Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 4/7/23 Guilty

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

Homily from Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion I am guilty. And I am loved. When we are falsely accused, we can often be tempted to defend ourselves or justify ourselves. This makes sense, since we want the truth to be known. But we must not fool ourselves into convincing ourselves that we are innocent. Christ came to save sinners. That means, if I am not a sinner—if I am not guilty—then Christ did not come to save me. But I am guilty...and He did come for me. And for you.Readings from April 7, 2023:Isaiah 52:13—53:12Psalm 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 John 18:1—19:42

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 and 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. So when I was growing up, there were a number of TV shows or movies.

They were centered around the idea of this person who was in, the line was always this. It was they were accused of a crime they did not commit. So it was on the run, basically, trying to clear his name. And it was this cool show. It's kind of like the fugitive was one of those examples of that movie. And it's obviously that being accused of something they didn't do, accused of a crime they didn't commit. Obviously that happens in real life too.

We know sometimes there's incredible stories. When I say incredible, not also incredible, just, just powerful stories of people who are falsely accused, even those who were falsely found guilty, who then did everything they could to clear their name. And just those are remarkable stories of the failure of the justice system at times. But the idea behind this is we recognize that justice is good. Justice is necessary, right? If I've been falsely accused, I should fight to clear my name. If I've been falsely accused, I should fight for justice. In fact, that's what you deserve. The definition of justice is getting that, receiving the good that is owed to you,

or offering the good that you owe someone else. Like that it's all necessary. It's really important, which is why I think one of the reasons you and I can be so defensive when we're falsely accused of something. Yes, there's the people who accused of something in their criminal charges

or in a TV show or in a movie but they're falsely accused, but there's something in us, right, that can get really ramped up when we're falsely accused of something or when someone thinks we did something that we didn't do or they don't know the whole story about this thing.

And so they're believing things about us that aren't necessarily true. I don't know if it has ever happened to you, but when that happens, it's really easy to feel really powerless. It's really easy in those moments to have the desire to be so defensive, right? That desire can be so strong.

And it's not a wrong desire, right? It's actually a good desire, right? Because it's truth. The church even says, we have a right, legitimate self-defense. And if someone has gotten something about us wrong, it makes sense that we would be defensive. It makes sense that we would want to clear our name.

It makes sense that I'd want to explain, right? That's what we want to do, right? if everyone's ever accused you of something or they think like, oh, you're the person who did such and such. You realize, and I didn't do that. We want to explain, like, we want to clarify, we want to justify. We want to basically say, I'm not guilty. Like, I'm not guilty of what you think I'm guilty of.

I did not do the thing that you think I did. And again, if that's ever happened to you, I know whenever that's happened to me, it's so interesting. I just kind of do some introspective kind of like thoughts when someone thinks something about me, I can have the tendency to go in my head, right? And I have all these arguments that go in my head of like how I'm just like, Like, no, I'm right and that's wrong and I never did this. And I have this tendency to become so self-righteous because the desire right is so strong.

It's like, I didn't do this. I didn't do this thing that you think I did. The most recent time that happened to me, I guess there's no other way to describe it other than I felt really self-righteous. Because you got this wrong. I've never done anything like this. And I was like, because I'm not guilty. And I didn't do this thing. But I stopped myself and I was in prayer because I was going.

these arguments in prayer, sometimes that happens, right? We're just like fighting with this imaginary person in your head. And pretty soon I realized, like, oh my gosh, I had to flash to this moment in the story of the passion, right? In the movie, the Passion of Christ, right? We know that in the gospel, this is not highlighted in John's Gospel, but as Jesus has given his cross and he's walking, carrying that cross from Caius or from Pilots Palace to Galgatha, he falls.

And so what did the Romans do? The Romans forced Simon of Sirene to carry his cross. And in the movie, the Passion of the Christ, there's this. moment. It's just so, it's so powerful where you get Simon and Cyrene, he's being forced to carry the cross of Jesus. And he says, okay, fine, I'll do this. I'll carry the cross because you're forcing me to. But I need you all to remember that I'm an innocent man who's being forced to carry the cross of a condemned man. Right? And that sense of like, you all need to know this. That I'm going to carry this cross, but I'm not guilty. I didn't do whatever this guy did. He's the

guilty one. You need to know that I'm the innocent one. And I realize, man, as often as we're on falsely accused of something or when any of us are falsely accused of something, that's, that's the guilty. the voice that says, I need you to know, I'm not guilty of this. I'm innocent, but the clear truth is this. The clear truth is even worse. The clear truth is, I'm not guilty of what you might think. But that doesn't mean that I'm not guilty. That Simon of Syrene, here in the movie at least, saying, you all need to know that I'm an innocent man being forced to carry the cross of a condemned man. That is, the irony is intentional. Because just because I'm not guilty, of this doesn't mean I'm not guilty.

And that's that sense of, any of us, any of us could have a reputation destroyed by a false accusation, right, or a false claim that you did X, Y, or Z. You say, yeah, what you think about my heart or about my past is not true. But then to really take that moment and stop and say, wait, but if you knew my actual past, if you knew my actual heart, it might not be any better. See, here at Newman, I know thank you for being part of the virtual front pubit,

but here on campus at UMD, we have this kind of these three words that we repeat again and again. They're on our shirts, they're on stickers. And the three words are seen, known, loved because students come to campus and there's thousands and thousands of people and it's really, really easy to feel unseen. It's really, really easy to be unknown. It's really easy to be far from the people who actually love you. And so we want it as a community, we want to become. We're not always perfect at this.

you want to become the kind of community that actually sees and knows and loves because that's the longing. That's the longing of the human heart. But even that, if we think about it, it's true I want to be seeing and I want to be known. But the things that I want you to see and the things I want you to know are only the things I'm proud of. I actually don't want you to see the stuff I'm ashamed of. I actually don't want you to know what I'm ashamed of. I think that's all of us, right? but the question is like why? Why do we have such a fear of acknowledging, yeah, I'm guilty,

right? Again, I might not be guilty of what you think I'm guilty of, but I am guilty. Why is there such a fear in our hearts? Why is there such a fear in our culture being guilty? I think there's at least three contributing factors in our culture when it comes to this. I think the first thing is that in our culture, there's no objective standard, right? There's no actual clear like this is right, this is wrong always because it's constantly changing. Our culture is very relativistic, right? So there's no clear objective standard. It's kind of like whatever the fad is right now, whatever trending. And basically careful because your tweets might age badly. That kind of idea

that at any moment, the tides can change and you thought you were doing well? False. You were wrong. And there's this relativism that kind of just seeps into everything. And so who knows? Maybe you think you're doing fine one day, but the next day you're being accused of what yesterday people thought was fine. So there's relativism. The second thing is that the maximum emphasis on perception we have, right? So no one really knows someone through the internet. No one really can know someone through social media or even through the media. We just think we know someone. We just perceive things about people.

I mean, think about the last time you had someone that you actually knew. You truly, you know, you lived in their life, you're part of their life. You love them. You know them. And there was some kind of thing that someone got wrong about them or they didn't go to the whole story. The willingness you had to be able to say, wait, let's slow down quick. Before I jump to conclusions, let me get this straight. It's not just perception.

It's like, actually, I know the depth of this person's heart. So I'm not just going to allow my perception to be completely altered by this accusation because I know this person. And so, again, why are we so afraid of guilt in our culture? I think, one, it's no objective standard in our culture of relativism. Secondly, it's all perception. And because of that, there's no room for grace. That's the third thing.

There's no room for mercy. There's no room for forgiveness. There's basically, we live in a culture where there's only conditional love. That's it. That you have to earn love everywhere you go. I have to earn love everywhere I go. So in a culture where there's no real right or wrong, no objective standard, where there's all perception and not the depth of our person's heart in the complexity of being a human

being in this world. And there's no grace offered. Like you fail, you're out, you're disqualified, you're canceled. In that kind of world, you have to defend yourself. in that kind of world, we have to explain ourselves. In that kind of world, you have to justify ourselves. In that kind of world, we have to deny any kind of sense of guilt. I'm not guilty.

And I have to be afraid of being guilty. Until we realize who is on the cross next to us. That's the thing is we, our lives can be dominated by this defensiveness, by this desire to justify, by this self-righteousness, by this fear of guilt. Until we realize who is on the cross next to us, that Jesus is there on the cross. and he actually is the innocent one. That he does see, not just the great part. He sees all of us.

That he does know, not just our wins, he even knows our wounds. That here's our God on the cross next to us, and he knows all of it. He sees all of it, and he still loves us. In fact, this is the core of the gospel, St. Paul running to the Romans, chapter 5. Does God proves his love for us

in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us? The innocent died for the guilty. And this is the world-altering good news. You and I are guilty. That's it. Maybe not of what other people think, but you and I are guilty. And the consequence of our sin is death. This is something that we don't often hear.

We're not often reminded of this, but the consequence of the sins that you and I do, not just like the consequence of the sins that like serial killers do or the consequence of sins that Hitler did, but the consequence of your sins is death. The consequence of my sins. is death. Isaiah wrote about this, 600 years before Jesus.

Isaiah wrote in chapter 53, he said, We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way. And the Lord has laid upon him the guilt of all of us. The Lord has laid upon him, who is ultimately Jesus, the guilt of all of us. And if I deny that I'm guilty,

that I'm denying the fact that I have a Savior, and as long as I'm trying to justify myself or explain myself or defend myself, I'm keeping Jesus at an arm's length. I think it's only when we stop trying to justify ourselves, when we stop trying to defend ourselves, stop trying to hold on to self-righteousness and just simply acknowledge the fact that I'm guilty, can this whole thing we're doing make a difference in our lives?

When we think about this is what happens in Luke's gospel, right? Luke's gospel during the passion. On the cross, what happens? There's two thieves on either side of Jesus, right? Two criminals on either side of Jesus. And the one's reviling him. The other one says this. He says these words that are so powerful. He basically says, he says, have no fear of God. For you're subject to the same punishment. And indeed, we have been condemned justly for the sentence we have received corresponds to our crimes. But this one has done nothing wrong. Now, what a profound statement this is. This man. And we call him the good thief, but he was not a good guy. This is so important for us to understand. We've been mentioned

this before. The good thief is not a good person. Why? Because he's experiencing the worst form of capital punishment. He's experiencing the worst form of torture and death. And he's basically acknowledging, yeah, I deserve this. You know, this is the secret of every one of the saints. And this is the thing that we in our modern culture have lost. Every one of the saints, when they're going through something difficult, they were ultimately saying, I might not have deserved this. This might be unjust. Like, this might actually not be fair. But they would then say, but I deserve far worse. Every one of the saints, no matter how bad their life was, say, yep, yeah, this isn't fair.

This isn't just, but I deserve worse than this. The consequence of my sin is death. The consequence of this good thief's life, his choices, was crucifixion. And when he told that truth, the truth, that, like, actually, I'm guilty. And then the next line is, then he turns to Jesus. And this is the most important thing. Not just I acknowledge my guilt. Not just I'm not going to try to defend myself or explain myself or justify myself.

But yes, I'm guilty. What I'm receiving, what I'm getting right now, it's the least that I deserve. Then he turns to Jesus. And he says, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. This is the truth is as long as I keep defending myself or trying to justify myself, the cross of Jesus, the sacrifice of Jesus, the love of Jesus will make no difference in my life. Because it has nothing to do with me. The love of Jesus, the sacrifice of Jesus, the cross of Jesus, that's for sinners, that's for those who are guilty.

But if I am willing and have the courage to admit that I am guilty, that I actually need the cross, that I need this sacrifice, that I need this love, then my life, then your life, then our lives will never be the same. This is Good Friday for a reason. It is Good Friday, not because the thing that happened on this day was good, but because this day changed the hope of sinners. Just like Isaiah said, we had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way. But on this day, the Lord laid upon Him the guilt of all of us.

So what do I need to do? I need to stop defending myself. I need to stop trying to justify myself. I need to stop pretending that I'm not guilty so that the love of Jesus Christ actually has a place in my life. When Good Friday was declared, when Good Friday was proclaimed when it was preached to the world, a world that had walked in darkness

and it was wondering, is there any hope for someone like me was given the definitive answer. The answer is absolutely yes. That I'm not loved just because of my wins. I'm loved in my wounds. That I'm not wanted just because I've succeeded. I'm actually even wanted when I've failed.

That I'm not part of this family or this group of people because I'm innocent. I've been brought into this family because I am guilty. And I am love. And that's the good news of Good Friday. I am guilty and I am loved.