Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 03/22/20 Un-Done: God Shows Up

Episode Date: March 23, 2020

Homily from the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Real suffering in this world reveals the deeper part of us that has come undone. God made this world good, but He did not make it unbreakable. This world has come undone, and our sickness and suffering reveals the deeper ways our hearts have come undone. Mass Readings from March 22, 2020: 1 Samuel 16:1, 6-7, 10-13 Psalms 23: 1-6Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41 Download the Homily Study

As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, neither he nor his parents sinned. It is so that the works of God might be made visible through him. We have to do the works of the one who sent me while at his day. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

When he had said this, he spat on the ground, made clay with his saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes, and he said to him, go wash in the pool of Salome, which means scent. So he went and washed and came back able to see. His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, isn't this the one who used to sit and beg? Some said it is, but others said, no, he just looks like him. He said, I am.

So they said to him, how are your eyes opened? He replied, the man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, go to Salome and wash. So I went there and washed and was able to see. And they said to him, where is he? but he said, I don't know. They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees. Now, Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on the Sabbath.

So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see, and he said to them, he put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see. So some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath. But others said, how can a sinful man do such signs, and there was division among them? So they said to the man again, what do you have to say about him since he opened your eyes?

He said. He is a prophet. Now, the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight. Until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight, they asked them, is this your son whom you say was born blind? How does he now see? His parents answered and said, We know that this is our son and that he was born blind.

We do not know how he sees now. Nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of a very important. age, he can speak for himself. His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, he would be expelled from the synagogue. For this reason, his parents said he is of age, question him. So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, give God the praise, we know that this man is a sinner. He replied, if he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind,

and now I see. So they said to him, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered them, I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too? And they ridiculed him and said, you are that man's disciple. We are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from. The man answered and said to them, this is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. But if one is devout, and does his will, he listens to him.

It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything. They answered and said to him, You were born totally in sin and you're trying to teach us, and they threw him out. When Jesus heard that he had been thrown out, he found him and said, Do you believe in the son of man?

He answered and said, Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? Jesus said to him, you have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he. He said, I do believe Lord, and he worshipped him. Then Jesus said, I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind. Some of the Pharisees who are with him heard this and said to him, surely we are not also blind, are we?

Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you are saying, we see. So your sin remains. The gospel of the Lord. So there's this man named Nick. Nick was, he's a son of a pastor and his wife. I think he's the oldest son of this pastor and his wife. When he was born in the delivery room, his dad was waiting there.

I was so excited. Just imagine any dad to just be so excited to see his son be born. And as Nick's head came out of the womb, he's like, okay, here's my child. And then he saw his shoulder and he saw that there was no arm attached to Nick's shoulder, to his little boy, his baby boy's shoulder. And this man, he says, he just, he was so devastated by that. He actually, he said, he's ashamed of it, but he said, I had to leave the room, had to leave the delivery room, wait to go. on the waiting room because my son has no shoulder and has no arm. And he waited out there for his son to be born. And the doctor came out after Nick was born. And the dad stood up. He said, okay, doctor, why does my son not have an arm? And the doctor said, actually, your son has no arms and no legs. And his dad was just devastated by this. His mom actually, Nick talks about this later on in his life. He says that his mom didn't want to hold him, didn't want to feed him. His dad wouldn't

look at it for a couple months his dad wouldn't look at him, just had this question why. And even the whole congregation of Nick's parents were like, why would this, why would God let this happen? Why would God do this to a pastor's child? They had this question like, why would this happen? Why would God let this happen? You know, in fact, it's really the question that they ask in the gospel today where they look at this man born blind and they say, well, why would God do this? Whose fault is this? I don't know if you ever had that experience where it's just like, We experience suffering, we experience sickness, we experience blindness, we experience any kind of illness, whether that be physical illness, mental illness, any of the things.

We just like, what the heck, God, whose fault is? That's what we want to do, right? We want to track down the blame. Like, did someone do something wrong? Is that why they're now sick? Did we do something wrong? That's why we're now sick. And the reality is that's sickness and suffering and blindness and being born without arms.

it's the result of being born into a world that's come undone. As I mentioned, being beginning of the mass, we have doing this series called Undone. And we have these questions, right? We walk through this world where we realize that we live in a world that's come undone with relationships that have come undone, with hearts inside our chests that have come undone. And we asked the question, like, why? The big question that comes up is, like, God, couldn't God have made a better world? Couldn't God make a world that's completely good?

And the answer is he did. The answer is that when God created this world, it didn't have sickness and it didn't have suffering and it didn't have death and it didn't have blindness. He didn't have all these things. He made this world good, but he didn't make it unbreakable. This is so key for us. He made this world good, but he didn't make it unbreakable. And our first parents, we read about this in Genesis chapter 3, our first parents who were made

completely good, they made a decision because they were free. They made a decision. And that decision broke the world because God made a good world, but he didn't make an unbreakable world. And ever since then, the world has come undone. And so there's a connection between sin and sickness. There's a connection between sin and sickness. Because the reason we have sickness is because of sin. It's not necessarily because of my sin.

You know, originally, they thought it would be a one-to-one thing. Like in the Old Testament even, God reveals this. And there's a connection between what you're going through right now, this suffering you're going through, and the fact that the world has come undone. So people thought it was a one-to-one thing. If you sin, you get sick. If you do good, you get blessed. Like that was really simple and it's like karma almost.

But God reveals that's not how it goes. In fact, one of the most powerful stories in the Bible is all about, A, how sin and sickness are connected, but B, how they're not one-to-one connected, that even those who do their best can still experience the worst that this world has to offer. There's a story of Job. I mean, guys know the story of Job. Okay, so here's Job. And the beginning of Job opens up by talking about how Job is a righteous man.

In fact, you could search the entire world. You wouldn't find someone as righteous as Job, someone who is not only good with God, worships God regularly, but loves his wife, loves his children, does good work, and takes care of the people who he employs. Like, a good, good man, Job is righteous. But for this mysterious reason and the story, God allows the adversary, allows Satan, to take it all away.

So here's Job, and he's doing great and he's good, and then he loses everything. He loses his job. He loses his livelihood. He loses his flocks, his crops, everything's destroyed. But he's okay, I can lose my wealth. Maybe some of you in that situation right now where it's just like, oh my gosh, I lost my job. And Job says, I lost my job.

I lost my livelihood. But at least I have my family. And then what happens is this devastating thing. This storm comes through and all of his kids are gathered. Job's kids, Job's kids, not only love their father, they love each other. They're all celebrating together. And the storm comes and destroys the house in which they were. and they all die.

So, Job loses his livelihood. He loses his wealth. He loses his family. And he's like, but he still says, but I'm going to still praise God. I'm going to still worship God. I'm going to still love God because, like, I still know God is good. But then what happens is God allows the adversary, allows Satan to afflict Job's health. And so Job gets these boils all over his body or his head, over his feet.

And he finds himself on top of an ash heap. And all he can do is just eat. He's in so much pain, so much torment that all he can do is take this jagged piece of pot and like scratch at his wounds. And that's when he gets to that point of saying, I just, I want to die. That God, why was I even born? That's the big question.

In the midst of this broken world, we ask that question sometimes. Because his jokes, wounds, like all these things, losing his livelihood, losing his family, losing his health, all the consequences of a world come undone. But the consequences go deeper. Like the consequences in our lives,

They go deeper than losing our job. Even though that's devastating, losing our health, losing people we love, can go deeper. Because we like to stay on the surface. I think we like to see what the appearance, what I can see. And yet the first readings, First Samuel says that the Lord, human beings look at the appearance, the Lord looks into the heart. What God wants to do in your life and in my life, he wants to go deeper. Sometimes he allows us to go beyond the surface wounds to the depth.

Sometimes he allows these consequences to exist in our lives so that we can go deeper. So we experience this virus. The virus isn't the problem. The virus reveals the problem. We experience illness. The illness isn't the problem. The illness reveals the problem. We experience so many people being laid off right now.

And that can, let me clarify, they are problems. These are real sufferings. These are real pains. But these real sufferings, these real pains, they reveal something deeper. They reveal a deeper wound. For Job, he lost his family. his livelihood, his health. What it revealed was he lost something even greater.

Job lost his love for God. In the midst of this, Job lost. He forgot the fact that God loved him. He forgot the fact that God was still in the midst of his pain. So when his friends come along and they're like, Joe, you must have done something wrong. He's like, I don't think I did anything wrong. And he was right in saying that.

But he had lost something. The man born blind. He had this blindness, right? This lack of a good thing. And that was a problem, but it revealed something deeper. He didn't just lose his sight. He didn't just not have his sight. He was unseen.

When you think about even in the parable, as it plays out, the parable is all about this man who people who see him on a daily basis couldn't even recognize him. Is this the guy? I don't know. I can't even tell. Because no one who see him. I think a lot of us know what it is like to walk through life,

not just being blind, not just being sick, not just being having less, but feeling less than and being unseen. And while those are real wounds, real illnesses, they reveal a deeper wound, a deeper illness. And Nick, a man who was born with no arms and no legs, he experienced the same thing. When he was 10 years old, he says when he was 10 years old, he asked his mom and dad to put him in a bathtub. Just he said, I just want to relax. But when he was 10, he wanted to kill himself. So he asked his mom and dad to put me in the bathtub.

I'm just going to drown myself. I'm going to end it. because I can't live like this. I mean, can you imagine a 10-year-old saying, I'm going to end my life right now? And he got into the bathtub. His parents put him in the bathtub. And he rolled over a couple times to do it,

and he said, I just couldn't do it. And the reason I couldn't do it is because after that initial shock, his parents embraced him. His parents loved him so deeply and so well. And he said, I just pictured my funeral, and I couldn't do that to my mom and dad. I couldn't put them through that. I couldn't let them live the rest of their lives wondering,

could we have loved Nick better? Because Nick's problem wasn't that he didn't have arms or legs. It's a real issue, right? Obviously, real suffering. But it revealed something deeper. It revealed that he was like, I'm angry and I don't trust God. I'm angry and I don't trust God. What has come undone was not just his physical body.

What had come undone was his heart. So the question, of course, is what does God do in the midst of this? Like, what does God do? Because a lot of times what we want to do is we want God to give us an answer. Job is crying out and like, God, what the heck? Either give me an answer, give me healing, give me what I want. But this is the interesting thing what God does. God, so here's the deal.

Job cries out to God and he just, he lets God have it. Like he unloads and he's like, this is the worst. And God, I thought I loved you and I thought I could trust you. And then God shows up and he answers Job. Remember when I was in high school. I remember having the question like, wait, God's so good. why is there so much bad stuff in the world? And someone told me you should read the book of Job.

It has the answer to the problem of pain in the world. I'm like, okay, great. And I read the book of Job and God shows up and gives his answer. And his answer is basically something like, Job, you're a small part in a large story. And I'm God. And that's the end of the story. I was like, what the heck? That is highly unsatisfying.

That is like not helping me at all. That God shows up and he responds. But here's what he doesn't give Job an answer. And he doesn't give Job healing. and he doesn't give Job what he's asking for. And always bother me like, why not? And I think this is why. I think because if Job gave God an answer,

if Job's like, God, why is this happening to me? And Job, and God said, because of this, our brains are amazing. And Job's brain would be amazing. And he would be able to come up with 12 more questions for every answer God could give. So God, why about this? God gives an answer.

And we're like, well, what about this then? What about this? Our brains can come up with so many more questions. God didn't give Job healing. right away. Why? Because we're living in this world that's come undone. And even if God heals this one thing that's come undone, there's going to be another thing that comes undone. And God didn't give Joe just what he asked for. Why? Because our hearts have come undone. Our hearts always want more. So what does God do? God shows up and speaks, but it's not what he speaks. It's not what he says.

It's the fact that God shows up. This is the key. This is like the key. And a world that's come undone, to the wound that has come undone that's been revealed by the undone world, God shows up. In fact, God shows up so powerfully that he doesn't need to give Job an answer. In fact, Job says this, he says, I had heard of you God before with my ears. People had told me about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes and I repent in dust and ashes. I will no longer utter a word against you because God himself is the answer. This is the key. God himself is the answer. Not God's healing, not God's answer, not God's giving us what we want. But God's presence is the answer.

In fact, this is the story of the man more blind. So God undoes what's come undone in Job. Job has forgotten who God is. He's forgotten that God loves him. And then God shows up and Job is like, I realize God you've undone that thing that's come undone. And same thing happens with the man born blind. He spent his whole life blind.

He spends his whole life being unseen. He spends his whole life being unwanted. And here, I don't know if you noticed in the gospel today, it says Jesus seeks him out twice. No one cares about this guy. No one can recognize him, but Jesus seeks him out twice, the beginning of the story to heal him. And at the end of the story, when everyone just abandons him, Jesus, even his parents, Jesus comes after the man and finds him. He sees him because he wants him.

And this is the crazy thing. This man's, uh, is he the healing? I don't know if you ever, you ever, like, wonder, like, uh, this is such a strange story that Jesus, he could sometimes say, little girl, get up, doesn't have to, like, do CPR with her. He doesn't have to, um, like, um, I'm a massage. someone's leg and now it's healed. He just says it and it's healed. But with this guy, he spits in the ground, makes a paste, makes clay out of the dirt, and then puts it on the man's eyes. It's very strange. And for me, I'll be like, okay, I get it. Moving on. I've never thought

too deeply about it. Dr. Brandt Petrie talked about this. He said, actually, why would that be the case? Why would this be the case? Jesus would use the saliva to make clay put on the man's eyes. And he says, it all goes back to Genesis chapter 2. When God formed Adam, the first man out of the dust of the earth. That in the Dead Sea Scrolls, it points this out. It says that dust doesn't stick together. It doesn't, if you make a thing of dust, it just is dust. That's all it is. It doesn't adhere. So the Dead Sea Scrolls say that God, the God, when he made the first human being in a good world, this good God makes this good man, that it's his saliva mixed with the dust of the earth. That God forms the first man. So what is Jesus doing in John chapter 9?

He's undoing what was undone by that first man. That the saliva mixed with dust on this man's eyes actually worked and served to undo what had come undone. Because this is what God keeps doing. He shows up and when our sicknesses, when our illnesses are revealed, they reveal a deeper wound, the deeper illness, he shows up and goes right to those things and says, I want to undo what has come undone. Job, you might get your family back. Blind man, you might get your sight back. But the deeper thing is, I want you to get me back. In a world come undone, the biggest wound is trust.

In a world come undone, the biggest thing that has come undone is our trust of God. And so the question would be, do you trust God even when he's silent? Do you trust God even when he doesn't give a miracle? Do you trust God even if what has come undone on the, surface remains undone. Because this man more blind, we don't know his name. That's weird, that we don't know his story.

We don't know what happens to him after this, but we know that the works of God were made manifest through him. And we don't know how many people, his story has led to trust God, but we do know that what God didn't in him did something in Nick's life. It's the last thing. So his whole life, Nick had said, after 10 years old, he's like, not going to kill myself,

but he still wrestled with that trusting in God. He's like, why, God, why did you make me like this? And he was so torn up by the fact that, like, he had no one to look to. Like, no example of someone who had afflictions like him, who could make something of their life. But his mom kept saying, Nick, God's going to do something. God's going to do something in your life through you that he can't do through anyone else. and when Nick was, his name is Nick Voyichich. When Nick Voyich was 15 years old, he heard John

chapter 9, the story that we heard this morning. And he heard the question the disciples asked, Lord, who sinned this man or his parents? And Nick heard Jesus say, neither sinned. This man experiences this wound so that the works of God may be manifest through him. At that moment, Nick said his question was always to God. He said, God, spoke to his heart. And the question that Nick had always cried out was, was, God, why did you make me this way?

And God answered him, and he answered him with the question. The question was, Nick, do you trust me? Do you trust me that in the midst of your wounds, I know you've prayed for arms, you've prayed for legs your entire life? But in the midst of me, not giving what you're asking for, not healing you, do you trust? me? Do you trust that actually you might not get the miracle, but you can be the miracle? Makes that his entire life changed that day. Because of what had come undone was not his arms or his legs. Yes, that is true. But what had truly come undone was he didn't trust God. And the answer God gave him was just, do you trust me? This is crazy because that's a question. But from that

day, Nick Voyichich knew that he would never distrust God again. that he'd be able to go through this life with no arms, with no legs, but with a heart inside that had been knitted back together. Because he had even said this, he said, there's no point in God healing you on the outside if you're still undone on the inside. There's no point in God healing you on the outside if you're still broken on the inside. Nick has gone all over the world telling people about Jesus. And I think after this point, I know in 2009, like over a decade ago,

over 200,000 people had come to trust in Jesus Christ because of Nick's presence, because of Nick's word, because of Nick's witness. Because, yes, he's unique in the sense that he has no arms and no legs. And the blind man's unique in the sense that he was blind. And Job is unique in the sense that he lost his fortune and his family and his health. But we're all in the same boat. We all have hearts that have come undone. We all have trust that has come undone.

And when people see Nick, what they see is the works of God made. manifest on this earth because they see someone who has not let the surface wounds which are real and terrible steal his interior peace and his trust. There was a conference recently. Nick had said one of the biggest pains was that he didn't have anyone to look to when he's growing up like who else lives as broken as me and at a conference where he was talking about how we can trust in God and his love for us. There was a father with a newborn son. And he brought him up to Nick. And this baby boy had no arms and no legs.

He said, my son has hope. I have hope for my son because of you. I can still trust in God in the midst of this real suffering because of you. And Nick knew that his words were true. If you don't get the miracle, you can still be the miracle. Our wounds are real. This world has come undone in a real way. But God wants to go beyond that surface wound, that surface undone, and get to what has truly come undone.

I've lost trust. I've lost hope. I've forgotten the fact that God loves me. In this mass, my invitation, remember, God shows up and he doesn't give an answer. God shows up and he doesn't give healing. God shows up and doesn't give us what we want. But God shows up in a world and a world. in a heart that has come undone in order to undo whatever has come undone.