Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 02/13/22 Nothing to Fear: The Future

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

Homily from the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. We are called to do today what prepares us for the challenge of tomorrow. We have become more comfortable with the "completed" past than the unknown future. Rather than desiring to launch into the challenge of the future, many of us have become paralyzed by fear of the future. When we are rooted in the Word of God each day, we become more rooted in God Himself each day. When we are rooted in the Lord, there is no room for fear of the future. Mass Readings from February 13, 2022: Jeremiah 17:5-8 Psalms 1:1-4, 61 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20 Luke 6:17, 20-26

So that question at the beginning of mass, would you rather go back in time to meet your ancestors or go into the future to meet your descendants? It's funny. As I said, I've been asking people that question for the last, I don't know, a week or two. And there is no right or wrong answer. It's just whatever you want it to be. But I've noticed this. I've noticed that more people, well, show up hands.

Participation. How many of you said you would go back in time to meet your ancestors? And how many of you said you would go into the future to meet your descendants? Okay, so every time I ask this question, the vast majority, maybe eight out of ten, are saying I would rather go back in time to meet my ancestors than go in the future to meet my descendants. And there's a lot of reasons. I've talked to people and they said, well, I would love to go back to meet my grandparents

because I've never known my parents' parents. I just want to know that. Like, it'd be great to see what they were like. Others said, like, I like to meet my grandparents or great-grandparents because I want to know where the crazy came from. Like some of that. But a lot of times, the people, when they're not. they don't want to go to the future, a lot of reasons. One of the reasons that they've been

given, they've given me has been, well, because the past is done. Like, the past has already been written. The future is really uncertain. I don't know if I want to know what's happening in the future, not in the sense of I want to be surprised, but in the sense of it can't be good. And so I'd rather go back to the past because the past is safe. It's all done. It's all written. It's over. The future, though, it could get bad. And I think that's really interesting because I wonder if that doesn't represent a kind of a shift. I wonder if this is new. Like this sense that I'd rather go to the past than go to the future.

Because if we think about this, with notable exceptions, most of us are the direct descendants of people who left whatever safe country they were from to come to a place that was dangerous for the sake of their future children. children. Again, most of us, I mean, with notable exceptions of like the indigenous people who are already here, already here, with the victims of the African slave trade, again, forced against their will. So with those exceptions, most of us have someone in our family tree, someone in our line, said, I'm going to leave this place of comfort. Actually, even some people here tonight, you left that place of comfort and went across an ocean to get to this place and think about this. That is a shift of going, I am more comfortable with the than with the future. That's the kind of mindset of someone who says, I'm actually looking more towards the future and my future descendants than I am looking to the past. Because the past is comfortable.

The past is safe and the future is dangerous. But think about this. Every one of us, or most of us at least, it's in our pedigree to do dangerous things. Like your ancestors did dangerous things for the sake of the future. In fact, so one of the things I've been reflecting on is I'm from a place of Minnesota where people move to,

because that's not always the case, right? There's some towns in Minnesota, some regions in Minnesota, where people either they leave there or they just die there. But very few people move there. But I'm from a place in Minnesota or people move too. And I think that's actually done something to the culture of my hometown. I think what it's kind of done is that it's created, I think a culture of people who are less timid.

I think it's created a culture of people who have more of a kind of like, hey, we can try attitude. In fact, Highway 371, if you know Highway 371, it cuts through my town. And there's a bar on 371 that I think has switched owners and names every year since I can remember. Because someone buys the bar and says,

I can think I can try it, and then it tanks because it doesn't work out. And someone else shows up and says, you know what, I'll take a crack at that. And that kind of attitude of just, why not? Let's try. It's something powerful, especially in the face of what so many of us fear,

because there are people who walk among us, and they walk among us as people that the future is not something that they dread. There are people who exist among us, and the future isn't something they dread. But I think if there's any shift I've noticed in our culture, maybe even in our own hearts in the last maybe two years, has been this thing, this fear of the future.

This we might call anticipatory fear. What could happen? I'm not going to do this thing because what could happen. In fact, I was reading this article by a teacher out of Canada, and the teacher was saying that, yeah, we came back to school, but our students didn't come back to school. And she went on and she described some of the things that she's noticed as students are back in school and they're sitting there with their masks.

And she says, I've noticed that students aren't gathering in the hallway like they used to. She said, it used to like walk into the hallway in the morning and it was bustling. People just excited to see each other and hanging out with each other. She says, it's quiet as I walk through the hallways. maybe little clumps of people, but not groups like before. She said that the 11th graders and 12th graders, although in Canada they say grade 11 and grade 12, those in grade 11 and grade 12, after five hours or so, they're sent home every day, before lunch.

Grade 9, grade 10, they have lunch in their desks in the classroom facing forward. She said, this kind of thing, this idea of like, I'm afraid of what could happen if. She said it's actually trickled into this idea. or this fear of the future where even she asks, are you excited about prom? And they're like, well, probably get canceled. Excited about, you know, the next, the spring season. Who knows what's going to happen with it? Excited about going to university.

If it's just this, no. And there's been this, I think there's been this thing that has changed our hearts where it's all this notion of, I'm not going to look forward to the future. I'm going to fear the future because who knows what's going to happen? For the last couple weeks, we've been talking about this series called Nothing to Fear. And FDR, Roosevelt, who had that quote, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. He went on to say, a nameless, unreasoning, unjustifiable fear. So what we've been trying to do is name the fears that we experience.

And so the first week we named the fear of rejection and then the fear of being inadequate. And this weekend, we just want to name that fear of the future because so many of us, our lives are gripped by this fear of the future. So, you know, Jesus doesn't help. he helps, but immediately he doesn't help. Like in today's gospel, Jesus isn't helping. Why? Because what's he say? He says, um, basically,

you think things are good now? Just wait. You laugh now? Wait. You're full now? Wait. He doesn't say, you might be hungry someday. You might grieve someday. You might mourn someday. He's like, you will grieve. You will mourn. You will be hungry.

You will be persecuted. I'm like, Jesus, no, no, no, no. None of that. He's like fueling the fire from my fear of the future. Because what I want is I want things to say the same, especially when we have this fear of the future. What I want is I want just, even if things are kind of marginally bad, at least I know the marginal, I want the marginal bad more than I want the potentially unknown terrible bad. Because we fear the future. I just want things to say the same. But that's crazy. That's not how life works. It's not how life works. That's how fear works.

because fear wants us to freeze, that we see this place of danger, we see this place of challenge, we see this place of opportunity, we see this place of the unknown, and what we want to do when we're, fear of the future, is we just freeze.

And yet, at the same time, this is crazy, at the same time, have you ever paid attention to every great Disney song? Actually, no, to pay attention to every great Disney anthem. Because virtually every great Disney anthem

is all about going into the challenge. It's all about, I'm going to leave that place of comfort. I'm going to go, Hercules, let's start there. Here's the guy. You know him, he went from zero to hero. He puts the glad and gladiator. What does he sing? He has that song about, like, I can go the distance.

If you haven't listened to that song, pull it up today and to drive home, it'll give you tears. Because there's that sense of like, going to leave that place of security, and I'm going to go to the place that is dangerous. I'm going to go to that place that's unknown. And almost every Disney princess worth singing about has sang the same thing. Ariel, she's got thing of Mabob's and who's it what's it she's all she's got everything you want but where does she want to go she wants to go up where they walk up where they run up where they stay all day in the sun she wants to be part of that world she's not part of she wants to leave comfort and go to the place of danger bell the first song she lives

in a poor provincial town where she wanted to go to the bigger world do you have Moana if you ever knew how far she would go pocahontas wants to go around the river bend you have and then of course the most recent Elsa literally singing the song into the unknown, because that is the theme of virtually every great Disney anthem is I'm leaving that place of comfort, that place of security, I'm going into the future, a place of danger. But for so many of us, the danger of the future causes us to shrink back. The challenge of the future causes us to be paralyzed, and the fear of the future makes us wait. but I just want to invite us to do this.

Consider there's a moment in the Bible. It's one of my favorite stories of a guy named David, right? So when David was a kid, well, here's the story. So you have these two armies, the Israelite army and the Philistine Army. You know the story. And they're on two opposite hills. And then between them is a valley called the Valley of Elah. And so they're going to fight each other.

Except from the Philistines, there's this giant, right? He's the giant warrior. His name is Goliath. And he comes down and says, okay, rather than both armies fight each other, I'll come down and I'll fight whoever you want to send to fight me. And no one comes. Why? Because they're all afraid. And rightfully so, because Goliath is a, he's a killer. But it's interesting, if you ever read the story,

it's not like Goliath just came down one day and said, by the way, if you send out one person to fight me, and no one comes that one day. Goliath came down day after day, week after week, sometimes multiple times a day, and issued this challenge. And for weeks on end, those Israelites, they stood there, frozen, in fear. Until one day the shepherd boy comes up, he hears the challenge of Goliath and he goes,

I'll do it. In the story, after he goes to the whole interview process, and David gets to the battle line, here's what happens. This is one of the coolest lines. It's just, it's almost a throwaway line, but if you pay attention to it, it's clearly not throw away. It's, so David gathers these five smooth stones, puts him in his bag, and here's the line. It says, First Samuel chapter 17, verse 48. He says the Philistine then moved to meet David at close quarters. Here's the line. While David ran quickly toward the battle line in the direction of the Philistine. That's all.

But that says everything. That here's David, with the person who could kill him right in front of his face. And what does he do? He doesn't wait for him. He doesn't run away. But David ran quickly toward the battle line in the direction of the Philistine. We have to realize this has to be us. When it comes to our lives, this has to be us. Why?

Because we're not waiting for life to start. We're not waiting for life to come to us. None of us can afford to wait for the battle to come to us. Why? Because life has already started. Wherever you're at in life right now. This is your life. Life's already started. You don't have to wait for anything.

This is it. You know, there was a quote that I came across a couple months ago. I shared it before. I want to share it again. Because it just struck me as being so true and so, powerful for the fact that it's true. It's this. Every person lives two lives. The second one begins when they realize

they only have one. Every person lives two lives. The second begins when you realize you only have one. And I think those words, if we let them, that truth can be so powerful because it means at least two things. First it means that you and I are never at the battle line waiting for the battle to start. We're in the middle of the battle. life has already started. The second thing it means is that we prepare to face the future well when we live today well. We prepare to face the future well without fear of the future when we live today

well. So David, right, he shows up. And it's not like David was like, oh, there's a giant who could kill anyone in this army. I can take him. I mean, I play World of Warcraft. I'll be fine. In fact, at one point, King Saul says, you can't fight this man. You're just a youth. He's been a war. You're just a youth. He's been a your sense his youth. And that's when David gives Saul his resume, and I love David's resume. Here's what David's resume is. This is again, his First Samuel chapter 17. He says, well, I used to tend my father's sheep. And whenever a lion or a bear came to carry off a sheep from the flock, I would go after it and attack it and rescue its prey from its mouth. I was like, David. I thought, a little shepherd boy. Like, no, like shepherd boy.

He goes on to say, if it attacked me, I would seize it by the jaw, strike it, and kill it. And your servant, I have killed both a lion and a bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he's dared to insult the armies of the living God. I'm like, okay, he's a little B.A. A. Little more B.A. than I thought he was. Like, here is David. Why? Because David spent every day getting ready for the next day. The way David lived, he was facing each day. And that way he faced each day, prepared him to face the next day. You and I, we don't need to fear the future. Yes, persecutions will come. Yes, hunger will come. Yes, mourning and grieving will come. Yes, some future monster, some future

bogeyman, some future Goliath will come. But we don't need to be afraid of that. Why not? Because today, today you're doing exactly what you need to do to get ready for tomorrow. because right now, you're doing exactly what you need to do to be ready for then. You know, over the last year plus, it's kind of weird talking about this, but I'm going to say it. Over the last year plus, so I made this podcast like Bible in a year, right? So every little day, you have like a 20-minute snippet of the Bible. Throughout the course of 365 days, you get through the entire Bible. And last year, there were over like, I don't know, half a million people who had done this.

And it's really powerful because, well, let me back up. A bunch of years ago, there was a guy here at UMD. and he had a really good friend who had gotten into a car accident. And she was in the hospital and she was really not doing well. She was recovering, but she was just really struggling. And he reached out to me and he said, Father, do you have any like scripture verses I can share with her that would help her? I'm like, of course, absolutely.

I sent him some. But I remember thinking, I don't know if that's exactly what will help her right now. I'm sure there's some consolation when you have, here's a verse of encouragement, a verse of hope. but that's nothing like that's nothing like being surrounded by scripture that's nothing like what's in the first reading right

first reading Jeremiah 17 and even the psalm today Psalm chapter 1 where they both say Jeremiah and David both say the person who plants themselves in God's word is like the person who like a tree planted by streams of living water

the person who plants themselves in God's word it's like the person who plants themselves in streams of living water. When you're planted by streams of living water, you do not need to fear when it gets hot. When you're planted in your streams of living water, you do not need to fear when the drought comes. When you're planted by streams of living water, yes, there will be grief, and there will be mourning, and there will be pain,

there will be persecution. But because you're planted there, you do not need to be afraid. So I shared this story with a couple people a while back, but think earlier this summer, there's a man who came by at the Newman house and I saw him because I have a little camera on the doorbell you know so I creep on people regularly and he walked in with his journal

and he put this journal on top of the step so when I got home I saw oh there's a journal there that guy must have dropped it off so I started opening it up I just kind of started flipping through it and here's page one there's oh day one Genesis 1 and 2 Psalm 19 and then some notes and then okay day 2 Genesis 3 and 4 Psalm 1 of 4, some notes.

And the handwriting is really nice. You can not be able to see it from there, but it's really good handwriting as I kept reading every day. There's another day. They were listening to the Bible every day. And this person was taking notes as they were planting themselves near God's word. And as I kept reading, get to a day 50, day 60, and day 70. The handwriting started getting kind of messier.

Until we got to day 93. and day 93, the handwriting is just kind of some chicken scratch, and then you have day 94 and nothing. And opened up this journal to the inside cover. And there's a note from the man who dropped it off. And he wrote, Dear Father Mike, this is my wife's journal for the podcast Bible in a year.

She enjoyed this to the end. As you can tell from her handwriting, she wrote even when it wasn't legible. She was my friend, lover. She was a mother, a grandmother, and a godly prayer warrior. I miss her. She would want you to have it. On January 1st, this woman started reading the Bible

and doing exactly what David wrote in Psalm 1, meditating on God's word day and night. She had no idea that by day 94, she had no idea that day 94 would be her last day on earth. But she was planted in God's word, not knowing that three months later, she would take her last breath, that the cancer killed her, but it didn't crush her faith, that yes, death came for her, but it didn't destroy her heart, that yes, there was persecution.

Yes, there was hunger and there was grief, and there was mourning, and there was sadness, but she wasn't afraid. Why? Because she was planted by streams of living water. She planted herself in God's word. And I can tell you how many people have written over the course of the last year and said something exactly the same. They said, when I pressed play on January 1st, I had no idea I would go through the worst season of my entire life. If it wasn't for reading the Bible, listening to the Bible every single day, I don't know what I would have done when that worst season in my life came. But now I know I don't have to be afraid of the future. I don't have to be afraid of the fact that, yes, I know mourning will come. I know grief will come.

I know that persecution will come. But I also know what? I also know laughter will come. I also know that joy will come. I also know that consolation will come. I also know that redemption and healing and life will come. Why? Because I planted myself by the living waters of God's word. And because of that, I can be brave, even when there's reason to fear.

Because of that, I can be courageous, even in the face of loss. That when I'm planted in God's word, I know there's nothing to fear. Because I know that God will win. And he will conquer my fear. Because he'll be there in the future, just like he's there right now. And because of that, I have nothing to fear, not even the future.