← Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz
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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. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John Glory to you, Lord. Chapter 1, verses 29:34 John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one of whom I said, a man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me. Behold, because he existed before me, I did not know him. But the reason why I came baptizing with water was that he might be made known to Israel. John testified further, saying, I saw this spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon him. I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, on whomever you see this spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God. The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I should have a seat. So I don't know if you've ever had a situation where you had, like, a case of mistaken identity. It could be something as simple as I remember as like a child in a grocery store walking up to this woman and. And like, grabbing her hand, thinking it was my mom, and then looking up at her, looking down at me and thinking, oh, you're not my mom. Great. I'm gonna run away right now. At one point, I remember, I think I was in college with my older brother. We went to college together and had a good relationship. At one point, he had forgotten something. He said, hey, can you go get this for me? Da da da da. So I had this whole rigmarole of my getting the thing that he lost for him. And I walked up, I found him on campus. I walked up behind him and I was like, I handed it to him and said, you're an idiot. And then the guy looked at me and was not my brother. I just like. So I said, I mean, it's true about my brother, but it wasn't true about that guy. Because sometimes it happens, right? We have a case of mistaken identity. I'm like, you know, I was talking to the wrong person. So I thought, maybe this is me. Maybe this is just something that's only happened to me. So I looked on the Internet. If this happened to anyone else, it turns out it's often we say the wrong thing either at the wrong time, or we say the wrong thing to the wrong person. There was a couple different stories. Here's a couple examples. One was this woman wrote, and she said, we were at a funeral for a distant relative. Here's what she said. My sister was talking to one of our cousins and asked, so how's your mom doing? Not well. Apparently it was her mom's funeral. And so we said we gave my mom or sister a hard time for that one a number of times. Here's that we have a lot of nursing students here involved in this ministry. Here's a woman who is a first year nurse, and she was talking to a patient who had some flowers delivered to his room. And she said, oh, I wish I could have some of these at home, but everything I touch dies. And the patient has looked at her, horrified, until she realized what she said. She yelled, I mean, no, plants, not patients, plants. See, they all had a good laugh. Sometimes you say again, say the wrong thing to the wrong person, or maybe the right thing, but to the wrong person. In text messages, there was a man who wrote and said that he had texted his boss accidentally, I love you, my cute little pretty princess. And that was for his girlfriend, who's now his current wife. And the boss responded with, I love you too, sweetheart. My favorite one was this last one was this man going on a date with a first date with a girl. And he said, hey, Olivia, I'm out front. And then realized that her name was Natalie. And she never came out. They had never had a date. That was it. That was the beginning and the end of their date. Because sometimes we have this thing, right? We have a case of mistaken identity where we say maybe the right thing, but to the wrong person. Until we have to ask the question, who am I talking to? This is like the big question, who am I talking to? And not just obviously in life, but right here, like right now, in this moment, in this mass. Who are we talking to in prayer? Who is it that we're talking to? Another way to ask it is, what's the image of God that guides our prayer? Because I'll say this, I'll say that who we're talking to determines how we talk to him. So last week, if you remember this, we Talked about how John the Baptist was baptizing. And Jesus came to John the Baptist and he said to be baptized. And John the Baptist says, I'm not here to be. To baptize you. I should be baptized by you, not baptize you. And we talked about how so often that's how we come before the Lord. Sometimes we come before God as his counselors come before God. And that might define some of our prayers. We think, okay, God, you need my advice. God, you need my counsel. God, you need my wisdom. We have this idea that how many times have we approached God like that? Who we're talking to is the God who needs my direction or the God who needs my advice, the God who needs my counsel. Where we say in our prayer, implicitly or explicitly, God, okay, this is what you need to do. It makes sense because especially if we have big concerns in our hearts, we have big, big desires. We could say things like, you know, God, this is how things need to turn out. When we're so captured by fear, sometimes we approach God like that. We say things like, okay, God, you need me to tell you how to be God? In that case, we get to ask the question, who do I think I'm talking to? That would be a case of mistaken identity. God does not need me to. To tell him how to be God. Yet at the same time, God does. He does invite us to share with him our worries and our concerns. God tells us to share with him our cares and our desires. Basically, even God's commands are, share your heart with me. Psalm 62 says this. It says, trust him at all times. Pour out your heart before him. Because God is a refuge for us. Scripture commands us, pour out your heart before Him. Proverbs 23 says, Give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my ways. Here's God who just doesn't say, stay away from me. He says, no, give me your heart. And then, of course, St. Paul, writing to the Philippians chapter four, he says, have no anxiety at all. But in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. So the idea, the reality that the truth is that we're invited to share with God our desires. We're invited, we're commanded to share with God our hearts. But even more clearly, if we're going to do that, we have to know the answer to the question, who are we talking to? So in this mass, in our prayers, here's the question, who are you talking to? And of course, the answer is going to be, well, God, of Course. But is that all? I have a friend, his name is David Ladding, a friend of mine. And he pointed this out recently. He said, consider Islam. That in Islam there are. Allah has 99 different names. 99 different names for Allah. And they're all mighty and they're all majestic. And they're all powerful. And they're all very impressive. But David pointed out that Allah is missing one very critical Father. I don't know if you know this, that all this Mass. Virtually every. Almost every one of our prayers. Except for like five in this entire Mass. Are either speaking to or loving or praising or worshiping the Father. So who are we speaking to? Who are we talking to in the Mass? Because you could say, well, yeah, the Father. What is the image of? Father David describes this. He says the difference between Islam and Christianity. He said, imagine there is two fathers. Two different fathers. And one is very important, one is very powerful. He's very impressive. And every day he comes home from work. From his very important, very impressive, very powerful job. And he comes home and his children are there. And they're waiting attentively. Because anything the father is asking. Anything Dad's going to ask, you got to do it right away. They're not excited to see him, but they're there. And they're very obedient. They're ready to do exactly what he asks, exactly when he asks. Fellow walks in. Barely even gives them a glance. Whenever he communicates with them, he communicates through someone else. But they stand there ready when it's time to eat. He eats in the dining room. The kids eat somewhere else. He's busy. He's important. He's powerful. Goes to his room, goes to bed. And leaves the next day for his very important job. Now contrast that father with another father also. He's very important, Also is incredibly powerful. But he comes home and his children run to him. Like they run up to him. They grab him by the legs. They call him Father. They call him dad. And this father, even though he's so important and he is so powerful. And he is so good and majestic, what does he do? David describes it like this. He gets on his hands and knees and he plays with them. David says he plays dinosaurs with them. You know, he eats pizza on the floor with them. He curls up with them. And they get to watch Zootopia. 2. Like, this is the picture that one of them just assigns tasks. One father just assigns tasks. Here's what you need to do. And the other father plays. The other father plays with his children. He tucks them in. He reads stories to them. He's their dad. This is the difference between Islam and Christianity. And I'm not offering a parody. And David was offering a parody. In fact, remember years ago, hearing A story by Dr. Scott Hahn, if you know him, he teaches Franciscan University of Steubenville. Scott Hahn was going to have a debate with a Muslim man. And they had this arrangement to get to, I think, Ohio State University. They're going to have this debate. So before the debate, they said, let's meet and let's talk about what are our debate points, what are we going to argue about as a Catholic and as a Muslim. Went to, like, a diner at one point. And at one point, Scott Hahn is talking with this Muslim man. He says, okay, well, you want to establish that, well, God the Father created. And the man stops him and says, no, no, you do not refer to Allah as father. Okay, I'm sorry about that. Okay. So they kept talking and then said, at one point, slipped and said, well, you know, as children of God, he said, stop. Allah is not father. He does not have children. Okay, right. At one point, Scott Han made a mistake a third time and said something about God the son, Jesus, God the son. In that point, the Muslim man stopped him and said, we cannot have this debate because you don't seem to understand. Allah is not father. Allah is master. We are not his children. We are his slaves. That's the image. That's the critical distinction in so many ways. A critical distinction between what it is to pray as a Muslim and what it is to pray as a Christian. I remember talking with one of our youth ministers. She, at one point in the military, was deployed to Afghanistan, and she was giving a talk, and at one point she said, you know, here we are as children of God. And her interpreter stopped her, shut down the talk, and said, you cannot say that. Once again, Allah is not father. Allah is master. We are not children of Allah. We are his slaves. And that's the thing, is that I'm not being critical of Muslims in that, because why? Because Muslims are faithful to prayer. They're faithful to talking to Allah. They're faithful. They pray five times a day. A faithful Muslim will pray five times a day. That dedication is admirable. That consistency is impressive. But imagine, Imagine this. Imagine putting yourself in that position. Imagine praying five times a day, every single day to God, your master. Imagine praying five times a day, every single day, as his slave and nothing more. Again, this is not a criticism. This is a description. Actually, here's a criticism. The criticism is, I think that's how many of us pray. It makes sense for a Muslim to pray like that. Allah is not their Father. Allah is many, many things, powerful, all these things, but he is not their Father. They are not his children. But that's how we pray. I talk about a case of mistaken identity. This is who we Christians show up at Mass and that's who we think we're worshiping. We show up and we're scared of God our Father because we think he's going to come home and just wants to tell us what to do. Is that our image? Or is our image the true image? Right. As Catholics, we just celebrated Christmas a little while ago. And what is the deep truth in Christmas? One of the deep truths in Christmas is that here's God, who's all powerful, who's infinite, who's unimaginable, who emptied himself and united his divinity with our humanity, that with all this power, God himself comes close to play. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought about the Incarnation as God playing? That he wants to be close to us, that he's down on the floor with us. I mean that he's not all business. Think about the fact that Jesus lived on this earth for 33 years. God himself lived on this earth for 33 years. And he spent three of those years in public ministry. The other 30 years were spent doing what? My guess is just getting close to us. That's. That's the image of play. I just want to be with my people. I just want to be near my children. And think about this. When you read the rest of the gospels, when people were near Jesus, they didn't just obey him, they loved him. Because it's not. The Incarnation is not mere play. The Incarnation is love. And not just any kind of love. It's marked by the love that is self sacrificial in so many ways. Because again, think about this. At Christmas, angels are singing, right? The wise men bring in gifts, presents. Amazing. But what are those presents? You have gold. Okay, that's great. Frankincense and myrrh. What's that? Myrrh again? This myrrh. It marks the very beginning of Jesus life. Not just with play, not just with his presence, but also with the fact that he's going to sacrifice himself. You give, you put myrrh on the body of a dead person in preparation for burial. The beginning of his life was marked by this kind of self sacrificial love. Today's his gospel. Today's Gospel. John the Baptist Sees Jesus and says what? Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. We think lamb, we think innocent like we think lamb. We think light and fluffy. We think lamb and we think that's that. That's Jesus who's meek and mild. When John the Baptist said, that's the Lamb of God, what he was referring to was sacrifice. That this is God himself who walks among us. Not simply to tell us clever teachings or to work incredible miracles, but God who walks among us to show us how deeply he loves us. That he's here to win our souls by offering Himself. He's here to win our bodies by offering his own. And he's here to win our hearts by revealing his. Remember that story in John's Gospel? It's John, chapter 11. It's a story of three of Jesus friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus. And you know that story. You know that at one point they send word to Jesus. Martha and Mary do that. Lazarus, the one you love, good friend of yours, he's ill. And Jesus doesn't come right away. Lazarus ends up dying. Jesus finally shows up. Martha and Mary are devastated. Their hearts are broken. At one point, just to get to the end of the story, Jesus gets to Lazarus's tomb. And he sees Martha, he sees Mary, sees the other people weeping. And there's the shortest line in scripture. You probably know the shortest line in scripture is in the Gospel of John, chapter 11. It's just two words. And. And the words are, Jesus wept. And we look at that moment and think, oh yeah, he just cried. But let's put that in context. In a few moments, Jesus is going to raise him from the dead. Remember, Jesus is God. So one, you'd imagine that Jesus is like, listen, guys, death is not the end. He even says that in John 11. He says, I'm the resurrection and the life. He says, don't worry about it. Lazarus will raise from the dead. Jesus knows that there's more to this life than just this life. So you could imagine him being like, it's not that big of a deal, guys. Or he also knows that he's going to raise Lazarus in just a few seconds. So he could also be saying, guys, it's not that big of a deal. What does he do? He sees their hearts breaking and he allows it to break his heart. That's when he shows us who he is. Jesus shows us his heart. And in doing that, he shows us the heart of the Father. He shows us that God himself allows what breaks our heart to break his heart. And that's who we're talking to. That's who God has revealed himself to be. He is all powerful. Until he runs up against you. You. He's invincible. But he allows himself to be broken by what's broken you. Who are we talking to? And also you ask the question, how are we talking to him? How do we talk to this kind of last thing? How do we talk to the all powerful? Have you ever had this in prayer? Where in prayer, someone says, hey, go share your. Like it said at the beginning of the homily, God wants to know your worries, your concerns, your cares. God wants to know your desires. So reveal your heart to him. How many times have you said he already knows? God is not only all powerful, he's all knowing. He already knows. Why should I tell him this? Okay, I know who he is. He's the father. But how should I talk to the father? I remember hearing this. It was a priest in South Dakota who once shared this image with me. I thought it was so powerful, maybe I shared it before. I'll share it again. Why would we share what we care about? Why would we share the details of our day with the father who already knows? And he said this example, he said, imagine, imagine you have a kid who's. Who's a dad. His dad loves him very much. His dad has a best friend. And the best friend is the kid's basketball coach, right? So you have the kid, his dad, his dad's best friend, basketball coach. For the kid. At one point, there's an away game and the dad, for whatever reason, can't go to the away game. Now, in the game, the kid lights it up. Last two minutes of the game, kid just shoots the dickens out of it. Amazing. Incredible. On the way home, on the bus. Here's the kid sitting in the bus. And he can hear, up in the couple rows ahead, he can hear his coach talking to his own dad. The kid's dad describing point for point, play for play, moment for moment of the last two minutes of the game, telling him everything that happened in those last two minutes. Kid gets home, walks into the kitchen, Dad's waiting there. Oh, my gosh. Tell me, how'd the game go? Now, if this kid is like you and me, we say it was fine. No, tell me about it. Well, I heard you. The coach already told you. You already know about it. What does the father want? He doesn't want more information. He just wants to hear it from his son. It's not like the kid's going to tell him anything. He doesn't already know. But we know this, right? When we tell God what's in our hearts, when we tell God our concerns, when we tell God what bothers us or what we want, when we tell God about our day, we're giving him access to something he doesn't have, or trusting him. I remember someone asking that question. How well would God know you if all he knew of you was what you told him in prayer? Here's God who's invited us. He's asked us. He's commanded us. Pour out your heart to me. How well would that God know you if all he knew of you was what you told him in prayer? How much of your heart would he know? How much of his heart do you know? I think it's time that we had no more case of mistaken identity. That we know we have a father who is powerful yet. Please. We have a father who loves and listens. And now, in this moment, right now, right now, in this moment, we're going back to prayer. In just a moment, we are going to begin once again talking to God. And that question is still there. Who are you talking to?