Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 11/04/18 Come to the Altar: Where's Your Altar?

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

Homily from the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time. Not to watch, but to worship. The heart of religion is the worship of God. And the heart of worship is always sacrifice; a gift that is poured out on the altar. Where is your gift being poured out? Where is your altar? Mass Readings from November 04, 2018: Deuteronomy 6:2-6 Psalms 18:2-4, 47, 51Hebrews 7:23-28 Mark 12:28-34 Download the Homily Study

Hi, this is Father Mike. I hope that this upcoming series is a blessing to you. It is called Come to the altar, and it is all about the fact that we as Catholics are called to worship God in a very unique, but very powerful way. I hope that this is a blessing for you for the next four weeks. Speaking of blessing, if this podcast has been a blessing to you, if this ministry has been a blessing to you, I just want to, I guess, I don't know, humbly ask you if you wouldn't mind praying if the Lord is asking you to bless us with either a financial gift or your prayers. This upcoming November 15th, it's a Thursday. We have this thing called Give to the Max Day.

It's kind of this statewide here in Minnesota, a statewide fundraising day, a development day. I don't know what you would call it. But for those of us who really rely essentially upon the gifts, the generosity of people who believe in our ministry, This is the day that basically we try to do our best to fundraise what we need for the year. If you're at all interested, you can go to give mn.org. That's MN is in Minnesota. Give mn.org and just go up, you click on the search and you type in Newman. We're going to be the second group probably.

There's a young man who is featured right now, at least currently. He's featured as our kind of our thumbnail. He's a great young man. a focused missionary that came from came through Newman just click on his face and it'll take your right to Newman Catholic Campus Ministries at UMD and then you can donate there you can schedule a donation for November 15th or you can wait until November 15th and do that if you're planning on doing that if that's where the Lord's leading you to do that if you don't want to go to give mn.org but want to go

to bulldog Catholic.org on the home page there is a little button on top that says donate and just click on that and that'll be such a gift again this whole thing would be such a gift to support our ministry. Thank you so much for this. Thank you for your prayers as well because we just, I'm convinced, as you probably know too, that God's grace is the thing that changes hearts. The Holy Spirit is the one who transforms lives. And so prayer really matters and prayer makes a difference. Thank you so much for keeping me as well as all the students here on campus and all those we work with in your prayers. So just please pray for praise the whether or not the Lord's calling you

to support a bulldog Catholic financially, or if he's calling you to support us through your prayers. Thank you so much and God bless. So there's something about, like being kind of preoccupied with something, what I mean about that is like when you become a fan of something, when you become a fan of like a, whether that's a band or a fan of a sport

or whatever that thing is, there are some, there are two guys of people in that. They're the people who want to do it themselves and they're the people who want to watch someone else do it. Right? So like There's that sense of, like, you maybe get really into football. That might be a thing that's happening today. And so you want to go play football because, wow, it's like fall outside. I want to go outside.

I want to do the thing. But some people are like, no, no, no, I want to go inside. I want to watch other people do the thing. There's some people who are like when it comes to music. Like, I want to make my own music. I want to play that music. And others are like, I want to listen to people who do it really, really well. I want to listen to them.

I want to go to their concert and I want to kind of just take it. I want to experience someone do music really, really well. There's two kinds of people. They're those who want to do it and those who want to watch other people do it. But I would say that there's actually only one kind of person because even though, so I just corrected myself, because even those people who want to go to the concert and watch it have a secret fantasy. And even those people want to go to the baseball game and watch it have a secret fantasy. And what is that fantasy?

It's at one point, you're sitting there and your singer is on the stage and they're singing their song. And what do they do? They look out into the crowd. And they extend a finger towards you and say, get up here. I'm going to share the mic with you. And that's the dream. Isn't it the dream? Or if you're a baseball player, whatever, you're a pitcher. Like, oh, my arms, like, what's the rookie of the year? Was that movie back in the day? Where we need a pitcher and the kid throws the ball. It's like, you got called out of the stands. Why? Because even though many of us

are content to simply watch, all of us want to get out on the field. All of us want to be part of it. We want to be part of the action. If we had the shot and if we had the chance and if we had the ability, we would all prefer to not just observe, but to participate. To not just watch someone else do something great, but to be part of something great. That's built into us. And yet, and yet, the crazy thing is we still settle. We settle for watching. Always. We settle for watching other people be great. We settle for watching other people do great things. We settle for watching. and we're entertained by it and it doesn't cost us anything.

That's okay. It's not bad, but it is settling. The problem is that we come here and we do the same thing. The problem is when we come to Mass, we do the same thing. I don't know if you know this, that mass attendance among Catholics is at an all-time low.

Congratulations, everyone. It's at an all-time low. I think it's like something like 24% of American Catholics go to Mass. 24% of American Catholics go to Mass. And those of us who do, those of us who do show up, most of us do it wrong. Now, you're like, what the heck, Father?

No, no, I know all the moves. Like, I got the whole thing down. Like, I know when to stand, I know when to sit. I know it's not, and also with you. I know it's with your spirit. Like, I caught that whole, that curveball they threw to us a couple years ago. Like, no, Father, I know how to do it.

And I would say, that's wonderful. Keep it up. But those of us who go to Mass, we do it wrong. Why? Because we show up to Mass and we watch. You were not created to watch the Mass. You were not baptized and redeemed by Jesus to watch the Mass. He did not invite you and the church says,

hey, guys, come to Mass every single Sunday because we want you to watch the priest pray. You were not brought here this morning to watch the Mass. And I don't know how to get this across. Because rather than having a people of God who are willing to worship, we have a people of God who are willing to watch worship. Even though, even though our heart of heart says, is there more? Is there something else? Can I not just watch? Can I be part of this?

Can I participate? Can I worship? Can I come to the altar too? Today we're starting our last series of this semester. It's flown by, right? Our last series of the semester and it is probably something, well, it might be the most important thing I'll ever say over the four weeks, possibly. I've been praying about this series for the last number of years. So every homily is going to be longer and longer and longer. Just kidding. I'll do my best. I'll do my best. But this is so important. The series is called Come to the Altar. Why? Because Catholics don't know how to, we don't know what we're made for, and we don't know what we're doing, we come to mass. And so no wonder 76% of us don't even show up because the 24% of us that do

don't know what we're doing. We think God wants us here to watch him do something special. Or we think God wants us here to watch the band, watch the reader, watch the priest's prayers, every single one of those is false. That's absolutely not what we're called to do. We're called to come to the altar. Every one of us is called to come to the altar.

That's the series. Come to the altar. So what's an altar? It's a big question. The first thing we're trying to talk about today is what's an altar? We're going to get to that, but I want to press pause because I was a little negative nan at the beginning of this. And I just want to note something that every one of us, even if we're like, I'm not experienced with this whole thing. I don't know all the words. I don't know how to stand.

You know what I'm saying. Here's one thing we all have in common. Every one of us who is here at this mass this morning, here's what we have in common. Everyone in this room wants to love God. Like, that is worth stopping. I think that's worth stopping and just kind of noting. like, wait a second. The people sit next to me, people in front of me, the people behind me,

every one of us, at some level, we want to love God. And at one level, like everyone here wants to love God more. That's pretty awesome. That's worth noting. Because sometimes it can feel like what, like you're walking through the halls and like, I don't know if anyone even cares about God. You're in a room with people who, at whatever degree, every one of us, I just, I want to love God more.

And so we can look at the gospel. today. And here's a scribe who comes up. You know, sometimes when Jesus is interacting with scribes or Pharisees or whatever, they're trying to catch him. They're trying to, you know, ensnare him in some kind of trap. This is not the case. This is a genuine guy who wants to know a genuine answer to a genuine question. So he says, Master, what's the, what's the greatest commandment? Why? Because this guy wants to know, how can I love God more? Jesus' answers. You know the answer. We all know the answer. Jesus' answer is the greatest commandment is to love the Lord of God with everything you have and everything you are.

Love the Lord of God with everything you have and everything you are. Now, if I were to ask all of the people basically in this mass this morning before I said the answer, hey, what's the greatest commandment? I'm guessing that 90 plus percent of us could say, yeah, I know the greatest commandment. To love the God with Lord of God with everything you have, everything you are. That's the easy part. The next question is, okay, wonderful. How do I do that, Lord?

Because to know the answer, love the Lord God with everything you have, everything you are, that is easy. But then we go like, okay, great, I'm ready. Now what? How do I do that? Because how does anyone love God? I mean, when it comes to loving each other, that's one thing. You know, we know that the definition of love is to will the good of the other, to give the other what is good. What's good for them?

What actually will help them? The problem is, God, he doesn't need anything. So to will God's good, how do you will the good of the being who's the source of all good? How do you love God? How do we actually love God? The scripture reveals there's only two ways human beings can actually love God. Only two ways human beings can love God. We can obey Him. Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey my commandments.

That's one way we love God, to obey Him. The only other way to love God is to worship Him. The only way you and I can love the Lord our God with everything we have and everything we are is through obedience, but even more importantly in some ways for our purposes right now, through worship. Luke chapter 4, Jesus says actually, he says, in response to Satan's tempting him, he says, no, no, no, the commandment is love the Lord your God. Him alone shall you serve. That word serve is the Hebrew word aboda. Abadah doesn't just mean obey.

It means also to worship. Him alone will you worship. So we recognize this, that when it comes to how do I love God, the answer is very, very simple. Obey him and worship him. It's one of the reasons why the heart of religion, here's the deal. The heart of religion is not a creed. The heart of religion is not what you believe. I mean, the creed is very important.

Don't get that wrong. Creed is very, very important. But the heart of religion is not a creed. You guys, our whole, the word of God, this is not the heart of religion either. The Bible is not the heart of religion. This is God's word to us about himself. And sometimes it's our words back to God. But the heart of religion is not scripture either.

Now, no, creeds have a place because after this, we're going to stand up, we're going to say the creed. But we don't just simply say what we believe. What we do is we say, who we believe in? What do we say? I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. We don't just say what we believe. We say who we believe in why. Because here's the leap is we go from this part of the Mass,

where we have some readings and we have some teachings, and we leap into the part of Mass that's worship. And so the reason we have the creed there is because we're letting everyone know, reminding ourselves that in this next section, the next part of the Mass, where we have worship, this is the one we're worshipping. I believe in one God, Father Almighty,

of God, Creator of Heaven and Earth. His only Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, the Holy Spirit. Creed are important, but they're not the heart of religion. The heart of religion, religion is worship. The heart of religion is worship. Which is why it's so devastating when we don't know how to worship. Which is why it's so devastating when we show up and watch,

when we're supposed to show up and worship. Because the heart of religion is worship. Here's the next thing. What's the heart of worship? Let's sing in a song. Nope. Heart of religion is worship. What's the heart of worship?

What's singing a prayer? Nope. The heart of worship. is sacrifice. If you go to any religion throughout the entire history of the world, except for three, any religion across the history of the world,

their heart of their religion was always worship, and that worship was always marked by one thing, and that one thing is sacrifice. So if the heart of religion is worship, and the heart of worship is sacrifice, what is the place of sacrifice? It's called an altar. So what's an altar?

Ask that a little bit ago. The altar is the place of sacrifice. The altar is the place of sacrifice. the place where we lay down the gift and raise up the gift. The altar is the place we worship. You guys, this is why, this is why, give a little history lesson. This is why the temple was so massively important to the Jews. Because that was the only place you could worship. No, yep, they had synagogues and that was a place of prayer, place of learning, but the only place you could worship, because what, what's the heart of worship? Sacrifice? What's the place of sacrifice?

The altar? The only altar was in the temple. And so Jews would say, yeah, I'm going to the synagogue on Shabbat, I'm going there to pray. I'm going there to learn about God. I'm going there for community. But when I'm going to worship, I go to the temple in Jerusalem. Why? Because the temple is the only place with an altar, and the altar is the only place I can sacrifice. And when they gathered around that altar and doing that sacrifice, what would do? It was to give them their identity. It reminded them of who they were. So this is why, after the temple was destroyed and that Jews were sent into exile in Babylon, one of their prayers. One of their prayers of lament was, what do we do now? We don't have a temple. How do we

worship God now? We don't have a temple. How can we possibly worship God now? There is no temple, therefore there's no altar, therefore there's no sacrifice, therefore there's no worship. Because your altar, where your altar is reveals where your heart is. Because worship reveals whose you are. In fact, worship is the thing that kills all the old rivals. Last month we had the whole series on rivals. If you know anything about the history of people of Israel, before God could lead them into worship, he had to kill their old rivals. You all know the story of the Prince of Egypt, right? So the 10 plagues of Egypt. Sometimes we think that it's kind of an arbitrary thing where God sends Moses to go to Pharaoh and say, let my people go. And then Pharaoh says, no. And so

God says, okay, well, how about this? I'm going to turn the Nile to blood, because that's annoying. And I don't have a plague of frogs because that's gross. I'm going to have a plague of flies because that's, you know, just creepy. I'm going to have it. The sky turned dark because then you won't be able to see, and you'll step your toe, and you'll set my people go, let my people go. Like, sometimes we think this is arbitrary, but this is not. This is Yahweh, the God, defeating all the false gods.

This is the true God, defeating all the rivals to his place in the people of Israel's heart. Why? Because the Nile wasn't just a river. It was the river God. So Yahweh says, now I can turn that river God in the blood. I can kill it. There was a frog god.

Hecket. Here's God, the true God, says, no, no, listen, I have control over your frog God as well. That rival, I can eliminate him. The sun god, Ra. Here's God, says, I can turn your sun God into darkness. So here's the Lord who proceeds pace by pace by pace, piece by piece to defeat the rivals.

And then he says, lastly, here's what you need to do. Now, you need to defeat the rivals that you have in your heart too. And that's why he says, take a lamb at the Passover meal. Take a lamb. slaughter it, roast it, eat it, and then mark your homes with its blood. Remember this? Remember this thing? You guys know Bible stuff? Okay, so mark your homes with its blood. For many reasons, here's one of the reasons. Because if you do this, you can't go back to Egypt, ever. If you do this, you can't go back to the rivals ever. Why? Because in Egypt,

lambs were sacred. In Egypt, you did not eat lambs. You did not kill lambs. You did not hurt lambs. And so what you're going to do here is you're going to kill your final rival before I show you true worship. You're going to kill your final rival before I show you where to worship me for real. And when you mark your home with its blood, when you're marked with its blood, you can't go back home. You can't go back to the rival anymore. What God did is he set us free from rivals so he could worship him. And that's why the series before this was all about setting free from rivals. Free to what?

Free to gather on his altar. free to offer up his sacrifice, free to give him what he's asked for. Because this is what worship is all about. What happened was after this, here's a little quick thing. So cool. Exodus 24, after they did all the stuff, God says, okay, here's what worship is. And he brings them, Exodus 24.

And what happens, Moses reads from the book. Then he teaches them something. Then the people all say, everything the Lord has said, we will do. They all respond in unison, the same words. Then Moses slaughters an animal. and then he takes the blood of that animal and he sprinkles half of it on pours half of it out on the altar and half of it on the people

and then he says he gathered 72 elders and they ate and drank in the presence of God. You know what we do at every mass? We hear from God's word. Then we hear what it means. Then we all respond in unison. Lord will be with you. With your spirit. Thanks. Then we offer the sacrifice.

The blood is poured out on the altar and then what happens? eat and drink in the presence of God. So you've been set free from your rivals so you can worship God. And this is like the true and eternal sacrifice, right? This is the true and eternal worship. And yet, what do we do? We come to Mass, we're like, but I didn't feel it.

I mean, I don't know. Music was fine today, I guess. But like, I don't know. Preacher was fine. I don't like going to this church. I like going to that church. Because the priest is kind of boring. Music is good here, but it's not good over there.

So it didn't really feel like it. I don't know if you've ever said that. Like, I go to Mass, but I don't feel anything. I would love if we could go back in time and talk to a first century Jew about not feeling anything in worship. Because if you're a first century Jew, here's how you worshipped. You prayed in the synagogue on Saturdays, but when it came to worship God, here's what, here's how to go down

when it came to the Passover worship. Here's a true worship look like in the first century. You would go to Jerusalem. You'd travel with your family to Jerusalem. And then you would either have brought a lamb or you would acquire a lamb. And what you do is you live with that lamb in your home. The lamb wouldn't leave your house. The lamb had to be good, spotless, right?

A year old male, strong, unblemished. Nothing wrong with it. That lamb would live in your house, typically eating from your table. For one week. Why? So that you would begin to love the lamb. So this isn't just some anonymous sacrifice. This is like a lamb.

This is something you care about. Now it costs you something and has value to your heart. And then what you do is you carry that lamb. You would walk it through the streets of Jerusalem because you don't want it to get hurt. You would carry that lamb around your shoulders. If you ever had the ability or had the opportunity to carry a lamb around your shoulders, it is just one of those things that's just like, well, it's like a living scarf. But also, it's just this thing of like, wow, this is a really innocent and beautiful creature.

But you would take that innocent and beautiful creature that mattered to you, and you bring it to the temple. Outside the temple, there was a wall that was about, you know, chest high. And the priest on the other side of the wall, you'd both hold. hold on to the lamb. And then the priest would hand you a knife. And your job, especially for the father of the family, your job was to take that knife and cut the throat of the lamb. Now, why? Because this was the least painful and the quickest way for the lamb to die. So Pita, I'm sorry, but that's how it went down. And the priest would hold bowls, chalices, to catch the blood as it

drained from the neck, the throat of the lamb. And then they had this assembly line of priests, right, that chest high wall from where your lamb was, passing the bowl from priest to priest to priest to priest all the way into the temple to the altar. Now, with the death of the lamb, the sacrifice was not finished. It wasn't actually a sacrifice until that final priest poured out the blood onto the altar. And then you would take the lamb that you had sacrificed.

You would skin it, you'd clean it, you'd bring it home, and you'd eat it that night. Now, if you were to say, come home, you know, you went to sacrifice the lamb at the temple, and you came home back to your mom and dad and were like, I don't know, Passover. I didn't really feel anything at worship today. Like I didn't really feel anything at the sacrifice.

I didn't really feel anything in prayer today. They would look at you and say, and? Like, so? Was the point to go to the temple and offer the lamb like, oh, this is it, God, here's the lamb, it's, oh, I feel it so powerfully? Or is it just to simply sacrifice what was important? Sacrifice what was of value.

give to God? Or was it about you? Was it about me? Because that's what we're saying when we say worship was like, I don't know, I don't get anything out of Mass. That means Mass is about me. Unless the mass is about worship. Heart of religion is worship. The heart of worship is sacrifice. The place of sacrifice is the altar. Not where we get something, but where we give. This is the place where we actually have the opportunity to not simply watch, but to actually worship. problem we've been so conditioned to just watch. I watch the sports person, I'm entertained. I watch the music person, I'm entertained.

And if they're no good or that's no good, then I'm not, it was bad. And we begin to base the value of worship off of what we got about how entertained we were. There was this megachurch in Chicago. I heard about it years ago. I read the pastor or Thani pastor, I read all of his books. He has a pretty smart cookie. He has 20,000 people come to his services on a given Sunday. 20,000 people, that's twice as many as the town I grew up in.

20,000 people come to his services any given Sunday. A couple years ago, I was in Chicago, and the couple, the husband and wife gave me a ride from the venue, it's back to the airport, we drove by the place. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's the place. I've read all that guy's books. And they said, we want to go in. I was like, sure, let's go in. We had time.

And so they pulled into the compound of this place. This place is so large that they actually have shuttle bus. that help you get from one parking lot to the actual church site is massive. And as we're driving around the compound, the bride says that she actually used to go there that church for 10 years. Like, really? She said, yeah, actually, it was really important to me. It was really, they taught me a lot about Jesus and it really helped me out a lot in a different

part of my life. Then I met this man that I'm now married to, and he's Catholic. And she said, you know, I agreed to go to Mass with him, but I said, I'll go to Mass with you if you come to my service with me. thinking like, she's like, I've been to Catholic Mass. Our service is going to, like, blow your service out of the water. And so he's like, of course I'll go. You know, we went to Mass first, then they went to her service. And afterwards, they get in the car after the bus shuttle ride.

And she's like, so, what did you think? Like, she's like, I totally won. This is way better than the mad, the boring Mass. And he said, that was incredible. He said, the music, he said, yeah, described to me. The music was like, it was like being at a YouTube concert. He said the music was amazing. He said that the light show, the smoke, it was awesome.

He said that the pastor who preached was just, it was super engaging and really inspiring. He said, it was really, really great. He said, I loved it a lot. But he said, I just have one question. She said, what's that? And he asked, when do you worship? She said, what are you talking about? That was, said, no, we sang some songs and prayed.

I learned some things about God. when do you stop and actually let it be about him? When do you worship? Because the heart of religion is worship. The heart of worship is sacrifice. Where is the sacrifice? The place of sacrifice is an altar. And a church with no altar, there is no sacrifice.

There is no sacrifice. There is no worship. But we come here, regardless of how we're feeling, if we engage, if we not just watch, but if we worship, we approach the altar, then we worship. I want to love the Lord, my God, with everything I have and everything I am.

Okay, worship him, and everything will change. Come to the altar, and everything will change. I want to do what God wants. Everyone here today is here because you want to do what God wants. Okay, worship him. This last thing. In the second reading today from the letter to the Hebrews, the author says,

Jesus doesn't have to offer sacrifice again and again again. He offered that once for all when, when he offered himself? Question. Bible scholars, when did Jesus offer himself? He did it once for all when he offered himself. When did he do this? He did it in two places, in two ways. But one time. Yes, he did it on Calvary, on the cross. That's that. But where did Jesus actually say the words, I offer myself as a sacrifice at the last supper? when he took bread and said, take this all of you and eat of it. This is my body offered for you, given for you. Sacrifice.

Take this all of you and drink of it. This is the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you. What happened? Remember when you went to the temple and you had the chest-eye wall and you cut the throat of the lamb? And what happened? When was the sacrifice completed when the blood was poured out? Jesus says, this is the blood that's poured out. And then he says these powerful words, do this in memory of me.

Jesus made it so clear, absolutely clear. Here is how I want you to worship me. Offer up the sacrifice. Offer up me. Sacrifice offered once for all. Blood poured out. Body given over. So the question is, it doesn't matter how we feel that determines our worship.

It matters where your altar is. It doesn't matter how we feel that determines our worship and matters where our altar is. This is the call to offer the sacrifice. This is the call to worship. This is the call to come to the altar. You know, with this part of the Mass, we're going to stand up and say the creed, and that's who we are worshipping. And then we have the offeratory.

And the offeratory is the time when we typically check out, the time when we typically kind of just, it's intermission for us. But it's not that. The offeratory is the time you place the lamb around your shoulders and you carry it to the temple. Whenever you go to the offeratory, just imagine yourself. That's the moment you have the lamb around your shoulders. This lamb that you've lived with, this thing that's valuable, this thing that is precious, this thing that you are going to sacrifice and bring to the Lord,

that you're going to bring in worship. This lamb that around your neck is the thing with which You're about to come to the altar.