Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 01/26/20 Underestimated: Silence is Not Absence

Episode Date: January 26, 2020

Homily from the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time. Do not underestimate what God is doing when it seems like God is doing nothing. There are seasons of silence, and hiddenness, and brokenness in all of our lives. These times are not just useful, they are necessary for us to become the kind of people God needs us to be. Mass Readings from January 26, 2020: Isaiah 8:23-9:3 Psalms 27:1, 4, 13-141 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17 Matthew 4:12-23 Download the Homily Study

So one of the things, with spring semester, come spring semester projects. Right, so like all the engineers, you're like, oh, so senior design, that's like the thing that dominates your life if you didn't know that already. It's like everything is all about senior design if you're an engineer right now, right? Or if you are graphic designer, it's all about getting your portfolio together because all about get this project. All these spring projects, even if you're fine arts person, like you're getting everything ready for the recital. And maybe that's none of your majors, it's just like it's the whatever senior thesis. This is the project. This is the thing that needs to get done. It's so interesting because I don't know if you've already started working on it yet,

because it's like, are you kidding me? It's not even close to the end of the semester, which is absolutely correct. But the question is, how long do you think it'll take you, whatever project you have right now, right? Every kind of big thing you have going on. How long do you think it will take you to get this thing done? There was these two psychologists named Daniel Keniman and Amos Tvarski. They did a study back in 1977 where they wanted to prove that we underestimated, how much time it'll take to get anything done.

They call it the planning fallacy. And they did the study, basically, they came to the conclusion that we have a tendency to disregard historical data when it comes to making predictions. Even though we may have been in the same situation and we did in the same project and it took us a certain amount of time, we think, well, next time it'll take us less time. Well, next time it'll take us half the time.

In fact, they did another study in like 1993 where they had 37 psychology seniors and writing their senior thesis, easy for me to say, me to say, writing their senior thesis, and they said, okay, estimate how long do you think it'll take you to write your senior thesis? You are seniors in this major. You know how long it takes to write papers. Here's your senior thesis. You know how long it's supposed to be. How long do you estimate it'll take it'll take? So the average estimate, they said it'll take me about 34 days. 34 days to write my senior thesis. Big paper, big project, 34 days. What is your best case scenario? They said, my best case scenario is it takes me 27 days, so like a week less.

which seems pretty reasonable, right? Good estimation. The average amount of time it took for those seniors to write their senior thesis was 55 days. And they said 34 days. It took them three weeks, 21 full days longer than they thought. And this is not their first time they ever had a run of paper. But we have this planning fallacy where we underestimate the amount of time it's going to take for us to do something. In fact, there's this woman who's writing an article about this planning fallacy,

and she said that we're all guilty of it, right? It's not just writing papers. She said she's painted five rooms in her house. and the first time she painted a room, she's that it'll take me a weekend. I mean, it's not that big of a room. It took her a month. So the second room she's going to paint, she's like, okay, I know the last room took me a month, but I've now done it before.

So it'll only take me a weekend because I'm an expert, and it took her a month. So the third time she painted a room. She's like, okay, now I'm good at this. I know I'm not going to be fooled. I know how long it takes a weekend. And it took her a month. And she said every room she's painted, five rooms, they all took her a month.

So she's like, the next time I paint a room, the sixth room, I do not care what I think. I'm not going to disregard my historical data because I'm not going to underestimate how long it takes. Because we started this series last week called underestimated. And one of the things we talked about was that we cannot underestimate who God needs us to be. Right then in the course of our lives, we cannot, cannot fall into this trap of underestimating the person God needs us to become.

But we also have to realize that we cannot underestimate how long that will take. Because if this is the project of our lives, we have to be prepared to actually let it take our entire lives. Because the kind of people God needs us to be, are the kind of people, what are the kind of people that needs us to be? He needs us to be the kind of people who love heroically. He needs us to be the kind of people who can trust heroically.

And love and trust are two things that have to grow. You can't just like, I wish, I wish you could just like wave a wand over someone like, oh, no, I trust, you know, Or like, here's a person, like, I want to love deeply, and here's that, bing, you know. Now you can trust all this. Now you can love all of a sudden. But love and trust have to grow. And growth takes time.

Like, no matter how badly we just want it to be done and how badly we want this love to be true and our trust to be powerful, it has to grow. And the growth has to take time. It's so funny. In all relationships, I remember once I had a couple come to me and they wanted me to do their wedding on the one year, anniversary of the day they started dating. So you're not reacting how I reacted. You're just like, oh yeah, that sounds right. I'm like, no, that is not right. They're like, they dated for less, they were dating for like four months. Like, no, father, we know. We, we, we, and I'm like, you guys have to have big conversations. We

had the big conversations already. That's what do you think we're doing the first four months of our relationship? So I had to tell, how it is it? I had to tell them no in the kindest, gentlest, gentlest way. We negotiated. Because the reality of course is this, is that, yes, you can please have those difficult conversations, talk. about big stuff from the very beginning, that's wonderful. But there are some things that only time can reveal. In our relationships, there's some things that only time can reveal. And again, it's not just bad things.

We have to get through a certain point in our relationships to be able to be free to say yes to the other person. So I say this all the time, and there's this couple, different couple, I was doing their marriage prep, and they had been dating at this point, maybe two and a half years, and they had maybe two months to go until their wedding. we met and they said, Father, we have to let you know that you're right. And I'm like, about what? I get that all the time. No, they said, you're right. Two months ago, we basically, you all, you told us at some point, like the feeling of being in love, the feeling of like,

you know, go gougly eyes over each other, you said, you promised that at some point it's going to go. And we thought, no, not us. Our love is stronger. It's forged in, it's made and have written in the stars. Like, not a. us and they both looked at each other said two months ago. Yeah. I mean, it was one of those things where like, you know, they're annoying but also cute and now they're just annoying. And they said, but this is so good. And they saw it as a good thing because it is a good thing. This is so good because now in two months when we get married to each other, we're free. Like now we get to marry each other. We're free to walk away right now. We're free to say yes. And we're free to

choose. Why? Because there's some things that only time can do. That maturing, that growth, that love, that stuff. It's those times, it's like the whole hum times, right? It's the ordinary times. It's the kind of blah times. And it's even the absolute lowest times that we can't underestimate. We can't underestimate not only how important they are, but how absolutely necessary, even the lowest times are. In the first reading today, it's Isaiah chapter 8. And the first line out of it is just like, it's just, it's heart-wrenching. It says, at first, the Lord degraded Zebulin and the land of Naftali.

It's terrible line. And you know this because we talked about this last week, that the kingdom of Israel, right, is 12 tribes. Under King David, he united all 12 tribes. Under King Solomon, his son, is all he's still united. Under the next son, everything broke, everything fell apart. and the ten tribes in the north broke off. A few tribes in the south stayed solid. But then a couple hundred years later,

the Assyrians came in from the north, and they obliterated those ten tribes in the north. Now, God had promised something incredible to the kingdom of his earth. He promised that that kingdom would last forever. He promised that the kingdom would bless the entire world. And here they are breaking into, and then the Assyrians come in,

and they destroy that northern kingdom. And the top two tribes that they first destroyed were the tribe of Zebulin and the tribe of Naftali. And so when Isaiah says, at first the Lord degraded Zebulin and aftly, what is reminding the people of is, you are walking in faith, and all of a sudden the rug was pulled out from underneath you.

You thought God was faithful to his promises, and all of a sudden, the bottom dropped out. And what's been happening is for the last, because by the time Isaiah wrote this in the year 600 BC, he says, these people have been walking in darkness for 200 years by this point. And they would walk in darkness for the next 600 years until Jesus, where they absolutely felt like God had abandoned them,

where they absolutely felt like God was no, where God wasn't doing anything in their lives. Not just kind of ordinary, not just ho-hum, but the absolute lowest point that lasted so, so-stinking long. I don't know if you've ever had that experience, right, where you had a moment of faith and you're like, okay, I'm going to trust God. I'm going to act in faith, and I'm going to follow him, and I'm going to take a step because God is faithful and you know God is faithful. And then nothing. And then sometimes worse than nothing. and so you just keep on trying and keep on praying and you're on walking in darkness.

You know, it's so powerful because the Bible is full of these stories. The Bible is full of stories of people who walked in faith and they found themselves walking in darkness. And they just found themselves like needing God, like desperate for God and crying up for God and saying, God, how come it seems like you're not doing anything? How come it seems like you're not listening? In fact, one of these guys is a guy named Daniel.

In Daniel chapter 10, he says he had this vision. And this vision was he saw this massive war where there was so much death and so much destruction. And he said he almost died at the vision of this. It just wrecked him. Here's what Daniel says. Hi, Daniel, after this vision, I mourned for three full weeks. I ate no savory food.

I took no meat, no wine, and I did not anoint myself at all until the end of the three weeks. Like, I didn't even bathe. Like, no one wanted to be around me. Like, here's Daniel, who, like, is grieved by this vision, and he immediately turns to the Lord, and nothing happens. Have you ever prayed like that where it's just like, gosh, gosh, God. do something and there's no response and there's nothing's happening. Daniel's not just praying.

He's fasting. He's in this penance and nothing. And then what happens says on the 24th day, I was on the bank of the Great River, the Tigris. I looked up and I saw this man. Basically, he's an angel. He describes his body's like chrysolite. His face shown like lightning. His eyes are like fiery torches, his arms and feet look like a burnished bronze. His voice sounded like the roar of thunder and he falls down and he's dead. And the angel steps forward and touches him and says, fear not, Daniel. From the first day you made up your mind to acquire understanding and humbled yourself before God, your prayer was heard.

What's angel saying? He's saying, from the first day, you made up your mind to pray, even before you prayed, from the moment you decided to pray, God heard your prayer. For the moment you even thought, I need to come before God. God already knew, and he already responded. What happened is something mysterious, though? He says, and because of it, I started out to come to you. But the prince of Persia stood in my way for 21 days until finally Michael the Archangel, one of the chief princes, came to help me.

Love, God to love Michael. I don't understand what that means. It basically means here's the angel who's fighting a demon, and then Michael Archangel comes to tag team him, and so he can go deliver the message. I don't know what all that means, but the point of what the whole story is, is this. From the moment Daniel started to pray, the moment he decided to pray, God had heard him, but he didn't know. what is reminding us is this truth we cannot underestimate what God is doing when it seems like God is doing nothing

we cannot underestimate what God is doing when it seems like God is doing nothing because his silence is not the same thing as his absence and his hiddenness is not the same thing as inactivity that yeah we might be a people walking in darkness I do not know the next step I do not know what God wants from this

I do not know what God is doing but we cannot underestimate what God is doing when it seems like God is doing nothing because something is happening, and something is happening in this silence, something's happening in this darkness, and even something that's happening in this brokenness that is absolutely necessary. I don't know if you know anything about Chinese bamboo. But there's a, if you ever plant a Chinese bamboo forest, here's what you can expect. So if you can't plant a Chinese bamboo seed, you'll water it and make sure it has everything it needs. For the first year,

nothing will happen. So you just keep watering, you keep taking care of that area. In the second year, nothing happens. So you just keep watering, keep making sure it has everything it needs, and the third year nothing happens. And you keep watering, keep making sure it has everything. The fourth year, nothing happens. Don't dig up the Chinese bamboo seed. Because in the fifth year, what's been happening that first year, second year, third, or fourth year, it's not nothing's been happening. But what it's been doing is setting out a root system that goes so wide and goes so deep that one year, that fifth year, the bamboo actually grows up to 90 feet in five weeks. It actually grows a rate of one inch per every 40 minutes.

They actually have a time lapse. You can literally sit there and watch the bam group grow. Because why? Because when it seemed like it was doing nothing, something was happening. And not just something was happening. What was necessary was happening. Because without those roots, without that depth, without that breadth, without that foundation, it would not be able to support a 90-foot bamboo tree.

We have to realize this is true for us that God is doing something in the silence that he couldn't do without that silence. And God is doing something in our brokenness that he couldn't do without the brokenness. And God is doing something in the darkness that he can't do without the darkness. He's making us into people who can trust.

And I can't trust unless I need to trust. He's making us into the kind of people who actually know how to love, not just ourselves, but not to love the people around. honest, know how to love him. And again, we said this, both love and trust, they have to grow. And growth takes time, and growth takes silence, and growth takes darkness. And we cannot underestimate what God is doing in the darkness. Can't underestimate what God is doing in the brokenness.

And we can't underestimate what God is doing when it seems like he's doing nothing. Well, what can we do? Like, okay, Father, all these things we can't do. What can we do? Well, one thing we can do is we can turn the page. I don't know if you've ever been reading a book and you get to a part of the where you're just like, this is the worst thing that ever happened to my favorite character and just stop reading the book and throw it against the wall. Like, I'm done with this book. That's dumb. What do you do?

You don't stop. You keep reading the story. Just because something terrible has happened in the story doesn't mean you abandon the story. It means you turn the page. You know, the last book of the Old Testament is the book of the prophet Malachi. The book of Malachi was written 400 years before Jesus. And if you got to the end of the Old Testament and read Malachi and were like, well, what the heck? Dang it. I wonder what happens. God has all these promises. He promised all this

goodness, all this faithfulness, and that's it. Or you could just turn the page. And then one single page turn, you travel 400 years from the last prophet Malachi to the new prophet John the Baptist. It's one page between Malachi and Matthew. It's the same thing is true for us. We find ourselves like in this darkness. We find ourselves in the story in a terrible part of the story. Maybe it's even a terrible season of the story. And what does God say? Just turn the page. Another way to say it is what Isaiah says in chapter 8 today. He says there was a people walking in darkness. They weren't just laying there. They were moving. They were able to actually say, okay, this is what it is what it is to live, you guys. To live is to walk in darkness. To live in this world

of uncertainty is to walk in darkness. This guy named Sorin Kirkgaard. He said that like this. He said, life can only be understood backwards. But it must be living. lived forwards. Like it can only be understood when I've already lived through it and I look back and go, oh, now I understand. But I have to live it forwards. So I have to keep walking. I have to turn the page in that darkness and brokenness. What do you do? You do what you know to do. You remember. I don't know if he caught this at the end of the first reading, Isaiah. God says, here's all the things that are going to happen. Here's all the things that are going to happen. And then he ends up with this as on the days of Midian.

And if you're like me, you went like, okay, neat. Yeah, it must have been a good day. But then we didn't look it up until I was getting ready for this. And I was like, let me look that up. What is the day of Midian? Well, it turns out it's in the Bible. I should have known that. I knew it.

I'm just kidding. So in the book of Judges, here's what Hat was going down. The people of Israel being terrorized by the Medianites. Like, Israel was so weak. They were so small. They were so poor. And Midian was a bunch of terrorists, honestly. They not only violently attacked the Israelites.

They also did like the psychological warfare, where they actually, like, they would poison their wells, where they would kill their animals. And they actually did this thing where they waited until the Israelites planted their crops, like used all their seeds. And then after they planted their crops, they'd just ruin the crop. They not only to violently attack the Israelites themselves, but to then attack their way of life, to attack their source of food, their nourishment. And there's this guy named Gideon.

And Gideon at one point with this little amount of food, he's trying to get it all ready for his family. And an angel appears to him and says, You know, hail champion. And Gideon's like, I'm not a champion. God, we've been praying for you for so long. How come you haven't answered us? Our hands haven't answered us. How come you haven't answered our prayers?

The angel says, the Lord hears your prayers. He's with you in your woundedness. He's with you in your brokenness and he's going to fight for you. And so what he does is Gideon says, yeah, guys, God's on our side. Let's fight the Midianite. So like thousands of Israelites showed up. Like if God's with us, listen, I'm on his team too. And thousands of people show up.

And God says, no, no, no, no, I don't want. He's like basically God says, I'm going to win. I don't want to win with thousands of people because it's less impressive. And you're going to think that it was you who did it. So here's the deal, Gideon. Whittle this thousands and thousands of guys down to 300. And I'm going to show you how I can fight for you. So Gideon does this.

They surround the Camp of Midian, and they don't surround with weapons, with swords, with spears. They surround Camp of Midian with a torch with, you know, flame on it, and trumpets. They surround it and they walk into the camp with a cover over the, over the torches. and at one point they break the cover, have the torches, blow the trumpets and say, forgotten for Midian, or For God and for Gideon, and the Midians wake up and they kill each other. You guys are not as excited about that story as I am. You're like, oh, that's kind of a sad ending. Yeah, the terrorists died. Yeah, sad ending.

Gosh. But here's the thing. So here's Isaiah saying, you think you're walking in darkness. You think I've abandoned you. You think I don't hear your prayers. Remember the days of Midian? when I defeated the people who were terrorizing you for years and years and years and years and you didn't even have to swing a sword. Like remember that I'm faithful. I was talking to a missionary recently who was talking to a student recently. So it goes.

It's like telephone. And this freshman last year, she encountered Jesus in this entirely new way when she got to campus. And she just started praying this life of prayer. And last year she talked to her missionary and said, do you ever have that time where you go into the chapel, you know, and you just can't stop crying because of how much Jesus loves you so much? The missionary is like, no.

I wish I did, but I'm glad he gave it to you. But that was part of her experience last year was she going to pray, and it just was like, God loves me so, he knows my name, he loves you so much that just would weep. And this year she was talking to the same missionary and saying, like, can't even go pray? I show up and it seems like God's not there.

I show up and I'm so, it's so dry, I'm so distracted. It feels so empty. Is he even there? And the missionary said, do you remember how last year when you would go to pray, you'd be overwhelmed by Jesus' personal love for you? She's like, no, I forgot. That's us. That's every single one of us. When we find ourselves walking in darkness, we forgot what we knew was true in the light. And so we begin to underestimate what God is doing in the darkness. Begin to think he's not doing anything, but he's there. We just have to keep reading. We have to keep walking.

We have to finish the story because there's no way to know how the story's going to end until the story has actually happened, until the story has actually ended. Because then we'll know. Because then we'll understand what God was doing when it seemed like he was doing nothing. Until then, we cannot underestimate what we cannot understand. This is the invitation. Don't underestimate what you don't understand. You know, there's this last thing.

It says, at first, the Lord degraded Zebulin and Naftali. And then the next line is really powerful. It says, but in the end, but in the end, he made them a glorious road. But in the end, he restored them. But in the end, he lifted them up. But in the end, he transformed all of that pain. Here's the question I have to ask you all. Are you and I, are we okay with temporary suffering?

If in the end, God restores us. are you and I okay with temporary loss if in the end God will use it all. Are we okay with temporary pain if in the end it all matters? Because that's what he promises. I mean, we come here and we pray for healing

at times. We pray for reconciliation. We pray for a future at times and certain outcomes. We pray for all those things and God can do all that stuff. But we also know that healing and reconciliation and recovery are not the only possible outcomes. Death is a possible outcome. Not finding a spouse is a possible outcome. Not passing that class, not getting that job.

Those are all real possibilities. But in that, God is present. In that, God is active. Even when my chapter is over, the story still goes on. You know, I was talking to another student. I asked her if I could share this with y'all. She said it was okay. For most of her adult, most of her teenage life up till now, her mom has been ill in a way that she didn't know if the last, if she didn't know when the last goodbye to her mom would be her last goodbye to her mom.

And last semester, her mom passed away. And this last Christmas was her first Christmas that her family celebrated without her mom. At one point, someone from her parish, you know, she's back home, someone from her parish came up and brought it up and said, oh, isn't it so hard? to have not have your mom here with you at Christmas? Like, yes, it is. Thank you very much. Bringing that up in front of me. But she said this other thing, she said, because her sister had a baby. And this woman said, oh, isn't it so sad that your mom will never get the chance to hold your little nephew?

Isn't it so sad that your mom will never get the chance to hold her grandson? And the student said, first of all, she's like, first of all, rude. Yes, it is sad, but why are you talking to me about this? Secondly, why are you trying to manipulate my emotions? And thirdly, she said, actually, my mom is still alive in Christ Jesus. And I'm a Catholic Christian, and I believe that my mom still lives. My mom knows her grandson. My mom knows my nephew.

My mom is alive in Christ, and her life is not over. Her chapter on this earth might be over, but the story is not yet written. And yes, it wasn't the outcome we all prayed for. But I'm not about to doubt in darkness. The power of God and the love of God that I knew was true in the light. Because in the end, here's what the catechism says about, in the end. That when the whole story is written, like, when Jesus comes again, and all time is done.

And every one of our stories is like there's a period at the end of it, and it's a great book. He says this. It says, we shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation. In the end, we shall know the entire economy. In the end, we'll understand the marvelous ways by which you. God and his providence led everything towards its final end. Because in the end, it says this, it will reveal that God's justice triumphs over all of the

injustices committed by his creatures, and that God's love is stronger than death. And that in the end, we realized, okay, that brokenness was not just helpful, it was necessary. I needed that brokenness. And that hiddenness was not just helpful. I needed that hiddenness. And that darkness. needed to walk in darkness. Because in the end, there'll be no room to underestimate what God was doing when it seemed

like he was doing nothing.