Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 1/29/23 Homeless: Perspective

Episode Date: January 28, 2023

Homily from the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Do not wait to live. God is using this here and now. There is real suffering. There is real good and evil. But sometimes, the difference between something that is worthless and something that is worthwhile is a matter of perspective. God can use even our flaws...in fact, he will use everything if we let him. Mass Readings from January 29, 2023: Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13 Psalms 146:6-101 Corinthians 1:26-31 Matthew 5:1-12

Welcome to Sunday homilies with me, Father Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this in other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up at ascensionpress.com slash Sunday, or by texting Sunday to 33777.7. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless.

The Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Chapter 5, verses 1 through 12. When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain. And after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach, saying, Blessed are the poor and spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirsts. for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when they persecute you and insult you, and utter every kind of evil against you

falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad. For your reward will be great in heaven. The gospel of the Lord. So I don't know if you've ever come across those. There's like a quote you come across. You think like, oh my gosh. I want to live like that.

Sometimes there's quotes that just, you know, they hit you and you realize, well, I realize that I am far from it, but I want it really badly. So years ago, I came across this quote by guy named G.K. Chesterton. And here's the quote. He said, an adventure is only. an inconvenience rightly understood. And an inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly understood. You guys, it was way cooler than that.

You should be like, wow, yeah, I like it. When I first heard that, I thought, yes, that's how I want to see things. I want to see things like this. I want to be able to have that perspective that says, yes, I'm inconvenience. No, it's an adventure. I was sharing this with someone. I said, I really love this quote. An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly understood.

And the inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly understood. And I said, isn't that great? I'd say, I want to live like that. And they said, you don't live like that at all. For me, an inconvenience becomes a greater inconvenience. I mean, I just make majors out of minors. It's just one of the problems that I have. And yet I want to see things like this.

No, Chesterton, if you know, you know, I want to think about Chesterton, he started out as an atheist. He became a Catholic. So Chesterton's not saying that, you know, good and evil, no difference. He's not saying right and wrong, there's no difference. He knows there's a massive difference between. evil and good. He's not saying they're all the same. But he realizes there's some things in life that actually they are a matter of perspective. Like the way we look at them will determine everything.

There's so much of life that just it's about how we look at it. In fact, that's what the word perspective means. The etymology of perspective means to look through. So the question is like when it comes to things in life, what's our perspective? How do we look at it? You know, back in like 1406, there's this group of people in Italy as an example for perspective. They have this plan. They had a big church and they wanted to adorn

like the top of the church with all these marble statues of figures, characters from the Old Testament. So like 60 years later they started doing this. In 1462, 1464, they commissioned this man

named Augustino de Duccio to carve one of the statues of these Old Testament figures. So he was an incredible guy. They brought him this massive block of Carrera marble. It's super expensive.

And he starts cutting at it, he starts drilling at it, and pretty quickly he comes to the conclusion that this marble had so many flaws, you can never make anything beautiful out of it. So he just gave up. Twelve years later, the people hired another guy, and Tony Orsolino, same kind of thing. He starts out, he's going to carve this thing, he's going to make one of these statues, and he quickly came to the conclusion, same conclusion. There are too many flaws in this marble to ever be anything worthwhile. So of another quarter century, the marble just sat there. What they needed, what they needed someone who wasn't just a sculptor. They needed someone who had the ability to look

through, like right to the perspective, to look through the flaws and see what this marble could be. So in like 1501, they hired this 25-year-old kid, sorry, 25-year-old young man, and named Michelangelo and asked him, would you be able to carve this? And so he set to work, look him three years, but three years later, he had created something incredible. This 17-foot-tall marble statue of David. It's arguably the most famous sculpture of all time.

And it was made out of a block of marble that was considered to have too many flaws to ever be anything worthwhile. So people asked him, and I said, This is a block of marble that for almost 100 years have just been sitting there. Other artists have said they couldn't do anything with it. How did you do this?

He's reported to have said, he said, I saw the angel in the marble, and I carved until I set him free. I saw the angel in the marble, and I carved until I set him free. Total artist. But really, really, this perspective, right? His perspective allowed him to do something amazing, with what other people considered to be completely worthless, what other people consider to be completely unusable. So a couple weeks ago, we started this series. This series called Homeless.

And it's based off this biblical theme that goes through the whole Bible, that here we are living in exile, right? That here's God who is good. He made this world good, made us good. He poured us at home on this planet. But because we rebelled against him, this isn't home anymore. In thought the whole Bible, there's this experience, right?

The Jews in Egypt, they're not home. They're in exile. The Jews in Babylon, they're not home, they're in exile. And here we are as Christians, living on this earth, we're not at home, we're in exile. And just imagine, imagine those Jews carted off to Babylon. Remember they had the three waves of people.

They carted it off to Babylon. Now, historically speaking, if you're in exile, you have two options. How are you going to live? How are you supposed to live homeless? How are you supposed to live in exile? Historically, you have two options. One is give up.

Just, you know, you're supposed to live homeless. You're a Jew living in Babylon, just live like a Babylonian. That's what you are now. Just give up, compromise, assimilate. That's one option. The other option is try to get home. Basically, you fight against the man. You basically try to have an uprising.

You try to basically resist. You rebel. Those are the two options. Either assimilate and compromise, or you fight and rebel. You either give up or you try to get home. Those are the only two options for someone living in exile, except when the Jews were brought into Babylon, God gave them a third way.

God gave them a third option. In fact, what he says is essentially, this isn't home, but you have to live here. You don't belong here, but you have to live here. So through the prophet Jeremiah, this is in Jeremiah 29. Here's what God says to the people of Israel. He says, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile

from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses and live in them. plant gardens and eat of the produce. Take wives and have sons and have daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters themselves. Increase. You must not decrease. This is this third option.

Not to give up and become a Babylonian. Not to just fight back the whole time. But God is saying, I know, you're homeless. You're not where you're supposed to be. But you have to start living. you can't let the fact that you're not where you want to be keep you from living and being who you're supposed to be.

This is the message of the Lord God in Jeremiah 29. You can't let the fact that you're not where you want to be keep you from being who you're supposed to be. You can't let the fact that you're homeless keep you from living. He goes on to say, he says, and also seek the welfare of the city where I sent you in exile. like pray for them. Now think about it. That is radical. That's completely backwards. That's almost as

backwards as someone who come along and say like, I don't know, blessed are you when they persecute you. That's just ridiculous. Because Jesus's perspective is just like Jeremiah's perspective. Jesus' perspective is just like Jeremiah's, which is also like Daniel's perspective. Remember Daniel and Hananai and I and Azari and Michel, they're all Jewish and they're brought to Babylon. They have two options. Either we give in, just become Babylonians, or we try to get home and we fight back. there's this third way. So Daniel had this third way. And that third way, you can sum it up like this. Simple. Bloom where you're planted. This is where you live right now. So build a house. What's the temptation? The temptation is like, bring a tent. I'm not here for a while. I'm passing through. Or the temptation is like, I'm staying at the residence inn. Like, I'm not going to rent. I'm not going to buy. I'm not going to build. I'm just passing by. And the Lord God says, no, no, no. Build a house. Live in it.

plant a garden, eat of its produce, get married, live your life. Again, don't let the fact that you're not where you want to be keep you from becoming who you're meant to be. And gosh, you guys, I'm saying this because this is all of us. I think so many of us when we're homeless, so many of us, when we're not where we want to be, we put off living. So it's something as simple as, well, I didn't get into my dream school,

so I'm just here at UMD as a placeholder. And when I get to that place, then I'll start like really, really pursuing, my studies. We have something like, well, I don't really know my major yet. So I'm just kind of like dabbling. I'm not really intentional about any of this. I'm just kind of like trying stuff out. But when I find that, then I'm really going to pursue it. Or like, here I am. I'm not dating anyone. I'm not married. I'm not in my vocation. I don't know what God's calling me to. So I'm just kind of, I'm in this holding pattern. I'm not going to commit to this moment. I'm not going to build a house here. I don't, listen, I'm not going to build a house here. I am not going to live here. But the fact that

not living where I want to, can't be my excuse to live how God is commanding me to. But this is, again, this is what all of us do. I mean, how many of us are constantly looking around the corner? Like, what's the next thing? How many of us are constantly taking ourselves out of this moment? We tell ourselves, okay, the next moment, that's when life is really going to start. When God brings me back home, that's when things are really going to start. So what we end up doing, we end up spending our whole life, looking back to this glamorized past.

The only things were as good as they were back then. Or we imagine this idealized future. Someday it's going to be amazing. This is what the Jewish people were doing. Zefaniah in the first reading today? The Jewish people, they were all about saying, like, remember this, in remembering this glamorized past, remember when King David was the king, he was the best king, he was the boss. The 12 tribes united, it was amazing, was insane, the golden age of Israel.

Remember that? That was amazing. Or they're imagining this idealized future. One day, we're coming back to power. One day the Babylonians will have nothing on us. One day, we're going to rule once again. And what does Zephanai say to them? He says, no, no, no, no. Listen, you're going to be a remnant. I know. I know you long for that glamorized past of like when you were big and powerful and influential or you're imagining this idealized feature. When again, you'll be big and powerful and influential. But here was what Zephaniah says. No, you're a remnant. so now start living as a remnant now. Pope Benedict said something similar back before he became Pope, in fact.

He was talking about how people were kind of lamenting the fact that our culture isn't Christian anymore. They were lamenting the fact that the church isn't as culturally significant as it had been in other ages. And Pope Benedict, he said this. He said, the church must become small. He was talking to Catholics who were either remembering this glamorized past. Remember when the church built all the massive buildings? Remember when the church, you guys? Remember when the church invented science?

Because it did? Remember when the church invented the hospital system? Because it did? Remember when the church invented academics? Like the school system as we know it? Because it did. Imagine. Remember that glamorized past?

Or imagine this idealized feature. One day, once again, the church is going to take over the world. and then everyone will want to be one of us. Like Benedict, what does he say? He says, no, the church must become small. And she will no longer be able to inhabit these edifices that she once built. But when she becomes small, she'll become more faithful.

And humanity, this postmodern man that will be so programmed and a life that's so scheduled and who feels so alone in this world where they're homeless, they will look to her to this small but faithful remnant. And then they'll find a home. We have to realize, we have to realize that unless we start living now, when people go looking for a home, they will not find one. Because we say, I don't want to live here.

So we put off living. That's why Jeremiah says, build a house and live in it. This is home for now. You're homeless, but this is where he called to live. Plant a garden, eat of its produce. Wherever you're at, wherever you are at right now, just start living. This is a whole new perspective. And the perspective is kind of like this. The perspective is all of this.

This is not happening to me. This is happening for me. It's a completely unique perspective that the Christian has. It didn't matter where you are at in your life right now, whether it's a horrible season, a season of challenge, a season of difficulty, a season of success and victory. season where it just feels like I am not living the life I'm supposed to live. The perspective is this is not happening to me. This is happening for me. What that's called basically is the big idea of people living in exile. The big idea is what we call the sovereignty of God. The Jews living in

exile, they knew that the exile was not an accident. It didn't kind of just happen without a chance. The exile was not an accident. In fact, Jeremiah 29, what did he say? He says, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, to the people of Israel, to all the exiles, whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. The exile was not an accident. God did it. In fact, throughout Jeremiah, throughout Isaiah, he calls Nebuchadnezzar, right, the king of Babylon.

He calls him my servant. He didn't call Nebuchadnezzar his servant because Nebuchadnezzar was a good guy. Nebuchadnezzar was not a good guy. He didn't call Nebuchadnezzar his servant because he was faithful to the Lord. He was not faithful to the Lord. He didn't call Babylon his servant or his tool because he was on God's side. He called him his tool, his servant,

because of this one decisive reality. And that reality is that God can use anything, that God can use everything to bring about the good. There's nothing God can't use to bring about the good. So the sovereignty of God does not mean that God wants suffering to happen. That's not what it means. Sufferity of God does not mean that God wants suffering to happen. It means that he can use it when it happens.

doesn't mean that he wants it to happen. It means that he can use it when it happens. Because everything, here's a little theology lesson. Everything happens under the will of God. There's two kinds of will. There's God's perfect will. That's what he definitely wants to happen. And here's the thing.

God only wills goodness. He only wills life. He only wills love. He only will's joy. So when God created the world, that's his perfect will. Makes a good world with good people. when God sent Gabriel to announce to Mary that his plan, his will, was that she'd be the mother of the Messiah.

That's God's perfect will. The problem is that when God made this world, he also made beings who have free will like us. And because of that, he lets us choose. God wants beings who can love, which means he's chosen to create beings that can also choose to use. God wants beings that can,

can help each other freely, that means he's created beings that can also choose to hurt each other freely. And because of that, because God's preserving our freedom, and because of one other reality, and that reality is God knows he can always bring up greater good out of every choice. There's God's perfect will, but there's also God's permissive will. Things that he doesn't want to happen, but he allows them to happen because he knows he can bring about a greater good if they do. The exile was not an accident. that God could use Babylon as a tool to bring the hearts of his people back to him. Again, not by punishing them, but they're letting them experience the reality of what they chose.

Again, God wasn't in the exile. God doing that, he wasn't punishing them. He was letting them experience the reality of what they had chosen. Not to destroy them, but to bring them home, to wake them up. So, C.S. Lewis, he has a book. He is a book called The Problem of Pain. And in it, he's looking, he's wrestling with this, the reality that we have, we walk through this world that where there is suffering,

there is loss, there's death, there's grief, there's challenges that we don't want to have to go through. As Lewis is trying to understand this, he says it like as he says, you know, when it comes to pleasure, we can ignore pleasure. He says, but pain insists on being attended to. He said, God whispers to us in our pleasures. He speaks to us in our conscience, but he shouts in our pains. pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world which is a really hard thing

I mean that's hard if you're right now tonight if you're in a place of pain if you're in a place of suffering you're a place of loss right now that's a really hard word to hear that's why CS Lewis goes on to say he says no doubt pain is God's megaphone is a terrible instrument and it may lead to final

an unrepentant rebellion some people when they go through suffering they don't become better they become bitter He says, but pain gives us, pain gives the only opportunity a bad man can have for amendment. It removes the veil. It plants the flag of truth within the fortress of the rebel's soul. The people of Israel, when they were living in Babylon, they were home, right? That's the promised land. But their hearts were so far from God. What did God have to do? He took them far away to bring them home. The exile, the exile wasn't the point.

being homeless wasn't the point that wasn't the goal but in that what god was able to do is is able to say okay i know you don't want to be here but i need you to learn to how to live here and this is true for every one of us because we can say god i just i don't want to be in this season of life i can't wait to be past the season of life like why can't i just be on the next page why can't i just be in the next chapter how many times tonight are like i'm so tired i don't want to have to go through this. That makes sense. It makes so much sense. I wish where I was wasn't where I was. You know, there's a book, The Lord of the Rings. The first book, Fellowship of the Ring. There's a moment in this book, right? We know this story. Here's Frodo and he's carrying the

ring. He has to destroy it. And here's Frodo in this moment. He is burdened by this ring. And he's farther away from his home than he's ever been in his entire life. He doesn't even know if he'll ever make it back home. He's homeless. He's in exile. He's on his way. and he's carrying this ring and it's just a time of suffering. And what he says, he says to Gandalf, the guide, the Gandalf, the wizard, he says this, he says, I wish the ring had never come to me. He said, I wish none of this had ever happened.

And that could be any one of us tonight. I don't want to live here. I don't want to have to go through this. I wish none of this had ever happened. And then Gandalf looks at him and he says this. He says, so do all who live to see such times. so to all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that's been given us. And that's us. Homeless. But not giving up in assimilating, not trying to get home and just fighting, but saying, okay, God, I don't want to live here, but you're calling me to build a house.

You're calling me to plant a garden. You're calling me to live right now. now and not wait. There's the last thing. You know, when Michelangelo saw what others considered to be too flawed to ever be anything worthwhile, he saw more. He had a different perspective. And the thing is, though, he saw the flaws. In fact, there are modern experts who actually have analyzed the marble that David is made out of this last century.

They've examined the marble, and they've came to the same conclusion as Agostino de Duccio. They've came to the same conclusion as Antonio Rosalino, it's flawed marble. It's expensive, but it was flawed. It really was. Michelangelo saw that flawed marble and he set to work. Remember what he said. I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free. He carved. Some of us right now are in a season of being carved. He carved the marble not to punish the flaws, but to reveal the beauty. God is doing something now. For God can use anything. God will use everything. He will use, he has the ability to use what you're going through now. That's got to, that has to be our perspective. Our perspective has to be,

God can use all of it. And I don't want to be here, but I have to live now, because why? Because this isn't home. And God's made a promise. It's crazy, Jeremiah 29. Some of you actually know Jeremiah 29. You might not know that you know it. But Jeremiah 29, we read tonight, build houses, live in them, plant gardens, and eat of the produce. Mary, increase you must not decrease right after this. God tells why. Why you have to start living now? Why you can't wait to live?

This is not just happening to you. This is happening for you. He says, why? Because I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord God. Plans for your welfare, not for your woe. My plans for your future full of hope. He says, when you call me, and come and pray to me, I will hear you.

When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, and when you seek after me with all of your heart, I will let you find me, and I will bring you home. We are homeless tonight. We are not where we belong, but we have to learn how to live here. And we can when we realize, with a new perspective, we learn how to look through the flaws and say,

I know this. God can use anything. and God will use everything. I don't want to be here. I wish this had never come to me, but here is where you and I will become the people that God has made us to be.