Show full transcript 0:41 Jesus, again in reply, spoke to the chief priests 0:44 and elders of the people in parables saying, 0:47 The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king 0:49 who gave a wedding feast for his son. 0:52 He dispatched his servants as some of the invited guests 0:54 to the feast, but they refused to come. 0:57 A second time, he sent other servants saying, 1:00 Tell those invited, Behold, I have prepared my banquet. 1:03 My calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready. 1:08 Come to the feast." 1:10 Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. 1:15 The rest lay hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. 1:19 The king was enraged and sent his troops to destroy those murderers and burned their 1:23 city. 1:24 Then he said to his servants, The feast is ready, but those who were invited were 1:29 were not worthy to come. 1:31 Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find. 1:35 The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, 1:39 and the hall was filled with guests. 1:41 But when the king came in to meet the guests, he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding 1:45 garment. 1:46 The king said to him, my friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding 1:50 garment? 1:52 But he was reduced to silence. 1:54 the king said to his attendants bind his hands and feet and cast him into the 1:59 darkness outside where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Many are 2:04 invited but few are chosen. The Gospel of the Lord. 2:11 Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ. 2:13 I should have a seat. So growing up my older brother was legendary. My older 2:20 brother is legendary but growing up he was legendary for one particular thing. 2:24 He was legendary for his incredible, unique ability 2:30 to have selective hearing. 2:32 Maybe it was a situation where, 2:34 I mean, this would happen all of the time, 2:36 all of the time where someone's, 2:37 hey, Mike, go get your brother. 2:38 And so I'd go up to his room 2:39 and I'd be calling his name, calling his name, 2:41 or downstairs. 2:41 Like, this all would often happen. 2:43 I'd be calling downstairs, Mark, dinner's ready. 2:45 Nothing. 2:46 Mark, dinner's ready. 2:47 Go downstairs. 2:48 I'm on the stairs. 2:48 I can see him sometimes actually standing 2:52 in front of the TV. 2:53 I don't know why he would watch out to watch TV that way, but he would stand up and I'm like mark mark mark 2:58 It's nothing so I get within 10 feet of him like mark mark in nothing 3:01 I will get next to him and I'd be like almost shouting his name and then you look at me as if he was surprised like why are you shouting? 3:08 What's going on? I'm like, are you kidding me? This is ridiculous 3:11 He was that he would be so completely shocked because he had this incredible incredible ability 3:17 to selectively hear and I think I think this is I know that that that was him 3:21 But I think that this is it was truly amazing. I think but all of us have this ability to some degree 3:28 Like in some area of life where there's just some things that either we just don't hear 3:32 I just want I didn't hear that or we there's some things. We just don't see maybe your roommate 3:36 Just never really sees that pile of dishes in the sink 3:40 They just walked by and you're that you pointed out that really I didn't even notice or that or that that 3:45 That you know half eaten bowl of cereal that's been sitting on the coffee table for the last week that kind of situation 3:51 They just keep walking by it. 3:52 They don't even notice it. 3:53 The boxes of pizza boxes that no one picks up, that I'm as guilty of this as anything. 4:00 The things that I've become so used to it, it's become invisible. 4:04 I moved into this house 22 years ago, basically. 4:08 And ever since I moved in, there's these floorboards upstairs in the little apartment 4:11 where I live. 4:12 And there's these floorboards, and they don't have the floorboard. 4:15 They just kind of have nothing. 4:16 And I just or there's a piece it falls off and I pick put it back up and prop it against there falls off and put it back up there 4:24 And I realize I've lived here for two decades and I've never even bothered to fix it never even tried to fix it 4:29 I just like yeah, that's what it looks like. In fact, it's so bad that 4:34 Right inside the door I walk into the house on the ground 4:37 There is an unopened box of ant traps that has been there since June. It is currently October 4:43 I walk by it every single time I walk in or out of this apartment 4:46 I walk by this unopened box. 4:48 I emphasize it's unopened because it's not like gross. 4:50 It's this unopened box of ant traps that I just don't see. 4:56 And we have this ability, right? 4:57 We have our ability to ignore something we'd rather not deal with is remarkable. 5:02 I'll say that again. 5:03 Our ability to ignore something we'd rather not deal with is truly amazing. 5:11 This is the sixth of a six part series we've been going through here. 5:16 called blind spots. And what are blind spots? Blind spots are those are those 5:21 acceptable sins, right? Psalm 19. From hidden faults, oh Lord, acquit me. Heal me. 5:27 Like free me from these things that are in my life and I'm not paying attention 5:30 to. This is remarkable because they're those sins that are always there. 5:35 They're not insignificant. They're not small, but we just have come up with 5:38 socially acceptable excuses for them. So we have gone through this list of 5:43 five until now. Gossip and anger and entitlement and complaint last week was 5:48 worry. And I think there's many others, right? But it's possible that all of them 5:53 can be traced to this one today. In the gospel, there's the king, right? He has a 6:03 wedding feast for his son. Everyone's invited. This is incredible. And some 6:07 of the reactions of people who have been invited is a little extreme. They 6:11 said they hold his servants, mistreated them and killed them. I've never been 6:15 invited to a wedding and then killed the messenger. But the thing I have done is 6:21 very just, it's subtly in Jesus' parable. Here's the king, wedding feast for his son. 6:28 He's invited many, many people. Again, some have this overreaction. But it 6:33 says, others ignored the invitation. One went to his farm, other to his business. 6:40 this, our ability to ignore things we'd rather not deal with is remarkable. 6:49 And I think our blind spot, maybe the number one blind spot that we can be facing is our 6:54 ability to ignore God. 6:56 Like the reality is, I like doing what I'm currently doing and I do not want to be bothered 7:01 at this moment. 7:02 I don't want to be bothered. 7:03 You know, years ago I came across this article about the population crisis in Asia, 7:08 specifically the population crisis in Japan, that the projection was by 7:13 2060 Japan's population would fall by a third, which is the point in the article 7:19 pointed out which is the same percentage as the black death in the 14th century. 7:25 And the reason why is because the Japanese people, the young Japanese 7:28 people are just not interested in children. In fact the article went on 7:32 to say they're not interested in relationship. They said they're 7:35 not even interested in sex, that this was in 2011, 7:40 that 61% of men who were ages 18 to 34 7:44 were not in a relationship 7:45 and had no interest to be in a relationship. 7:47 49% of women, same age, were not in a relationship, 7:51 had no interest in a relationship. 7:52 It was something along the lines of 7:54 almost half the women from 16 years old 7:58 to 24 years old either said they were not interested 8:02 in sex or they despised the very idea of this. 8:04 This one 131-year-old man was interviewed, and he said this. 8:08 He said, I find some of my female friends attractive, 8:11 but I've learned to live without sex. 8:13 Emotional entanglements are too complicated. 8:16 I just can't be bothered. 8:18 This is crazy, this I can't be bothered. 8:20 In fact, there's the Japanese term for I can't be bothered. 8:23 It's menduksai. 8:25 And menduksai, that's all it means. 8:28 It means it's too complicated. 8:30 It means it's not worth it. 8:31 It means I can't be bothered. 8:33 And think about this. 8:33 Think about this perspective of when it comes to even for the chance at a life-changing relationship. 8:42 The response is, 8:44 Mendoca aside, 8:46 I can't be bothered. 8:48 I just ignore the opportunity or ignore the invitation. 8:54 Because the reality is I don't want a life-changing relationship because I don't want my life to change. 9:00 And this is what's happening in the gospel. 9:03 Here's this invitation into joy, this invitation to be in the King's presence, the invitation 9:08 to be at the wedding feast of his son. 9:10 I just ignore it. 9:14 You know, I love the etymology of words. 9:17 So the etymology of the word, the origin of the word ignore is obviously Latin. 9:22 And it comes to the first part is in, which means not. 9:25 And the second part, noris in Latin means knowing or being acquainted with. 9:31 so to ignore it, it's not knowing. In fact, the word ignorant and the word ignore clearly have 9:39 the exact same root, but they don't mean the same thing. To be ignorant of something means I just 9:46 don't know. This ignorant is not knowing, but to ignore something is to act as if I didn't know. 9:55 There's a huge difference between being ignorant and ignoring. And so many of us, 10:04 We act as if we don't know. 10:06 Again, you can say this, that to ignore is despite what I know or even despite what I believe, 10:11 I'm going to live as if I didn't know. 10:13 Jump hold the second. 10:14 Years ago, jump hold the second. 10:15 He had a term for this. 10:17 For this temptation we have, this blind spot we have of ignoring God, 10:21 he called it practical atheism. 10:23 So I don't know if you know, the atheism means, 10:26 an atheist is someone who does not believe in God. 10:28 They had a study, 2023, 2024, a religious landscape survey said, 10:32 And here's a question. 10:35 What percentage of Americans do you think are atheists? 10:40 Just lock a number in your head right now. 10:42 What percentage of Americans would you say would claim to be atheist? 10:46 In 2023-2024, this religious landscape survey found out that 5%, only 5% of Americans actually 10:54 claim to be atheists. 10:55 Right? 10:56 Check the box. 10:56 I do not believe in God. 10:57 Check. 10:58 which means that incredible, incredible number of Americans say, 11:03 no, I believe in God. 11:04 So I'm not an atheist. I'm a theist. 11:08 What John Paul II was pointing out is, is practical atheism. 11:11 Is someone who checks the box, okay, I believe in God. 11:14 And yet they live as if God doesn't exist. 11:19 They're not, they're not ignorant. 11:21 They just ignore his existence. 11:25 That's, that's practical atheism. 11:26 practical atheism is believing in God, even professing faith in Jesus. And I would say this, 11:32 even really meaning it, like really meaning, I believe in Jesus, but then for all intents and 11:37 purposes, living as if God didn't exist. Living as if Jesus never set us free. I'm a practical 11:49 atheist when I check the box that says, I know, and then I live as if I don't know. 11:55 that I know I've been invited, 11:58 but then I ignore the invitation. 12:02 And again, you look at our lives, 12:04 we say I'm not like those other people 12:06 who got the invitation and mistreated the messengers 12:09 and killed them. 12:10 I don't want to kill anybody. 12:11 I'm just in the middle of something. 12:15 And so I'll pretend that I don't hear. 12:17 I'll pretend that I didn't notice. 12:19 I'll selectively pay attention to what I want 12:22 and I'll simply ignore what I don't want. 12:24 And the question we have to ask of ourselves is, is that me, that when it comes to the 12:31 John Paul practical atheism, is that me? 12:35 And the good news is, I guess, that the thing about practical atheism is that it's really practical. 12:42 So there's this quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. 12:45 You might have heard it before. 12:46 Some people really, really like it. 12:47 I've seen it even on bumper stickers. 12:49 And the quote is, 12:51 Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary, use words. 12:56 It's a nice idea, except for two problems. 12:59 Number one, Saint Francis of Assisi never said it. 13:02 And the second problem is that the gospel always needs words. 13:05 The preaching of the gospel always needs words. 13:07 In fact, 1 Peter 3.15 says, 13:09 Always be ready to give a reason for your hope. 13:12 You need to do that with words. 13:13 Always be ready to give an explanation for the faith that's within you. 13:16 So hopefully people will hear the gospel from us. 13:18 But the question is, do they ever see the Gospel in us? 13:26 Again, not perfectly, but just practically, practically speaking, if someone followed 13:32 you around for a week, would they get to see anything different from someone who wasn't 13:38 Catholic? 13:40 If someone just observed your life on a regular basis, would you or I look any different 13:49 from someone who was not a friend of Jesus? 13:53 Were your life or my life look any different than someone who wasn't striving to be a saint? 13:57 I think let's be practical that there are, let's say, three areas of life. 14:03 Our speech, our schedule, and our stuff. 14:07 Our speech, that question of, if someone listened to how I talk about other people, would they 14:12 say, wow, that's really interesting. 14:13 You don't talk about other people the way most people do. 14:18 like you actually give people respect even if you disagree with them even when 14:22 they're not in the room you still are kind years ago our diocese was going 14:27 through a number of lawsuits and there was a certain gentleman down in the Twin 14:32 Cities who was a lawyer who was just making bank off of going to different 14:36 dioceses and and really capitalizing on some of these horrible cases of 14:41 course that had happened, but going after our Bishop, and it was fascinating because our 14:47 Bishop never talked about that knucklehead from the cities or that jerk down. 14:52 He always called him by his full name. 14:54 He always called. 14:55 He said, Mr. So-and-so. 14:56 He always said, Mr. So-and-so. 14:57 I had a conversation with Mr. So-and-so, and I remember thinking, man, this guy is 15:02 making your life so difficult, but you always speak of him with respect. 15:09 I could look at our Bishop, Bishop Paul Serba, and say he died, he passed away about six 15:14 years ago. 15:15 I could see a man whose speech had been changed by his following Jesus, not only how we talk 15:21 about other people, how we talk about our God. 15:22 How we talk about our God is fascinating. 15:25 Years ago, our friend, she's not Catholic, but she went to a Bible college. 15:31 She said one of her instructors at the Bible college pointed this out. 15:34 But he said, no other world religion uses their God's name as a curse, except for Christians. 15:44 Except for people who claim to be Christian. 15:47 That we so quickly can say things like, oh my God, we so quickly can say the name of 15:52 Jesus Christ. 15:53 That God has revealed his name to us. 15:55 And no other religion uses the name of their God as a curse like we do. 16:04 That's practical atheism. 16:05 because why? Because I'm not allowing what I believe or what I know to actually make a difference. 16:10 I'm acting as if I'm saying the name of Jesus as if I don't actually believe that he is the Lord 16:16 God who died for my sins. So I look at pre-practical, my speech, my, oh my schedule, my schedule is the 16:23 the biggest one. The schedule is if someone followed me around, would they see any change, 16:32 any difference between how I live and how someone else lives. 16:36 Do I take time for the Lord? 16:38 Did I throw up a prayer just before me else? 16:39 Did I throw up a prayer before I go to sleep? 16:41 Do I, does he get any time? 16:43 Does the God of the universe get any time? 16:45 Or even this, when it comes to Sunday rest, 16:50 how many of us as Catholics 16:53 treat Sunday any differently than any other day? 16:57 Hopefully, you know, because we have this command, 16:59 right on the Lord's day, 17:00 we have the command both to worship God and Mass and to rest. 17:06 But does Sunday look any different for us? 17:09 Hopefully, we're getting the Mass. 17:11 But does it look any different for any of us? 17:15 Or do we just ignore that? 17:17 I mean, that is literally from the gospel, the parable today. 17:20 They're invited to the wedding feast of the Son of the King. 17:24 The Mass is what? 17:25 The Mass is the wedding feast of the Son of the King. 17:27 And so many of us just ignore the invitation. 17:29 We ignore the invitation not only to worship God, 17:32 we ignore the invitation to enter into rest. 17:34 So our speech, our schedule, and our stuff. 17:38 If someone looked at my bank statement, 17:41 would it look any different 17:43 than someone who didn't believe in God, 17:47 someone who wasn't trying to be a saint? 17:51 It's just remarkable, I think, in so many ways. 17:55 If someone followed me around, would they see any difference? 18:03 I remember when I was first captivated by the stories of martyrs. 18:06 Martyr means witness, right? 18:08 The stories of martyrs. 18:10 And I used to think that, wow, to live way back in the day, that's what martyrs were. 18:15 We're so long ago. 18:17 You may know this, but in the 20th century, there were more martyrs for Christianity than 18:23 in all of the previous 19th centuries combined. 18:27 even just 11 years ago, almost 11 years ago this February, there were 20 Egyptian 18:36 Christians who were migrant workers in Libya, who were captured by Muslims and 18:44 tortured. With the 21st guy, he was a worker from Ghana who wasn't even a 18:49 Christian, but these 20 Christians were tortured and then these Muslims brought 18:55 them to the shores of the Mediterranean on, in the shores of Libya, with the 21st 19:02 man. And that's where they beheaded them as their blood flowed into the sea. That 19:10 21st man from Ghana, who wasn't a Christian, at one point the Muslim 19:15 terrorists gave him a chance to leave. He refused because he saw how these men 19:23 lived. He saw these men stood up to torture. He saw how these men prayed 19:27 and cared for each other. And he said, their God is my God. And his blood was mixed with 19:36 the blood of these Egyptian Christians, mingled with Christ. 19:42 You know, again, I always used to think like that would never happen. How could that ever 19:46 possibly happen? What if it happened right now? What if it happened wherever you're living? 19:49 What if all of a sudden, it became illegal to be a Christian? If wherever you are right now, 19:55 it became illegal to be a Christian? And if you were accused of being a Christian, 20:00 Here's the question. If you were accused of being a Christian, 20:04 would there be enough evidence to convict you? I came across a man named Dr. David Gibbs. David 20:14 Gibbs is a lawyer and a preacher. I had never heard of him until a couple weeks ago, but I 20:19 heard him tell a story. The story was he was invited to give some sermons at a local church 20:27 or a church across the state from him. 20:30 And he says that on Saturday before he left, 20:36 he got a call from someone at the church. 20:39 And he said, Dr. Gibbs, there's been a horrible tragedy. 20:43 Said, two of the best men in our parish, 20:46 young men, young husbands, young dads, 20:48 they were out because they wanted to go door to door 20:51 to visitations and invite people to your event tomorrow, 20:54 to our service and your event. 20:55 They wanted to invite people to hear you preach tomorrow. 20:58 And at some point they were at an intersection 20:59 and someone didn't see a stop sign 21:02 and a car struck them and both young men, 21:05 both young dads were killed. 21:07 And Dr. Gibbs was like, oh my gosh, what do you want me to do? 21:09 He's like, hey, are you still gonna be there? 21:12 Like, I'll show up and you just pray. 21:13 I'll preach if you want me to preach. 21:14 I'll just sit there and pray if you want me to pray. 21:16 I'll be there and then the guy in front of the shirt 21:19 says, I'm not sure, I'm not sure. 21:20 Let me pray about it. 21:21 So he hangs up the phone a couple of hours later. 21:23 He says, Dr. Gibbs, you gotta get here. 21:25 you have to come tomorrow. He says, how come? He says, I don't know. There's some kind of revival 21:29 happening. Well, what happened was the two wives of these two men, Anita and Carol, are their names. 21:37 They were devastated. Their husbands were out there just trying to do good, right? Trying to 21:43 invite people to church and their husbands were killed. And so they went to the pastor 21:50 and said, pastor, please take us to the wreck. Take us to the site where our husbands have 21:54 and he's like, no, you don't want to see it. 21:56 You don't want to go there. 21:57 There's blood on the ground. 21:59 You don't want to do this. 21:59 I said, yes, we have to, we have to go there. 22:01 So what they did is he brought them to their car. 22:04 They went inside the car and they found the list of names 22:09 that these dads had been on the road to go visit 22:13 and invite to the event the next day. 22:15 And they took these names and they went door to door 22:20 and they said this. 22:21 He said, he said, no, take us, take us door to door. 22:24 We want to finish their mission. 22:26 We want to reach these people. 22:29 So Anita and Kara went to the first house 22:30 and they said, our husbands gave their lives 22:36 to get this message to you. 22:37 Would you please come? 22:40 Come tomorrow, we'd be so grateful. 22:44 And the word spread, and so he said, 22:46 he said the word spread 22:47 because people could see something. 22:49 When he got there the next morning, 22:50 he said the place was overwhelmed, 22:51 Well, there's news stations. 22:53 There were so many people there 22:54 because people had heard about this. 22:56 People had heard, they said, do you see these women? 22:59 These two ladies who had never preached a sermon 23:03 had someone worth looking, had something worth looking at. 23:08 These women who had never taught a class 23:10 had something worth looking at. 23:15 And David Gibbs asked that question, 23:17 what in your life is worth looking at? 23:21 Or is it all words? 23:25 And we can ask that question right now. 23:29 In my life, does my life have something worth looking at? 23:33 It doesn't have to look like Anita or Carol's life, but the question is, is it different 23:37 at all? 23:41 So what's the remedy? 23:42 What's the remedy for this practical atheism? 23:44 What's the remedy for this temptation we all have to ignore God's invitation? 23:48 I think it's two things. 23:49 I think it's very simple. 23:50 the remedy for practical atheism is to pay attention and to ask one thing. Now 23:59 before I get to that I do have to I do have to blame someone for this problem 24:04 for this this massive blind spot I have to blame God because here's God God is 24:12 God is so good God is holy God is the source of all being in so many ways God 24:19 God should be unavoidable, but God is so humble that He's made Himself ignorable. 24:31 God has made it so if we don't want to pay attention to Him, He won't make us pay attention 24:39 to Him. 24:40 Why did He do that? 24:41 I believe He did that for the sake of love. 24:42 I believe God made Himself ignorable for the sake of love. 24:46 Why? 24:46 Because love pays attention. 24:50 So the remedy for this blind spot is to pay attention. 24:52 So my brother with the amazing selective hearing you would think that would be a horrible 24:59 Ingredient to bring into a marriage and I think it probably would be pretty bad, too, but he's been married for 27 years and 25:07 I'll tell him this I've told he and his wife this I think they have one of the best relationships 25:11 I've seen incredible incredible marriage. They say they've worked on it really out on but 25:16 But it's remarkable. 25:19 And one of the things I see is there was a meme that I really is stuck in my head. 25:24 It was a meme that said something along the lines about marriage and it said, this person 25:27 had posted and said, after 20 years of being married, I realized that 80% of marriage is 25:32 yelling the word what from the other room? 25:36 My brother and his wife, they've decided, you know what we want? 25:39 We don't want to bicker. 25:41 Too many couples just fall into this trap of bickering, fall into this trap of just 25:44 kind of sniping at each other. 25:45 Doing these dry buys where you say that whatever the passive aggressive thing is you're walking by the room 25:51 So what they've done is they've decided they have some rules 25:53 We're not gonna bicker so we have three rules and the first rule is this if I have something to say to you 25:58 Or if you have something to say to me, we're gonna go into the same room 26:01 We're gonna be in the same room. I'm not gonna call from across the across the house 26:06 I'm not gonna call from the other room. I'm gonna be in the same room number one 26:09 Be in the same room number two is get attention get the person's attention and the other person 26:14 the rule is give your attention. And the third rule is say the thing clearly. Again, no sniping, 26:23 passive aggressive, just say the thing clearly. And it's remarkable that that does something. 26:32 To be able to say, okay, with my spouse, I'll be in the same room, I'll get attention and 26:36 give attention, and I'll say the thing clearly. How many arguments, how many gripes, how many 26:42 tension, tense moments are alleviated because of this and same thing is true 26:46 when it comes to God. To be able to say this with God, get in the same room. If I'm 26:52 tempted to this blind spot of ignoring God, tempted to this blind spot of living 26:56 as if I did not believe God exists, to consistently get in the same room with 27:00 God and simply pay attention. And thirdly, you know, the second part is to 27:05 ask one thing. That's the thing we say clearly. To pay attention and to ask 27:10 one thing. And this is the last thing. And this has changed my prayer. This has changed my life. 27:18 Is in any given moment to pay attention to God and ask this one thing. God, right now, 27:27 how would you have me be? Just ask that question. God, right now, 27:34 how would you have me be? It's so simple. But the crazy thing is there's no one answer. 27:39 Because as life changes, God's answer changes. And as the need changes, 27:43 is what God is asking might change. 27:48 But if I consistently do those two things, 27:50 if I pay attention and ask that question, 27:52 God, right now, how would you have me be? 27:55 It leads me to a place where I'm in relationship with God. 27:59 In those big moments and those small moments, 28:02 in that joy, in sorrow, in pain, in rest, 28:07 you're inviting God into all moments. 28:11 And when he's invited in, we can't ignore him. 28:20 So at the end of all things, this is the, this is the, the, the remedy. 28:26 Pay attention to God and ask one thing. God right now, how would you have me be? 28:30 And here's the crazy thing. God is real. So he's going to answer. 28:35 He's going to remind you of your blind spots. He's going to grace, 28:38 give you the grace to bring to the light, to not ignore the one in whom we believe, 28:43 life, but to live like someone who believes and to live a life that's worth looking at.
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