Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 11/21/21 All Over the Place

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

Homily from the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. When torn asunder, we are held together by worship of the King of Kings. The end of the year offers us the chance to recognize the little lords and tingy tyrants in our lives; those things we love and those things that attack us. And we have the chance to allow Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe to be the true King over all of those fragments by offering Him true worship. Mass Readings from November 21st, 2021: Deuteronomy 7:13-14 Psalms 93:1-2, 5Revelation 1:5-88 John 18:33-37

Hi, this is Father Mike Spence. I just wanted to take a moment and thank you so much. Last week we had our Give to the Max Day. We had, I don't know if you know this, we had our virtual front pew, a day of thanks. It was on YouTube. It was super fun to put on with our focus missionaries and with a couple of our students. And I wish we could have had so many more of our students on camera to be able to just kind of share their stories and to be able to give their testimony. But on that same day, we also had a matching gift. We had a matching gift from someone incredibly generous who offered $250,000 to new. And one of the things I wanted to highlight about that was that particular gift was a not a gift of surplus. It was a gift of sacrifice. It was not a gift of just, I had this lying around. I don't know if anyone ever would, but it was a gift that I guess I want to share this out loud. It was a gift where this particular family said this is the money that would have gone to our adult son in his inheritance, but he had passed away. and they said we want you to have it.

And so we take that kind of gift. We'll take every gift, but we take every gift to like that, every gift seriously, that stewardship of saying, gosh, here's someone, here's a family, here is anyone who entrusts any amount to us. They could have done anything with this and they decided to entrust it to us. And so we had that matching offer and on the gift of the max day, we came really close to matching that, which is incredible. I mean, sorry, I say we.

it was you. It was people like you who are listening to this who are so generous, just like that family who is generous to offer the $250,000, anyone who offered anything. That is your generosity. And I am so incredibly grateful. Of course, we accept a gift at any time of the year. It's not just on one day of the year, but we only ask up to this point on one day of the year. And I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you so much for being part of this community. Thank you so much for listening to these podcasts. And thank you for praying for us and thank you for the sacrificial gifts that so many of you have made in support of what we do here on this campus here in Duluth, Minnesota. Yeah, that's all I had to say. I just wanted to thank you so much. I know it's too little in the face of so much generosity, but I need to say something. And so there you have it. Thank you so much.

So, you know, as I mentioned at the beginning of mass, this is the last Sunday in the church year. And so I don't know, whether it's the church last Sunday or the church last, you know, end of the end of the church year, end of like academic year, end of the calendar year, it almost always gets me to kind of stop, basically, and look back and just kind of check out how the year was. And just really just evaluate and say, okay, what does this been like? And I don't know, maybe in this time of the year, you might look back and say, oh, my gosh, this was a show. This was like all over the place.

This was, I feel so. pulled apart. I feel so torn apart. I feel like basically you might get me at the place of the year where you're just like, I feel like I'm all over the place. Because of all the things, maybe even the year started out great and you were just already. So make this commitment, that commitment. You said yes to everything. And all of a sudden it's like, man, all those things I said yes to you, I was excited at first. And now I just feel all over the place. And so I just feel like I'm, the words that keep coming back to me are like you feel fractured. You feel fragmented. Just again, just really spread thin. And all of a sudden, it's one of those things.

where all those commitments have become little tyrants, right? All those commitments that you started out so excited about. Like, I'm going to say yes to this, and it's going to be great. All of a sudden, they're like, they're dominating now. These little lords in your life, these little tiny tyrants in your lives, even like teachers, I mean, no offense. But how many times do you, before like break, say like before Thanksgiving? Your teachers act as if the only class you're taking is theirs.

And they're like, here's all this work. You have extra, you have four extra days. Here's extra work for this four extra days. here's extra work for these four extra days. And you realize those little tiny tyrants, those teachers. It's one of those things, but I'm glad to take this class. But all of a sudden, it just dominates me, and my life is fractured and it's fragmented, and I feel like I'm all over the place.

Even not just good things we said yes to, but even those, gosh, those tyrants in our lives like fears. The fears that just pop up, they keep popping up. Those accusations that keep popping up. Like we look back over our past and realize, man, there's all these self-doubt and self-absorption, self-accusation, these anxieties that just these anxieties that just demand our attention,

these commitments that just demand our time. And we just feel fractured and we feel fragmented and we feel like we're all over the place. I love it because at the end of the year, the church gives us today's solemnity, today's feast, which is, you think you have little lords in your life, you have tiny tyrants in your life? Okay, we're going to celebrate on this Sunday

that Jesus Christ is king and lord of the universe. But basically the idea is, the reality is, you've heard the term Lord of Lords, right? You've heard the term King of Kings, Jesus is the King of Kings, he's the Lord of Lords. Have they ever stopped and asked, what does that mean? What it means is there are kings in our lives. There are kings in our world. There are our Lords in our lives. And what do they do?

They demand our attention. They demand our time. They demand our allegiance. To say that Jesus is the king of kings means he's the king of those things. Everything demanding your attention, everything demanding your allegiance, everything demanding your heart and your soul and your energy. To say that Jesus is the Lord of the Universe is to say that all those little lords, he's Lord of them.

So basically, you know, back in the day, if you were a king of other kings, you had a title, and that title was typically emperor. So I think I'd want to rename today's solemnity as Jesus Christ emperor of everything, except I think Palpatine and I'm like, I'm like, I maybe not. But that's what we're saying.

We're saying that every one of our lives, we're spread things. Every one of our lives are fractured. Every one of our lives is full of little lords and tiny tyrants. And all of those things get to be placed under the lordship of Jesus. And in that, there's freedom. So let's go back to the book of Exodus. We're going to do that a couple times tonight. In the book of Exodus, we have the story, right?

We know that here's the people of Israel, God's people. and at some point they find themselves enslaved in Egypt. They find themselves enslaved to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh basically makes himself a little God, a little Lord over every one of them. But it's even worse, because the people of Israel are also enslaved to the gods of Egypt. So I don't know if you know this story.

You all saw Prince of Egypt so you know the gist. But like, here is God who comes to Moses and he says, okay, Moses, go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh, let my people go. We all know the story that then he says no. And so all these plagues. How many plagues? Ten plagues. And the one after the other.

And sometimes when we first read the story, we think these are just really random. Like the river turns to blood, and then there's frogs, and then there's boils under everyone's skin. And then the sun turns dark, and then there's the death of the firstborn. Like, we just, it looks random to us, but it's not random. If you know anything about the story, you know that all of those things are connected to the gods of Egypt. So the Nile, the river that turned to blood, was connected to this god named Hoppe. And so God shows that he's the Lord God over the river. and so he turns the Nile into blood.

And I'll tell you, after that, he wasn't very happy anymore. Sorry, I have to do it. It's just one of those that can't stop myself. The frog god, the frog god was Hecett. And so here's the Lord God who says, no, I'm God of that God. The boils, people are sick, they're physically ill. There was a goddess named Isis. And the Lord God says, no, I'm the god of that little goddess.

The sun turns dark because there was a god named Ra, the God of the sun. And here's the Lord God who says, no, I'm the Lord of the God. that little Lord. And even Pharaoh, Pharaoh was considered to be the absolute ruler, the absolute God of the people of Egypt. And the Lord God says, no, not even he can escape my power. So basically, here is God who steps into the lives of the people of Egypt, the people of Israel, and he declares over them.

You have all these tiny tyrants, you have all these little lords that demand everything from you. But I'm over them, and he declares that you no longer have to be fractured. You no longer have to be fragmented. You don't have to be all over the place anymore. because so many of us, that's how we feel. We feel like we're torn asunder. I don't know if you ever feel like that.

Just torn into pieces. You know, it's funny, the word sunder, it's a German word. It's actually the German word sunda. Very creative. But the word sunda in German gives us our English word sunder. It also gives us our English word sin. Because that's what sin is.

That's the sin does. Sin tears us apart. Sin divides us, right? It divides us from God. It divides us from each other. It even tears our hearts apart. It divides us even in ourselves. And so we find ourselves fractured and fragmented.

We find ourselves asunder. And this is why we need religion. I know when I say religion, some people are like, religion, record scratch. You kind of one of those things. Like you don't like the word religion. I think it's really weird because there's a lot of modern Christians who say, no, no, no.

Christianity is not a religion. It's a relationship. People, modern Christians say Christianity, it can't be a religion because their experience with religion is all about the rules. Religion is all about like hollow, it's empty, it's devoid of relationship, and yet that's not the case. In fact, the word religion comes from the Latin word, relegare. And that Latin word, relegare means to bind.

We can hear that word and say, yeah, exactly. So it's like a straight jacket. Like religion is, it just, it binds us, hold us back. No, no, that's not what it means. It means it holds us together. He goes, why? Because we've been torn asunder. Because we have these divisions in our lives. We're fractured, we're fragmented, we're all over the place. And so what does God give us? He gives us religion, which binds us together.

Actually, it holds us to him. Because, yes, religion implies relationship. In fact, that's what God does. Right? God does it introduce into a covenant with us. And what does that covenant mean? He says, I'm yours and your mind. I'm actually going to bind myself to you. And if you say, yes, you'll bind me. yourself to me. It's not just like, hey, I think you're cute. Hey, I think you're cute. Let's hang out. That's not it. It's a deep situation. It's a deep reality. It's a deep relationship in which you have

bound yourself to the Lord. He's bound himself to you. It's called a covenant. Why? Because we need that because we're fragmented and fractured and all over the place and torn us under. So God gives us a covenant. He gives us a relationship and he does it through religion. I think it's a nice idea, but the big question is, well, how practically do we live that? Like, how do you actually live out this being held together? What's the point? You know, it's interesting because if you go back to Exodus,

when God tells Moses, go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh, let my people go, why does he do that? I think sometimes we think, well, because God cares about his people, and his people were enslaved. He didn't want them to be enslaved. That's true. Totally true. But that's not the reason God gives. Maybe it's because God said he's going to give.

them the promised land and he wants to lead them from slavery to give them the promise land. That's also true, but that's not the reason God gives. Maybe it's because God had promised to bless the world through the Jewish people. That's true, but that's not the reason God gives. The reason God gives is he says, go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh, let my people go so that they can come and serve me. In fact, it's the same word that's used in Daniel, the first reading today. In Daniel, it says, people from every nation, every language,

every race, every kingdom, everyone will come and serve me. What does that mean? That word serve in Hebrew is actually the word worship. So why does God set his people free from slavery? Not for freedom itself. God sets his people free from slavery so they can come and worship me. See, this is something we need to understand deeply. The heart of religion is not just a creed, what we believe. The heart of religion is not even simply acting well, like morality, you know,

living a moral life. the heart of religion, the whole point of it, is worship. The entire point of religion is worship. And worship is what? Worship is what binds us together, which holds us together, because in worship, we say like this, every little disparate part of us,

every little lord, every tiny tyrant in our lives are placed under his dominion. That all the things we love are placed under his lordship. All the things that attack us are placed beneath his authority. That's what worship does. Worship takes all the broken parts of us and unites it in praise. Of course, of course, every one of us, we have this constant temptation.

We have that constant temptation to like invent worship ourselves. Every one of us has this temptation that we say, okay, God, I want to, I want to give you what I want to give you. But whenever we give in that, into that temptation, whenever we give into the temptation to give God, what I want to give God, we remain all over the place. we remain fractured and fragmented. And this is what happens in Exodus. I mean, this is the last time we're talking about Exodus, but after God does all this stuff, after he sets them free in Egypt,

after he leads them through the Red Sea, after he actually shows himself on the mountain top in at Mount Sinai, Moses goes up the mountain. We know the story, right? And on the base of the mountain, what do the people do? They get tired of waiting for Moses, and so they create this golden calf. Now, I remember when I was a kid,

and I read the story about the golden calf, I remember it was one of those situations where I thought that's so strange that they got set free from the Lord God and they turn immediately to worship some other God. But then if you actually read the text, that's not what they do. They make a golden calf and then they say, Israel, this is your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. They're saying that this God they made is the same God, is the God,

is the one that set them free from slavery. They don't think they're turning to another God, but when you know what they're doing, they're worshipping God the way they want to worship God. and in choosing their own version, they remain fragmented. We have to realize, worship is not about us. Worship is not about how I feel. Worship is not about my experience.

Worship is not about us. It only unites us. Jesus only gets to be the king of my life when we give him what he asks for. So the actual last time we'll get to the Exodus right now. And he's really funny, you know, when they're still slaves, Moses goes to Pharaoh and he says,

let my people go. Pharaoh says, get out of here. And so, first plague, second plague. Finally, Moses says, can you come back in. You can go. You can go worship your God. Just take the men, but leave the children and women here. And Moses says, no, no, we need to all go. Women, children, men, we need to all go worship God. Because we're all meant to worship God. Pharaoh says, nope, get out of here. A couple more plagues. Pharaoh calls them back in. Fine. You can bring the women and the children and the men, go worship your God. But only take what you need to give to God. Believe the rest here. And that's what Moses says, no, actually, here's the deal. We need to take everything we have because when we get to the place of worship, we don't know

what God's going to ask for. Again, when I first read that, I thought, Moses, you clever dog, like you, good trick, playing on Pharaoh, like, we don't know what he's going to want. We have to bring everything. The Pope Benedict writes about this and he says, actually Moses is telling the truth. Because when it came to worship, we don't know what God wants. So we have to bring everything and be willing to give him anything. When it comes to worship, we have to be willing to bring everything and be willing to give him anything. Because that's what worship is.

Worship is, God, what do you want? How do you want us to worship you? They didn't know, so they had to bring everything. But here's the crazy thing. We don't. God actually reveals to us how he wants to be worshiped. At the last night, his last night on earth, what does Jesus do?

Jesus, with his apostles, he takes bread and says, take this all of you and eat of it. Do this in memory of me. Takes the chalice filled with wine and says, take this all of you. It is the chalice of the new and eternal covenant. Do this in memory of me. We absolutely know exactly how God wants us to worship him. By doing exactly what you're doing right now. The way God wants us to worship him is by coming to the Mass.

That is the reason why we have to come to Mass. It's the reason why we have to come to Mass, because this is how God has explicitly asked us to worship Him. not simply to watch. And also, you know, it's in nature, not even just to receive. Sometimes we think, like, that's the point of mass, is to receive Holy Communion. That's not the point of mass. The point is not to watch.

The point is not to receive. The point is to offer God the worship he's asked for, to offer the sacrifice. This is the last thing. The heart of religion is worship. The heart of worship is sacrifice. And it's the priest to all. offers up sacrifice. So there's only one priest. Jesus is the great high priest. He offers a sacrifice of himself. I'm what you call a ministerial priest. I've been ordained to be a priest.

I'm a ministerial priest. Jesus is the one high priest. I'm a ministerial priest. But I don't if you know this. How many people here are baptized? Okay, a couple of you. So, I don't know if you remember this, but when you're baptized, the deacon priest or bishop, he anointed your head and he said, I anoint you now, king or queen. A prophet, speak my words to the world and I anoint you a priest of God to offer sacrifice in the midst of his people. In the second reading tonight, St. Paul says, you've been made into a kingdom, comma, priests. I want to take out the comma. You've been made into kingdom priests. That's what you are. Jesus is the one high priest. I'm a ministerial priest, but y'all, have been baptized, you are kingdom

priests. But here's the problem. We have a generation, multiple generations of kingdom priests who show up to Mass on Sunday and they watch the Mass. They show up to Mass and they are interested in receiving Jesus. And you know what they're doing? Every single Sunday, they show up and they waste their priesthood. How many Sundays of your life have you shown up here as a kingdom priest but settled for watching instead of actually worshiping? You know what happens at every Mass? This is crazy. It blows my mind. What happens at every Mass is when Jesus has offered up in Saccharacter.

Remember, the heart of religion is worship. The heart of worship is sacrifice. When Jesus is lifted up in sacrifice, two things happen, every Mass. One, the Father is glorified. And secondly, the world is sanctified. At every Mass. At every single Mass. The problem is, when you aren't with us, like when you aren't with us at Mass, not only do you remain all over the place. Not only do we remain fractured and fragmented, not only to remain spread thin and asunder. But when you don't show up, the Father is just that much less glorified. When you don't show up, the world is just that much less saved. That's why you're necessary here. It's why we have to be here. Because when we don't show up, all of us are just that much more asunder and enslaved to the commitments that

have become little lords in our lives and tiny tyrants in our lives. But here's the opposite. When we do, when we do show up, we're placing all of our fractured and fragmented parts under his dominion. We're placing all those fractured and fragmented parts under his lordship. And we actually, were practically held together because of the sacrifice of his love. This is the reason why we wouldn't miss mass for anything. This is the reason why you won't miss mass for anything. Because he asked us. Because he's the Lord.

Because all of those little lords and tiny tyrants are nothing when compared to our Lord Jesus, the king of the universe.