Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 11/28/21 Abounding Love: No Room

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

Homily from the First Sunday of Advent. Two things are clear about the inn at Bethlehem: Love Incarnate showed up and there was no room for Him. Too often, we want to love the way we have been created to love. But we find ourselves incapable of loving this way. Not because we aren't willing or because we don't want to...but because our lives are simply too full. We have no room to love. Mass Readings from November 28th, 2021: Jeremiah 33:14-16 Psalms 25:4-5, 8-10, 141 Thessalonians 3:12—4:2 Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

So as we said, this is the first Sunday of Advent. So good. Because I think, you know, the church gives us this season, gives us these four weeks, essentially, to prepare. And in fact, the church talks about these three comings of Jesus. I want to just highlight the first two. The first coming of Jesus, obviously, is the incarnation, is the nativity. It's what we prepare these first four weeks, these four weeks to basically celebrate Christmas. And that's great. It's awesome. But also, the church says, we get these four weeks to also prepare for the final coming of Christ, for the final arrival, final judgment of the Lord.

And I think it's really great because, you know, sometimes the readings prep us, they prep us for Christmas, and they prep us for the celebration of Christmas. They prep us for the beginning. They prep us for the baby. And I love that. It's like, yeah, let's celebrate the baby. Who doesn't want to celebrate the baby? I love celebrating babies.

But the readings also prep us not just to celebrate the first coming of Jesus. The readings prep us to prepare for the final coming of Jesus. Because it's one thing, it's one thing to prep for the baby. It is another thing to prep for the judge. Like that kind of hits different. Like when you think about, oh. But the scripture says, right, it says, today, don't let that day catch you by surprise like a thief, like a trap.

So we're given the season, why? Because we know at the end of the season, whether that be at the end of our life or at the end of the world, we're going to be judged. And so basically the church gives us this season, not only to prepare to celebrate Christmas, but also to prepare for the judgment. that there is a just judge, it is a good judge who loves us, but is also incredibly, incredibly just.

So we're given these four weeks to prepare for him. You know, it's funny, there's a saint, his name, St. John of the Cross. St. John of the Cross was this just incredible Spanish mystic, Spanish monk, Spanish saint, who at one point he, I mean, he's a doctor of the church, so basically what he teaches is pretty important, pay attention to that kind of thing. At one point, St. John of the Cross, he summed up whole point of life. He said at the end of life, he said, at the twilight of life, we will be judged on love alone. And the twilight of life, we will be judged on love alone. Basically, these four weeks, we have a chance, an opportunity to prepare for that, for that moment and ask the question,

okay, how well over the course of our lives, how well did we love? You know, it's interesting. The rest of scripture points to this, too, the points of the fact that at some point, at some point, at the end of our lives or at the end of time, we're going to be judged on what we did, how well we loved. In fact, Jesus, at the end of Matthew's Gospel chapter 25, he says that, he says, you know, the Lord's going to come, he's going to separate all people like sheep and goats. And to the sheep, he'll say, come into the dwelling of my heavenly father because I was naked and you clothe me, I was hungry, you gave me food, I was thirsty, you gave me drink. And to those who didn't, he's going to say, depart from me because I was naked and you didn't

clothe me. I was hungry, you didn't feed me. I was thirsty, you didn't give me drink. Because at the end of our lives, we'll be judged. and how well we love. And we know that we love, we know that love is felt, but love is more than a feeling. We know that love is a decision.

We know that love is a verb. And we know we have affection. Affection's awesome. But love has to be more than affective. It has to be effective. Affection is awesome, but affection doesn't save anyone. In fact, affection doesn't necessarily do anything. Love has to not be affective.

It has to be effective. Basically, we ask the question, at the end of her life, what did the love you have? What did it do? And so we hear St. Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians. He says these words, he says, May the Lord make you increase and abound in love. Because at the end of our lives, we'll be judged,

and the twilight of our lives will be judged on love alone. So St. Paul's praying, like, okay, may the Lord make you abound in love. Make you grow in love. They're actually saying, make you grow in love. So we know this. We know that not only is it possible to grow in love, it's actually essential to grow in love. That it's not optional.

We must. have to grow in love. And so for Advent, we're doing a series. And the series is very not creative name, but it's just basically abounding love. We know the point. The point of this Advent is how do I grow love? If Scripture says multiple times over the course of these next four weeks, you have to, you have to grow in love, you have to abound in love. Okay, how do we have, how do we make that happen? How do we make it happen that we actually have at the end of our lives abounding love? Because there are things, we know this, there are things that grow love. There are things that grow our hearts. And there are things that keep our heart small.

You know, after Thanksgiving, we can talk about the Grinch who sold Christmas. We know the Grinch's problem. What was the Grinch's problem? The Grinch's problem isn't just like, noise, no, he's not. The Grinch's problem was that his heart was two sizes too small. We know our problem. Our problem is oftentimes that we have small hearts. In fact, there's a word for being small-hearted in the English language.

It's called being pusillanimous, which is super fun to say. Puselanamus, everyone, just kidding. to repeat after me. But to be pusillanimous is to be small-hearted. You're meant to have a big heart what I suffer from pusillanimity, which is harder to say. So we struggle with being fusillanimous, being small-hearted. Basically, another way to say it is we struggle with the kinds of hearts that we have the kinds of hearts that are incapable of loving when loving is necessary. We find ourselves and capable of loving when loving is necessary. Maybe when it's optional, sure, I can totally do that.

But when it's necessary, I don't know about you, I find myself failing. And I ask the question, okay, what is one of the things that keeps my heart small? I have to look at my life and say, what's one of the things that keeps my heart small? You know, at the end of Advent, we're going to celebrate Christmas. And there's one thing everyone knows about Christmas. There's one thing everyone knows about Bethlehem. There's one thing everyone knows about the inn at Bethlehem. Actually, there's two things.

everyone knows about the inn at Bethlehem, and it's this, love incarnate showed up, and there was no room for him. That when God showed up, you know, think about this, the people who ran the inn. Imagine that, I imagine they'd want love to move in. Imagine they'd want the word made flesh to dwell amongst them. But when he showed up, the problem was not they didn't want him, the problem was not they rejected him, the problem was there's just no room for him. I'm sure that they would want to be able to receive love.

I'm sure who wouldn't want to be able to give love a home? That wasn't the problem. The problem was love showed up and there was no room. I think that's the problem with my life. I think that's probably one of the many problems with my heart. In the twilight of life, we will be judged on love alone. And I would say this about myself and maybe so many of us, so many of us have just no room for love.

And again, not because we don't want to love, but I'm simply unable because there's no room. I'm just unable to love. I'm incapable of loving because I'm already too full. So I love Chinese food because I love soy sauce. So I'm very American in my love for Chinese food. It's basically like French fries. I don't really like French fries. I like ketchup. So French fries are the vehicle to get ketchup to me.

And so same thing with Chinese food. I love Chinese food, but I'm an American. So that basically means I love soy sauce. So I was at the story the other day, and I picked up some, you know, Chinese food, and they had the packets. And I noticed this was happening because they changed their packets, the place where I go. They changed their packets. And every time I opened a packet, it like exploded in my hands. You normally rip off the corner and pour it into the little thing and you're all fine. Every time, I opened like six or seven of them, because I told you, I love it. I I love soy sauce. So I'm like, every time it's like, what, what's wrong with my hands? And I realized I wasn't the problem. I never get to say that. In this case, I wasn't the problem. These new packets,

I would say this, they were too full. They were just too full of soy sauce. I remember after like number seven, I'm reading this going, what's happening? Like, oh, they're too full. That'll preach. Because what was wrong with a soy sauce packets? Sois sauce, nothing was wrong with them. They had what I wanted. In fact, they had an abundance of what I wanted. They had as much soy sauce. In fact, more soy sauce than should have been packed into these packets. And that was the problem. They were just too full. They were too full of a good thing. They were too full of the thing that I wanted. St. Paul says, may the Lord make you increase and abound in love. I think sometimes I don't abound in love because my heart is too small, but I think sometimes I don't abound in love

because my heart is like the in-at-Bethlehem. It's just already too full. You know, and And over the course of the last few weeks, I've come face to face with this so many times. There was an occasion a couple weeks ago where I had so much stuff to do. I was just, I was like, I need you do this and I do this. It was all these errands, all these tasks that just needed to get done. And there was a student who was at the house. And they absolutely, it was so clear, they needed someone.

This is a moment of just, if there's ever a clearer moment of someone who just needed me to stop. and just be there. This was that moment. I'm like, ah, but I have these other things I need to do. I'm grateful because there's other people in the community. They showed up, they were there for the student. They took care of them.

And it was so good. I loved the community in that sense. But I walked away from that going, like, I have so much stuff to do. I was not able to love this person in the moment it was absolutely clear. That's what, I mean, it's a crazy thing. The tasks they got done. But I can't imagine, God.

in the twilight of my life saying, I know you failed to love this student, but hey, you got the errands done. In the twilight of life, I will be judged on that night. Earlier this month, I mentioned that my mom got re-diagnosed and she's sick again. Man, this whole month has been marked by like every two or three days. I text my mom and say, hey, mom, I want to give you a call. I'm really busy right now.

I just want to reach out. I just want to say, you know, just catch up and see how you're doing. And she always writes back like, hey, I know, I know you're busy, just take care of yourself. The month of November, guess how many times I called my mom? Zero times. Not because I don't love her, just because it's too full. I got to talk to over the course of this weekend. I'm so grateful for that.

I was like, I'll just hold on until Thanksgiving. That's when I'll make some time. But I'm like, that's not how to live. That's not how we should live. I've created a life, and maybe you've done this too. I've created a life where there's no room for interruptions. I've created a life where people feel like they're, like they feel like that's what they are. They feel like their interruptions when they're not.

They're just people who need someone to be there. You know, we're surrounded by people who just need someone who has room for them. And I know that I've created a life where I don't have room. And again, I'm not talking about strangers here. This is not talking about my mom. I'm talking about people who are in our lives. I'm not talking about being available for everybody at all times. I'm talking about.

being available for the people that I've agreed to love. Maybe even the people that we promised to love. So a bunch of years ago, we had a couple from here, and they got married. Awesome couple, phenomenal couple. Did their wedding, and then about six weeks, six months later, about a half a year later, I did another wedding, and they were friends of this other couple,

and so they were at the wedding. And in the course of that wedding, I mentioned something about how important it is as couples that Jesus is number one, but after Christ, the most important relationship in your life, most important thing in your life, is this marriage relationship. And after the wedding, this couple came up

and they said, oh my gosh. They said, it's only been six months. We needed to hear that. They said, we got done with the wedding. You got done with all that prep, all that attention we placed on our relationship. And as soon as we got married, we just shifted our attention to the next thing.

Well, you need, okay, jobs and moving into a new house and moving to a new town. And they said, they exchanged the main thing for the next thing. And they just created a life that was too full. Jesus said in the gospel today, he says,

beware that your hearts do not become drowsy by the anxieties of daily life. Another way to say it is, be careful not to pack your life so full that there's no room for love. Be careful to pack your life so full that there's no room for love. Not with extreme dramatic things,

but just like the ordinary cares, like the ordinary things that we just fill up our lives with. In fact, I was talking to my brother priest a couple weeks ago about this. I was saying, yeah, this student, I was just like sharing my heart. Like, I should have loved, but I didn't love my mom. They're like, bro, your life is too full. Like, I know, they're like, stop it.

Like, how do I stop it? I don't know. Because if you're like me, you're like, I can't slow down now. It's called, it might be called Advent in church world. It's also called finals and college world. So what do I do? What do I do when I have created a life that's just too full to love? I would say this.

The first step. How do I abound in love? There's an author that I really like. His name is John Ortberg. He's a pastor out in California. John Ortberg has a mentor. His name is Dallas Willard. At one point, John Orbert, I have all of his books.

And at one point, John Orkberg, who just travels the world, you know, speaking and preaching, and he writes these books. And he's really busy. At one point, John Ortberg went to his mentor, Dallas Willard, and he said, Dallas, I'm so busy. I just don't have room. I don't have time for my family. I don't have time for my congregation.

I don't have time for the Lord sometimes. What do I do? And Dallas looks at his. is, you know, protégé, John, and he says, don't hurry. John says, what? And he says, here's what you need to do. You must absolutely, you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. You have no room for love.

I can hear what I'm saying to me. It might be your heart's too small, but also could be that your heart is too full. Therefore, you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. In fact, there's a book by a guy named John Mark Homer called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. And it is a convicting book. But this is what I want to do this Advent, this next four weeks. I want to do two things that will ruthlessly eliminate hurry from my life. And I just want to pass them on to you because I think it could be helpful.

And the number one thing I want to do is I'm going to start saying no. New year, new word. New year, new answer to all the questions. Can you do this? No. not to you guys, not to you guys, but like other people. Truly, that's what I mean, is my default answer sometimes is just yes. Hey, would you do this?

Of course. Who doesn't want to help people around us, right? Who doesn't want to like go and help? But I need to change my default yes into default no, especially when it comes to far off people and far off things. So here's what I mean. I want to be able to say no to anyone outside of the diocese or outside of campus who asked me to something extra so that I can say yes to the people who are already in my life. I want to say no to every new thing so I can say yes to everyone who already is in my life. Right now, I am currently

incapable of loving because I'm saying yes to everyone and you can't love like that. So no to everyone outside the diocese, outside campus, so I can love everyone inside. unless the Lord is very clear that this is a step that he's calling me to take. But to ruthlessly eliminate hurry means saying no. It also means the second thing. It means doing something that God actually commanded us to do at the very beginning. He commanded all of us to take a Sabbath. God basically, he commanded all of us to rest, which I think is crazy.

I mean, think about this. Have you ever tried to babysat anyone or ever taken care of someone littler than you who needed to take a nap? and the meltdown they had when it was time to take a nap, and you're like, if only someone made me take a nap. They're saying, okay, go to bed at 7.30. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I would kill to be able to go to bed at 7.30. And this child is having an absolute meltdown.

Like, it's Chernobyl, because they're just like, what is happening? Like, child, rest. And then what happens is God says, okay, I want you to take a Sabbath. I want you to rest. We're like, why do I have to rest, Lord? Because we're a bunch of punks. And there's no room. Because I can't afford to rest.

I'm too busy. I'm too important to do what God has told me to do. False. There's no room to love because there's no room to rest. Matthew Kelly calls it carefree timelessness. And maybe that's the whole day, maybe that's the whole Sunday, but maybe for those of us who have maybe packed a little too tightly, maybe it begins by starting with maybe four hours or six hours of rest.

Maybe half a day rest. Maybe you taking a whole day will ruin someone else's week. so maybe it just begins by taking a half day, saying this is my day, not to not be productive, but my day to let the Lord recreate something new in me. Like not for myself, but so that there's room now to love. You know, for the Jewish people, they didn't just have a day of rest. They didn't just have a Sabbath. They also had a day before the Sabbath, which was called the day of preparation.

They prepared to rest. they prepared to make room and so that's my invitation for all of us not only to let no be your default but also have a day of preparation that helps you get ready to make room because this is the last thing

the point is not just to say no to everybody the point is not just to have some rest although both of those things are you could argue for them the point is at the twilight of our lives we will be judged on love alone. Not for those we've never met,

not for those who aren't in our lives, but for those who are in our lives, for those we've agreed to love. Not because we have a lot of affection for them, but because we've actually chosen to be available for them. And we can only do that if we allow our hearts to grow. We can only do that if we have abounding love. We grow our hearts,

and that can't happen. if there's no room. So this Advent, the next four weeks, my invitation is to practice the ruthless elimination of hurry and to make room for abounding love.