Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 9/3/23 Deny Yourself

Episode Date: September 2, 2023

Homily from the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time "No" paves the way for "yes". Jesus gives us the conditions for discipleship. We must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. But what does it really mean to deny ourself? And how can this giant "no" pave the way for an even greater "yes"?Mass Readings from September 3, 2023:Jeremiah 20:7-9Psalm 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9Romans 12:1-2 Matthew 16:21-27

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. The Lord be with you.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Chapter 16 verses 21 through 27. Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him. God forbid Lord, no such thing shall ever happen to you. He turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are an obstacle to me.

you are thinking not as God does but as human beings do. Then Jesus said to his disciples, whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?

Or what can one give an exchange for his life? For the son of man will come with his age. angels in his father's glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct. The gospel of the Lord. Wait, you'd have a seat. So I mentioned that last weekend, it was kind of, it's the season of questions, right? So you get to know people and you have to ask all the questions because students are back and it's awesome. But it's also the season, how I say this, it's a season of where you're invited to do a bunch of stuff. Like so last Thursday, we had the Student Activities Fair, and so if you know what that is, is basically every student organization,

club on campus puts out a booth and it's really weird because I don't know if this is only a Midwest thing but like where I'm like standing behind the booth or we're standing behind the booth like no one makes eye contact that's kind of like against the rules because they're just like they keep their eyes low you you just want to as you're walking past because if you make eye contact then people are like hi can I help you interest you in my thing and you're like I don't want to talk but we're Minnesota and we don't want to tell anyone that we just kind of just avoid eye contact that's what we do and so it's it's this it's this massive day where you just get invited to do whatever you want.

In fact, I remember there was a couple years ago, we had a student, she said, after the student activities fair, she had signed up for 88 different student organizations. One is because she wanted to try new things. The other one is she said, ah, because, father, you know me, I can't say no to anyone.

And I'm like, yeah, I get that. I see that. And I feel that too, because that's one of the things, like one of the things I think every one of us struggles with is just simply saying no. And this is just so important. In fact, saying no,

is a necessary thing that we have to learn how to do. In fact, we are not fully ourselves unless we learn how to say no. And I don't know who needs to hear this right now tonight, but I want to let you know that no is a complete sentence. There's someone to ask you to do something. You don't have to give a reason. You don't have to give an excuse. You don't have to tell them why.

You can simply say no. Or if you're Minnesotan, you can say no thank you. But other than that, it's just, it's so important. And if we can't say no, then we can't establish boundaries. In fact, think about this, a kid, a child who's developing, who's growing. What is a toddler's favorite word who just learns how to speak? Favorite word is no. And why?

Because it's remarkable to realize that as soon as they discover that there's a self, that there's a me in this whole thing, the first thing they start doing is setting up boundaries. The moment a person realizes that they are a person, the moment itself realizes that they are a self, the first thing they start doing is saying, I don't want that. And I'm setting up boundaries by saying no. That's why a toddler's favorite word is no, and a parent's least favorite word is no. But it's necessary. In fact, we will never ever be the people that God has called us to be until we learn how to say no.

And even more than that, to say no to a certain someone. We will never be mature human beings, much less mature Christians. until we learn how to say no to ourselves, to look at ourselves and simply say no, because the self has a tendency to be a tyrant and the self will constantly demand that we say yes. But to be fully free, we have to be able to say no. And we have to also, we have to also be able to say no to ourselves. No is powerful. I want to say that.

No is powerful. But here's the question we have to ask. What is no for? Like why? Why is it necessary for us? to learn how to say no. We'll come back to that in a second. But today's gospel, man,

I remember reading this gospel when I was in high school. I imagined this a bunch of times, but in high school I had a conversion to the Lord. I did not like being raised Catholic. I did not like going to church. I didn't like any of it. And at one point, God broke in and changed my whole life.

And remember reading Matthew's Gospel. And there were a couple sections of Matthew's Gospel that just shook me. This was one of those that I loved. I loved the fact that Jesus says so clearly, if you want to be my disciple, if you want to follow me, here are the three conditions.

He doesn't say like, if you want to be my buddy, if want to be my pal. He says, if you want to be a Christian, a person who actually centers their life around me, here's the three things you need to do. You need to deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me. And I remember thinking, thank you, Lord, like clarity. It's just obvious. It's right there in front of me and thinking, that's amazing. And also thinking, how do you do that?

How in the world? Especially, we're going to talk about the first one all day today. How do I do that thing where it says, if you want to be my disciple, if you want to follow me, deny yourself. because I got it wrong. Here's what I thought. I think a lot of times when we hear Jesus say, if you want to follow me, deny yourself, we don't understand what Jesus is really saying.

And we get it wrong in one of two ways. Usually, the first way is we hear Jesus say, if you want to be my disciple, deny yourself, and then we automatically kind of fill in, deny yourself things. So we imagine that Jesus is saying, if you want to be my disciple, you're going to have to say no to the stuff that you want.

And that's not wrong. I mean, obviously, if we want to be a disciple of Jesus, we're going to have to say no. know-it-a-things that God has clearly said are sins. So, yes, we have to do that. Or we know that if we want to grow in virtue, we're going to have to be the kind of people who can say, I don't know, know-it-choclet during Lent.

Or, you know, this is going to be the kind of thing. We have to learn how to say no, obviously. We also know that anything worth doing means you have to say no to things that aren't worth doing. Or any person who'd ever lived a great life is someone who has said no to just the good in order to reach the great. We know that, yes, I have to learn how to say no to stuff. But that's not what Jesus is saying today.

The other thing I think sometimes we fall into is we translate Jesus from saying, deny yourself. And imagine Jesus is saying, ignore yourself. I know people who have actually thought this. They've thought that when Jesus says, you want to be my disciple, deny yourself. What he's saying is, pretend like you don't want what you want, which is not only unwise. That is a recipe for implosion. That is a recipe for absolute disaster.

to not actually attend to what you want, to not pay attention to your desires, that's not Christian. That's crazy. We have to. We have to pay attention to our wants. In fact, I came across this study that happened a couple years ago.

It was with people who were trying to give up smoking. And so they've been taught all these techniques. They've been taught all these kind of ways to kind of minimize their cravings. So if you want to smoke, you know, distract yourself. You really want to reach for that cigarette. Just pretend like you don't. Again, ignore yourself.

Ignore your desires. Ignore your cravings. They did this study where they said, okay, don't do that. What we're going to do is we're going to directly face them. We're going to actually pay attention to what it is your feeling. So they said, okay, here's the experiment. You've got a group of people, all smokers. And they said, okay, we don't want you to smoke like 48 or more hours before this experiment.

So they didn't smoke. They said, when you come into the lab or whoever we're going to do this experiment, bring in your favorite pack of cigarettes and a lighter, whatever you need for smoke. They all show up. So, okay, sit down first. Number one, take out your cigarettes. Look at the pack. Now stop.

And they waited for two minutes. So it okay now. Like, you know, pack the pack. Whatever you do to get ready to smoke. You know, pack the pack and stop. And wait for two minutes. So it okay, now, and now unwrap the pack, like take off the cellophane. Okay, you know, stop for two minutes.

So now open the thing. Okay, stop, two minutes. They kept doing this, like, you know, take out a cigarette. Smell the cigarette. Like hold it in your fingers. Take out your lighter. Look at the lighter. They did this.

And every time they had one of those movements, they said, I go, stop for two minutes. Look them an hour. And no one lit a cigarette. In fact, after an hour, they said, okay, now you can go home. No one got a chance to let a cigarette. But it's remarkable because they said that this one group of people that they had primed ahead of time, the next week, almost 50% of them had reduced their smoking.

And it wasn't because they were distracted. It wasn't because of any. It was because that when they went into this experiment, the experimenter said, okay, they taught them this thing called surfing the urge. And the surfing the urge was this. basically saying, when you have a craving, pay attention to it. When you have a desire, pay attention to it. And let yourself feel the craving. But you know this. You know that the crave is going to come and the crave is going to go. Like a wave. When you're amongst the

wave, do you guys know this? You've ever been in the ocean. You don't fight against the wave. You ride the wave. So they taught these people not to distract themselves from their desires, not to distract themselves from what they wanted, not to pretend they didn't really want it, but to attend to it and then in those two minutes they were write down okay here's the craving here's how i'm surfing the urge i'll let it come and i'm just going to let it pass because of that they grew in freedom not by ignoring themselves but by attending to themselves and so here's again once again when jesus is saying deny yourself he's not saying just deny yourself stuff he's not saying ignore yourself he's saying something deeper and wiser here's the thing when jesus is saying if you want to be my

disciple, you must deny yourself. That actual Greek word for deny is the word disown. Jesus is saying, if you want to be my disciple, you must disown yourself. Another translation I came across was renounce any claim you have on yourself, that this is the first step of the disciple, not to just, okay, I'm going to deny myself stuff or doing certain things, but how I see myself, I've renounced any claim I have on my time, my energy, my talents. I renounce any claim I have on my life. This is what Jesus is saying is the first condition of discipleship. Renounce any claim you have on yourself. And this is the crazy thing. It's not because the self is bad. This is important for us to understand. Jesus is saying, renounce yourself, not because self is bad. In fact, one of the

great revelations that Christianity brought to the world, I don't know if you know this, one of the great Revelation's Christianity brought to the world is the goodness of the self. That every other civilization, every other culture, every other philosophy that would say that, yeah, you might have worth, you might have dignity, but that comes from your family. That worth comes from your clan or your tribe. That worth comes from your race or your nation. Christianity comes on the scene and says, actually, no, no, no, your worth doesn't come from any of those things. The gift of the individual, the reality of the self, the goodness of the self, the worth of the self is because you're made in God's image. So once again, one of Christianity's greatest gifts to the world is the realization of the goodness of the self, that you have value, that you're worth something.

I mean, in fact, look at the great commandment. Love God with everything you've got. The second great commandment is what? Love your neighbor as yourself. If you're going to love your neighbor as yourself, the precondition for loving your neighbor is you have to have already loved yourself. Jesus is saying, he's not saying the self is bad. He's saying the self is so good.

In fact, the self is so good that every one of us is tempted to make an idol out of ourselves. Can I get an amen? I mean, this is what, right? Every one of us is tempted toward the idolization of self. Where it comes to, this is me. I, this is my life. This is my stuff. This is my desires.

This is my happiness. This is my time. Why would you want? And we have a tendency, the temptation, to realize the self is so good that we make an idol out of self. We realize. We said this before. say it again, it is rare that a person makes an idol out of a bad thing. We almost always take a good thing and then treat it like an ultimate thing. That's what it is to make the self the idol.

So we realize this self is not bad. It's just not yours. That if you're a Christian, if you want to follow after Jesus, the self is not bad. It's just his. And therefore, I have to be able to deny myself. I have to be able to renounce any claim I have on myself. Another way to say it is I have to be able to say no. Just like that. I just have to be able to say no. But why?

What is your no for? You know, we only say no to something because we believe that there's something greater. What's your no for? We only say no to something because we believe that there is something greater that we want to say yes to. Now, if you know the story of like of the samurai

or you just know, Everyone knows about samurai, right? We've seen movies. So the samurai came into existence in like the 12th century in Japan. And these were like master martial artists, right? These were master fighters. You're people who are incredibly strong,

incredibly well-trained, incredible swordsmen. They became amazing tacticians. Later on, the samurai, they became administrators and they ran the country in this really, they were really gifted people. And the samurai were not only gifted, but the thing that distinguished the samurai is not only that they were

incredible at hand-hand combat and they're incredible with the bow and arrow and they're credible with the swords, incredible tacticians. But because they placed all of that strength, they placed all of that skill at the service of an individual, they placed their strength at the service of a family. And they were loyal to that person, they were loyal to that family. That's what made them the samurai. After the samurai existed for a while, there were other people who came on and those other people were just as strong. They were just as well-trained. They were just as great fighters. They were great with the bow, great with the swords, great tacticians, but they didn't give their allegiance to anyone.

And those people were called Ronan. So there's this distinction between the samurai, with their great strength and their great power and abilities, placed at the service of someone else and the Ronan, who had the same strength, the same abilities, the same talents. But they hired them out to the highest bidder. Which is another way to say it is they just spent them on themselves. The samurai were recognized as men of honor.

They had nobility. And the Ronan, actually, Ronin is Japanese for Wave Man, meaning that wherever the waves go, they just go. Wherever the wind blows, they just go. Both individuals, the samurai and the Ronan, had incredible strength, incredible gifts, incredible talents. And one spent them on themselves. And the other said,

the best I have, I'm going to spend for someone else. This is what it is to have a great life. Not just to have talents, not just to have strength, not just to have abilities, but to put the best you have, to offer the best you have, for the sake of something greater. When I think about a life lived like that, say, I'm going to give the very best that I have to offer for the sake of something even greater. I'm going to give the best of myself for something that I think is even more important than myself. When I think about this, I think about moms and dads. You know, there's something about moms and dads

who have lived their lives well, have parented really, really well. They are tired. They are different because they've spent the very best they have on their kids. They've placed their youth at the service of raising these new people. They've placed their faith at the service of raising these new people. They placed their lives at the service of raising these young people. And it costs something.

They've taken the best they have and they've used it for the sake of their kids. In fact, I watched this video recently. It came up on my feed a couple weeks ago. And it was the two sisters. I think they're in their teens or maybe college age. They were watching a video of their parents' wedding, and they're both crying. And one sister is filming the other sister as she's crying, and they're not crying because the wedding was so beautiful.

The one sister is saying, look at them. She says, they were so young, and they were so happy, and they were so in love. And then we happened. She said, we ruined them. That's our fault. And part of that is true. Yes, that's what kids do. But what parents do is they say, but I want to give, I want to offer the very best I have to

offer because I believe that it's worth it. I believe there's something greater than just me. You know, every, every year, we get a new group of focus missionaries. So Focus stands for Fellowship of Catholic University students. Some of you know our focused missionaries. And every year I'm just amazed by this. What focus missionaries are, they are young men and women who have just graduated college. And rather than the first thing they do, go out and get a big job, go out and make an impact on the world, what they do is I'm amazed by this because every single year, hundreds, hundreds of college graduates say, okay, I have more strength now than I'll ever have. I have more potential now than I'll ever have. I have more energy now than I'll ever have.

And what I want to do with that strength, what I want to do with that potential, what I want to do with that energy, what I want to do with all that, everything I have to offer is I'm going to place it at the service of the gospel. So every year, he's college graduates. They say, okay, send me wherever. And they get sent to any university, any campus around the country. And what they do for the next at least two years is they say, God, I'm going to offer the very best that I have so that maybe someone will come to know who Jesus is. I'm going to offer the very best that I have to offer

so that maybe by my offering this, my bias saying no to my plans, I'm saying no to my life, saying no to my dreams about a career, I can say yes to you. And I might help someone else say yes, because that's the whole point, right? What is your no for? Why would we announce any claim we have on ourselves? We say no in order to be able to say yes.

In fact, we'd say like this, the no paves the way for the yes. I can't say yes unless I'm willing to say no. So how do we do this? Big question. I mean, you still have decisions to make. You still have to get up tomorrow morning and make this do something. You still have to live life. How do we do this?

In fact, I was racking my brain about this. I was thinking, like, how do you do it? How do you renounce any claim you have on yourself? How do we say no in order to be able to say yes? And I'm so grateful for St. Paul. The second reading today is Romans chapter 12 versus one and two. Now you could go and you could dive into Romans chapter 12 versus one and two for years. But there's something he says that is just remarkable.

St. Paul says this. He says, if you want to know, how do you renounce any claim you have on your life? How do you say no in order to be able to say yes? He says it like this. He says brothers and sisters. In fact, he actually says holy ones. He says saints. Basically, all those who have been baptized, that's y'all.

Who already are consecrated, who already are set apart, you're already made holy. He says, saints, offer your bodies or offer yourselves as a living sacrifice. This is the answer. This is the way we do it. How do I renounce any claim I have by myself? Brothers, sisters, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice. Now, why? Because yourself is good.

Remember, when it's called to offer a sacrifice, you'll only offer what's good. In the Old Testament, whenever you offered God a sacrifice, you won't offer him something blemished, you won't offer him something bad. You'd only give God the very best you have to give. Here St. Paul is saying, the very best you have is yourself. So, offer yourself as a living sacrifice, because it's good. It's in fact, not just good. It's the best you have.

The second thing he says is the living sacrifice. Now, I don't know if you know about this, but if you go back to the old there's no such thing as a living sacrifice. In fact, every sacrifice that is offered to the Lord, it's, it's dead. You know, you have to kill the thing in order to offer the thing. There's no such thing as a living sacrifice. There's only dead sacrifices. But Paul says, no, no, no, you are a living sacrifice. Why? Because he's saying, you have to go on living. I still have to live tomorrow. I still have to make decisions tomorrow. I still have to go about my life. Yes, you're right. Here's how you do it. Go about your life, make decisions,

knowing that every part of your life can be a living sacrifice. Knowing that every decision in your life can be a living sacrifice. Knowing that every moment in your life can be a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice offered to God. Again, we don't offer ourselves because it's bad. It's just because it's not mine. We get to say, God, this is yours. And this is the last thing. It's super simple. So sometimes we hear this and go like, well, how do I do that?

it's really, really simple. It's no more complicated than simply becoming before the Lord and saying, okay, God, this. God, I offer this. It's yours. Whatever that is. Just going to say, God, I offer you this moment. Guy, if you have to go to work tomorrow or Tuesday,

God, I offer you my work. Get in your car and drive there. God, I offer you this drive. Maybe tonight you're going to be going home and be sweating. God, I offer you this perspiration. This is my offering to you. Maybe actually after this mass, maybe we're going to go out. It's so hot.

Maybe we're going to crack some kind of cold beverage of some sort. God, I offer you this. Because we can offer God our rest as well. Remember, if you're a living sacrifice, that means every moment of your life, both the great moments and the difficult moments, both the moments of struggle and the moments of joy. That means every moment can be offered to God

as an act of worship. God, I give you this thought. I give you this struggle. If you have a memory that keeps popping back up and maybe it's a memory of sadness or memory of regret, God, I offer you this memory. It's yours. Your joy, your grief.

God, it gets to be yours. What that does is it takes every moment, takes a whole life, it makes every moment, it makes that whole life a living sacrifice, not dead and done, but alive and ongoing. And it starts with no. This whole thing starts with realizing I am not my own

and I renounce any claim I have on myself and that no paves the way for the yes. So now, tonight, and your entire life, every breath, every heartbeat, every thought, every moment can be offered so that from this moment until your last moment every breath

every heartbeat every thought and every moment can be an act of worship and all those little tiny acts of worship they do something they give the Father glory and they save the world

and it starts with no