Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 10/14/18 Rivals: The Reason is the Rival

Episode Date: October 16, 2018

Homily from the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time. God has an absolute claim on your heart. What is the reason you won't give it to Him? There is a clear difference between a reason and an excuse. Excuses are not acceptable answers, but there are times when even “good reasons” fail to be “good enough”. Mass Readings from October 14, 2018: Wisdom 7:7-11 Psalms 90:12-17Hebrews 4:12-13 Mark 10:17-30 Download the Homily Study

Hi, this is Father Mike Schmitz. Just four quick things. One, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. I hope that it is helpful for you. Two, this series, rivals. I hope that it is a blessing and is something that you are getting a lot out of. Number three, two things to kind of put in your ear, maybe put in your prayer basket in not this weekend upcoming, but the following weekend, we have our annual fan-in-to-flame retreat. It is a retreat where we just ask our college students to go away over our fall break.

and have an opportunity to pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to come upon them and to them to encounter the Holy Spirit in an entirely new way. And obviously, a retreat like this that so transformative and so powerful is really fueled by prayer. And so if you wouldn't mind keeping us in your prayer for the weekend, the end of October this week. I think it's the, yeah, not this weekend, but next weekend, I should get the dates right. But please keep us in your prayers.

The last little announcement is, as you might know, every year we have a thing called Give to the Max Day. And it's the day that basically in so many ways funds the ministry that we do here year-round on campus. And this year, Give to the Max Day is Thursday, November 15th, 2018. So if you wouldn't mind, if this ministry has been a blessing to you, if you wouldn't mind praying about whether God is asking you or calling you or even just giving you the opportunity, to support this ministry financially.

That would be a huge blessing. I'll have more little announcements like this in the next couple weeks. But I just wanted to put this in your prayer buckets. Please pay for that retreat. Please pray about whether the Lord is asking you or inviting you. Again, as I said, just even giving you the opportunity to support this ministry financially. Regardless, if you wouldn't mind keeping me personally

and all the students collectively this ministry in your prayers, it would be a huge blessing. Thank you so much. And I hope you enjoy this second. section of the series we have rivals. You know, I'm sure you've all experienced this. When you ever you give someone a decision, like you tell a person like what you're going to do, a lot of times, especially if they don't like your answer, if they don't like your decision,

like, okay, I'm not going to do this, I am going to do this, I am going to say this, I'm not going to say that thing. Whatever it is, a lot of times, if they don't like what your decision is, then we always ask one question. If they don't like your decision, it's like, okay, why? Have you ever had that situation where you chose? Like, here's what's happening. Now this is where life is going to go from now. We're not going to be friends anymore.

We're not going to date anymore. I'm not going to go out with you guys. And the question, why? When we are confronted with that word, that question, we have one of two possible answers, one of two possible ways to respond. The one of two possible answers are either, we either give the reason or we give an excuse. Can I get an amen? Right? Because that's what happens, right? Either we tell them the reason why, or we make an excuse.

When it comes to any question, why, we either give a reason or we give an excuse. There's a big difference between a reason and an excuse. I will say this. I think a reason is the kind of answer that takes responsibility for the decision. And an excuse is the kind of answer that shifts responsibility for that decision. Say that again. A reason is the kind of answer that takes responsibility for a decision. And an excuse is the kind of answer that shifts responsibility for that decision. So for almost any kind of thing, why did this happen?

We either take responsibility for that decision, for that outcome, for what would happen, or we shift responsibility for that decision, for that outcome for what happened. So it's something, I mean, it can be easy as, I can't come out with you guys because my mom wants me to call her. Excuse. I'm not going out because I'm going to call my mom. That's the reason. I'm taking the responsibility.

I'm asking, yeah, the old lady, she's so lonely these days. She needs me. Like, no, no, no. She might be lonely. She might be old. She might be a lady. But I'm taking the responsibility. Like, okay, why are you here so late?

Traffic was crazy. Shifting the responsibility. I hate every red light. the weather out there, shifting, or I could I say, or I could say, I did not take into account the fact that there might be traffic, so I left not on time. Taking responsibility, taking responsibility. Again, the difference between a reason and an excuse. Why isn't this project done? It was due Monday. Well, because two other teachers gave me big projects I had to do as well. It's an excuse. I'm shifting responsibility. Reason, I did not take the initiative to look at the

the syllabus and realize that there were three projects they were due on one time and one day. And so I did the other, I chose to do the other two rather than yours, Professor. Reason. Doesn't have be a good reason. He or she doesn't have to like it, but that's the reason. The reason is an answer that takes responsibility for the decision, and the excuse is an answer that shifts the responsibility for a decision. And no, of course I want to note this, the little caveat number one of the day. And there's going to be three. Cavaliat number one is there are There are times when a reason actually sounds like an excuse when it's not your responsibility. Because we all remember the day when like, you know, a buddy asks you to, hey, could you

spend the night this weekend or spend the night this Friday? And you're like, my mom says I can't. That's not an excuse. That's a reason. Because why? Because you're not the one who decides. You're not the one responsible for, yes, I'm going to spend the night somewhere other than home.

She is. So that's actually not shifting the responsibility. That's not an excuse. That's the reason. She's the determiner. But when it's your choice, when it's my choice, when we get to make the decision, we either take responsibility for that decision or we shift responsibility for that decision.

So here's the thing, rivals. As you might know if you were here last weekend, we started this series last weekend, a four-part series, rivals, it's called rivals. We tried to define what a rival was. Last week we said that a rival is a person or a thing that is competing with another for the same objective. That any rival is a person or a thing

that's competing with another for the same objective. That thing or that person is a thing. a rival. And we recognize that there's all sorts of rivals that we allow into our lives. But there are some relationships that don't tolerate rivals. There's some relationships in our lives that, some that do, friends, you know, it's nice to have a lot of friends, roommates, nice to have a couple different roommates. But there's a couple of relationships that do not tolerate rivals. We talked about it last week. We said when it comes to marriage, that's a relationship that doesn't tolerate any rival. And when it comes to our relationship with God,

God, that is a relationship that doesn't tolerate any rival because both of those relationships, they came to a moment, and maybe they have multiple moments, they came to a time where it was like all or nothing. It was, I'm all in or I'm all out. And if you're all in, there cannot, and there may not be a rival. But we have rivals in our lives. Specifically, we have rivals in our lives when it comes to God. And so when it comes to like, hey, why do you have that rival in your life? Sometimes we can give a reason and sometimes we could give an excuse. Sometimes he can take the blame, and sometimes he can shift the blame. So let's go to the rich young man today.

Here's the gospel. The story of a rich young man in Mark's gospel is absolutely fascinating. I want to set the context up. So a couple different steps. One, rich young man comes before for Jesus and says, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus' response, why do you call me good? No one's good but God alone. But here's the deal.

Keep the commandments. The guy's like, done. Check that box. I'm super good, Jesus, you have no idea. Like, I pass all my Sunday school classes and I go to Mass every Sunday. Like, this is, the guys, like, I've done all that. Jesus, okay, right? Wonderful.

You're lacking one thing. Go, sell everything you have. Give it to the poor. Then come follow me. And then you will actually have riches in heaven. Then you will have eternal life. It says that he went away sad. And it gives a reason.

It says he went away sad. And then it gives the reason why. Because he had a reason. many possessions. Like that's the reason. Whether that, no, here's the thing, whether that's an excuse, I got all this stuff, I can't give it away, or whether that's a reason. Might make a difference, but let's go down this road. Look, just examine the life of the rich young man. Just imagine you were in his shoes. Because sometimes I think we just imagine he's just a really wealthy kid. Like he did a, you know, a dot-com startup, and he just got a gazillion dollars,

and now he's only 22, and like he's living the life. And like, like, and just like, hey, give it away, dude, and come follow me. That is not the case with this guy. Because they didn't have any get-rich-quick. They didn't have any self-made millionaires back in the day. If this guy is wealthy, he is wealthy because his family has been wealthy for maybe generations. That someone in the past had worked very, very hard to accumulate all of this wealth. And then every one of his ancestors had worked really, really hard to preserve that wealth.

And then what they did is they entrusted him with this wealth, with the idea that, okay, here's the deal. this is not really yours. This is the families. I was talking with a man recently. He's a development director, so he does a lot of professional fundraising. And he talked to me about capital campaigns. He said, a capital campaign is interesting because in a capital campaign where you're trying to raise a lot of money, he says there's oftentimes you have to make an ask for what they call a capital gift. He says, no one understands that a capital gift is. And I said, you're right. I don't. So he told me. So the capital gift is a lot of times when you donate stuff, you donate from your surplus, right? You donate from your spare, your excess.

But the capital is the thing you protect. And he gave the great example of, he said, we know like the Rockefellers, right, in this country that one of the wealthy family names is the Rockefellers. And he says, the Rockefellers, here's the deal. That way back in the day, Dwight D. Rockefeller, whatever his name is, you know, Edgar Rockefeller, I don't know. Orville, Rockefeller, what he did is he made the fortune. And so, no, if you're part of the Rockefeller family, you are living off the fortune, which basically you're living off the capital. And so like the cardinal rule of getting an inheritance like that, a cardinal rule of being a Rockefeller is don't ever touch the capital.

You live off the interest of the capital, but you never touch the capital. Why? Because you did not make this money. You did not preserve this money. This is not really your money. You're going to hear to take care of this and pass it on to the next generation. never touch the capital. You have one job. Do whatever you want with the surplus,

but do not do whatever you want with the capital. This is not your disposable wealth. The capital, it's a given to the capital, capital gift, is when you cut into the body. Now here's this man. Jesus says, don't just kind of give from your surplus. Jesus says, actually, don't just cut into the capital. Jesus says, what I need you to do,

take everything your family has ever made. made that's been entrusted to you, sell it, give it away, and then come follow me. For the rich young man to look at Jesus and be like, I walk away sad because I have many possessions, that's an actually, that's a pretty good reason. That is a good reason to walk away sad because he had many possessions. It's not an excuse. It's a good reason. But here is the big but when someone has an absolute claim on me, when someone has an absolute claim on my heart, my reason for choosing something over that one person is still deadly. When someone has an absolute claim on my heart, when someone has an absolute claim on my life,

if he's standing before God himself and God says, do this thing, whatever my reason, that reason is still deadly, my reason has become my rival. The reason has become the rival, even if it's a good reason. Because remember, when it comes to spouse, when it comes to God, it's either all or it's nothing. And if you're a Christian, one of the things that means, if you're going to follow Jesus, in the gospel, one of the things that means is that he has an absolute claim on your heart. He has an absolute claim on your life. He has an absolute claim on my heart and in my life.

And so if he asks of something, it might even be unreasonable. But if I have a reason not to do it, that reason has become the rival. And the rich young man, he knows who Jesus is. I mean, it's kind of buried in the text, but he goes it before. of the Lord. And he says, good teacher. Jesus says, why do you call me good? No one's good but God that's not Jesus saying, listen, I'm not God. That's actually Jesus like in a cryptic way saying, you got it. You know who you're talking to. You call me good because you know who you're asking this question of. And so when Jesus says, here's what you have to do. The rich young man, he hears this.

You know, this is the deal. This is why he went away sad. This is so, so important. Because I think sometimes I picture this when I was a kid, I used to picture him going away sad, like he just kind of, his shoulders slumped and he kind of walked like Charlie Brown, like, whamp, wamp, oh gosh, what a bummer of a Tuesday. The word that Mark uses, for he went away sad, is the word grieved. In fact, it's the same word that the gospel writers use to describe Jesus in the Garden of Gassimony when he is sweating blood for grief. This is not an easy decision for him.

This is not something he's taking lightly. This is a very incredibly hard decision. rushes his heart, but he chooses the rival. But he chooses the rival. Here's the deal. Is when that one, when the one, when God, the one that owns your heart has an absolute claim on your life, on your heart, when he asks all other options, no matter how otherwise good and how otherwise reasonable, they become rivals. And this is not an easy choice, but it is his choice. No, here's a caveat number two. Cavendant number two is when we look at this scene, a lot of us, we make some assumptions.

And the assumption is that this is what Jesus wants of all of us to do. We assume that this is universal, that we all have to sell everything we have, give it to the poor, then we can follow Jesus. We assume that it's universal, or we assume that it is arbitrary. That Jesus is like, okay, what have you done so far? We'll have kept all the commandments. Okay. What's something you're going to hate? It's going to be really hard for you.

Oh, I know. No, no, this is not universal. It's not for everybody, and it's not arbitrary. It is intensely personal, and it's absolutely necessary. The universal call Jesus gives this. He says, if anyone wants to be my disciple, they have to deny themselves to take up their cross and follow me. That is universal. But this call, he looks at the man, and he loves him, and he says, but you, hear what you need to do.

I know you, Joe. I know you. This is a personal call. And it's not arbitrary. What's the hardest thing for Joe? This is absolutely necessary. Now, you can see, this is so important here. We can see how the rich young man's reason is the rival.

Why? Because it's in competition for God's place in his life. His stuff is in competition for God's place in his life. So Jesus is what Jesus is not saying. Jesus is not saying, hey, do these things, or like, you know, follow these simple steps. What he's saying is he looks at the young man and he's like, dude, I know you. I know you. I know exactly what's come against your heart.

Like, I know, and I can see it your heart and I've identified my chief rival in your heart. And so here's what I need you to do. Here's what you need to do. If you want to be mine, here's exactly, it's not universal, it's not arbitrary. It is personal and it's necessary. And it comes from the heart of a God who knows his heart. And that's the same thing when it comes to us. Because this actually can be applied to your life and my life right now.

When we ask the question, who or what is God's chief rival for your heart? Who or what is God's chief rival for your heart? Caviat number three. I got this all week. When we're talking about rivals and Cox about needing to not have rivals for the Lord in our lives, is like just because something matters to you, does not mean that God automatically wants you to give it away.

Cavat number three is, just because something matters to you, because that's what I got all week. Like, well, I really love this person. Does that mean Jesus wants me to give her away or him away? I'm like, I don't know. But don't just think that's the automatic thing. Everyone jumps to Abraham and Isaac, don't they? Well, Abraham really loved his son, Isaac,

and God said, if you really love me, you're going to try to kill your son. Like, people, here is the deal. That's not how the story went down. Let's go back to the actual story in the book of Genesis. It was like Abraham was just sitting out walking one day going like, you know, God, I love you. But I also love my son. I bet you want me to kill him. Like that's not how it went down.

It says, God spoke to Abraham and said, this is what I'm asking you to do. Abraham had no doubt what God was asking of him. And also, P.S., it was a one-time thing. Like, if you ever have children one day and you're like, maybe God wants me to kill this one. Like, no, he does not. That is not going to happen. That was a one-time thing God told you. But you still might be anxious.

What's God's chief rival in your life, in your heart? You might still be anxious. I'm like, well, what do I do? What do I do? What do I strangle? Like, what do I give up? Here's a deal. Be at peace.

Please be at peace. Here's a spiritual principle that every one of us needs to interiorize and know with everything we have. God is never, God is not waiting for you to answer a question. He has not asked yet. A lot of times when it comes to, So like, what's the next step you wants me to take? Does you want me to go here or there? Listen, if he hasn't told you, if he hasn't revealed that to you,

God is not waiting for you to answer a question that he has not asked yet. Like, is this my rival? Is that my rival? Listen, be at peace. If he has not yet revealed to you the rival, then he is not waiting for you to eliminate the rival yet. So be at peace. God is not waiting for you to answer a question. He has not asked. But, but, but, when he asks, when that day actually comes, then he need you to answer now. When that day comes, when that moment happens, he needs you to answer at that moment. You know, it's so interesting. There's a couple other stories in the gospels where, remember there's one time when Jesus calls another young man,

and he says, let me go bury my father first. And Jesus says, no, let the dead bury the dead. And I'm like, Jesus, man, you are so hardcore sometimes. Like, I don't get it. It is unreasonable. That is unreasonable. But Pope Benedict the 16th talked about that, and he said two things. He said, it's reasonable for the man to say, I want to go bury my father, to say later.

But Pope Benedict asked the question, he says, well, who knows when that will be? Like, yeah, you want to delay, but who knows when that's going to happen? And also, who knows if you will still then be able to choose Jesus? I don't know the future. but if Jesus asks me a question now, then I only have now to answer that question. The second thing is, an absolute claim can't be deferred for a rival reason.

Jesus calls me to move an absolute claim. He has an absolute claim. It can't be deferred for a rival reason. I can't say, well, yeah, I want to do that, but right now it's too risky. I can't say, yeah, I want to do that, but at the moment, I still want to do what I want to do, even if it seems unreasonable.

Why might we all get to a point, we will all get to a point, when Jesus is going to ask us to eliminate a rival, and it seems unreasonable? It all comes down to one line in the gospel. You've already heard it twice. It's the one line where it says, Jesus, looking at him, loved him. The whole motivation, love is the reason. love is the reason love is the reason for choosing him and love is the reason so many of us have

for not choosing him or love is what we so many of the reason so many of us have for choosing something else something other than him love is the reason so many of us choose the rival I love this or that more than I love him love is the reason and here's the amazing thing love is unreasonable

love is often unreasonable and love is the thing that helps us kill our rivals So here's the last thing. I don't know what God's going to ask you in the future. I don't know when you come up to him one day in prayer or wherever it is. And he says, okay, here's the deal.

Here's the rival. And you might have a bunch of reasons. I don't know what he's going to ask of you someday. I don't know your vocation. I wish I did. You're a nun. You're a brother. You're a priest.

You know, the best of you're married. Like, I don't know what that is. I wish I did. But here's the test. Here's the test. If your reason has become your rival. What has he asked? What has he already asked of you?

A couple examples. We all know, we're all Christians, we all know that Jesus has asked us to spend time with him in prayer every day. We all know that if we're going to be Christians, we need to spend time with Jesus in prayer every day. That it's actually not optional. But we also know that we all have reasons why we don't. Well, I'm so busy these days.

Okay, that's your reason. The reason has become the rival. I just, I don't know how to pray. Okay, that's your reason. Your reason has become your rival. I don't know if it just seems like there's this really difficult season in my life and have all these other demands on me. Yeah, that's your reason.

And your reason has become the rival. So I know that I have to do this. And I don't and I have a reason. And the reason is my rival. We also have this when it comes to clear boundaries, clear boundaries and romantic relationships. I know we're still dating, we moved in together. Okay, you know that that, actually you might not know, you might not know that that's actually a serious, like, deadly sin. You can't receive Holy Communion if that's what's going on.

Here's what I mean. We had people in RCAA last year, RCIA, they were becoming Catholic, and I mentioned that just offhand. Like, we all know that, right? And after class, this one young woman came up, she was like, I'm so sorry, I had no idea. So I had no idea. I thought it was just a good thing. I thought we were going to save money, and we're going to get married in six months anyways, and so I thought it would just be a really good thing to do. You might be in that position. But for her, when she found this out, she was just crushed. Again, it was one of those rich young man moments. Because she had a bunch of reasons.

We don't have a lot of money. We're still going to school. All these kinds of things. Who else are we going to live with? It just makes sense. To our parents, make sense to our families, make sense to each other. But all of a sudden, I realize, but Jesus is saying, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, do that.

But the money, the reason has become the rival. To her and her fiance's credit, they made some really hard decisions. But they made some really beautiful and powerful decisions because they realized no matter what our reasons, they cannot become our rivals, not arrival to God, not arrival to Jesus. So God, we all know that He wants us to pray.

We all know that there are some boundaries. We also know, and you're all here on Sunday, so you guys know this one, we know the place of Sunday Mass. Does Mass ever have arrival in your life? Because we know this is how we're going to be. Jesus has specifically asked us to worship him. He says, take this all of you and do this in memory of me. Take this all of you and drink of it in memory of me.

This is how I want you to worship me. Question. How many of us were raised in a family where it's like, but if we have a good reason to miss Mass, then there we go. And what happens then? I've now identified God's chief rival on my Sunday. And that reason has become his rival. One of the things we get to do is recognize that when it comes to prayer, you don't

have to do every prayer, just sometime. When it comes to the boundaries and relationships, it's not like you have to also, don't ever hold hands. Like, no, no, no, it's, there's clear boundaries. And when it comes to Mass, it's not like, don't go to Mass on Sunday five times. It's just go once. And the test becomes really simple. And the test becomes really small. Because this whole gospel today, it's not about possessions. It's not about excuses. What it is, is all about any reason why I don't choose him, any reason why I choose something other than him, any reason that leads me away from him is a reason that has become God's chief rival for my heart. And that reason doesn't need to exist

because Jesus, this morning, looking at you, knows you, he cares about you, he loves you, he loves you, And he simply says, don't choose the rival. Not for any reason. Choose me.