Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 10/23/22 Growing Through the Motions: Busy or Productive?

Episode Date: October 22, 2022

To download the Litany of Humility prayer that Father mentions in the homily, please click here! Homily from the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Nothing is so worthless as working hard on the wrong things. We can all be so busy, but are we productive? Are we doing things right or are we doing the right things? When it comes to growing through the motions, we need to make sure that the right thing we do is present ourselves before God with humility and not self-reliance. Mass Readings from October 23, 2022: Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18 Psalms 34:2-3, 17-19, 232 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 Luke 18:9-14

The Lord be with you. And with your Spirit. Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke. According to the Lord. Chapter 18, verses 9 through 14. Jesus addressed this parable to those who are convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. Two people went up to the temple area to pray.

One was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself. Oh, God, I thank you that I'm not like the rest of humanity. Dreedy, Dreedy, dishonest, adulterous, Or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week,

and I pay tithes on my whole income. But the tax collector stood off at a distance And were not even raised his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast and prayed, Oh, God, be merciful to me as sinner. I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled.

And whoever humbles himself will be exalted. the gospel of the Lord. Praise you, Lord Jesus Christ. So we have hit this time of year. I think the time of the semester, it happens every time, it happens every year, happens every, all the time, where basically if you ask someone how they're doing, the answer is almost the same every single time. Like, how's it going?

I'm busy. That's the answer. That's everyone. How are you doing? I'm busy. How's life? Busy. How are you?

Busy. That is the thing because at this point, there's no more syllabus days left. There's no more kind of ease into the semester. They're like all the things that are due are like kind of due. Or like I have to do them now or they're going to be done. And I'm going to miss the whole thing because everyone is so busy. And I wonder about this because that's not just school, right? That's just kind of life.

Where if you ask someone on a daily basis or on kind of randomly how they're doing, they're busy. And you just look around our world and we think, okay, everybody is busy. Here's the thing. Everybody's busy, but not everybody's productive. It's not the same thing. You know, we started this series four weeks ago. But this is the fourth part of a four-part series called Growing Through the Motions,

because we highlighted the fact that so much of life is we just show up, we do the same thing all the time. Like we show up so much in life is you just show up, yep, put in your time, you know, get up, go to work, come home, go to bed, get up, go to work, go home, go to bed. And so much of life is just going through the motions. So the first week we highlighted the fact that even when it comes to our faith, yes, it can feel like we're simply going through the motions, but ultimately if we know that what we're doing is important,

if we know what we're doing is meaningful and it's oriented towards a worthy goal, then we're not just going through the motions, we're actually growing through the motions. And then the second week we talked about, but everyone needs a why. We need a why. And so our why is a who, that reason why we're doing these things. The reason why we go to Mass is because Jesus himself asked us to, so every time we say yes to this, every time we go through the motions, we're saying yes to him. And actually we're growing our heart. We're growing our love. Because every time we say yes to this, to Mass, we're actually exercising love. So we can grow love. And then last week we talked about the reality that we want to have full range of motion when it comes to the motions.

And so that means, that means saying yes, it means going through the motions in every season. That I become able to go through the motions in every season when I show up in every season. So that makes sense? So we can grow, we say yes to the Lord. He's our why, our why is a who. And we can do this no matter what. So because we believe this, we believe that repeated actions are amplified over time. Repeated actions are amplified over time.

That they have a compounding effect. In fact, in your life, you might have. this idea, this vision, like, I want to be great. Being great is actually pretty easy. Being great is simply being good over and over again. That ultimately, that's all it is. Because repeated actions are amplified over time. And so what do we do? We go through the motions because going through the motions increases familiarity and going through the motions increases efficiency. Like, we can do it better. So there's a psychologist named Daniel Keneman. Daniel Keneman has a book called thinking fast and slow.

And he talks about these two systems of how we think. He says system two thinking is where we have to like really be deliberate. We have to really be intentional. We have to, we have to be logical. We have to, it's really taxing on our system because we have to think through every single step. That's system two thinking. System one thinking is the quick thinking.

System one thinking is reflexive. System one thinking is easy. System one thinking is kind of emotional, whereas system two is very logical, very rational, very intentional. And we all know what this is like. For example, if you can remember when you first started driving a car, that's system two thinking, where you're like, okay, 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock, okay, here we go. And then you're like rear of your mirrors, like which one do I look at right now, which thing off

the steering wheel, which one is the windshield wiper, which one is the blinker, like you don't know, which of the pedals is gas, which one's brake, and sometimes you try both at the same time, it doesn't go well. But honestly, remember that system two thinking you're driving and you're like, you don't know what to pay attention to. You're like, okay, there's a dog 300 meters to the left. Like, what do I do? Like, just the person driving with you is like, it's just a dog.

It's not a big deal. Because you're deep in system two thought. And then what happens is after about 50 hours of driving, almost everybody shifts into System 1, where you can just drive. You get in the car and you know where things go. You know, this one's the blinker, this one's the windchere wiper. You know that what to pay attention to, you know what to ignore. You go from System 2, intense thought to System 1, where it's just automatic.

And you actually have then some freedom to just. even enjoy driving. So we know this. We know that going through the motions, I can doing that again and again, actions repeated or amplified over time. Going to the motions can take us out of system two and bring us into system one.

So going through the motions, having a routine, that actually helps us have efficiency. It's one of the reasons why you probably heard about Steve Jobs, how Steve Jobs would wear the same clothes every single day. He wore a pair of jeans and a turtle link every single day because he said, yeah,

I don't have to make that decision. every morning. I can use my mental energy to make other decisions. In fact, I was reading this article about a man who's a minimalist, and he said, a couple years ago, he went into his closet, into his drawers, and he had over 300 articles of clothing, and he reduced it. He has now 30 pieces of clothing. That's all he wears. He says, I wear the same thing every single day. And he says, it's great for me for a number of reasons. One, he says, I have fewer decisions. Number two, he says, I spend less time, less energy making those decisions the morning. And third, he says, less stress. He says, I start by day off, knowing exactly what I'm going to do. Because he's removed,

He put a lot of thought into, here's what my look will be, and he looks like that every single day. And now he can be in system one, where that repeated actions are amplified over time. Here's the reason why. We do this with our faith. Like, we know this. Like, when it comes to prayer, we do the same thing every time.

You know, there's no, there's going to be no curveballs at Mass today. It's going to be straight down the, right over the plate. You know what's coming. The reason, one of the many reasons why we do this is because repeated actions are amplified over time means we can focus past the actions. We don't have to think about the actions anymore. We can focus past the actions to the heart of what we're really doing.

In fact, I remember in seminary they told us, they said, okay, when you get ordained, you'll be saying mass every single day, maybe a couple times a day. They said, just get ready. It will take you over a year until you feel like you're actually able to pray the mass. Because it's one of those things, like, you know, you're the priest.

Like, okay, where do I do with my hands? Like, you know, what do I say? How am I? What is it? I look like a robot. No, I don't know what I'm doing. All the ribbons. One of those things, like, just keep doing it. And you'll finally be able to, in fact, if you're a convert, if you weren't raised Catholic,

you know that exact feeling. You show up to Mass and you're like, everyone knows the choreography. Like, everyone knows all the moves. And then now, if you've been coming to Mass for a while, you're like, okay, no, I know. And actually, I don't have to think about what to do. I actually just do it so I can enter into the Mass. I can just pray now. You become efficient.

You can do this right. You can do this right. You can do things. right. And that's really, really good. You're able to do it right. You're efficient. You know, I don't know if you've ever shared this with you. I know I have coaches who would always tell us how you practice is how you play. How you practice is how you play. So if you practice with bad form, you're going to play with bad form. If you practice cutting corners, you're going to play cutting corners because repeated actions are amplified over time.

Do you have to be careful while we practice? There's an author who once said, it just struck with me. I wrote it on my wall. It's written on the wall in ink, because that's kind of how I live. And a child just painting his own wall. This author he once said, he said, do not practice what you do not want to become. Do not practice what you do not want to become. Because how you practice is how you play.

So because of that, we have to ask the question. Maybe I'm doing things right. But am I doing the right things? Maybe I'm doing things right. I'm showing up. I'm efficient. But am I doing the right things? So Peter Drucker, he is, he's an author, he's a teacher, he's a speaker.

At one point, he made the distinction between being busy and being productive. His words, he said, the distinction between being efficient and being effective. He says they're not the same thing. He said, effectiveness is the foundation of success. Efficiency is the minimum condition for survival after success has been achieved. He says it, like as he says, efficiency is concerned with doing things right. effectiveness is concerned with doing the right things. Why? Because everyone is busy, but not everyone is productive.

Everyone has the capacity to be efficient, but not all of us know what it is to be effective. And the image I have here right now of this is, I know we've all the experience of being in a car, driving and getting lost. And not knowing it, like, okay, am I on the right road? And if you're driving, you keep driving on this road, like, I don't know if this is the right road or the wrong road. And we know this, in the back of our minds. we want to go faster and faster. But if I'm on the wrong road,

the faster I travel, the further I'm getting away from my destination. If I'm on the wrong road, no matter how efficient I am, no matter how busy I am, no matter how fast I drive, I'm becoming wronger and wronger with every passing moment. We're busy. When I'm I busy doing things right,

or am I busy productive doing the right things? We know that St. Paul was a busy man. St. Paul worked really, really hard. St. Paul was a lot like us, I think, in so many ways. He worked hard his entire life. In fact, today, this letter to Timothy, these are the last words we have of Paul ever written. There's like four verses after what we heard today, and that's it.

This is the end of his life. So here, Paul, a busy man, all the way to the end of his life. What's he say? He says, I am being poured out. He says, I've competed well. I've finished the race. I've kept the faith. Paul was efficient, but even better.

He was effective. Why? Because he didn't just run a race. He ran the right race. That's absolutely necessary. There's nothing so worthless as working hard on the wrong things. There's nothing so worthless as working hard on the wrong things. But we're called to work hard. You know, the gospel has a picture of another hard worker. Jesus describes this Pharisee who calms up into the temple area. And no, the Pharisees, if we know anything about Pharisees, they were hard workers. They were busy people. The Pharisees were people who were dedicated to the law. In fact, there are 613.

laws in the Old Testament. Pharisees were committed to keeping all of them. That was part of what, that's part of their gig. They want to keep all 613, but also there's all these oral laws that aren't written in the Old Testament, and they wanted to keep all of those too. They're constantly vigilant. They're constantly busy, constantly working. And this guy was even more than that, right?

He goes into the temple area, and he gives us credentials. He gets to the temple area and he says, I fast twice a week. You know, if you're a Pharisee, you only have to fast once. He does twice. He says, I pay ties in my whole income. If you're a Pharisee, you don't have to pay ties on your whole income. just on a portion of your income. This guy is not just part of a busy crew.

He is the busiest of the busy. So the good news, he's doing the work. Like, he's going through the motions. But going through the motions are not going to help us at all unless we're going through the right motions. That we know that going through the motion will grow us. Going through the motions will grow us. But will they grow us in the way we want?

Will they grow us in the way God wants? Because this is how we live our lives. You know, Stephen Covey, he's a, again, author and speaker. He has this, this thought called The Ladder Against the Wall. And he said this, he said, there are so many people he works with. He worked a lot of business people, a lot of people who were very successful in life. And he said, there's so many people he's met who climbed the ladder of success only to realize it was up the wrong wall.

That they got to the top and discovered that they didn't like the view. How we spend our time is how we spend our lives. because of that, do not practice what you do not want to become. So what's the Pharisees wrong move? What was the Pharisees error? He worked hard, he was busy. What did he do wrong? Well, here's Jesus describing the scene.

He says, two people, the Pharisee and the tax collector, they go up to the temple area to pray. So far, so good. This is good news. But then, again, he goes up to the temple area to pray, but then he doesn't. He goes up to the temple area to pray, and then he doesn't pray.

In fact, how Jesus, it says, He took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself. Oh, God, which kind of indicates a little bit about how he might have perceived himself. He showed up to the temple area to pray to God, but he didn't pray to God. He prayed to himself. And then he goes on and says the whole list of accomplishments. Here's what I do. So what is he doing?

He's not doing the right thing. He's praying to himself about himself, basically saying, God, I thank you that I'm already a good person. That was his prayer. In fact, if you want to drill it down even more, here's the Pharisee. He's saying, God, I thank you that I don't need you. I think you that I don't need you. Because I'm good.

This is at the heart of self-reliance. This is the heart of what it is to be self-reliant. God, I think you, I don't need you. Now, here's the thing. Self-reliance will always, self-reliance will always lead to one of two things, if not both. One of the things is what it led the Pharisee to.

So if our alliance almost always leads to self-righteousness, that sense of I'm completely blind to the fact that I need God and to what God has already done in my life. So here's Paul. Paul is the exact opposite. Paul, busy guy. Paul, someone who is always doing stuff. And here is at the end of Paul's life.

Paul could point to all of the things he's accomplished. But as he's writing to Timothy, what does he say? He says, from now on, the crown of righteousness awaits me. That the Lord himself will award me. that I didn't earn it, but God himself will give it to me. He goes on to say, when I was in trouble,

the Lord stood by me, he gave me strength. In the future, he says, the Lord will rescue me from every evil threat. He goes on to say, the Lord will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom.

For his glory, for his kingdom. St. Paul, as he's praying, as he's writing, he's writing all about what God has done. It's not about himself. There's no trace of self-reliance. All of this, he's saying,

all my life, everything I've got, every good gift I have, It's all because of God. So you have the Pharisee, self-reliant, goes at least to self-righteousness. He's a good guy, busy guy. Wrong guy. The opposite, you have the tax collector.

Now, we know something about tax collectors. The tax collector, he was not a good person, and he knew he was not a good person. He's not a good guy, and he knew he wasn't a good guy. If he had tried self-reliance, he would not have been led to self-righteousness. If he tried self-reliance, he would have been led to self-condemnation.

because that's where a lot of us find ourselves. It's one or the other. If I'm going to rely on myself, either I lead to self-righteousness, all these things I've done, all the accomplishments I've done, or all we can see is our brokenness. We realize, why am I not better?

I'm working so hard. Why am I not wholly already? I'm doing all these things. I'm going through the motions. Why am I not a saint yet? See, it's so good. The tax collector, he knew he was not a good guy. And so he knew he could not be self-reliant.

He knew that's why he has to show up and tell the truth. He knew himself. And he knew that he couldn't be focused on himself. So whereas the Pharisee prayed to himself about himself, the tax collector praised to God about his need for God, basically saying, I have nothing to brag about. But he avoids self-condemnation by leaning into humility.

He avoids self-condemnation by leaning into this, the reality that he knows. I know myself, but God, I also know you. And this is the critical thing. We can only avoid self-condemnation when we know our brokenness and know his mercy. And we know our failure, but also know his victory.

Our temptation too often is to focus on ourselves, whether that be on our strengths or on our weaknesses. And what does Jesus invite us to do? Stop trying to figure it all out. You're busy doing the wrong thing. Again, I think I need to fix myself. I need to untangle these knots on my own. I need to prove myself rather than look at my wounds,

and then look at Jesus and invite him into the wounds. That's what changes our hearts. So here's the last thing. How can I tell? What I mean about that is, how can I tell if I'm a Pharisee? How can I tell if I'm a tax collector? How can I tell if I have a Pharisee's heart or if I have a tax collector's heart? Like, what can I do?

Because I don't want to just be busy. I want to be productive. I don't just want to be efficient. I want to be effective. I don't just want to do things right. I want to do the right things. Here's the thing. In your bulletin, every one of you got this.

It's called the litany of humility. And the litany of humility is an incredible, just a little handout, a little card here. And the litany of humility starts out by just basically saying, oh, Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like yours. And after every line, we pray this prayer, deliver me, O Lord. So it goes on, from the desire of being esteemed, deliver me, O Lord. From the desire of being loved, deliver me, O Lord.

From the desire of being honored, deliver me, O Lord. From the desire being preferred to others. Deliver me, O Lord. Goes on. from the desire of being consulted, deliver me. It goes on to change from the fear of being humiliated, deliver me, O God. From the fear of being forgotten, deliver me, O God. From the fear of being wronged or abandoned, being refused, deliver me, oh God.

And then it goes on, that others may be loved more than me. Jesus grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be esteemed more than me. Jesus grant me the grace to desire it that others may be praised and I go unnoticed Lord grant me the grace to desire it and lastly

Lord I want to rejoice at being unknown and poor I want to rejoice when people do not think of me Lord I want to rejoice when they assign me to the meanest tasks Lord I want to rejoice when they never ask my opinion Lord I want to rejoice

here's my invitation this week this week to keep this card and this week pray this card, prayed this prayer every day, just once a day, every day this week. The thing about litany's is if there's any definition of going through the motions, it's litany's.

If there's any litany that can help you grow through the motions, it's the litany of humility. Because here's the deal. If you pay attention to it, it'll be difficult. Like if you actually mean it, this will be tough.

Because if there's any self-reliance, it will be revealed. If there's any self-righteousness, it will be exposed. And if there's any self-condemation, it will be healed. This week is a challenge. But I can think of no better, no surer way

to make sure we're not just doing the right things, not just doing things right, but actually we're doing the right things. That we're not just busy, but we're productive, that we're not just efficient, but we're effective. To be able to pray this once a day

for this week, And to know that we're not just going through the motions. But with God's grace, we're actually able to grow through the motions.