Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 03/15/20 Un-Done: Not Fine

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

Homily from the Third Sunday of Lent. You are not fine. You don't have to be. We live in a world that has come undone with hearts and relationships that have come undone. Jesus comes to that wound to undo what has been undone. Mass Readings from March 15, 2020: Exodus 17:3-7 Psalms 95:1-2, 6-9Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 John 4:5-42 Download the Homily Study

Hi, this is Father Mike Schmitz. I am recording this podcast from the house. You probably know that campus has canceled. They've actually canceled all of our scheduled meeting times on campus, all group meeting times, including Mass on campus for the next three weeks. So that includes tonight next week and the week after. We're going to still have Mass at our little kind of daily mass chapel in the Newman House. So I'm just going to record these homilies continuing our series undone from the house. And so I hope that you don't mind, me doing these recordings from inside the house rather than in front of a live congregation. But that's how we're going to do this. And also, A, no, please know of my prayers for you, especially if you find yourself isolated, you find yourself worried, you find yourself maybe even sick. Maybe you've been affected directly by the coronavirus. Yeah, and your life has been maybe upended. Just please know of my prayers and our prayers from UMD here for you all. I'm going to read the gospel and then I'm going to launch into the homily for tonight. So here we go.

And reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John, Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sakhar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son, Joseph. Jacob's well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, give me a drink.

His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how can you a Jew ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? For Jews used nothing in common with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him,

Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks? Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst. The water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water. Jesus said to her, go, call your husband and come back. The woman answered and said to him, I do not have a husband. Jesus answered her, You are right in saying, I do not have a husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. When you have said is true.

The woman said to him, Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus said to her, believe me, woman. The hour is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand. We worship what we understand, because, salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. And indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.

God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ. When he comes, he will tell us everything. Jesus said to her, I am He, the one speaking with you. At that moment, his disciples returned and were amazed that he was talking with the woman, but still no one said, what are you looking for, or why are you talking with her? The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ? They went out of the town and came to him.

Meanwhile, his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat, which you do not know. So the disciples said to one another, Could someone have brought him something to eat? Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say in four months the harvest will be here?

I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. The reaper is already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal life so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.

Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, he told me everything I have done. When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and they said to the woman, we no longer believe because of your word, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior. of the world, the gospel of the Lord. Praise to your Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, so I've shared before this, I've shared this before, and I'm going to share it again, that sometimes the way people greet each other is just, it kind of, I don't know if it grates on me. Here's what I'm

trying to say, okay, not just greeting each other, but it's one of those kind of situations where I don't know if you've ever done this. Maybe you've asked someone this question, if they've responded this way. Maybe you've been asked this question and you've responded this way. Again, kind of a safe place here right now. When I ask someone, hey, hey, how's it going? They'll typically, this is one of the common responses. They'll say, oh, it's going. That, oh my gosh, pet peeve up the wall.

My gosh, when someone says, I say, how's it going? They say, it's going. You've just basically told me that you don't want to answer the question. Because it's like, you've given me no information. It's like if someone were to ask me, hey, how are you? I am. Because that's all. That's all I'm saying.

It's like, yeah, I exist. It's almost a lot like when someone says, how are you doing? and say, I'm fine. And now, I get it. Sometimes saying it's going, sometimes saying I'm fine. Those are actually legitimate ways to respond to someone's question. Sometimes that's the appropriate response. Sometimes it is actually accurate. I am doing okay. And that's it. But too often I think too often, too often we're okay with okay. Too often we're fine with being fine. And I think too often, we mentioned this before, we're comfortable with being broken.

We're comfortable with being undone. You know, we started two weeks ago. We started on the first Sunday of Lent. We started this series Undone. And we just realized that the way things are is not the way they're supposed to be. The way this world is is not the way this world is meant to be. The way our hearts are

is not the way our hearts are meant to be. That something has come undone. And so it makes sense. It makes sense that we say, I'm fine. because in a world that's come undone, sometimes the best we can hope for is, I just cope. Sometimes the best we can hope for is I'm dealing with it.

That sometimes the best we can hope for is I'm fine. And again, sometimes it's true. I don't know if you ever had this experience, though, when you maybe ask the question about, like, well, what does God bring to your life then? I mean, what does you really add to someone's life? Because not only am I fine, maybe I'm fine, maybe I'm not fine. But I look at the people around me and they seem fine.

The ones who don't go to Mass, the ones who don't have any faith life. Like, here's my roommate. My roommate is an atheist and he completely, he seems completely fine. I look at my sister, you know, and maybe my sister, this is not my family, but just, you know, in your experience, your sisters and your husband, they don't have any, they don't believe anything. They don't go to church and they're raising their kids and they seem fine. Like sometimes it legit seems that here's someone and they don't have. have Jesus and they seem completely okay. They seem like they're doing fine.

And I wonder why. Like, what's the reason? And I think that sometimes the reason is because of this. I think because we look at this world and when someone's doing fine, when someone's just doing okay, someone's getting by, we think this is as much as anyone could hope for. This is as good as it gets. So I've kind of in this world, I've cobbled together something that seems good enough.

I've cobbled together this life that seems fine. And I do my best to forget the past, to ignore my present, and to not think too deeply about the future. And again, this is something that it's not particular, it's not unique to us as 21st century people in the West. Like this was all the way back to the gospel today. Here's this woman at the well. No, here's this. It's a really long story. We read it just a second ago, obviously. really long story, but there's nothing wasted in this really long story.

Where this takes place is so important. In Samaria, at a well. That's super important. Who it takes place with is so important. This woman who is broken. And what is said is so critically important. But I want to highlight this particular moment, right? So Jesus, he's at the well.

And this woman comes to fill her water jug with water at noon. And Jesus asks her, could I have a drink? And she's shocked by this. How would you ask me, a Samaritan woman, You, a Jewish man, asked me a Samaritan woman for a drink. But then he says, well, I could give you water. You can't give me water. You only have a bucket.

No, I offer you living water. She's like, right, I love to have that. I'd love to be able to not come back here and have to draw water all the time. So here's the critical moment. The critical moment, right now, to this point, there's been some really deep exchanges, but nothing penetrates the surface until this next statement where Jesus says, go call your husband. And all of a sudden, you can just, if you're, if you're, if you're,

reading this in scripture, if you're hearing this, all of a sudden just the air gets quiet, the air gets still, everything freezes. Go call your husband. This is the moment that it gets real. This is the moment where this woman, she's fine. She's living her life down there and Darren down in town. She's doing her thing. She's getting by.

But in this moment, she can't pretend. She can't pretend that she's fine. have a husband, she says. Again, I don't have a husband. Jesus says, you're right. You've had five husbands and the man you're living with right now is not your husband. Let's just take a moment. Look at this woman. And she's cobbled together this life. She's cobbled together this life's the best she can figure out. It's the best she can do. But her dreams have, I mean, in that one sentence, you're right, you have had five husbands. And the man you're living with right now is not your husband in that one sentence, her dreams are revealed, they all come undone.

The hope that she might have, you know, you know she had hope. Because think about this, she's been divorced five times. She's been divorced five times. That means she's been married five times. That means there have been five wedding days. That means there have been five wedding weeks, that five nights before the wedding where she was filled with hope. Remember, imagine, imagine this, imagine this, the heart of this woman that on the night of her, the night before her first wedding. All the promise, all the hope, like this is going to be, this is the answer. This will be, ah, my life will be complete after this. And it ends in divorce, heartbreak. And she makes it through and she picks herself back up and finally she meets another man and

and hope, you know, falls in love or even just proposes. And she's like, okay, now the night before this second wedding. And she's like, okay, this is going to do it. This is going to be the one where it all changes. And of course, it ends in crashes and burns. And then what happens? There's a third night before her wedding, or a fourth night before a wedding, and a fifth night before her wedding. And every single time she has this hope, and it comes undone.

And so now it's come so undone. Her heart has come so undone. Her life has come so undone that now, now she might as well not even get married. Think about how devastated. Think about how devastated. I'm fine, but I'm fine. I'm fine.

I'm fine. I just forget the past. ignore the present, try not too hard to think about the future, because it's just not worth thinking about. It's not worth paying attention to. There's no such thing as love. There's no such thing as love. Remember talking with the teen recently. We were at a weekend retreat on the theology of the body, and we're talking about, like, this is God's promise for you, this is God's hope for you. This is what love really is. And she said, you know, her parents have been divorced, and she said, you know what I'm talking with? She's, I don't really believe in love. I was like, tell me more.

And she said, you know, in talking with other kids in my grade whose parents are divorced, they say the same thing. They don't believe in love either. And I get it. Like, I get that. I get that because what do you see? You see, well, people made a promise, and apparently even that promise can be broken. Because the best you can hope for is fine. The best you can hope for in a world that's come undone is maybe.

She was so matter of fact how she said it to, I don't believe in love. And I think that that's this woman at the well in the gospel. She's trying to forget her past. She's trying to ignore her present. Not thinking about the future. And in the midst of this, I'm fine, I'm okay. No problem. Jesus names it.

Jesus names it. Go call your husband. And in that moment, she has to come face to face with what she's always known, but what she's never admitted, she is not fine. She has to come face to face with what she's always known, but what she has not admitted, she is not fine. This is true for us. This is true for every one of us.

I mean, how often do we avoid silence? How often do we, I mean, honestly, even unless maybe you're in a self-quarantine right now. What do we do? Just like, what's the next thing? What's the next thing? The next podcast, the next video, the next movie, the next, whatever it is that can just distract us. from acknowledging the truth.

So I try to forget my past, ignore my present, not think about the future. And Jesus says, okay, what is it that you've always known, but you've never admitted? And for our friends who are without God, you know, our family members who live without Jesus, you just say,

I'm going to cobble together a life without God. I'm going to carve out a life without God. And so I, again, cobble together these values and good things and grasp onto the promises of the world distractions, trying to forget our past and ignore our present and not think about the future, I'm fine because this is as good as anything else. This is as good, this life is as good as anything else I could hope for. That's one of the reasons why, like this crisis, this, this

virus, it reveals so much. It reveals that actually, no, it's not enough. And so what do we do? We grasp onto toilet paper. I mean, think about all of the scenes you've seen of people. I went to the grocery store. The shelves are cleared out of toilet paper. Now, think of how ironic that is. We're racing to grasp onto tissue. To tissue. Like, if that isn't fitting, is that, that's not a fitting image.

Racing to grasp onto toilet paper, to grasp onto tissue. In the midst of, like, face to face with, I'm not fine. And the woman, she does, she grasps too. Jesus points out, you have no, you're right, you've been married five times and the man you're with right now is not your husband. And so then she changes the topic. She turns it into a religious debate.

She says, well, yeah, you know, hey, a Samaritans say that we worship here, but you Jews say worship is in Jerusalem. And this highlights something about what it is to be a Samaritan. So when I was in seminary, there used to have a study abroad or not study abroad, but a semester in Israel program and canceled it the year that I got there. That's why I want to keep going back every chance I get. because I was supposed to be able to be there for a semester. Anyways, I'm not bitter going back to our story.

So I remember one of the seminarians older than me, he said that he was once in Jerusalem. And at one point, this Jewish woman who was attending a store or maybe, I don't know, she gave him direction. She helped him out. And one of his buddies came up to him and said, asked him something. And he said, oh, no, this good Samaritan helped me out. And the woman was very, very upset that he referred to her as a good Samaritan. Because for us, that's a compliment. You know, the Good Samaritan is the one who takes care of the man who's beaten on the way to Jericho.

But for Jews, like, no, the Samaritans, they're, here's the story, a little bit of the story. So, you know, the 10 tribes in the north, they get dispersed, exiled. And at some point, there was introduced to that region, that kind of northwest-ish area in Israel, five nations were introduced basically to intermarry with the Jews who are left. So again, here is this conquering of the Jewish people in the North. They were brought into exile. Those Jews who remained, the leading powers brought in members of five other nations to intermarry with those Jews, basically to rid them of any sense of identity.

So they would forget who they were. And so what they do? the people who remained, they just kind of like, they cobbled together their worship. They cobbled together this religion that was kind of Jewish, but also a mix of these five other nations. And they look at it and said, yeah, this is fine. This is good enough. This is all we can hope for.

And what's the difference anyways? What's the difference between worshiping in Jerusalem, the true and living God and having what we have? You can see a parallel, right? The parallel with the woman at the well? You have married five times the man she's with right now is not even her husband. Well, yeah, but what's the difference anyways? I mean, what's the difference between getting married and not getting married when it all ends in brokenness anyways?

Here's the, you know, what's the difference between a Samaritan and being a Jew anyways? Because in the end, you know, God just is so distant anyways. What's the difference between being a Catholic and not being Catholic? Because in the end, it's just all fine, right? It's all going to be messed up. And into this, Jesus says, but it's not fine. And here's Jesus who diagnoses this. The one you're with right now is not your husband.

And she says, sir, I can see you're a prophet. And it's wonderful. Like, you're a prophet now. I get it. You're talking to me. You know stuff about me. You've diagnosed this correctly. I am not fine.

But now, here's the big question. It's a $25,000 question. Okay, you know my problem. I'm not fine. What can you do? What can you do, Jesus? And let's do this. Let's think about her life one more time.

time. If this woman was living currently and she was a celebrity, what would she be? She'd be a joke, right? I mean, think of how often, oh, who's Taylor Swift dating now or who's, you know, I don't know, Joan Collins, Joan Crawford, I don't know, it's one of those people. Here's the latest celebrity who keeps, Jennifer Aniston, keeps marrying these people and getting divorced or Julie Roberts, who's, can marrying these people and getting divorced. And for us, I mean, unfortunately, for our culture, they're a punchline. That's who they are for us. They're a joke. they're a punchline. Back then, even worse.

They're rejected. There's no place for them to go. There's no place where they belong. They are done. They're done. So Jesus, I see you're a prophet. Am I a joke to you? No, the answer is so, so resoundingly no.

For Jesus, she was more. No, she was not fine. But she was not a joke. She was not fine, but she was not done. Her story was not over. Because what did she need? What was her great wound? This is the key for every single one of us.

What do you need? What is your great wound? For her, it was her heart, right? For her, it was this love that kept getting shattered, this hope that kept getting dashed to the ground, this thing that came against her heart that says, you are not worth loving. You want proof?

Look at these five guys. You want proof that you're not worth loving? You want proof that you are so broken. You're beyond repair. You're beyond love. Just look at these five men who promised to love you and then failed to love you. Her great wound. Jesus came to meet.

And here's why. Why does Jesus reveal that the one man she's with right now is not her husband? Why does he reveal her great wound? Why? What does scripture reveal? Again, I did this whole story. There's not a word that's wasted in this whole gospel of John. A, they're out of well.

B, Jesus promises living water. And C, when the disciples show up, it says the disciples marveled that he was talking to this woman. Now, that's interesting. And there's a scripture scholar named Brant Petrie, and he pointed some of these things out. He's like my favorite. I just love Brant Petri. He teaches me so much. He asked the question, he says, wait, so why are the disciples marveling at the fact that he was talking to a woman?

Because Jesus talks to a lot of women. I mean, he had women disciples. It's very common. Martha and Mary, we're here about them in two weeks from now. they were very close. Why would they marvel that he was talking with this woman? He points out that in scripture, whenever you have a man plus a woman plus a well,

you have a wedding. The math here is man plus woman plus well equals wedding. And he point, I mean, think of Moses. Moses meets his wife at a well. That's the place where you would go. If you were a single man, you needed to meet a single woman. You would go to the well.

In scripture, man plus woman plus well equals wedding. Here is Jesus, a single man talking with this solitary woman at a well. This means wedding, right? That's why they're shocked. That's why they're amazed that he's talking. Now, Jesus is a celibate, and so that's like, okay, so what's going on here? But in Dr. Petrie's book, Jesus is the bridegroom. He shows this out.

He points this out. He explains this. It just boggles the mind. Jesus promises are what? I'll give you living water. We give you living water. Well, in Scripture, what would happen is before a woman's wedding day, she would be bathed in living water. To prepare her for nuptials, to prepare her for her wedding, she'd be bathed with living water.

So here is man plus woman plus well. Promise of living water equals wedding. This is so remarkable. John in John chapter 7 will go on to point out that that this living water is also a connection with baptism. And here's this woman's great need. Her life has come undone. Her life is over. And she's like, all the best I can do is I'm fine here.

And Jesus steps in and says, actually, the wound your heart has is that no one loves you. The wound your heart has is that no one ever will love you. The one your heart has. And then there's proof because look at all of the hopes and dreams. how often your heart has been dashed to the ground. But I want you. I want you. Man plus woman plus well, living water equals wedding. I am the God who wants your heart still.

This is one of the reasons I'm so grateful for the church for picking Romans chapter 5 as a middle reading as the second reading today. Because what does St. Paul say? He says, you lived without, you lived without hope and without God the world, that's the Ephesians, but he says that he says, while we were still helpless, Christ died at the point of time for the ungodly, those without God. Those ungodly is that those without God, those who are godless, those who are just living in this life and cobbling together a life without God, living in this world that's come undone,

and cobbling together a world without God, living in this life that's come undone, and cobbling together a world without God, and you've given up. But what does God do? But God prove, his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We were undone, and he came to fight for us. This is what Jesus reveals to the woman, that her sin, her past, was no obstacle for Jesus to love her. Gosh, oh my gosh, her sin, her past was in no way an obstacle for Jesus to love her, but her past could be the obstacle for her to love him. Isn't this true for all of us? Jesus has to bring it up so she can really, she's not fine. And that's one of the things we have to. This is the last thing.

This is the last thing. When I believe that I'm just fine. When I believe it's not so fine, it's okay. I'm just going to pretend that things as they are or as they're meant to be or as good as they possibly can be. It's as good as it gets. I'm going to cobble this together. Then I miss out on this massive, massively important truth. Not only is the world as it is not the way it's meant to be, Not only has the world come undone, not only has my heart come undone, not only is my great wound the fact that I don't believe in love anymore.

I believe that I'm not worth loving, but to let Jesus step into this and to reveal this profound truth where you believe you're no longer wanted, I want you. When you believe no one wants to fight for you anymore, I'm going to fight for you. When you believe that your life is done, I'm telling you, I can make it so that you are undone.

Because your sin is no obstacle for him. If I'm living under the mirage, the illusion that we're fine, that anyone who tries to carve out or cobble together life without Jesus is fine, that's the obstacle. Your sin, your past, that you try to forget, your present, that we try to ignore, is not an obstacle for his love. But it can be an obstacle for us to love him back. It's one of the reasons why I love confession.

To be able to be face-faith with Jesus as we acknowledge, I'm not fine. I'm not going to forget my past. I'm not going to ignore my present. I am not fine. And I don't have to be. I'm not fine and I don't have to be. I have come undone. And Jesus has come to undo what has come undone.

You are not fine. And you don't have to be. you have come undone. You like me have come undone. And Jesus has come to undo what has come undone.