The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Go Small and Go Home: How to Love Your Neighbor

Episode Date: October 11, 2019

If we are focusing on the world, who is focusing on our family? We’re often distracted by the big picture of the world, but our attention is most needed at home. Jeff points to Scripture verses from Luke, 1 Timothy, and Matthew to show how we can emulate the good Samaritan and become a blessing to our families and local communities. Snippet from the Show “If you are focusing on the world, who is focusing on your neighbor?” Email us at [e-mail] to get the shownotes!

You're listening to the Jeff Kavens show. Episode 136, Go Small and Go Home. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show. And welcome to the show. Glad you could join me again. to be talking today, once again, about things that are relating to discipleship and walking with God and becoming activated disciples, and really want to get into this with you today. The title kind of gives it away, go small, and go home. I think you know what people

normally say, and we'll get into that a little bit. Kind of a little bit of a sad day for us in Minnesota, because our beloved Minnesota twins were swept by the Yankees in the playoff. The only saving point here is that we tied a record. We tied a record for professional teams who have lost in the postseason consecutive games. And this is 16 now in postseason tying the Chicago Blackhawks in their hockey team. And nothing to brag about, I guess. But anyway, that's life. And there's more to life than sports. guess. For some people, maybe not. But for you and me, yes, yes, there is. Hey, I want to say thanks to David in Melbourne for writing me. Beautiful email. Appreciate that. And Gennaro. And I don't know

if I've got that right. I don't have my Italian right from Naples, Italy. Write me back and tell me if I got that right. But I do appreciate your feedback and how the show is helping to change a few things in your life. Lots of other emails. I do really appreciate it. If you would like to write, you can write me at The Jeffcaven Show at ascensionpress.com. That's The Jeffcaven Show at ascensionpress.com. As you know, on a weekly basis, I'm sitting here, and right now I'm overlooking the lake as it's turning fall in Minnesota. And, you know, thinking about life and thinking about, you know, where people are at and what we face on a daily basis. and culture has a lot to do with how we look at our family and how we look at life and

success, you know, in general, and whether we're really making it in life. And something has happened over the last, I don't know, let's say 15, 20 years or so with the Internet and people's activity on the Internet, particularly social media, which we are all familiar with, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, so forth. it is given everybody a bit of a platform, a large platform in some cases where you can develop an Instagram account. And just like earlier today, or earlier on the show, I should say, people are writing from Italy, they're writing from Australia, from Africa, India. And you realize that with this quote-unquote platform, social media, you can do some good things and you can

communicate with members in the body in the body of Christ. And that's good. But one of the things that we get into and a problem we can slip into, particularly I think entrepreneurs, maybe young Catholic entrepreneurs, is that we use these tools and all of a sudden without thinking, we we sort of think that this is our mission, you know, is to reach the whole world for the Lord and to go out into the highways and the byways everywhere ourselves and do this. And to some degree, yes, we are called to world missions and we're called to have an impact on the world. But I'm finding that in so many cases that while we are busy on the Internet and busy on committees and doing things all over the world, what's right in front of us oftentimes is neglected. And that starts

with our family. It starts with our own parish, our neighborhood, the local people. You know what I'm talking about. The local people in our lives coming all the way back to the epicenter, which is our own family. If you're married and you have children, you know what I'm talking about. That's what's really important. But what I find very interesting is that our culture has not defined life that wait. In fact, they have developed this phrase, which you know, you know the show today's called Go Small and Go Home, and that's based on the popular phrase, go big or go home. Go big or go home. Isn't that interesting? I find that so interesting. Think about that for a moment. Go big or go home. And so it's setting up this life situation where if you're not going to do

something big. If you're not going to do something that is, you know, risky, if you're not going to do something impactful or lucrative, a paradigm shifting move, a newsmaker, or something that makes you an influencer, then you should just go home. So the opposite of this big influence and big splash at work and on social media and ministry is go home. Go home. Go home. Go home because you're just not going to do it. And the question I have for you is, have you bought into that? Have we all bought into that? That it's go bigger, go home. It's either make it or go back home and, you know, tend to your garden, or as they used to say, tend to your knitting. Well, with social media, there is now a natural tendency, I think, to think that we have to

go to the whole world with our lives, our knowledge, and our experience and so forth. and that is just playing the goal for all of us to just get everything out there. And I'm not sure about that. And the reason I say that is that it was just the other day, my wife and I were having tea in the morning. We were talking and reading the scripture, gospel reading for the day. And she was kind of looking out into space across the lake. And she said, you know, I don't know if all of us are called to go way out there and do all of this.

and that got me thinking. I thought, well, you know, you're right. I mean, some of us have just really bought into that, that that's what we have to do. And if we don't do it, we're not successful. I hear that sometimes, you know, when you go out and speak and someone will say, well, I don't do what you do, or I'm not having the impact that you're having. And that's their impression of an impact that I may be having because I got books and studies and so forth. And we can't measure impact by social media. and you can't measure impact by books sold or miles traveled or churches spoken in. You simply can't measure impact that way. Knowing that people can see your content on the web gives really the false impression

that the world is your oyster, the world is your audience. And there's a tendency, particularly, I think, with young entrepreneurs, that they have to build a platform and a market themselves, you know, it's like a circus, and writers and speakers are simply international in scope. But yet, what about what's right in front of us? What about going small and going home? You know, there's a saying in Bible studies, some of the Bible scholars will talk about called the David effect. And the David effect is that, yes, King David, King David was the king of Israel, right? But what we see when it comes to raising his sons, as the same was true as Samuel, the prophet, is that they really were

pretty much failures as fathers. In other words, they governed the country, but their whole family kind of fell apart because they didn't tend to the small things and home. They didn't go small and go home, and a lot of men particularly would like to go to go big in their work and their influence, right? It doesn't, listen to this. It doesn't sound as cool to say on my business card, Jeff Kavens, teacher, speaker, and evangelist to Maple Grove, Minnesota. People are like, what? Or to say, Jeff Kavens, teacher, speaker, evangelists to my neighborhood. They're like, what?

That's not impressive. It's got to be international speaker, international, top this, top that. Sometimes that gags me, you know? because I think, this is not what it's about. And sometimes people will send me an email and say, well, how do I do what you're doing? And I say, well, you don't want to do what I'm doing. You want to do what you're supposed to be doing. And we've got to start with family, and we've got to start with what's right in front of us.

Go small and go home and allow the Lord to organically grow something. If it's his will and that what we're producing needs to be known, that's fine. But I love what Mother Teresa, I'll give you an example, why I think this is so important. Mother Teresa never had this attitude of go big or go home. She never had that attitude. St. Therese of Le Zoo, she never had that attitude. In fact, both of them really had the attitude of go small and go home, and I'll just add one thing on, and that's love deeply.

Small things with great love. That's what Mother Teresa often said. to do small things with great love. And it was Mother Teresa that changed the world by doing what? By really working within about a four-mile radius of her convent. She did small things right in front of her. And that's what made her a saint. And St. Therese of Leszou believed that it was her little actions that God's love worked through. No matter how small they were, God would work through them. And the love in which she worked is what God was attention to. This perspective that St. Teresa of Lizzou had became known as the little way,

the little way. And you know what? She became a doctor of the church. That means that she is taken very seriously in what she teaches, and she was always constantly talking about go small and go home. Have you ever read the story of a soul? Oh, wow, get it. It's really her life, her thoughts, the story of a soul. And really, folks, focuses on the small things done in love, go home and go small, as I would say. I'll give you a couple quotes, a few quotes from St. Teresa of Leszou. She says, Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice. Here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word, always doing the smallest right in doing it all for love. Isn't that a beautiful,

beautiful outlook for life. She said also in another place, Our Lord does not so much look at the greatness of our actions or even at their difficulty as at the love with which we do them. That's what he's looking at. That's what he's looking at. Are you loving deeply? And she said in another place when I love this. Oh, this is a good one. You're going to, don't write this down, by the way, if you're driving. I'm going to send you the show notes. Just send me an email, The Jeff Kavan Show. Press.com in the subject line put, show notes, we'll put you on the list. If you're already on the list, you'll get this. If you want to be on the list, do as I just told you there, we'll put

you on. But listen to this quote. I love it. When one loves, one does not calculate. Isn't that a killer? I mean, in a positive way. That's so good. When one loves, one does not calculate. You see, you and I are not called to calculate in terms of, in influence and bigness and what we're going to do. Sure, there's planning and prudence and so forth, but when love becomes calculated for our own gain, in our own future, in our own name, and reputation, we're not in the game anymore. We are playing a game. I love what she says. When one loves, one does not calculate. So let me ask you this, even in your own family. family and your friends and your parish and the influence that you have in your neighborhood,

do you love based on calculation, what you're going to get out of it, or what this will mean for business, or what this will mean for your children at school, I'll love you because, no, when one loves, one does not calculate. Let me share a story with you from the Bible. And I love this story, and then we'll take a break after that. but it's the story of the Good Samaritan, and it answers a very important question about the scope of our influence and go small and go home. Listen to what it says. This is from Luke 10, and behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, that's Jesus, saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, what is written in the law? How do you read it? And he answered, you shall love the Lord your God with all

your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength and with all of your mind and your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus said to him, you have answered correctly, do this and you will live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Now, I'll pause there for just a moment. That's a good question, isn't it? Who is my neighbor? Here I am in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Who is my neighbor? Is my neighbor just people in some other country? Or is, is my neighbor, truly my neighbor, someone around me, someone I drive by, someone I meet at the store, somebody I visit at the doctor's office, who is my neighbor? Pick up the reading. Jesus replied, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him

and departed, leaving him half dead. Now, by chance, a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. And then he said to him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day, he took out to Denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back. Which of these three do you think prove to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?

And he said, the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. So that's a beautiful parable. We all know it. You know, it's the good Samaritan. The question is, who's my, you know, who's the neighbor? Who's the neighbor? Who's the neighbor? Who is my neighbor? And once we get to the end of the story, Jesus asks the question, you know, which of these three do you think prove to be a neighbor? Which one proved to be a neighbor? Now, you had a priest, you had a Levite, and you had a Samaritan. You would think that the priest, as knowledgeable as they are, would prove to be a neighbor by showing mercy to a man half dead, right? Right in front of them, right there on Oak Street and Fourth.

Right? You would think so. No, it's above him, you know, below him rather. You would expect him to know until he knows, you know, but he can't go over there and touch him. Part of it's due to the cleanliness rules. And then you've got the Levite, same thing, very important person, but he doesn't prove to be a neighbor to the calamity and the hurt and the pain right in front of him and the predicament that his neighbor is in, being beaten and tossed to the side of the road. So which one was it? Well, it ended up becoming the Samaritan. It's the likely one. It's the one that no one expected would prove to be the neighbor. It's the Samaritan that reached out to the problem right in front of him, right in front of him. He didn't say, you know, this isn't my problem. I'm going to go back to the temple. I've got big things to do. I got people to meet. I've got podcasts, and I got a vlog, and I've got all the, no. It was the Samaritan. That's a challenge for me to constant. remind myself that the problems I see right in front of me, I need to be the good Samaritan. Now, when I come back, I'm going to ask you a question. I want you to think about it just for a moment,

but I'm going to ask you a question, and that question is really important. What is worse than an unbeliever? What is worse than an unbeliever? We'll be back in just a moment. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show. Do you find it difficult to enter into the mysteries of the rosary? What about personally applying them to your life? Drawing from the writings of the saints, the Bible, and Catholic tradition, Matt Frat has produced Pocket Guide to the Rosary, a masterful work that teaches Catholics how to truly meditate on the mysteries of the rosary, how to pray the rosary like the saints, and so much more.

If you're looking to deepen your prayer life and improve the way you pray what St. Padre P.O. called The Weapon of Our Times. We invite you to check out Pocket Guide to the Rosary by Matt Frad. To order, visit ascensionpress.com or Amazon. And welcome back. I gave you a question. You thought about it there a little bit, didn't you?

Yeah, you did. You thought about it. By the way, one of the emails, well, several of the emails that I have received asked questions about where do you get the Bible timeline, where do you get the new Bible in my books and things like that. And the majority is at ascensionpress.com. Ascensionpress.com, my latest book, The Activated Disciple, I'm really happy with that one,

and that's where my heart's at right now, is trying to make disciples, you know, and be a disciple for the Lord. Well, anyway, all that's at ascensionpress.com. A couple of my other books are With Servant, my book on Praise God and Thank Him, and also When You Suffer. Hey, speaking of Praise God and Thank Him, I'm going to be, at the time, of this taping, I'm going to be going to EWTN tomorrow. Father Paku Show. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about praise and thanksgiving. Okay, so before the break, I asked the question, what is worse than an unbeliever? And we're talking about go small and go home. And the question is, what's worse than an unbeliever? I'll give you some possible answers, maybe, a murderer, a robber,

an extortionist. How about a mass shooter? All those would we say, are they worse than an unbeliever. Most people won't get this one right if they are not familiar with Scripture. But 1 Timothy 5-8 actually gives the answer to who is worse than an unbeliever. It says, but if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. You got the answer now. What's worse than an unbeliever? Someone who doesn't provide for his family and the relatives. Somebody who doesn't provide for what is right in front of him, right in front of her. That person, according to 1st Timothy 5.8, is worse than an unbeliever.

How do you become someone who's worse than an unbeliever? How do you not provide for your relatives and for your family right in front of you? how do you not go small and go home? Well, you can spend more time on social media than your family. You can make that a priority watching endless YouTube videos. It's interesting the algorithm they have, isn't it? You can watch two videos on how to make cheese or something, and everything that pops up as you turn YouTube on is about cheese making. It's either a miracle or someone's watching you. I think someone's watching you. You can put in anything, and they'll just give you more. more. You can spend so much time on social media and neglect the family. You won't go small and go

home. You're going big and you're out there, you know, you can waste time and everything. I've been guilty of this. I'm not pointing my finger at you. I'm saying, we all need to wake up to this. How can you become worse than an unbeliever? Well, you can spend more time on your hobbies than what is right in front of you, what's happening in your parish, your own neighborhood, and evangelization, and the poor hobbies. You can spend more time watching television than your family. You can spend more time on civic membership efforts than your own family. You can spend more time at church activities and neglect your family.

You know, it's more fun. Let's admit it for a lot of people, it's more fun, more adventurous. At least it seems to win the world rather than your neighborhood. But let me ask you a question, and it's a very serious question. If you live in your neighborhood and you don't reach it, who will? If you have a blog, if you have a Instagram account, if you've got a YouTube account, if, you know, all of that, and you don't reach the people right in front of you, who's going to do it? Who will do it?

As you are focusing on the world, who is focusing on your local area, your parish? Maybe we should wear hats that say, make the parish great again. Kidding a little bit there, but you know what I'm saying. A question for all those who are trying to go big, and we all do that, I think, at one time or another, in one way or another. The question is, have you influenced your home? Have you influenced your neighborhood? Do you know what's going on in your parish? It's interesting about this idea of starting with the family moving out as far as in

influence. Even in 1 Timothy 312, I'll put it in the notes, the prerequisite for deacons, you know what it was? It had everything to do with managing your household, living as a husband of one wife, and your children. It says in 1st Timothy 312, it says let deacons each be the husband of one wife managing their children and their own households well. So the prerequisite to become a deacon in the early church was, you've got to have your act. together at home. You know, you've got to get that together. And that doesn't say that every deacon's going to have perfect kids and everything. We're not saying that. But there is an emphasis on if you want, you really want to have an impact there in your parish, go small and go home and then begin to

influence from that place. Let me give you just a couple of a few pointers here as we get ready to sort of wind this down that I think are really, really helpful and encouraging because we're in the same boat. But we all live in America, land of the free, land of opportunity, unlimited growth and potential, you know. And I do have potential. I imagine you have potential. That's what I always used to say. You know, I try to do something big. And I say, well, he's got potential.

Potential's not what we're talking about today. We're talking about going small, going home, loving deeply. It's the small things that matter. So a couple things here. I want to encourage you, it's okay to focus on your family. It's okay to begin focusing on your local parish. It is okay to evangelize your neighborhood and to put your energy into that. If you're going to go beyond, maybe even do it as a family.

Do it as a family. Get involved with some kind of mission trip as a family and raising funds for that, but you're doing it as a family. You started small, you went home, and now you're beginning to branch out. Number two, this is a real important one. Don't compare yourself with those who are trying to be influencers. Don't do it. Don't do it. It's not worth it. It really isn't worth it. That is not what this is all about. And that's a key word these days. You want to be an influencer, right? Used to be you want to build a platform. Now you want to be an influence. Now you want to be an influencer, but don't compare yourself with those who are trying to do that. The truth is many, and I'm not,

I'm saying, this is, this is sort of a problem out there. It's the David effect. It's the David effect. And I have fallen into this from time to time over 40 years. The truth is, many influencers do only that. They influence, and oftentimes they don't do locally what they preach and teach and sing about. Now, I know that to be true, because I've had 40 years of experience, and we can do something about that. We don't go bigger, go home. We go small and go home, and we focus on what the priority is, and we grow from that point out. And third, remember the teaching that Jesus gave about the mustard seed. He said in Matthew 13, it'll be in the notes. He said, he put another parable before them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sewed in his field.

It is the smallest of all seeds. But when it has grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. Isn't that beautiful? I like that a lot. I want to encourage you, and I just sense in my heart right now, you, you young, mothers who are taking care of your children and you have gone small and you have gone home and you are nurturing them and teaching them to pray and teaching them to read scripture and you fathers who are who are mentoring your children and and teaching them the word of God and

principles of the kingdom of God and you have a tug on your heart that you should go big in other areas and you feel like maybe you're missing out I want to to encourage you today, you are not. If you go small and you go home, you're where God wants you. If you end up having a big impact, so be it. You know, when you look at the scriptures in the book of Genesis, and it talks about Abraham, it says, Abraham was chosen because he taught his children. Abraham is the father of faith for Christians, but he was chosen because he went small and went home. But that ended up changing the world as the Lord expanded his scope. And it was the Lord who did it. A couple of other suggestions. One is get to know your neighborhood, get to know the people

in your neighborhood, and make that your mission field, right? Get to know your parish and the various outreaches locally. I'm surprised at how many people have a big scope for the country or the world, but they don't even know what's happening in their local parish. Become useful in your parish. Become an asset for your local pastor. Get involved. Listen to the needs. See what they're doing. Read the bulletin. Make the local area a big deal for evangelization for you. It's not a place where you go incognito and nobody knows that you're really a Christian except other countries and other areas. Also, get to know the store owners in your area. If you go to the grocery store or hardware store frequently, get to know these people. There may be opportunities for evangelization to share with them

a cup of carigma. Look up that show, sharing the good news. But it comes in our own neighborhoods and in our own schools and parishes and doctors' offices and police. Get to know the store owners in your area. Example, we have a guy up the street who, is a cobbler and he works on shoes in this suburb. He's from Greece. And every time I go in there, I don't just say, here's my shoes. They need to be resold. We end up usually having like a 10-minute conversation. I get to know him better. And I like that. You know, this is my area that I'm living in. I need to get to know the people. Check out counter at the local grocery store. I usually go to Cubs or Whole Foods. And I know people in both that I can talk to when I go in there

and have developed friendships. I developed a friendship with a local UPS owner. Tim is his name, wonderful man, and try to get to know the people in my community. The five or six people at the coffee shop that I go to all the time, they start to become friends. They know me. I walk in and I hear Jeff, this is my field. This is the place of evangelization where we live locally around us. Let's not hop and skip and jump over it for this, go big or go home. How about go small and go home and grow with our influence in the kingdom of God? It's just a word of encouragement for you today that if you feel the pressure of, wow, I'm just not successful, I'm not doing anything, I don't have a book,

I'm not real smart as a teacher, whatever it might be. Don't buy into that. Go small. Go home. go like Mother Teresa and St. Therese of Leszou. Go like them. You might want to read that book, The Story of a Soul. Fantastic. Fantastic book. All right, just a quick note. If you are looking for an excursion, you're looking for that pilgrimage, Father Mike Schmitz and I will be going to Israel this coming June of 2020, and we have room left for young adults. It's going to be

great. We've got some of the best Catholic singers in the world. Allie Aaliyah, Taylor, Bode, Brother Isaiah, Andrew and Sarah Swofford from Atchison, Kansas are going to be joining us. And, of course, Father Mike Schmitz and I will both be there. It's going to be epic. It really is going to be good. And we're going to give a lot of information that will help you to go small and go home and to have that impact and have a vision for what God has given you in your neighborhood and your parish, and especially your family, the people that are around you right now.

Remember, you don't want to be worse than an unbeliever. You want to provide for your relatives and especially members of your own household. Word of encouragement. Let me pray for you, okay? By the way, those trips, that's on jeffcavens.com, and it's where I usually post those things. So let me pray for you. And I'm going to, after this today, tomorrow, that next week, I'm going to focus. I'm going to start focusing more on being small and going home.

and focusing on my family, and those things in front of me. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I thank you. Oh, I thank you for the mustard seed teaching, and I thank you, Lord, that you have told us who the good neighbor is, and that's us. That's us. We need to be the ones that focus on the crisis in front of us and not bypass and not go to the other side of the road for bigger opportunities and needs. Help us, Lord, to see what is in front of us, and to be.

you and walk by the power of the Holy Spirit. We pray this in your mighty name, in the name of Jesus. And Mother Teresa of Calcutta and St. Thereseu, pray for us. Pray for us that we would see opportunity in the small things and the things that are in close proximity. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I love you. And I'm asking you to pray for me, and you have a wonderful week.