Secret isn't, I'm super tough like Hurricane Carter. St. Paul doesn't say like, yeah, but be like me, you guys, you can weather any storm. He says, I've learned the secret of living in abundance and the living in want, of going hungry and being well fed.

And the secret is this. He says, the secret is, I can do all things in Christ who gives me strength. No, clarification. That doesn't mean he's saying, like, I'm in Jesus. I can do whatever I want. also doesn't mean I'm in Jesus, so there's no limits for me. I could just do literally anything I try. What St. Paul is saying is the secret is about living in abundance and not being indifferent. The secret of living in poverty and not becoming indifferent and incapable of having joy is everything

I do, I do in him. Like everything I do, I do as a Christian. Everything I do, he's at the center of it all. And because of that, I am free. I am free. I am free. free to experience joy in every situation and every circumstance. Because everything I do, whether I'm suffering or whether I'm celebrating, is with him. And this is what we can do. This is my invitation for all of us. And just to take small steps, small steps are the easiest steps today.

You might be like, sweet, Sunday, nothing to do. Or maybe Sunday, Monday's coming. Barf. Whether it's a day of abundance or a day of just, ah, dilemma, whether it's a day of joy and rest or a day of just burden and anxiety, to learn the secret of St. Paul, which is not stoic indifference. The secret of St. Paul, which is not modern indifference, it doesn't matter, but the secret of St. Paul, which says, okay, as I go into the day, if I go into rest,

Jesus, I do this in you, so I have joy. They're going to work. Jesus, I want to work in you, and so I have joy. If I have an abundance, Jesus, I have an abundance because of you, so I have joy. And if I have so, I'm so stressed out because how am I going to afford X, Y, and Z, Jesus. In my poverty, I am in you. And so I have joy. Because it's only then that we can break out of this no difference. It's only then that we can break out of this slide of no story or being non-human beings.

It's only then that we can stop being the walking dead or basically sleepwalking. But no, Lord, when you are in me and I'm in you, I know how to live in want and I know how to live in abundance. I know how to live with stuff and without stuff. I know to live without stuff to do and with stuff to do. And I can do all of those things in joy because it's only when I'm with you and in you that there is truly no difference.