← Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
8/2/26 Give
00:20:37
Homily from the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Can money buy happiness? People will wisely claim that money cannot buy happiness. But what if the answer is actually "it depends"? It depends what you spend it on...and HOW you give.
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Welcome to Sunday Homilies with me, Fr. 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@ascensionpress.com Sunday or by texting Sunday to 33777. You can also follow or subscribe in your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless the Lord be with you and with your spirit. A Reading from the Holy Gospel According to Matthew Glory to you, oh Lord. Chapter 14, verses 13 through 21 When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them and he cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, this is a deserted place and it is already late. Dismiss the crowds so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves. Jesus said to them there was no need for them to go away. Give them some food yourselves. But they said to him, five loaves and two fish are all we have. Then he said, bring them here to me. And he ordered the crowds to sit down in the grass, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven. He said the blessing, broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowd. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over 12 wicker baskets full. Those who ate were about 5,000 men, not counting women and children. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise Lord Jesus Christ. Why don't you have a seat? So there's a question that comes up, and I think it's a question worth asking. And the question is about money. And the question is, can money buy happiness? Can money buy happiness? I think the obvious answer we'd say, well, of course not. We know that money isn't by happiness. You've never seen people say things like, you don't see. You ever seen a U haul behind a hearse? Like, we know that at some point money just cannot make us happy. Money can't buy us happiness. And yet maybe it can. A couple people who have done some research on this one is a man named Arthur Brooks. Arthur Brooks is, you know, he studies happiness and talks about happiness for a living. And one of the things he points out is he Points out that one of the things that poverty does, poverty increases suffering, poverty, financial insecurity, increases anxiety. And when we have less stuff, we have less happiness. And so he says, he makes a point. He says while money can't buy happiness, it can remove unhappiness because you have some money, you had financial worries. Now you have money, you don't have financial worries. You're stressed about how you're going to pay your bill, you have money, you're not stressed anymore about how to pay your bill. So it might not be able to buy happiness, but at least it can remove unhappiness. There's another man, his name is Daniel Kahneman. Daniel Kahneman did this pretty famous research where he. A survey across the United States where he was looking at the income. What's the income threshold? Like, what is the optimal, say, yearly income for people to feel, like, emotionally stable, like kind of contented when it comes to the stuff they have. And he found out, he found out that emotional well being in increased until a person made roughly $75,000 a year. Now, this was in 2010 money, but it was roughly $75,000 a year. And they felt better and better and better. And then after 75,000 per year, beyond that, the gains, whatever kind of emotional satisfaction, happiness gains were much smaller. So at some point it increased, just like Arthur Brooks would say. Unhappiness decreased and some kind of emotional well being increased. But then there was a cap. So you have these two men, but there's a third man. His name is Michael Norton. Michael Norton made a claim. His claim was this. His claim was that money actually can buy you happiness. It just depends what you spend it on. If there's a word that kind of summarizes today's gospel, that word is give, right? The word of the day would be give. The first line of the gospel today is how St. John the Baptist had. Jesus had heard about the death of St. John the Baptist, that John the Baptist had given his life right in testimony to the truth. Jesus, heartbroken, he goes off. But he sees the crowds and what's he do? He stops and he gives his time. He gives his attention. He gives healing to the crowds. When the crowds are hungry, what happens? Jesus says, well, to the disciples, give them some food. They have five loaves and two fish. They give the five loaves and two fish to Jesus, who gives them two. The crowd. See, if there is one key for the gospel today, it is give. It's that they gave. So Michael Norton, Michael Norton asked the question, does money Buy happiness. He would say it depends on what you spend it on. And he identified three things. He said, you're not going to get happy if you buy stuff, but if you spend money on experiences, people experience a certain degree of happiness. I know families who do this. I know families who have decided as a family, like we don't do Christmas or birthday presents. What we do is we do one big family trip or a moderate sized family trip where it's not just we're not giving you stuff, we're going to make memories together, so experiences. Another thing is when people spend their money on events that bring others together rather than on solitary endeavors that brings them happiness. But the third thing and the thing that maybe made people the happiest, again, does money buy happiness? It depends what you spend it on. When people would spend their money on helping others who are in need, they actually would genuinely increase happiness. Another way to say it is when people found themselves in a place where they could give. If they gave, they grew happy. And I think this is fascinating because it makes so much sense. It makes so much sense for us because again, other researchers have pointed out the fact that there's a requirement to think of others if we want to escape this self trap. Jonathan Haidt talks about this. Jonathan Haidt, he claimed this. He claimed that depression can often strongly be related to excessive self focused attention. That depression can be maybe neurologically looks very different, looks very similar, looks nothing different than thinking about ourselves is another way to say it. Rumination is the word, the technical word that they'd use and say ruminating. What's ruminating? Not just thinking about yourself in the sense of paying attention to yourself, but rumination is this. Rumination means repeatedly turning your attention inward and asking questions like, well, why am I like this? Why did this happen to me? This kind of guilty or self accusation or this kind of sense of resentment turning in on oneself. A woman named Susan Nolan Hexma, she warned that ruminating like this, without any movement forward, without any taking action, without acceptance, without any problem solving, leads people to places of depression. Again, remember, keep in mind this is not self awareness. This is self preoccupation. We know we need to be self aware. We know we need to tend to ourselves. Even Jesus in the Gospel, self aware, tending to himself. He hears about the death of his cousin that we imagine not only was his forerunner, but also at some point, maybe a friend. He hears about the death of his cousin and he goes away. Why? Because he's attending to the grief in his heart. He's attending to his own heart. So, yes, here's Jesus in the Gospels who goes away. He's paying attention to himself, but then what does he do? He notices others and he. And he moves. And this is what we have to do too, right? What we need to do, we need to visit those places in our lives. We need to visit those places in our hearts that need attending. And we need to treat ourselves like we're someone worth caring about. Once we do that, the next move is give. The next invitation for all of us is to give. So the question today I would ask is, so how do we do that? If we know that the word of the gospel today is give, how do we give? Well, there's at least three ways, I think, three ways that we will find ourselves giving like God. And the first one is, I give all that I can give right now. I make this claim, not necessarily I give all that I have. But the invitation, I think, is to ask the question, what is all that I have to give here? In the gospel, we know that not in this gospel we heard today, but in a different gospel we hear that there was one young person who came forward, a young boy who came forward and said, I have five loaves and two fish. And he gave. What did he do? He gave. He gave all that he had to give at that moment. And this is one of the things for us again, not give everything. But when I give all that I have to give right now, there's something so powerful about this that God can do so much with this. Another gospel. In the Gospel of John, John chapter two, we know the story of the wedding feast at Cana. What happens to Jesus and his disciples? His mom, they're invited to this wedding. The wine runs out. Mary, his mom, goes to Jesus and says, they've run out of wine. So what's this have to do with me? And she tells the attendants, do whatever he tells you. And what does Jesus tell them? He says there were six stonewater jars there for Jewish ceremonial washing, each holding 20 to 30 gallons. So up to 130 gallons total. And Jesus tells them, fill these with water. So they do it. And in fact, here's the interesting thing. It says they held up to 30 gallons each. What do they do? What would you do? I always think. I think I've thought about this and prayed with this a lot when it comes to that, that scene of. Here are these servants who are asked by Jesus to fill them. I've seen these, what these water jars look like. I've been. I've visited Cana in that space. And they, they. I've seen what these Jewish ceremonial water jars would look like. And it's just like it would take so many trips to fill six jars that could hold 30 gallons of water. I would have like marginally filled them. I can see myself being like, well, okay, they're full enough. Half is full. But what does the gospel say? The gospel says, and they filled them to the brim. They could hold up to. Sorry, 180 gallons is total. They held up to 180 gallons. And I just reflect on this. What is the limiting factor to God's work? The limiting factor to God's work is often it's not God. The limiting factor to God's work is me. And the question I have to ask myself is, do I really want to give all that I have to give right now? If Jesus tells me to, I have to ask myself the question, do I really want to give all that I have to give right now? So will I. Well, again, what if they only partially filled them with water? Well, it still would have been a miracle, would have been incredible. But if they only partially filled them with water, you realize God had wanted to do so much more. I have a friend I've mentioned before, my friend named Nick. My friend Nick is a wife, he has some kids, he gives. If there's any word that defines Nick is generous, it is that he is a giver. I remember he and his wife, they weren't able to conceive children for the first 10 or more years of their marriage. At one point they pursued the route of adoption and there were three kids who were related by moms, but they had different dads and they were able to adopt the first two boys and there was a third, a daughter, and they were just praying, they were hoping that they could adopt the daughter and keep this family together. Turned out at one moment that the door opened, the door opened and this daughter, this sister, could be their daughter, but if they were going to adopt her, it would literally drain their bank account to zero. They would have no money in the process of this whole adoption. And it was one of those situations where it was such an easy decision for Nick and his wife. We just give because that's what defines him. After they have adopted these three kids, a couple years later, they had two biological children of their own. So they have five kids and they brought them all to Cambodia because one of to be missionaries, full time missionaries in Cambodia, because why? Because the defining word of their life is give. In fact, so much so that Nick, when he, when he speaks, he's a great, he's a great speaker, a great presenter, great preacher of the gospel. At one point, whenever he talks about generosity, whenever he talks about giving, giving, he always says this line and the line I mentioned, maybe I've mentioned it before, he always says, give the big bill. And what that means is he gives these stories like, you know, if you reach into your pocket, here's someone who's in need, or you're in church and they take, pass the collection plate around and you reach in your pocket and you know, you have a dollar, you have a five, you have a 10, you have 100, whatever it is, 20. He says, give the big bill. Here's someone in need. I could give them a dollar, I could give them a five, but you know, I've got a 20. Give the big bill. And again, he can say that because he lives this to be able to say, I give all that I have to give right now. Now I have another friend who heard Nick give this talk. Her name is Delaney. And at one point Delaney was so moved. She was young, early 20s at the time. And at one point Delaney had heard this talk and she was out with some friends. She met this new individual and this guy was just, he was sharing how he didn't even have money for rent, didn't have money for groceries that month. And she was so moved and she Knew she had $100. And this is a ton, a ton of money for this 222 year old person to have in her pocket. She's like, have $100. Nick says, give the big bill. Here's the guy who can't pay his rent, he can't pay his grocery bill. And so she pulled him aside and said, listen, you know, I've got a hundred bucks here. He said, you're in need. I want you to have this amazing, incredible way that. She was like, you know, Nick does this. That's how Nick lives this life. He told me this, I'm living this life, I'm helping somebody. And she said, she said, the man turned to her and said, oh my gosh, thank you, thank you so much. With this $100, I can now finish my tattoo. And she was like, wait, are you kidding me? She didn't ask for the money back. I would have asked for the money back. Like, no, you said you needed to pay your rent and you needed to pay your grocery bill. But what involves, is this, is this invitation when we give, is to give all that I have to give right now, of course, it's a risk, and it takes discernment. Well, let's look at our lives and say, okay, am I willing to give all that I have to give right now? Now, again, the discernment is this. Think about your time. I think about my time. And there's some times where someone wants time, and I just. I literally, I can't. I. Someone wants. Can you have a phone call? Can we have. Can you. Can we meet? Like, I just legitimately can't because there's people I'm responsible for. But there's other times when I just won't. I don't know if you've ever experienced that, where the times, like, no, like, legitimately, that I do not have anything to give right now. I can't. And there's sometimes when we know in our hearts it's just not. It's not. I can't, it's just. And I won't. So the first marker of how we give well is I give all that I have to give right now. The second way that we give well is we give. We give well. I mean, another way to say it is we give excellently. I think. I think almost every summer I come back to this, this theme of giving excellently, because I just. I personally struggle with this. I've personally been convicted by this, because what is it to give? Well, to give excellently, it's to give ungrudgingly, it's to give unhesitatingly, it's to give joyfully. That's what it is, to give excellently. That's what St. Paul says in Second Corinthians. He says, God loves a cheerful giver. If you give, if you've decided to give, just give joyfully. And I don't find myself doing this. I find myself struggling with this. Earlier this summer, I was summoned for jury duty, and it was the highlight of my summer. That is not the case. I was summoned for jury duty. And it was one of those situations where, okay, on one random Wednesday morning, I was called in and I was like, okay. And I just. Man, it was early. I got lost. I didn't know where parking was. I went into the wrong building. When I got to the right building, there were really bad directions and there were lack of signage in the courthouse in Duluthier. I was inconvenienced, and I had other things. Of course, I had other things I needed to be doing, but I did it right. I showed up. I was on time. I was actually early, which is kind of a big thing for me. I showed up, I was present. I did the thing I was asked to do. I did not do it excellently, as was pointed out to me by a friend who after the fact knew that I had at least three different text threads with three different groups of people complaining about everything that I was going through. Like, I'm lost in the parking lot. I'm in the wrong building. This sucks. I mean, it was just like every different person. I couldn't just. I couldn't even just complain to one person. I had to complain to as many people as had to listen to my text because I struggle with doing it excellently. To do. To give excellently is to give ungrudgingly, unhesitatingly and joyfully. So how do I give? Well, give all I have to give right now. To give excellently and last, lastly, is to give out of love. When we're called to give, we're meant to give out of love. To give out of love for God and give out of love for a neighbor. Thomas Aquinas, to kind of paraphrase Thomas Aquinas, he would say something along these lines. He might say something like, money can't buy happiness. Money, money can serve happiness, but money cannot be happiness. In fact, he would point out, we give not because it will make us happy. We give because we're made to give. This is what Aquinas would say then. This is the last thing Aquinas would point out. He would say we give not because it'll make us happy, but because we're made for it. Because why? Because every one of us is made in God's image. And what is the deepest image of God? The deepest identity of God is that God is love, which is that God himself, His identity is. He's a self gift. The Father pours himself out in love to the Son, the Son pours himself out in love to the Father. That love, that gift is the gift of the Holy Spirit. His deepest identity in the Trinity is God is a giver because God is a lover. And even in the revelation of Jesus, what is one of the most famous passages in the Bible? Declare John, chapter 3, verse 16. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. See that the identity of God is God is a giver. And your, that means your and my identity is that we have to be givers as well. So much so that God shows how far we're called to give. Jesus gave his life, and Jesus, even in grief, give his life to death. So we're made. We're made to give. And we're most like God when we do that. When we give all we have to give right now. When we give excellently, unhesitatingly, ungrudgingly, joyfully. And when we give because we want to be like God to a world that is desperate for the gift.