Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 10/13/24 The Word of God

Episode Date: October 12, 2024

Homily from the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time. God's Word is living and active. In order to understand our lives clearly, we need to know The Story. In order to know The Story, we need to become familiar with the Bible. Mass Readings from October 13, 2024: Wisdom 7:7-11 Psalms 90:12-17Hebrews 4:12-13 Mark 10:17-30

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 10 verses 17 through 30. As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him and asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus answered him, why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments. You shall not kill.

You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. you shall not defraud, honor your father and your mother. He replied and said to him, Teacher, all these I've observed from my youth. Jesus, looking at him, loved him,

and said to him, you're lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give it to the poor. And you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me. At that statement, his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.

The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. They were exceedingly astonished, and they said to themselves, then who can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said,

for human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God. Peter began to say to him, we have given up everything and followed you. Jesus said, amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brother or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age,

houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecution. and eternal life and the age to come, the gospel of the Lord. Wait you to have a seat. So that second reading today, it's a Hebrews chapter 4, and it talks about the Word of God. The Word of God is living and effective.

And we're going to talk about the word tonight. We're just going to talk about the Bible. Because I would say this. I think it's pretty safe to say that everyone knows this, that the Bible is the best-selling book of all time. I don't know. If you didn't know that, newsflash. The Bible is the best-selling book of all time.

It's probably one of the most quoted books of all time, the most cited books of all time. It might even be the greatest source of tattoos on people's bodies for all time. Like, it's, like, people, like, they like the Bible. Here's the thing. We like the idea of the Bible too often.

I think we like having, like, oh, I love that I have a Bible. I love, but I want to know what's in it. I think there's something about all of us that we say, we look at it, if you have a Bible, look at it, you're like, I want to know what's in this thing. So, I don't know if I've said this before, but this is my 20th year of being on campus.

So I've been on campus chaplain for 20 decades, two decades. And over the course of those two decades, one of the things I've just had a real desire for, almost an obsession about, is I want everyone to know their Bible. Like I just want, so we've done things where we have like Bible giveaways where like here's, it's Ash Wednesday, we'll give away hundreds of Bibles and say, bring your Bibles to Mass, bring like a notebook to Mass, bring someone to write with something you write on. Like we want people in their Bibles. We do all these things where it's like, here's a Bible reading plan for Advent or Bible reading plan for Lent,

Bible reading plan for whatever. We would have handouts, like how to pray the Bible. If there's anything, I just wanted everyone to know the Bible. Because I don't know if you're like me, you probably do. You look at this book and you're like, I want to know what's in this book. I mean, I even have literally, I actually found my first Bible I was ever given. So the first Bible I was ever given, I was second grade, my first Holy Communion. It is the picture Bible.

It's this Bible. Now, you might say, that looks like a normal Bible. Wait, check it out. It's not normal. It's a comic book Bible. You guys, this is amazing. I got this as a second grader and I read this Bible all of the time

and so this is actually the Bible that I give my nieces and nephews on their first convenians this one's out of print so I give them the action Bible it's so cool. You guys if you were to hold this Bible open and let it fall open to a page it always falls open to the page where Samson's pushing down the pillars because he's like jacked I'm like yeah man

I love the Bible when I was in college I wanted my high school I was like I want I need a real Bible not just comic book and so I asked my parents to me a real Bible This is the real Bible that gave me. I got it as I think a junior in high school. Is it the St. Joseph's, New American Bible, St. Joseph Edition.

And I used this all through high school, all through college in the first and seminary. And then, of course, this now is my current Bible. Because there's something in this, right, that we just like, I want to know this. But the problem is this. The problem is we want to know what's in this Bible. We don't all have the chance. Or how do we do this? In fact, some of you have heard of a man named Jeff Kavins.

Jeff Kavins, he's a Bible teacher, has taught the Bible all over the the place, but Jeff tells the story, but when he was in like seventh grade, he was confirmed, Catholic, and he came back from his confirmation as a seventh grader, the middle schooler, and they gave him a Bible. His parents gave him a Bible for his confirmation, and he said he sat up in his room. That night at the end of his confirmation sat on his bed, and he had this Bible, his own Bible, on his nightstand right next to his bed, and he said he looked at his Bible, and he just was a Holy Spirit moment where he was just, like, convicted.

He's like, I want to know what's in that book. It is probably the same thing you've experienced. Like, I want to know it's in this book. So he came up with his first ever Bible reading plan. So the seventh grader, his Bible reading plan was this. The Bible's really, really long. I will read one verse a day. And by the end of my life, I'll probably have made it all the way through the whole Bible.

So he did what we would do. He read one verse next night, Genesis chapter 1, verse 2. Next night, Genesis chapter 1, verse 3. He made it like five verses, then he forgot about it. Because that's what we do, right? We forget because we just, I think it's this. I think because we look at the Bible and we just take little pieces. I think that when we get the Bible, we're just taking like, there are fragments.

There's kind of like a puzzle piece. And so even if you go to Daily Mass, you get the Bible. In fact, if you go to Daily Mass for three years in a row, you will receive over 80% of the Bible. But what happens, even today on Sunday, first reading from what book? No one remembers because we just wisdom. I know you guys are paying attention. But we don't know. Where's wisdom fit in the story?

I don't know. And basically what we have is, even if you go to mass, regular basis, we just have a collection of puzzle pieces. Instead of the whole picture, we just have a collection of fragments rather than the whole story. In fact, there's a book that came out of

You Mary in Bismarck, Montenier-Shea. He wrote the book called, from Christendom to Apostolic Mission. And what he claims is that we are in a time in our culture, in our country, in our church that is unprecedented. That we've actually never experienced this before. because what happens is that right now in our church,

even people will go to Mass. We've lost the story. Or we've never even heard of the entire story. We have a bunch of puzzle pieces, but we don't know what the picture is supposed to look like. He says it like this. He says, we've lost the biblical imagination. Another way to say it is,

as disciples of Jesus, what we need to have is we need to have, the Bible needs to be the lens through which we look at the world. We need to have what you call a biblical worldview. you, but so many of us, we don't know the story. So many of us, we have puzzle pieces, but we don't know the picture. And so we find ourselves, I mean, think about this right now in our season, a couple weeks, we'll be having an election, and then the fallout of whatever happens at the election. And so many of us will be in chaos, because why?

Because we've lost the story. We don't know what the picture. We have a bunch of puzzle pieces, but we don't know where we fit in the story. And even more important, way more important than who's the story. in the White House, who's in your house? Because closer to home, every one of us, regardless of election, every one of us are going to face seasons of challenge. Every one of us is going to face loss. Every one of us is going to face suffering. Every one of us is going to face death. What do we do then? So years ago, there was one of our students who got in this really bad car accident.

And she was in the hospital for quite a while. And one of her friends, he texted me and he said, hey, father, do you have, she's in the hospital, she's in pain. Do you have any Bible verses that could really help her. I was like, well, yeah, I mean, the Bible's great. So, like, here's some Bible verses. Gave some Psalms, a little longer chunks. Remember we're thinking even at the moment, like, that can be helpful, but basically, like, it's almost like,

here's someone in a crisis, you hand him a puzzle piece. Say, hey, reflect on this for a while. Instead of saying, okay, here's the whole story. So having a hand him a fragment rather than just like, oh, no, here is how you can actually see where God is in your life right now. And I'm no different. back in 2020, you know, when COVID was happening, that was me. Like, I just, I don't know if this happened to you, but like, man, I filled my mind with so much noise

during COVID. Like, it was just like, I wanted to hear everyone's opinion about this and that. Should we do this? Should we not do this? And that was just like so constantly distracted and distressed, like constantly just really trying to take in what's the wisest way we can move forward. And I remember I went into our holy hour in the morning in the chapel. And I was reading the book of judges in the Old Testament.

And as I was reading the book of judges, one of the refrains, you might know this, and one of the refrains in the book of judges is, in those days, there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. It was just chaos. And I remember realizing that, oh, this wasn't just chaos for like a month or three. This wasn't chaos for a couple years. This was chaos for generations. And I realized so clearly, okay, this is not the first time this has happened.

And this is definitely not the worst time. this has ever happened. So I remember just being convicted. I like, okay, what I need to do is I need to, I need to see life through the lens of scripture. I need to get the whole story. And again, as I said, for years, I just wanted all of our students, every one of us,

to know the whole story, to know the whole picture and not just pieces. And so we did this podcast, right? The Bible, this is not a commercial, I promise, but we did the Bible in your podcast. And apparently more other people really wanted to know. too. Again, side note about this. We're going to talk about the Bible in here a couple times. So when it came out and it did relatively well, I would get messages from people who would say, people I knew, some people I didn't know it all, and they

would say, hey, congratulations on the podcast. Don't let this go to your head. And I was like, I appreciate that. I'm grateful for this. But I was like, okay, so I've had a podcast of my own since 2007, of my own thoughts, like homilies on Sundays. I've had another podcast since 2015. I've got more of my own thoughts that didn't do much. It wasn't until I started reading someone else's words, aka gods, that it did something. If I were let that go out of my head, I'd be the dumbest person in the world. So the reality, of course, is that God's word is living and effective, right? It says in Hebrews today. Because God's word's alive. God's word has the ability to change our lives. In fact, I have a friend his name

is Michael, no relation. And at one point, he was, Michael was not raised religious at all. He wasn't even nominally Christian. He had never been in a Christian church ever. But he had a heart for people. And he became a Peace Corps volunteer. And he was assigned to Morocco. Before he left, one of his friends, who was a Christian, she said, hey, Michael, I'm going to send you a care package when you get to Morocco. And so he's great. I love it. What do you want? He told all the things he wanted in it. A couple months after he got to Morocco, here comes the care package. He opens it up. And there are the things he wanted. He wanted peanut butter. He wanted pretzels. He wanted some reason I remember he really wanted Twizzlers in Morocco. But on top of the whole care package, his friend

had placed a Bible. And inside she had inscribed that, you know, Michael, I think you're going to find something in here that you really want. Start by reading the Gospel of Matthew. And Michael took a look at it, picked up the Bible, and threw it across the room. Not because he hated the Bible, but because he was like, there could have been more Twizzlers. It took up space. So days pass. One night, Michael can't sleep. He's tossing and turning, and he's like, he remembered that his friend had given him this book, this Bible. So he got up, when under the table where he had thrown the Bible, picked it up, and sat at his table and just started reading. Started with the gospel of Matthew. Michael, start reading the gospel of Matthew. I think there's

something in here that you want. Read all the way through the gospel of Matthew. Got to the end of Matthew, started reading Mark. Read all of the gospel of Mark. Read all the gospel of Luke. Started with John. As he's finishing the gospel of John, the son's coming up. And as the son's coming up over Morocco outside of his window, Michael's sitting at his kitchen table and he's saying, he's like, this is the truth. Jesus really is God, and I want to give my life for him. The problem was this. The problem was he still had over a year left in Morocco.

He said, for over a year, he was the only Christian he knew. Because he didn't know any other Christians in writing. He actually did even know if there were other Christians other than his friend who sent him in the Bible. He ultimately became Catholic, and it was one of those kind of situations where it was incredible. Because, God, why? Because God's word is living and effective. God's word has a power to change us.

And yet, unlike Michael, most of us need teachers. He just read it on his own in Morocco. The Holy Spirit was leading him. Most of us need teachers. In fact, even the Bible tells us that we need teachers. In Second Peter, Peter's 316, Peter's talking about Paul.

If you ever tried to read Paul and he finds him confusing, no problem, the Bible tells you that Paul is confusing. Because Peter is saying, he's like, hey, Paul's great. Paul is amazing. Paul's really hard to understand. Because it's really hard sometimes we need teachers. In fact, there's a famous story

in the Acts of the Apostles where there's a guy named Phil, Philip's the deacon. And at one point, the spirit moves him to this place. And he sees this Ethiopian eunuch in the back of a chariot reading the scroll of the book of the prophet Isaiah. This guy has no Jewish background. He just, how he even has a Hebrew scroll? We never even learn. But he's reading this, and it's about the suffering Messiah, right, that Jesus Christ bore our sins. This has written 600 years before Jesus. And Philip walks up to him and says, hey, what's you're reading? It's like the modern day equivalent of seeing someone at Caribou, reading a Bible, like, hey, what do you got there? Philip asked him, what are you reading? And he says,

this whole Isaiah 53. And Philip asks him, do you know who they're talking about? And the Ethiopian Unix says, how can I, unless someone teaches me? And so Philip tells him, that's Jesus. He gets baptized in that moment. His life has changed. Because why? Because yes, the Word of God is living and effective. And yet, at the same time, so many times we need teachers. A couple years ago, I got a letter from a man. It was like three or four months into the Bible in here. And he said he'd been a committed atheist his whole life. That did he had intentionally, he had raised his kids as atheists,

that he said, I even read the Bible cover to cover multiple times. So I wanted to know the God I was rejecting. He said, but he started listening, and he said there was something about hearing God's word. There was something about having someone explain it. It says, here I am, only four months. months into the Bible. And I have to tell you, I'm a believer. Because yes, God's word is living. It's alive. And we also need a teacher. Why? Because we can read the Bible wrong. Like,

we can read the Bible incorrectly. I've done it so many times, you guys, sometimes we read the Bible and you say, okay, God, I want to be convinced. Prove it to me. So I'm going to pull up the Bible, and you're going to prove it to me. But the Bible isn't written to prove it to anybody. He just tells it. Or say, okay, God, I want to be inspired. You guys, this is my thing when I picked up this Bible in high school. I was like, oh, are you kidding me? The Word of God, powerful. It's going to be a book of inspirational quotes. And I'm popping open like, you know, something like, here we are. I'm not even going to read it because it's just not even. And I'm like, I am not inspired at all by what I'm reading here. And I was disappointed, but the Bible's not a

book of inspirational quotes. Or I would think like, you know, I want to be answered. How many times you have done this where you have a problem that you want to be solved? You're like, I needed to make a decision. God help me. And so you played Bible roulette. It's going to like flip it open and like, okay, here we go, and answer. Nope, that's not my answer. But we realize the Bible is in an answer book. There's truth. It's the truth.

But it's not a magic eight ball that we realize that we can read the Bible wrong. In fact, sometimes you can read the Bible. We want God to tell us what we want to hear, not what he wants to say. A couple years ago, I got an anonymous letter. And in seminary, they always told us, if you ever get an anonymous letter, don't read it, just throw it away. And I thought, nah, I'll be fine. So I read this letter. And it was written by an older gentleman who was Catholic his whole life, went to Sunday Mass every Sunday his whole life.

And he and a group of people in his parish were going through the Bible in the year. And they're on like day 80, 90, somewhere in there. They were into it. And he said, I have to tell you, I don't like it. I don't like God. I'm letting God tell me about himself and I don't like him. And he says, the truth of the matter is, I don't know if I will even stick with this whole Christianity thing.

Because why? Because he had been so used to saying, God, God, here's who you are. And all of a sudden, God's telling him who he is. And he's like, I don't know if I like this. This is the whole point. This is God telling us who he is. Not us telling him who we are.

in fact it came across a woman and she had done the same thing her pastor had recommended that she read the Bible cover to cover so she said she did and she was really distraught because by the end of her reading the Bible she said I realize I don't like God she did the whole thing

she said I know it's true like I know Jesus is God I just don't like him and she was actually really again really distressed by this because she's like I know that that puts me in the category of like the devil because the devil knows Jesus is God, he doesn't like him. She's just like, I don't want to be the devil. And so she went to talk to her pastor again. He gave her such really

such great advice. He told her, he said, okay, go back and reread the Bible. But this time, stop trying to find yourself on every page. Go back and read the Bible and stop trying to find yourself in the story. Instead, read the story and just try to find God. Let him tell you about himself. Let him tell you about his heart. Not about your heart. Let him tell you about what he loves. Let him tell you about what he hates. Let him tell you about what he longs for. And she said, she went back looking like that, reading like that. And she said within a couple books of the Bible, she was falling in love with God. She said, who would imagine? I read the Old Testament and I fell more and more in love with God. And this is what God wants for us. Why? Because

Every one of us is hungry for God. You guys, the reason why we look at this book and we go, I want to know what's in here. It's because every one of us is thirsting for God. The reason we want to know, not just the puzzle pieces, but we want to know the whole picture is because every one of us, we have a heart that is restless for God. There was a man, his name is St. Augustine.

And he said those words. He said, you have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. St. Augustine, he had a fascinating story. At one point, in the worst moment of his life, He's out in his backyard, and he's literally a grown man sobbing on the ground, crying out to God, again, the worst moment of his life. And he's like, God, I just don't understand.

I can't move forward. I can't do this. And it was in the lowest moment of his life when he heard these three words. The words kept coming to him again and again. And those words were, take and read. Take and read. Take and read. And so he got up.

And he went back into his house, and he pulled out. a Bible and he just started reading and it transformed his life. In the most desperate moment of his life, he picked up the Bible and just took and read. And that's the invitation for everyone tonight. My invitation for every one of us tonight is to just start. No matter what season you're in to be able to just take up and read. If you were like Michael in Morocco, like I just want to read the Gospel of Matthew, just tonight, take and read.

Or maybe like the girl in the hospital, just praying the Psalms, just take and read. Or maybe, or maybe, maybe you want to get the whole picture. Like maybe you want to actually know, not just puzzle pieces, maybe you want to know the whole story. Maybe it's time to actually, again, press play on a podcast that might read you the whole Bible in 365 days. Once again, this is not a commercial, but here's the crazy thing. People ask me, like, Father, why do you think that the Bible in a year was so successful? And I think for four reasons.

One is because everyone's hungry. because so many people are hungry which makes sense why St. Jerome said like this he said ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ we have a church full of people right now you want to know Jesus you want to love Jesus but you can't love

what you don't know and if ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ and I don't know this book then I can't know him but you're hungry so what else I think The second reason is so popular is because it's easy. You literally just press play and listen.

Just download the ascension app, press play. You guys, I recommend two-time speed because I can't handle anything slower than that. Two-time, you get through it half the time. It's amazing. It's so easy. Number two, it's so easy just press play. Number three, there's a map.

How many times do you just get lost? You start reading the Bible. Genesis, right, Exodus. I get it. Leviticus, what? But to have a map. Again, what's one of the geniuses of Jeff Kavins is like you never lose the story because he's mapped it out.

And this is the journey that we're going to take and we're never going to leave the story. So you have a hunger for this. You want this already. It's easy. Just press play. There's a map and there's a guide. There's someone at the end of every episode.

You don't have to listen to my... I'm not telling you that. Find another one. Find a better one. But just press play. Let there be a map and let there be someone to guide you. Little bonus thing. I remember hearing some people who said that in their family members,

to keep each other accountable, they were all doing the Bible in a year. And to keep each other accountable, they would always, they'd all pick a certain gift every day and share it with the group chat. So it was like, you know, Burning Bush story, they'd find a gift that matched with their thing, or Jesus walking in the water, find a gift that matched that. It just was a way to keep them going. Easy, a map, a guide, a gift.

This is the last thing. What if you started today? Like, what if you start, looked at this book and said, I want to know it's in here. Because it's in just one book. It's 73 books. I want to know it's in these 73 books. What if, what if you just pressed play today? Like how much could that change your life?

How much could it change the life of your family members? People you'd never even met. So, remember Jeff Kavans when he was seventh grader? He's sitting on the edge of his bed, looking at his nightstand in the Bible there, and he's like, I want to know what's in that book. As you might know, Jeff, when he was 17, 18 years old, he encountered Jesus in a way that transformed his life. He actually left the Catholic Church.

became a Protestant pastor for 12 years, came back to the Catholic Church. He has all these Bible studies. He's changed my life in so many ways. He's taught me so much about the Bible. He has all these Bible studies that are just remarkable. One year, Jeff was down in the Twin Cities, and he was doing a seminar in a parish. And after the seminar, he had a little table where people could sign up for his newsletter. And so people are putting down their addresses, and he's sitting there talking with them as they're writing down their addresses.

His man was chatting him up as writing his thing down. And he wrote down an address, and Jeff looked at it and said, wait a second. that's where you live? And the man says, yeah. He said, that's my childhood home. That's the house that I grew up in. And the man was like, no way, I live in Jeff Kaven's kid home, you know. And he said, would you ever want to, like, come by and see your childhood home?

And Jeff's like, yes, can I bring my mom and dad and sister? Like, yeah, bring them all. So one Saturday, they showed up. And they're taking a tour of their, you know, the home they all lived in for years. And at one point, the man said, hey, which room was your bedroom? And Jeff said, well, it's one on the top of the stairs on the left. And the man said, oh, that's my study. Like, that's where I do all my work.

You want to see it? Yeah, of course I do. Jeff walks up the stairs, walks into his old bedroom, and exactly where his bed and the bedside table, where his Bible had been, where he said, as a seventh grader, I want to know what's in that book. There was a bookcase. And the bookcase was full of all of Jeff's Bible studies.

From the great adventure to Gospel of Matthew, to Corinthians, to Galatians, to Galatians, to Ephesians, the letter of St. James, like all of Jeff's Bible studies were in this man in the exact same spot because one night, here's this man who said, I want to know what's in that book. You guys, imagine. Imagine what just pressing play could do in your life. Imagine what just saying yes. Imagine what picking up, like Michael, picking up the Gospel of Matthew tonight and just starting to read. Imagine what the difference it can make. Imagine where you could be in one year from tonight. October 13, 2025.

If tonight was the night you realized, I have an inheritance. And this is part of my inheritance. I don't have to just go through life scrambling after puzzle pieces. I know the whole picture. I don't have to go through life just gathering fragments. I know the story. And even more than that. After reading his story, I know the author of the story.

And to know, in one year from now, even more than that. I know the picture. I know the story. I know the author of the story. And to know finally, here's where I fit in the story.