Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 2/26/23 Prototype: Temptation

Episode Date: February 25, 2023

Homily from the First Sunday of Lent. Expect the Trial. Eliminate the Option. Re-Write the Script. Focus on the Word. We will face trials and temptations throughout our lives. When we follow and study Jesus our rabbi, we learn how to face temptations the way he did. Mass Readings from February 26, 2023: Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 Psalms 51:3-6, 12-14 and 17Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11

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. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you.

He reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 4 verses 1 through 11. At that time, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and afterwards he was hungry. The tempter approached and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread. Jesus said in reply, It is written, one does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and made him stand on the parapet of the temple and he said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, he will command his angels concerning you. And with their hands they will support you lest you dash your foot against a stone. Jesus answered him, again it is written.

You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence and he said to him, all these I shall give to you. if you will prostrate yourself and worship me. At this, Jesus said to him, get away Satan. It is written.

The Lord your God shall you worship. Him alone shall you serve. Then the devil left him. And behold, angels came and ministered to him. The gospel of the Lord. So a bunch of years ago, I heard this man describe what it was like to live in first century. If you were a Jew,

what it was like to live in the first century at the time of Jesus, essentially. So if you're a kid, at about six years of age, you'd be sent off to a school. The school, it was like Sunday school, but it was every day of the week. And the school was called Betzafer. And so from six years old until 10 years old, you'd study the Bible. In fact, you'd just study the first five books of Moses. And you'd do this, again, as a six-year-old, for the next four years from six to ten, Betzafer, you'd learn how to memorize the first five books of the Bible. Now, not just the titles of the books, because that's the thing, right? Like, okay, the first five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers.

I memorized that this morning in order to get ready for Mass. The 10-year-olds would have all five books completely memorized. And then at the end of those five years, at 10 years old or so, most of the kids, the rabbi would say, okay, now, go and learn your father's trade. But the best of the best, they'd be invited to go to the next school. and the next school was called Bet Talmud. And so for the next five years, from 10 years old to 15 years old, these kids, they would study the rest of the Bible.

In fact, for those five years, they would memorize the entire rest of the Bible. So imagine, at 15-year-old having, like everything, this whole chunk right here, right? This is from Genesis to Malachi. At 15 years old, you would have memorized the whole thing. So this is a really good school. Again, this is the best of the best in Bet Talmud. And at the end of those five years, at 15 years old, if you wouldn't go on to the next level, the rabbi would say, okay, now go and learn the trade of your father.

Go become a fisherman, go become a carpenter, go become whatever the thing is. But if you were the best of the best of the best, right? If you were amazing out of this group of elite students, you would then, at 15 years old, you'd go find a rabbi. And you'd present yourself to the rabbi and ask if you could be that rabbi's disciple. Now, here's the incredible thing about looking for a rabbi. At this point, you already know that. Bible, right? You not just know the Bible, you're kind of familiar with it. You've memorized every

word of the entire Bible. So you don't need the rabbi to teach you the Bible. What you're looking for is you're looking not just to be a student, because up to that point, you're a student. At this point, you want to be a disciple of the rabbi. And what that means is, I want to know how this rabbi interprets these words. You've memorized the whole word. You know what the words are, but you want to be able to look at the Bible the way the rabbi looks at the Bible. You want to look at the world the way the rabbi looks at the world. You want to look at God, the way the rabbi looks at God. In fact, the whole goal of being a disciple

is to know what the rabbi knows, to do what the rabbi does, and to be like the rabbi. That's the goal of being a disciple. And if you weren't accepted, the rabbi would tell you. He would say, go and learn your father's trade. But if he called you to follow him, if you're called to be a disciple, the whole purpose is to do what the rabbi does

and to be like the rabbi. Because he's the, because he's the, because he's the model, right? At this point, the rabbi has become the prototype. So at the end of the Gospels, right, Jesus sends his apostles out and he says, go out to all nations and make disciples of all nations. So that's a disciple, right? Not basically, Jesus isn't telling the apostles, go out and teach the Ten Commandments, go out, make sure everyone knows who the four gospel writers are. Jesus is saying, actually, the whole point of this whole thing is make people who will become like me. When he says, make disciples, make people who become like me, make people who will become like me,

make people who imitate me. In fact, we talked about this on Ash Wednesday. There's this book that's the second most popular book of all time after the Bible called The Imitation of Christ. Comes right ahead of Harry Potter. And it is about the whole goal of the Christian life. The whole goal of the Christian life is to become like Jesus. They be imitators of Christ, to become like a rabbi because Jesus is the prototype. Therefore, Lent is for what? The whole purpose of Lent is not to, you know, grow in self-discipline. The whole purpose of Lent is not to like watch less TV. not to lose a few pounds. The whole purpose of Lent is to practice becoming like Jesus.

That's the purpose. The purpose of Lent is to practice being like Jesus. So that's what we're going to do. For the next six weeks, we're going to enter into Bet Midrash. That's the third school, right? We passed Betsefer. We passed Bet Talmud. We've been called to be disciples. So for the next six weeks, we're entering to Bet Midrash. What that means is we're doing this series. The series is called Lent,

but we're calling it prototype. Because the whole purpose, of the next six weeks is to follow Jesus, is to watch Jesus, and to become like Jesus. So what we're going to do for the next six weeks is we're going to watch Jesus in every moment, right? We're going to see how Jesus talks to people that no one else wants to talk to. We're going to see how Jesus talks to his father, how he prays. We're going to see how Jesus grieves. We're going to see how Jesus suffers so that we can be like him, so we can be like our prototype.

And tonight, we're going to see how Jesus does. something we all need to do. We're going to see how Jesus faces temptation. Like how does Jesus do this? Because this is one of the things, right? We all know this. Every one of us faces temptation. I'm sure there's some people who are going, what? No. What is this temptation you speak of? I hear a lot of people struggle with that. Like on everyone, we all struggle with temptation. It is the kind of thing that every single one of us faces every single day. In fact, there's only one student I ever met who said he did not struggle with temptation because he told me he said, Father, I never struggle with temptation.

I just give in right away. But this is all of us because we realize to give in is devastating, right? To say yes to sin is the kind of thing that can ruin our lives. It's the kind of thing that ruins families, ruins relationships, it ruins careers. It ruins eternities. So the question is, what can we learn as we watch our rabbi? What can we learn as we watch our prototype? We'll learn three things with a bonus.

So we'll learn four things. And the first thing is this. How does Jesus face temptation, number one, expect the trial. In the gospel today, Jesus, he heads into the wilderness on purpose. Like Jesus heads into the wilderness intentionally. He doesn't kind of accidentally wander

into the desert or wander into the wilderness. It says clearly, he was led by the spirit to be tempted by the devil. So when the devil shows up, it wasn't like, what are you doing here? He knew what was happening. Jesus is not oblivious to his environment. He has incredibly high situational awareness.

And Jesus knows the Bible, right? He knows in the Bible, the desert is the place of trial. He also knows in the Bible the number 40 is the time of trial. And so when he enters into the desert for 40 days, he is not surprised. He is not shocked. But here's the question for us. How often are we surprised by temptation? How often are we shocked? Even though we know scripture and we know ourselves. What I mean by that is 1st Peter chapter 4, First Peter's writing to the first Christians and he says, Beloved, do not be surprised by the fiery trial that you're going through. that when it happens to us, we're all like, where did this come from?

Or we're surprised by our weakness. I'm like, well, I thought it'd be stronger. But we're shocked. To be like Jesus is to expect the trial. To be like Jesus is to not be shocked when temptation comes our way. To be able to say, no, I expected this because we know this. There is nothing worse than thinking you had the day off and getting called into work. It's just, or there's nothing worse than having a project you thought,

it'll take one hour, we'll be done, before noon, and pretty soon at 6 p.m., 7 p.m., you're like, what the heck? Or it's nothing worse than thinking that you were on a cruise ship, and it turns out to be a battleship, but to expect the trial. You know, the imitation of Christ, that book, the author says this, he even says he says this. He says, temptations, although troublesome and severe, are often useful to us. For in them, we're humbled, were purified, were instructed. He goes on to say, he says, the saints all passed through many temptations and trials to profit by

them. And there is no state so holy, no place so secret, that temptations and trials will not come. Many people try to escape temptations, only to fall more deeply. It goes on to say, we should not despair, therefore, when we're tempted, but pray to God the more fervently that he will see fit to help us. Therefore, number one, to be like the prototype, to be like the rabbi, expect the trial. It's coming. I'm not going to be shocked. Number two, after expect the trial, the second thing Jesus does is he eliminates the option. When it comes to temptation, he eliminates the option, which is in direct contrast to what Eve does in the first reading.

I don't know if he caught the difference between the two of them. Eve, when the tempter approaches her, when the serpent approaches her, she engages. Does God really say, and she kind of considers it? I don't know. Did he say this? And he points to the fruit. And it says very clearly in Genesis chapter 3.

Does Eve look at the fruit and she's considering the whole thing? She's like, this is actually good for food. It is pleasing to the eyes. It is desirable for gaining wisdom. She's considering the whole thing. versus Jesus in the gospel. I don't know if you caught this. The chapter shows up, basically says,

hey, would you turn these stones to bread? Nope. How about you throw yourself? Nope. Bow down and worship, nope. I mean, Jesus, he doesn't, it's done. He's already decided, I'm not going down that road. He's eliminated the option. How many times, again, in our lives,

do we find ourselves discouraged by the same old failures? How many times do you find yourself discouraged by having to go to confession for the same thing over and over again. It's basically like copy paste, copy paste every week. It's like, okay, father, same thing as last time. And sometimes we can be so discouraged by this. But our problem is we're willing to tolerate the presence of poison,

that we're not willing to eliminate the option. We're willing to tolerate the presence of poison, meaning that this is not an invitation to be paranoid, like sins everywhere, or to be prudish. But I think a lot of us have been around long enough to know what helps and what helps, doesn't helps. I think a lot of us have been around long enough and know ourselves well enough to know this is what helps me and this is what doesn't help me. Like we know where this story goes.

So as an example, I have an older sister. My oldest sister, she works as a para at an elementary school and my hometown, which means that she takes care of the playground during the playground time, right? And this is my brassy sister, my sassy sister. So keep that in mind as you hear the story. So at one point she's on the playground. She loves these kids. I mean, she's been working there for years and she loves these kids. At one point, this little third grader comes up to her. And Beth has watched this whole thing. She knows what's going on.

And the third grader says, Miss Beth, Miss Beth, those kids over there are picking on me and they're saying that I'm stupid. And my sister looks down at this little third grader and says, maybe they're right. And the kid was like, wait, what? And my sister looks at this third grader and says,

well, are you? Are you stupid? And she's like, what do you mean? Why are you asking this? And my sister said, because I've seen you. day today. You've been going back to this group of kids who are not nice to you, they're mean to you, and they don't want to play with you. And you keep going back to them. Versus I know there's

plenty of kids out here who like you, who are nice to you, and want to play with you. So why do you go back to those other mean kids unless you're stupid? Are you stupid? No, of course, she went on to say you're not stupid, blah, blah, blah. She's nice. But how many times is this us? How many times is that us? We keep going back to the same thing, even though we know how it's supposed to go. The reason why, I think, is because temptation is not always obvious. Like, when we're looking at temptation, we're not, it's not, the first temptation we say yes to is not necessarily automatically evil. We have to understand that temptation almost always comes in pairs. Because if the first choice was directly, hugely evil, we'd probably run away

from it. But the first temptation usually isn't massively evil. It's usually just something subtle. Like, I don't know if you caught this, the first temptation of Satan to Jesus. Turn stones into bread. That's not a bad thing. If you could do it, man, I'd be like, every day. I'd be doing that kind of thing. The tempter is not trying to tempt Jesus to do something bad. He's trying to tempt him to stop doing something good. And this is what you and I are going to face all lent. Because last Wednesday, what did we start doing? We started trying to do something good. And what happens, we find ourselves saying, well, that's not a sin. I can do that think it's not a sin. You're right. Probably not a sin. It's very rare that someone gives up

a sin for Lent. I mean, if that's where you're at, that's fine. We'll keep rolling with it. We can work with that. But most often, we're trying to give up something that leads us to sin. Remember, temptation comes in pairs. So someone who says, I give up alcohol for Lent. Why? Because I know myself, and I know that when I drink, this is what happens, bad things. Or someone says, what I'm giving up for Lent is the Internet after a certain time a day. Because I know that if I log on after a certain time of night, our day, it doesn't lead to good things. someone says, I'm giving up, for Lent, I'm giving up certain YouTube channels, I'm giving up certain news channels because it just makes me so distracted and gets me so angry. I get so riled up, so I'm just

not going to do that. In fact, you might even give up music, not because the music's bad, because it doesn't help you. So years ago, there was a student, and I would say he was a cranky kid, like he was kind of a little grumpy cat, you know, regularly, and he used to love listening to like, I don't know how to describe it other than rage metal. And so he, and so he, he was challenged by one of his friends who she said, I dare you to not listen to that music for two weeks and see how you feel. And he was a kind of guy who wouldn't want to back down from a challenge. So he's like, fine, challenge accepted. So for the next two weeks, he didn't listen to the angry music. The guy's screaming into the microphones. After two weeks, his friend said, so? Did you do it?

He's like, yep, two weeks, no problem. How do you feel? Feel great. Happier than I've been in years. And she said, so are you going to keep on not listening to music? Nope. I like music too much. I don't mind being angry all the time. Sometimes that's what we do, right? We realize that temptation comes in pairs. And we also realize that we could eliminate the option. Jesus doesn't even consider the option. In the imitation of Christ, again, that book, the author says this.

He says, resist the beginnings because remedies come late. In fact, remedies come too late. resist the beginnings because remedies come too late when by long delay the evil has gained strength already first a mere thought comes to mind then the strong imagination followed by pleasures evil delight and then consent but if you and I were to be like Jesus we would eliminate the option I mean honestly

why resist temptation in the future if I can eliminate the option right now so expect the trial eliminate the option and the third thing our rabbi the third thing our prototype does is he rewrites the script Years ago, there was a guy he graduated from here and he got a job in finance down in the cities. And at one point he was at this conference. And this person presented and said, okay, a lot of you are married.

He said a lot of times you probably have the same fight with your spouse over and over again. About different things, but it's the same fight. Because person A says this, person B says this, person B says this, person B says this, you have the script. And basically, you have the same fight over and over again about whatever it has to be. And you already know the script. So at one point, rewrite the script. But he said, I warn you, because what's going to happen, and this is for all of us here tonight too,

what's going to happen is if one of you tries to rewrite the script by saying, like, okay, listen, I'm not going to go down on this road. I'm going to, like, walk through the other room. Usually the other person follows you into the other room with the script saying, you've got your line. But what we can do is what Jesus is doing in the gospel, he's rewriting the script. So the script is, Eve looks at the fruit, and she says,

this is good for food. Jesus says, I don't need this food. I can rewrite the script. Eve says, this is pleasing to the eyes. And the tempter says to Jesus, you can dazzle people by throwing yourself off the temple and being caught by angels. Jesus says, I'm going to rewrite the script.

I don't need to dazzle anybody. The tempter says, you can bow down and worship me and you can get all the souls in the entire world. And Jesus says, no, I will not bow down. He rewrites the script. This is so important for us. Because what is Jesus tempted to do? He tempted to wow the crowds

and overwhelmed them by this amazing show rather than pick up his cross, show them what humility looks like. You know, it's so mysterious how Satan says this, right? Satan says, all the kingdoms of the earth have been given to me. I don't know what that means, but in some way it means that all the kingdoms of the earth have been given to Satan. And the tempter even says, if you bowed out and worship me, I'll give you everything you want, meaning I will give you every soul on this planet if you just worship me.

You know, the temptation of Eve, when it says the food was desirable for gaining wisdom, they become like gods. It's this. The idea is, I want to be like God apart from God. I want to be like God without God. The temptation of the tempter to Jesus is accomplish your mission without the Father. Accomplice your mission without the cross. Be God without God. Win the world without the cross. Jesus rewrites the script. And this is what we get to do too, right? I remember talking with a couple years ago. And they can kept getting into this situation where they kept falling into sin with each other, essentially, it gets sins against purity. And they met with me because they're like, we are so tired of this.

Like we can't seem to stop this. What do we do? And I was like, well, okay, well, I need to know some details. I need to know some people, places and things. This is a big question. When you rewrite the script, you have to know, people places and things. So people, who are the people you fall? Okay, this person here. Got it. Check. Where? What do you mean where? I was like, well, do you like fall into this sin anywhere, like your parents' living room? Like, in the middle of class? Like, no, no, no. It's these two places.

They said these two places that was mostly either his apartment when no one else is there or on their way for him to drop her off at her dorm. So, okay, so not his apartment when everyone's there. No, okay, great. That's nice. Secondly, on the way he's dropping her off in her dorm. Like in the parking lot there underneath the lights, Like, no, no, here's what happens, is we're driving from UMD to St. Scholastica,

and we're driving down the road, and at one point, there's a right-hand turn, and they just put my blinker on and drive down, because at the end of this road, there's kind of a dead end, and there's no one else down there, and there's no lights, and that's where, typically. Like, oh, okay, so the rewriting the script part of this is not, okay, get to the dead end and just really try hard. rewriting the script is, oh, when you're on that road and you're tempted to flick the blinker to go down right,

don't turn on your blinker. Also don't turn, but like, because that's just rude when people don't use their blinkers. But like, but that's rewriting the script. That's saying, okay, I know my story, and I get to rewrite my story. I know where I'm going to struggle.

I don't have to go down that. I literally don't have to go down that road. I can rewrite the script before it gets difficult. Why not, say, the easy no, rather than force myself to say the difficult no. See, this is the reality for every single one of us. To be like our rabbi, to be like a prototype, is to do those three things, to expect the

trial. I know this is coming. I'm not shocked. To eliminate the option. Getting ahead of it, I've already decided I'm not going to do this thing. And also to rewrite the script, I know my story well enough to know that I can rewrite the story. And this is the last thing.

So I was sharing this with a friend not too long ago. And she said, okay, that's fine. that's good. We need to do all the things like Jesus. But here's a problem. When you go to the dentist and he finds like tooth decay and he has to drill a hole in your tooth to get out the decay. They don't just drill the hole and get rid of the decay

and then send you home. They have to fill it in with something. I'm like, that's right. I know this personally. And so for us, the same thing is true. Like, it's not just enough to expect the trial, not just enough to eliminate the option or to rewrite the script. We also have to fill our hearts and our minds

with something good. And that's what Jesus does our prototype, our rabbi does that exact thing. I don't know if you noticed. Every single time Satan tempts Jesus, how does he respond? He responds with God's Word. He responds with quoting Scripture. Why? Because Jesus, our prototype, our rabbi,

has filled his mind, he's filled his heart with God's word. He's focused on God's word. And so here's my invitation for all of us this week. As we do these three things, plus this fourth, is every morning pick a scripture verse. Just the beginning of the day and hold that in our minds. Like, in fact, use that

to fill in that empty space. A couple weeks ago, a priest that I know really well, he encouraged me to do this. And so I've been doing this for about maybe a month. And the scripture that's been so powerful for me, I'm going to share it with you. The scripture that's been so powerful for me

is comes from Psalm 69. And the scripture verse is really simple. It's just, God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me. God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me. And I find I can pray this in the middle of trial. I can pray this in the middle of temptation.

I can pray this when things are great. I can pray this before I drive my car. I can pray this almost any moment of any day. And it's exactly the thing I need to pray. Psalm 69. God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me. Our goal in Bet Midrash,

is to become like our rabbi. Our goal is to become like our prototype. And so that's what we're going to do, starting today, to be like him when we face temptation, to expect the trial, to eliminate the option, to rewrite the script, and to focus on his word. So at the end of this Lent,

we're not just better people. At the end of this Lent, we are like our rabbi. We are like our prototype.