Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 7/16/23 Parabellum: Five Attacks

Episode Date: July 15, 2023

Homily from the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time We may want to run, but things get in the way. God provides the grace that we need to be able to grow as fully and freely as possible. But life is full of obstacles that make this growth a challenge. With God's grace, we can be prepared for these battles.Mass Readings from July 16, 2023:Isaiah 55:10-11Psalm 65:10, 11, 12-13, 14Romans 8:18-23 Matthew 13:1-23

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. He reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Chapter 13 verses 1 through 23. On that day Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down and the whole crowd stood along the shore. And he spoke to them at length in parables saying, A sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path. And birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched and withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it. But some seed fell on rich soil and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. Whoever has ears ought to hear. The disciples approached him and said, Why do you speak to them in parables? He said to them

in reply, because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted. To anyone who has, more will be given. and he will grow rich. From anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables because they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.

Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them which says, You shall indeed hear but not understand. You shall indeed look but never see. Gross is the heart of this people. They will hardly hear with their ears. They have closed their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears

and understand with their hearts and be converted, and I heal them. But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it. Hear then, the parable of the sower. The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it, and the evil comes and steals it away what was sown in his heart. The seed sewn on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy.

But he has no root and lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away. The seed sewn among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety, and the lure of riches choke the word, and it bears no fruit. But the seed sewn on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or 60 or 30-fold. The gospel of the Lord. One thing that some of my friends know about me is that I do not like board games.

In fact, I don't know if I say hate board games. There's a lot of reasons I don't like board games. One is because a lot of board games are games of chance, and I don't like games on chance. That's just kind of a thing where it's out of your control. The other reason I don't like board games. They're games that you play where people try to get in your way. So, like, I know that some of our... Some people really like the game Monopoly Deal.

And the whole point about Monopoly Deal is not just getting money for yourself, is keep taking money from other people. Like, why? Why would you do this? Settlers of Catan? There was a game called Ticket to Ride a couple years ago. It was Easter. And so I got to Nseng Mass and went to my family's place. And my brother-in-law, he's like, hey, want to play ticket to ride?

I'm like, yeah, why not? I've got nothing else to do all just hang out with my family, play this game. And so you're like, on this board. you're establishing railroads across the country. And I'm like, here I am building my railroad. And all of a sudden, one of my siblings, like, starts, they cut me off. And they cut off what I was building. And I thought, wait, what's going on here?

And they're like, yeah, this is the game. You build your railroad and you try to stop other people from building their railroads. And I thought, oh, huh, okay. Well, I'm done. And I'm out. I'm not playing anymore. And it wasn't like I was a sore loser. I promise you right now.

I was, I happily just said, are you serious? And I said, yeah, no, no, I'm going to stay here and talk with you. but I'm not going to play this game. And people would say, but, father, that's the game. The game is like you try to build your railroad, and someone's going to try to stop you, and you try to stop them, and that's the fun. And I say, I know, and I don't like it.

So I'm not going to play. I don't like those games. That's one of the reasons why when I did competitions, I swam and I ran, and basically, when you're swimming and running, you stay in your lane. If you don't, you're disqualified. Just basically, I like the idea of you get in your lane, someone else gets in their lane,

and you see who can go fastest, in this thing. And you don't try to stop the other person, and they don't try to stop you. You just say, are they faster? Are you faster? And that's what I like. I just like that a lot. Get on the path, start going. I do not like the idea that someone is trying to stop me. And yet, that's kind of life. I mean, in fact, and that's the Christian life. That the Christian life is, you have a goal. Here's Jesus. He invites us to this destination. The goal of the Christian life is to live this new life in Christ. The destination is God wants to live with us forever, and he gives us his mercy,

gives us his grace, he gives us, pours out his abundance. And yet, it's not a straight path, and there are obstacles. In fact, Jesus talks about today that there are going to be obstacles. There's going to be opposite. If you set out to say yes to me, there are going to be oppositions, there are going to be obstacles. And again, I don't like that. It's not my preference, and yet I don't have a choice.

Because they're there. And they're coming. You know, for the next three weeks, Jesus is going to talk in parables. So we don't normally do this. We're going to have a summer series. And the summer series is, it's called parablem. Not just because we're parables. The word parable, it means to come alongside, right?

So Jesus, it's coming alongside our experience of life. And he's like, he's showing us through these stories. Okay, here's a new take on life. Here's a new vision for life. Because that's what a parable is. Parablem actually comes from a Latin phrase. That Latin phrase is, Cvizpachim, parableum. And Cvizpichum means, if you want peace,

Peribellum means prepare for war. So Parabellum is the series in this notion of, okay, I've been, I want the goal. I want this new life in Christ. And yet, see v. Pachim, if I want peace, if I want this goal, Parabellum, I have to prepare for obstacles. I have to prepare for battle. I have to prepare for war. And so here's Jesus in the gospel. And he tells us, and this is so powerful, this first gospel in this series, Parabellum, where Jesus tells us, here's what is. God so, the seed. And I love how Jesus describes the way God shows the seed, because God is so generous. God is so abundant. Like the seed is what is, the seed is his word, right? The seed is grace. The seed is life in Christ. The seed is, this is great news. Because here's the sower,

and he's indiscriminately throwing grace. He's indiscriminately throwing the word everywhere, more than is necessary. In fact, even more than we could handle, more than you'd want. This is so good. Here Jesus describes. Here is what is. is. It reminds us that God doesn't just want us all. He wants to help us all. And this is the invitation for all of us is the beginning to the life of grace where God says, okay, here's my plan for you. I want you to be mine. That here, if you're listening to this, God says, I want you to be mine. I want you to be my disciple. I want to, I don't just want you to live a new life. I want to help you live a new life. This is what is.

But then Jesus makes it clear, in this life of discipleship, in this new life, in this life of grace, here is what is coming. And then he names five obstacles, right? He names five kinds of opposition. And these five kinds of opposition, they're going to do three things. They're going to steal, they're going to wither, and they're going to choke. These are what these five things do, these five obstacles, these five sources of opposition. They're going to steal and wither and choke.

They're going to try to steal the life of the disciples. They're going to try to choke out the joy that you experience in following Jesus. And again, if you're like me, he would say, well, I don't like those kinds of games. I just want to run my race. Just let me choose Jesus and pursue Jesus. And I get it. But Jesus is revealing to us that that is not an option. And he's warning us.

We have to. If you want this goal, parablem, prepare for work. Here's the five sources of opposition. Here's the five obstacles. There is, he says, the evil one. There is persecution. there's tribulation, there's worldly anxiety, and there's the lure of riches. Two of those are external, right?

The evil one in persecution. Three of them are internal. Tribulation and worldly anxiety and the lure of riches. But all of them have the capacity to steal, to wither, and to choke out the joy that God wants for us. And so here we have to start this and say, you decide to play the game. We decide to live this life. This is going to happen. So we have to parabella.

We have to prepare for war. The first one is pretty obvious. Jesus talks about the evil one. We'll talk about him a little bit more next week as well. But here's Satan who's real. And I think we all know this, right? If you're a person of faith, you know that Satan is real. And Jesus describes what Satan does. In John chapter 10, Jesus says that Satan comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. This is what he does. He just steals. He's a thief. Here's God who's abundant, right? God in abundant grace pouring this. His grace pouring his word out everywhere, his love everywhere. Satan steals. And Satan steals. I think at least

two ways. He steals one way for those who are just initial believers, and he steals another way for those who are maybe more mature believers, for those who are not yet believers who are just starting out. Satan steals by turning us into skeptics. Like there's this way in which here's God, he just pours out, like, here's my plan for your life, here's my grace for your life, here's my love for your life. And Satan steals that joy, steals that faith, steals that hope by causing us to put our guard up, by making our hearts the kind of hearts that like I don't want to be taken I don't want to look like I don't want to look foolish but by creating a heart that hesitates to trust and this of course this is how he always works I mean go back to the beginning of the Bible the whole story here's Genesis 1 and 2 what happens here's God who's so good he makes the entire universe and he makes this Garden of Eden right this has abundance and he puts Adam and Eve there and he's given them not only more than they ever need he's given them more than they could possibly ever want And in Genesis 3, what happens? The evil one, he comes into the garden.

And he doesn't say God doesn't exist. He doesn't say, do you really believe that God is real? He simply turns him into skeptics. He doesn't turn them into atheists. He turns them into skeptics by asking the question, did God really say that you couldn't eat of any of the fruit of the trees in the garden? No, no, we can eat of any of the trees except for that tree in the middle of the garden. If we eat it, we'll die.

And Satan, what's he do? He says, no, you're not going to die. God knows full well that the moment you eat of it, you'll become like him. And here's the secret. God doesn't want you to become like him. And so he didn't turn them into atheists, he turned them into skeptics. And I think about how often that can be us, that God has to prove himself to me again and again. In fact, there can be times where I say, look, I'll believe this.

I'll believe this if you can prove it. Absolutely. Just like, here's the teaching. Okay. Yeah, I'll say yes to it. If you can demonstrate to me that it's true. And so what that basically means is if you can, I now agree with this statement. I now agree with this claim.

But we have to understand that to agree with a claim is not the same thing as faith. To agree with an article of faith, it's not the same thing as to have faith. It just means that I agree because you've convinced my intellect. And that's good, right? It's good to have an intellectual assent. But faith is more than this. If all I have is agreement, then the next time I have a question, I'm like, okay, I don't believe until you convince me. okay now you've convinced me so I agree

but the next time I have a question I won't believe until you convince me now faith is completely different faith is okay at some point I say I don't just intellectually agree I trust and that trust is doesn't just live in my head

that trust actually affects my life how I'm going to live and of course in the midst of faith we can still ask questions in the midst of faith we're supposed to ask questions In fact, theology was famously defined as faith seeking understanding. So we need to ask questions. But the skeptic, the thief, the evil one,

he demands that something be proven before we were willing to accept it. See, the evil one, he's trying to steal your joy by turning you into a skeptic. Or, you know, so we need to prepare for war. We need to parablea. But maybe you're someone who has faith. Maybe that's how Satan does it with those who are just

coming into the faith. What if you have, you're someone like, I've been pursuing the Lord for a while, how could Satan possibly steal my joy? How could he possibly steal my faith? How could he steal my hope in the Lord? Here is the one way. This is the crazy thing. For those of you, those of us who have faith, for those of us who know, I know God exists, I know that Jesus is God. I know that that Jesus established the Catholic Church. I know that Jesus has given us confession so that when we're wounded, when we fall away, then when we run away from the Lord, he's given us a way back. if you know that, if you have that kind of faith and that hope and that love, the only way, I've said this before, I'm going to say it again because this is something we need to

prepare for. We need to parablem or any need to prepare for war. If you know this, if you have this kind of faith, the only way the evil one could ever possibly steal your faith and your hope and your love is if he gets you to the point where you were so discouraged by your weakness. You're so discouraged by your sin. You're so discouraged by failing. that you just give up trying. But make no mistake, that is one of the ways that Satan steals. It's one of the ways that he can even steal the faith, the hope,

and the love of someone who knows who Jesus is. So prepare for war. Prepare for that battle of discouragement and hold on to the hope that Jesus gives us. That's just the first opposition. There's the second one is obviously the other external battle, the other external source of opposition is persecution. We have to be prepared for this. the evil one, that's one thing.

But oftentimes persecution is just other people or other systems. And this has been, this is our story over the last 2,000 years. This is the story of Christians for the last 2,000 years, to varying degrees. But we have to understand that. Martyrdom is not persecution. Actual Christian persecution is not a thing of the past. In fact, you may have heard this before, but the 20th century. More Christians were martyred in the 20th century than in the previous 19th centuries all combined.

And again, this is not just relegated to the 20th century. In the 20 plus years since the year 2000, it's estimated that 100,000 Christians are killed each year. In this century, in these last two decades, an average of 100,000 Christians killed each year, this is not something that's in the past, this is something that's right now. Of course, right now, I think a lot of us say if we're living in the West, if you look at the two futuristic dystopia novels, 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. 1984 was basically a, they're both tyrannical dystopias, right?

But one in 1984 is violently enforced by Big Brother. They had the thought police and all these kinds. Aldous Huxley wrote about a different kind of futuristic dystopia. It was more like a soft totalitarianism. In Bravenny World, I love Braving World. I wrote my senior dissertation on Brave and New World because I just thought it was so compelling where basically people, they weren't violently kept enslaved. They were simply endlessly distracted

and lulled to sleep by entertainment and comforts and politics and a dozen other ways that we just self-induce a moral coma. And, of course, at the same time, we do have this growing movement in our society, many societies, where there is kind of a quote-unquote thought police that wants to ban some speech and enforce other kinds of speech. You have to say these words. You can't say those other words. And this is just, I mean, and this has come, and I don't know, I've noticed this happening in some of the most otherwise tolerant countries that I've ever even sent.

And this is one of those situations. You might disagree with me on this one. And you're free to disagree with me on this one. But something I noticed in the last three years, I just, two of the, I think what I would say is like kind of the coolest countries other than the United States, like in the sense that they're really chill, really tolerant, really open, really kind of like, hey, man, do whatever. Canada, you know, our neighbors of the Great White North and Australia, like super, they strike me. as being countries that are very relaxed and very, again, tolerant and very open and very kind of like, hey, live your life.

In the last three years, I don't know if you've noticed this, but it seemed like there were more draconian policies that came out of those two countries that never expected. And you think like, what is that? So someone could say, well, it's the name of public health, we have to enforce these speech laws, and we have to enforce these laws governing where you can go where you can't go.

And maybe that's the case. But the reality, of course, is that there is a decision we're going to have to make. And you can disagree with me on this. And that's complete, and that's the great thing about this, is that you actually get to disagree. Maybe I'm completely wrong. And maybe that my assessment on the last three years is in some ways just like maybe it's short-sighted. Maybe it's limited.

Maybe it's incorrect. But I believe, and I think we would all agree that Alexander Solzhenitsyn was not wrong. When I was in seminary, I came and encountered Alexander Solzhenitsyn through the writings of Dr. Peter Kreift, and he first pointed me to Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Harvard commencement speech. And I think it was the end of 1960, maybe 1968, maybe 78, something in there. In Solzhenitsyn, he's invited to speak to Harvard after having lived through Soviet communism and spent a ton of time in the gulags. He even, in fact, wrote that book, the gulag archipelago. And he spoke to these Harvard graduates. He had said that, you know, if the West dies,

it won't be because of an external attack. It won't be because of an external army overrunning the West. He said ultimately, that could happen. But ultimately, what will kill the West is not an army stronger than it. Will it kill the West is that the West has lost its courage. And so after I got ordained, someone gave me this book called the Solzhenitin reader because I was a big fan of those Solzhenitsyn. And in the Solzhenitin reader, he has a four-page essay

that he wrote in 1974 when he was arrested and then he was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974, February in 1974 and he wrote this four-page essay called Live Not by Lies. And I recommend everyone reads this. It's only four pages. You can be back to you over to YouTube and just listen to it narrated to you.

But to live not by lies, what he was describing is describing here's what life was like under this Soviet Depression. Here's what life was like when no one stood up because if you stood up, then your house could be taken. Your children couldn't go to school. You couldn't get to the university. You might lose your job.

And he said essentially that you might not be called upon. In fact, let me just read a little section. Essentially saying like, you and I might not be called upon to be like that young man in Tiananmen Square who stood in the face of the tank and let that tank run him down in the midst of millions of people looking on. You might not be the person who's called to stand up and say everything that you think. but he says this, he says, ha, we are not called upon to step out onto the square

and shout out the truth, to say out loud what we think. This is scary and we are not ready. Right? In the West, we lack courage. This is scary and we're not ready. But let us at least refuse, refuse to say what we do not think. We might not be ready to stand up and say what I actually think. But at least let us refuse to say what we do not think. And this is just the recognition that this is part of our story, this is part of our history of Christians,

who, yes, many of them did stand up and say what they thought in so many in a courageous way, simply refused to say what they did not think, what they knew was not true, what they knew was a lie. And the question is, are we able to do that? Are we willing to do that? Because Jesus said, this is one of the five oppositions, persecution. So parablem, be ready for war. No, those are the external oppositions, the evil one, and present. They come and go. They're not always in our lives, but the other three are always there.

And it will go through them relatively quickly. The first of the third is tribulation. And now, tribulation, I would say, tribulation could be external, but I think tribulation is internal. Tribulation simply means testing or trial, basically the opposition that comes from within. And this happens every time that my vision for my life comes into conflict with God's vision for my life. Every time there's a tribulation, right?

Think about this. Jesus describes this as a rocky soil. What happens in rocky soil? they hear the word, they receive grace, and they receive it at once with joy. There's that sense of like, oh my gosh, who would not be excited? Who would not experience joy at the God's promise of forgiveness, is promise of new life, its promise of relationship with him? Incredible.

But then we realize that now God has a claim on my life. And I realized because God has a claim on my life, I can't just do everything that I want. So tribulation, this third opposition, this means I have a choice. I can either accept and embrace God's life. law as well as His grace. If I want to embrace His grace, I need to embrace His law as well. I can either accept and embrace God's law, or I can choose to live as if God has no say over how I live my life. That's the choice. That's the tribulation. And in our culture, there's so many moments where you and I have this choice.

We'll have to say it. In our culture, most often, this tribulation comes to us in the area of sexual ethics. I mean, doesn't it? I mean, it's. I mean, just kind of obvious. So many people who are, when it comes to that big question of like, do I live how I want to live or do I live how God is calling me to live? We say, ah, I'll just live my life in this. Why God doesn't have any saying this. God stays out of my bedroom, essentially. And yet what is the consistent teaching of Christ and his church? It's essentially it's super simple, that every exercise of the sexual powers must be oriented towards an open to life. That's it. That every exercise of the sexual powers must be oriented towards an open to life.

and so something like masturbation. Okay, no, it's a sin. Something like homosexual acts. Okay, that's a sin. Contraception. That's a sin. And yet, how many, how many Christians, how many Catholics love God and love Jesus and his grace, but then pull the chute and bail over this teaching of Christ and his church?

This is exactly what Jesus is talking about when he says that those people, there are among us. and we receive God's grace with joy. But the moment he makes a demand on us, I start changing my song. My song becomes, God, yeah, thy will be done. And all of a sudden, it's no, no, no, not anymore. From now on it's my will be done. Not thy will be done.

That tribulation will come. If not in that area and any number of areas. Therefore, what? Parabellum. Prepare for that battle. Prepare for that internal war. There's also, obviously, there's two last oppositions. And there's worldly anxiety and the lure of virtue.

The interesting thing, these last two oppositions, what does Jesus say they do? It says they choke out our relationship with God. They choke out our faith. How do they do this? Basically, from the simple fact, there's just not enough room. There's not enough room in my life, in my heart, in my day for Jesus to be the center and then for me to spend so much time and energy on anxiety and the pursuit of wealth. No, last week, we already talked about this.

Last week we talked about that busyness, right? the number one enemy to the spiritual life is simply nothing other than busyness. So we've already covered this. When I come to money, I'll just say one thing. Money's not bad. It's just dangerous. Why is it dangerous? Is it dangerous because money is the most clear replacement for God in our life?

What does God want to do for us? God wants to tell us who we are and he wants to be our rock and foundation. And yet I've heard it said so many times that Most people, they look to money for one of two things. Either we look to money for our status. Like, this gives me my identity. Like, if I have this amount of money, then I have status. That's who I am.

Or we look to money for security. These are the two sources. These are the two things that money does for us. Either gives us status or gives us security. Either tells us who we are or gives us a sense that I'm taking care of. And God wants to tell us who we are. And God wants to be the one that we rely upon. And so parablem, we have to prepare for this.

This is the last thing. So how do we do this? Again, we're talking about this for the next two weeks after this, but how do we do this? How do we prepare? I think one thing, this is the last thing. The one thing we do is we realize that all of these five oppositions have one thing in common.

They keep us from winning the game, they keep us from winning the battle by keeping us from playing the game. What I mean by that is Jesus starts at this whole thing, this whole teaching, by saying that there's people out there who will hear these words, but they won't listen. They'll see what I'm doing here, but they won't understand. Basically, Jesus is saying that when you encounter me, you have to change. The thing these five oppositions do, these five oppositions harden our heart to the point where I say,

I don't want to change. The enemy steals my joy. The enemy makes you into a skeptic. me makes you into a skeptic, I don't want to change. The enemy gets me discouraged, I can't change. Persecution, I don't want to change. I don't want to stand up and change. I'll just go along and get along.

Tribulation. Is my will versus God's will? I'd rather change my will. Choose my will. I'm not going to change. Here's worldly anxiety. I'm going to cling to that. Here's the lure of riches.

I'm going to hold on to this. I'm unwilling to change. That's why Jesus has these huge words for those people. He says, again, they will look but not see. They will hear but not understand. And they do this on purpose. they actually shut their eyes and plug their ears, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears,

and let their hearts be changed and they be converted. So what do we need to do? To face these five oppositions, to parablem, to prepare for war, we have to be willing to change. And in Christian circles, what's change? We call it repenting. I have to say, okay, God, what is there in my life that ought not to be in my life? God, where are you calling me to move or I haven't moved yet?

God, who are you calling me to let you have access to that I have not yet let you have access to? This is what it is to prepare for battle. It's not to say, okay, I'm going to be really strong right now, okay, I'm going to be really good right now, it's just that sense of God, where do you want me to say yes to you or I have not said yes?

That's all. Because when we say yes to change, when we say yes to God's grace, the thief, he has no foothold. When we say yes to God's grace, that persecution, we have his courage. When we say yes to God's grace, tribulation, I'm saying yes to God's grace and to his call, into his command, and to his law. When he says to God's grace, it drives out the anxiety and it drives out this replacement

for our identity or our security. When we repent, we simply say yes to God in such a way that we give him permission to change us. It eliminates a hardness of heart and gives us the chance to maybe actually win the game, to prepare for war and maybe actually win the battle.