Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 02/07/21 Hindsight 20/20: In Good Times and In Bad

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

Homily from the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Good times don’t last…and neither do bad times. One of the many things that life teaches us is that life is always changing. To grow is to change. There are times that are good and there are times that are bad. All of us go through good times and bad times and neither of them are permanent. In both good times and bad, Jesus is Lord and He loves the person in a desperate situation and the person in a bright situation. Mass Readings from February 07, 2021: Job 7:1-4, 6-7 Psalms 147:1-61 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23 Mark 1:29-39 Download the Homily Study

So immediately after World War I, the country of Great Britain or Britain had entered into kind of a time of prosperity. Things were relatively good. It had become a relatively strong country. Things had changed. Women had the vote. And at least for those who were already wealthy or the aristocracy, there were good times. Like the Great Gatsby, whether that's real or imagined, that kind of like living large, living life. The people were doing well.

Britain was good. They were strong. They were prosperous. And if you looked at it, you'd say, I could right after that. It would be a good time to be alive. It's a good time to be alive. I was thinking about that when we read today, first reading from Job is Job chapter 7. And Job was in a very difficult place, but if we rewind back to chapter one, we have an entirely different picture of Job's life. If we go back to chapter one, the picture of Job's life is that Job has, he's got so many kids, he doesn't know what to do, living in a shoe, he's got, he's got land, he's got flocks, he's got herds, he's got cattle, he worships, I mean, he prays to God on a regular basis. Not only does he pray to God for himself, but when his kids,

who also get along with each other, which is another blessing, when they get together, Job is off worshipping, making atonement for his kids in case they might accidentally do something to offend the Lord. Like, Job is a good man, and Job is living in some good times. It is a good time to be Job. Back in Great Britain, things changed by the middle of the 1920s. I mean, it's brewing in the beginning of the 1920s, but by the middle of the 1920s, there are some parts of Britain that had reached 70% unemployment.

Of course, the clouds of war have been started to form on the horizon coming into the 1930s, and things had changed. Things had changed in Britain. For Job, we're reading Chapter 1, and then we turn the page, and he's lost everything. We turn the page in Job's life, and everything has gone. The kids, the flocks, the land, his health. And there's a truth here, both these two stories.

There's truth here in both these two situations, these two examples. And the truth is this, good times don't last. Wong. But it's true. It's something we need to be reminded of. Good times don't last. Back to Great Britain by the late 1930s, experts knew about Hitler's plan to fly over the English Channel and to massively bomb the cities of England.

And so they predicted just absolute carnage and chaos. They predicted that London would be demolished, that it would be reduced to rubble. They predicted that the very first day, over 200,000 people would be killed in that first bombing run in London. They predicted that millions would go crazy because they wouldn't be able to handle the fact that day and night the Nazis were dropping bombs on their cities, on their homes, on their friends, on their family members, on themselves. And actually, they believed that those who survived would descend into madness. Eric Larsson, he's a man who wrote a book called The Splendid and the Vile. He quoted one expert, one military strategist.

He said, dude, this military strategist said this ahead of time. He said, London for several days will be one vast raving bedlam. When they start the bombing, that's what's going to happen. He says, the hospitals will be stormed. Traffic will cease. The homeless will shriek for help. The city will be a pandemonium. And in July 1940, the bomb started the fall.

And it was, it was awful. It was horrific. It was horrible. There's a man in David Brooks. David Brooks describes the scene. Here's this description. It's pretty graphic. But he said, the bombing went on for months, sometimes by day.

Every, always by night. Hundreds are more than a thousand people. were killed each night. I said there were scenes of horror, a dog walking down the street with a child's arm in its mouth. A young girl tossed into a neighboring backyard by a blast that decimated the rest of her family.

Early on in the blitz, there was this man named Len Jones who emerged from his bomb shelter, and he found two heads protruding from a mass of rubble, and one was his neighbors. Len Jones said, he said this, he said, when I was closed, and I realized that he was dead. He said, I just convulsed. He said, I just convulsed.

He's his quote from Len Jones. He said, I was shaking all over. I thought, well, I must be as dead as they were. So I struck a match and tried to burn my finger. And I kept doing it to see if I was still alive. I could see, but I thought, I cannot be alive. This is the end of the world. Imagine, just being convinced, this is the end of the world.

That this is the end. And that feeling of, I feel so helpless and I feel so hopeless. because it is done. This is over. This is the end. And that's where we find Job in Chapter 7 today. And everything he loved, everything he loved has been stolen or destroyed or killed.

You know the story that he's covered all over, head to foot by these boils that he cannot get any relief from. He can't eat. He can't sleep. He has been reduced lower than he ever imagined possible. and we see Job here now helpless and hopeless. And he basically says, I'm done.

This is over. In fact, here's what he says. He says, my days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle. They come to an end without hope. Remember that my life is like the wind. I shall not see happiness again. I will never see happiness again. And you can hear this.

And Job, this is real anguish because he has gone through incredible suffering, maybe more suffering than any one of us have ever gone through. And that's truly what he thought. He truly, what he truly thought was, I am done, this is over, this is the end. That's what he actually thought, and he was wrong. He truly thought, this is the end, and he was wrong. You know, we started four weeks ago, we started this series called Hindsight 2020, and we're looking over the past year and just all the things that we have gone through

as a people, as a culture, as a church, as individuals, and we asked the question, what if I knew then what I know now? So we said, let's go back to the moment before the moment. What am I doing that moment before the moment? We look back and said, okay, I need to remember the whole story. Over the course of this last year, this lifetime of ours, I need to remember the whole story. And last week we talked about the fact that, okay,

I have to not only remember what I know, I have to actually act on what I know. And now today we have this, and this is the truth. This is this fact that good times don't last. And neither do bad times. And we cannot forget this. Good times don't last. And neither do bad times.

And that fact presents us with an actual choice. Knowing that, we know that we can actually choose to be helpless and hopeless, or we can choose to be helpful and hopeful. Because when we're in times that are good, we're like, okay, this is not the end. when we're in times that are bad, we go, okay, this is not the end. Let's go back to Job. Again, this is a situation, a snapshot of his life where he is experiencing real pain and real loss

and real death, and it feels like the end, but it's not. It feels, gosh, let's get into this. It feels like the end, but it's not the end. If you've done the Bible in a year with us, the podcast with us, you went through the whole book of Job, so you know actually the story. If you stopped at Chapter 7, that would be the end. But what did you do? You didn't stop at Chapter 7. you just kept reading. And what you found out when you kept reading is, here's the truth. Yes, those good times, they didn't last. But this bad time is not going to last either because God has not forgotten you. The story is not over. Just keep reading. And this is not like light of Job or make the light of what we might be going through, what you might be going through in this season of your

life, this vast swath of your life, because it's true, life can be so difficult. Like actually is so difficult that it feels like the end. But it's not. You have to just keep walking. So for Job, we'd say, okay, just keep reading. For us, just keep walking. Just keep swimming. I don't know if you remember if you watched Finding Nemo,

but that's, at one point, there is Dory, and she's the fish talking to Marlon, who's Nemo's dad, and he's looking for Nemo because that's the point of the story. He's trying to find Nemo. And at one point, Marlon, he's crushed because he's devastating. by the fact that I have no idea even what to do next.

And Dori says, well, when you don't know what to do, you just keep swimming. Like, you just keep reading, you just keep walking, you just keep swimming. And I get it. That's difficult, like a completely difficult. But what's the alternative? Honestly, if it's not bad, if it's not just keep reading, just keep walking, just keep swimming, what's the alternative?

The alternative is to buy into this lie that, well, there's nothing I can do. I'm helpless. Or the lie that nothing I do matters and it's hopeless. But you know those are lies because the truth is good times don't last and neither do bad times. And that you and I are neither helpless nor hopeless in light of that fact. Because we have two things that change everything. We have purpose and we have a person. This is so important.

When we believe God exists, we believe that God made us, he made us on purpose. And because he made you on purpose, you can keep reading and you can keep walking and you can keep swimming. because you realize you have a destination and everything you do matters. You can choose hopefulness. Even when things are desperate, you know this. There's a purpose. You can still act. That means you can choose helpfulness. When the bombs started falling on London, as I said, it was horrific.

Apparently part of Hitler's strategy was not just to destroy the infrastructure of England. it was to destroy the spirit of the English people. He wanted to get them to the place where they felt helpless and hopeless. But what happened was almost the exact opposite. Almost the exact opposite happened. In fact, someone wrote this and they said that as the bombings continued, the people of London became resilient. When English psychiatrist wrote that as the bomb sirens were alarmed,

quote, small boys continued to play all over the pavements. Shoppers went on haggling. A policeman directed traffic in majestic. boredom and the bicyclists defied death and traffic laws. No one as far as I could see even looked into the sky. There's a psychologist from Canada's name is J.T. McCurdy and he examined this. He was asking the question like, why? How was it that when these bombs started dropping and in the midst of horror, in the midst of the worst time, there would be people who became stronger? And he said, well, there were three kinds of people. The direct hits,

the near misses and the remote misses. He says for the direct hits, they're the people who die. And of course, their deaths are incredibly tragic and worthy of mourning, but they don't influence the culture around them. They have died. Then there's the near misses. And those people have been shaken. They have been rattled.

Their morale has been beaten in many ways. But then the third group was called the remote misses. And he says this. He says, the remote misses are the people who are essentially unaffected. That the bombs have fallen around them and the consequences are much less serious than the first two groups. McCurdy says it like this. He says, a remote miss makes you think you are invincible. But not because you don't think you could die.

This is an important word. The remote miss thinks you're invincible. Not because you don't think you could be next. Not because you don't think bombs will never hurt me, but because you've learned something. you've learned something about yourself. And the thing you've learned is that most often we are afraid of being afraid. Most often we're afraid of like when I get into that situation, will I be able to last?

Will I be able to survive? Will I be able to keep moving? Someone said it like this. This one woman said, finding that we can take it, the bombing, is a great relief for most of us. She said, I think each one of us was secretly afraid that he wouldn't be able to. that he would rush shrieking to the shelter, that his nerve would give, that he would in some way collapse. So this has been a pleasant surprise.

A man wrote, he said, I would not be anywhere in the world but here, in London, in the midst of these bombs, not even for a fortune. Because they learned something. They learned, I can live. I can be afraid and I can still move. Like, I can be in desperate times and I can still help. I can be in dark times and I can still hope. Why? Because I have purpose. I'm not helpless. And because there's a person and I'm not alone. And this is what's so key. It was so crucial for every one of us as Christians to realize in the gospel today.

Here's Jesus. Remember, this is Mark's gospel, which means it's actually Peter's gospel. So this is Simon Peter describing, Jesus called me, we went to my house and my mother-in-law was laying sick there with a fever. Now, whenever I've read this, I've always thought, like maybe she just had like a fever, like a slight cold and she's a little kind of worn out. And so Jesus says, well, here's, you're all better. But it could be that, might be the case, but it also could be the case that Peter and his whole family thought, this is where I lose my mother-in-law. The rest of the family saying, this is where we lose our mom. This is where we lose this woman in our lives. They could have gotten to the place where they're absolutely desperate and saying, this is where it ends. And then what happens? Jesus shows

up and you realize that Jesus, even when we think we can't, Jesus can, even in the darkest moments. Therefore, we are never helpless. We are never hopeless. That's what it is to live as a Christian, not just to realize I've been created on purpose, but also there is a person who was more powerful than death. You know, I don't know if you've seen those signs in people's yards or in church yards that say, faith over fear, when it comes to COVID, when it comes to the coronavirus, when it comes to this last year. And I remember talking with someone who said, does that mean, do you think, as Christians, do you think that if you believe you won't get sick? Do you think, actually, as Christians, as Catholics, that if you believe, you won't die from the coronavirus?

And I was like, absolutely not. No, we actually 100% realize that a virus doesn't really care whether or not you have faith. Like, virus doesn't care whether or not you believe in Jesus. That's not the issue. Because that's not what gives us courage. In fact, what gives us courage is something so powerful that it actually should set us as Catholic Christians apart from everyone else. In fact, there's a town just not too far away from Duluth where I was talking to the priest there.

He said that there's an entire family who were atheists up until the last year. Sometime in the last year, what they did is they just saw everyone around them being so driven by fear, so full of panic. And he said that this family came to him as their parish priest. And he said, they said, Father, we want to be Catholic. We want to be Catholic as soon as we possibly can. And he said, okay, that's great. Why?

And they said, because the world around us and the people around us, our neighbors are so afraid and they're so panicked and they feel, again, my words, so helpless and so hopeless. But they said, but we see you Catholics and you seem courageous. That when everyone else seems to be hopeless, you seem to be hopeful. And the priest said, that's actually true. And the guy said, is it because you think you won't be harmed by this? And he said, no, we believe that we actually can die from this virus. But then even if we did, that still wouldn't be the end.

that even if we did, that would still not be the end. Even if I die, the story isn't over. Why? Because I'm living in the made on purpose, and there's always this person named Jesus who is with me. So there's no reason to be helpless. There's no reason to be hopeless. And there's every reason to choose to be helpful and hopeful. And this is the last thing.

Now, you might say, you might hear this and say, Father, you said that Jesus can, like even in the darkest moments. Yes. Okay, but not everyone gets healed. Yes. So how can we really trust Jesus? I think that's a really good question. And just look at the gospel. In this gospel, Peter, in his, in his gospel, Mark, Peter tells the story about his mother-in-law, someone who mattered to him. Now Jesus, like, steps into her life and heals this person who mattered so much to Simon Peter, he heals her. And then Peter goes up, on to describe that all that night and all the next day, all these anonymous people came to Jesus, people that didn't matter to Peter. But every time these anonymous people who didn't matter to Peter came to Jesus, Peter could see something in Jesus' eyes. And what he saw was that when Jesus came to my mother-in-law, this woman who mattered to me, she mattered to Jesus. But when all these anonymous people came to Jesus, Simon Peter saw that the people that didn't matter to Simon

Peter came to Jesus, they mattered to Jesus. So that question about what about people who don't get healed, that would dissolve in Simon Peter's mind because he's like, no, I know how the Lord looks at every human being. Even the people who don't matter to you or to me, they still matter to Jesus. I'd say, this is why you and I, looking back over the last year and looking ahead at the year to come knowing that good times don't last and that bad times don't last either. We can just keep reading and we can just keep walking and we can just keep swimming. We can just keep acting because we are never helpless. We are never hopeless because we are never alone.

But God created you on purpose. You've been created on purpose by a person. In fact, a trinity of persons. your father, the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit. And therefore our choices, okay, I choose then to be always helpful, to be always hopeful, because the story is not over. It is not done. And this is not the end.