Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 04/14/19 Behind Enemy Lines: Stand

Episode Date: April 14, 2019

Homily from Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion. To stand for Jesus is to stand against the world. If I live in such a way that I merely follow the crowd, I will find myself praising Jesus on Sunday and crying out for His Crucifixion on Friday. This world is a “not friend“ of the Christian. Therefore, we must stand against the world and for Jesus. Mass Readings from April 14, 2019: Isaiah 50:4-7 Psalms 22:8-9, 17-20, 23-24Philippians 2:6-11 Luke 22:14-23:56 Download the Homily Study

So there's never like a good way to transition. It's almost like when you, I don't know if you have this sense, but like when you read the passion, it's just like you just want to, I don't know if you want to just sit and just not like say anything. That's not going to happen. But it's hard to just kind of get out of that. Especially moving from something so completely profound and deep

to then have like the priests say something like, so national championship. Like, oh gosh, Lord, why did I do that? I did it for a reason because it's awesome. But last night, some friends had invited me to go out. And so I walked down to, I wanted to go to the Vern, but it was packed. So we went down to Blackwoods, whatever. It's like the same thing.

They have the same menu. Walk in, and the game's on. And one of the pre-pil I was with was like, oh, my gosh, this is the game. Like, this is the game. They didn't know what's happening. This is the game. I'm like, and I remember I responded. They're like, oh, my gosh, that's exactly what I'm talking about tomorrow on mass.

how often we are in the midst of a contest in the midst of a battle and we don't even realize it. And they were like, no, no, no, no, I just didn't know it was tonight. And I said, oh my gosh, that's exactly what I'm talking about tomorrow at mass, how we're often in the midst of a contest, in midst of battle, and we don't even realize it. They're like, no, no, no, I mean, I knew that it was soon. I knew the last game was on Thursday. I didn't know it was so quickly.

I said, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I'm talking about tomorrow at mass, how we don't realize we're in the middle of a battle or a conference. contest until we're in the midst of this whole thing because you know we've been doing this series right this whole land the last night of this series behind enemy lines and it's so interesting i've been i've been praying about well obviously for a long time i'm praying about it for a really long time and i realized that going into this whole series of the fact that here we are as christians living behind enemy lines i had kind of this assumption that what i would have to do over the course of this series was convince you that there was an enemy like i i kept i kept thinking i don't know why i thought this

I thought that, no, I'd have to, like, get people on board with this whole idea that the Christian life is a battle and that we are living our lives behind enemy lines and there actually is an enemy. Completely oblivious to the fact that you probably already know that. Like, I'm sure that anyone who's given half seconds thought to, like, I want to follow Jesus, you've already realized that, yes, I am my own own worst enemy. That was probably not news for anyone here. Or even last week we talked about how, like, the evil one is real. And imagine half of you are like, well, I don't know. But the other half are like, absolutely. And tonight we're talking about this third name.

You know, scripture speaks of these three enemies. The flesh, the fallen human nature, the evil one we talked about last week. And the third enemy scripture describes is described as the world. That the world is the enemy of the Christian. And again, that might sound paranoid. You might be like, what? I don't know. And maybe there was a time.

But my guess is this. My guess is you realize that's not paranoia. You realize that's probably true. You might not have always known this. In fact, I think a lot of us, if you came from, from a place where, like, people around you supported you and, like, protected you from the world. Maybe, like, you had a family that, like, what was said at mass, like, they affirmed it later on.

Or maybe you went to a school or went to, like, a church group that, that they actually built you up in that encouragement. Maybe you had a situation where even the adults in your life that they didn't try to undermine, didn't try to untie what your parents or what your church had given you as you're growing up. And maybe you, so maybe largely your experience of life, maybe not, but maybe largely your experience of life was one of like, no, no, no, the world is actually pretty good. The world doesn't seem to be getting in my way. The world, world's not necessarily, remember what scripture calls enemy,

that word is Animachus, which simply means not friend. I'd never experienced the world as a not friend of a Christian. And then I imagine that's all changed because we're all here. Like on this campus, my guess is you, I mean, it's not the worst place in the world. world to be a Christian, but you probably have had the experience already. If you haven't yet, you're going to, of trying to just be a Christian on your dorm and realize, okay, wow, so they're not supporting that or be in class when all of a sudden, you know, you realize that, yes, there are great teachers who are neutral to the whole thing, some who are even positive to the whole thing, but I'm sure you've been in that class where that teachers started going off on the Catholic

church and just like, oh gosh, what did I say something, or not say something? Like, this person seems really smart. This person I really respect. They didn't go off like this on any other worldview. They didn't go off like this on any other religion. Wow, but they're going out. I know this happened relatively, it happens all the time. It happens every semester. It happens almost every class. I remember hearing a story about someone who would, the teacher was going off on a Catholic church. Again, after this whole semester of like treating every other worldview, like, yeah, that's great. That's interesting. That's compelling. But then the teacher started going off and saying a bunch of things. And one of the people in the class said, so you know what? That's why I hate the

Catholic Church. And you realize, oh my gosh, you're sitting in class, you're like, what do I do? Because when we get out from beyond that protected part that like helps us follow the Lord, we realize, oh man, a lot of this world is a not friend to the Christian. And you might have heard someone say that. Maybe you've said that too. That's why I hate the Catholic Church. I think sometimes my response to that is like, you know, that's why we need to shape up.

Like, you guys, that's why, you know, all the, we know all the wounds, right? when you're in the family, you know all the family stuff. When you're in the part of the family, you know, like, yeah, this family is screwed up. Like, when you're inside the church, you know, like, yeah, I'm not going to pretend that we're perfect at all. And you want it to be better. But I think my inclination is I want the church to be perfect. Why? And it just, it's so short-sighted to me.

I'm thinking like, but if the church got perfect, if church became what it should be, then the world would love it. that if the church became like what God wants it to be, then the world would love it. I realize that's not true. Even if we got rid of every sinner, which means none of us could be part of the church anymore, even if we did something to like revolutionize the church so it was what it should be, the world would still not love it. How do we know this? Because of the story we just stink and read.

I realize this. We just read a story. We just heard the story of what this. this world did to the single best human being who ever walked this planet. Not some other world. Not some other alternative reality. That is what this world, the one that you and I live in, that's what this world did to the best person who ever, ever lived on this planet.

And in fact, we know this. That's what this world did to God himself. So even if we were perfect, even if the church got completely lived up to what it's supposed to be, even if the church had no wounds and only had goodness. only had holiness, the world would still not love us. Because when God came and walked among us, from the very moment he made himself vulnerable, this world did not just try, but actually succeeded in killing him.

And so we recognize that as much as we might like the world, as much as we might love people, we realize that no matter what we do, the world is actually one of those not friends. And so we have this choice, right? We can go along with the world, or we can stand. That's the choice. We can realize, oh my gosh, I'm in the midst of a contest, I'm in the midst of a battle,

just by living in the midst of this world, I can realize that I can either go along with it or I can stand because we also just heard the story, right, of the crowd, the world. On Sunday, what did they say? Hosanna, son of David, he's the king, he's here, and on Friday, the same crowd said, kill him. And if you and I were living there, just going with the crowd, just going with the world. On Sunday, we would say, there he is, Hosanna. And on Friday, we would say, there he is, get him.

The choice is we either go with the world or we have to stand against the world. Because, I mean, I was thinking about this truth. I'm sure you guys, y'all know Hamilton, right? Maybe many of you know Hamilton. And just here's Alexander Hamilton. He's the A-L-E-X-A-N-E. Anyways, Alexander Hamilton is the character

in the whole musical that he stands for something. Nothing. This is like his character trait is that, you know, he doesn't stop, he tells but he stands for something. He knows what he believes in and he stands for it. And the character trait of his nemesis, the character trait of his enemy is what? Aaron Burr won't stand for anything. Like the whole thing, yeah, I don't know right now you're going through the lyrics and stuff. Like, what's that line? I wrote it down so I can get it. So Aaron Burr once at one point when all the revolutionaries are saying, let's do this. And he says, good luck with that. You're taking a stand. You spit, I'm going to sit. Let's see where we land. I'm going to wait to

see where the tide goes and then I'll see what I what I choose. I'm going to see where the world goes and I'm going to see if I want to bet on that horse. And then what does Alexander Hamilton respond with? He says, if you stand for nothing, Burr, what will you fall for? Because we know, we know that the mark of someone who lives a heroic life is that they didn't just go with the world. At some point, they stood for something and at some point if you're going to stand for something, you have to stand against something else. That's just how it goes. And if you and I, we don't want to be the enemies

or don't want to be the villains of our own lives. We want to actually be the hero. Jesus is the hero of our life, but we want to be like the co-hero. I'll be Robin who was Batman. Like, we want to be the kind of people who are worth remembering the person who stood for something,

and that means if you're going to stand for something, you have to stand against something, even when it's so confusing, because that's not obvious. It's not the most easy, easy thing to figure out. If I'm going to stand for Jesus, where do I need to stand apart and where do I need to stand against?

There's this man I remember reading about years ago. His name was Franz Jagerstadtar. Franz Jagerstader was an Austrian. He's from Austria, which makes sense, Franz Jagger Stutter. Austrian farmer at the outbreak, when the Nazis rose to power in Germany and then it overtook Austria and the whole thing. And when the Nazi, Franz, he was a committed Catholic Christian. And when the Nazi regime came to power, he was a poor farmer, as I said.

He had a wife and three daughters. And the Nazi government would do farm subsidies if your crop failed, and a number of times Franz's crop failed. But he refused to take subsidies from what he believed was a satanic organization that was absolutely anti-Christian. And so they were like, just take the money. They're giving you money. Your crop failed. So let them help you. And he's like, I will not take any help.

I'm standing for Jesus. So I'm going to stand against this Nazi regime. I won't take any help from them. You know, he didn't have to do that, but he had to do that. You know what I mean? And at one point, it wasn't obvious. He was being drafted into the Nazi army. And if he didn't go, he would be executed.

If he didn't go, he'd be at least, at the very least, arrested. And he had priests. He had other advisors tell him things like just Franz. You have a wife. You have three children. You have a family. Just go along with it. Get into the army and just, you don't have to fight very hard.

Just get in the army and save your life. And he realized, he was like, no, the truth is, I'm standing for Jesus. I have to stand against something. Back to his line, it just blew me away. He said this. He said, I don't think that just because a man has a family, he's dispensed from doing what he knows is right. I don't think just because a man has a family that he's dispensed from doing what he knows is right.

And he was a right. arrested. And he was beheaded by the Nazi army. But you remember him. Not as someone who just went with the tide, not just someone went with the world, but someone who was willing to take a stand for Jesus. And because of that, he went against the world that he was living in. He said, I can't be a part of this. I need to stand apart from this. And that's the thing. That's the kind of person who on Sunday would say, Hosanna, the king of David, because I know that's him. But then on Friday would say, I'm going to stand with him. I'm going to stand with him. I'm to stand against this crowd is a question that all of us have to answer tonight.

And maybe for the rest of our lives is, am I willing to stand? Not even am I willing to fight. Not even am I willing to like rally the troops. Am I just even willing to stand? Am I willing to say, no, Jesus, I stand for you. And that means I have to stand against something else. I have to stand against someone else because this is the real. You know, I think sometimes we, maybe if you hear me saying this, you might think that I'm

saying that you have to stand apart from the world. Like you can't have friends who aren't Christian or something like this. That's not what I'm saying. Or that you have to like, only, like, hey, guys, only come and do Newman things. Don't be part of any other clubs. You guys, it's just seriously. We're the best club ever. Like, that's not what I'm saying either.

What I am saying is if you are in the world and you're being sent, I mean, that's the whole point of college, right? To be sent into the world. If you're in the world, yes, be in the world. But that means you're going to have to stand more often. If you have a lot of friends who don't know Jesus, Yes, please have those friends who don't know Jesus, but that means you're also going to have to stand more often. If you go to places that Jesus would go to,

go to be with people who Jesus would be with. That's so good. Do that thing. But that means you also are going to have to stand more than others. So yes, go to those places, but go prepared to stand. Because, again, I could go into like, here's how to stand, here's when to stand. I'm not going to go into that because last week's homily was literally the last week's homily

was literally the longest homily. It was world record length. I mean, you guys, I'm surprised you came back. So this is like the last thing. Last story. It's longer than four minutes. We're not going to talk about when to stand or how to stand. I just want to get it into our hearts, into our minds,

into wherever the place courage lives and say you're going to have to stand, though. That if, especially in this world, you know, we can, we're not living in Nazi Germany, father. You're right. We're living in a place that's more dangerous. We're not living in communist China. You're right, we're living in a place that's more dangerous. In fact, I told this story a bunch of years ago.

I don't think I've told it on a Sunday for a couple of years, but maybe about, I don't know, six, seven years ago, a friend of mine named Mark, he told me about this man, within the last, I don't know, 10, 15 years. He was in China. He's a Chinese man from the Fuzon province of China. And in the Fuzon province of China, it's illegal to be a Catholic. You can't worship, can't have mass.

But there's these priests who are like, you know, covert priests. I want to think that'd be so cool. Anyways. These priests will come and they'll celebrate Mass in people's homes in the middle of the night. And they have to do this in secret or else the Chinese government will find out. Like this is right now. This is right now. Chinese government will find out and arrest people.

So what happened was this man was hosting a mass in his home, middle of the night, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock in the morning. And they had to have guards outside of the home to see if any Chinese officials were coming close. The mask wraps up. Cleaning everything up and one of the people who was sentry duty runs in and says they're on their way. And so everyone's scattered except this guy was his house. And so he had to stay there. And as the soldiers, the police came in, they saw him there and they could tell that mass had just been there. And so they arrested him.

For the next three to four weeks, he was tortured night and day. 24 hours a day for the next three to four weeks. They stripped him naked and started burning areas of his body. They started like cutting part of his body. In fact, at one point they took an electrified cattle prod that they jerry-rigged to have over a million volts run through this cattle prod. and they just touched it to various parts of his body, just saying, one question, you have to just give this one answer, where is the priest? Where can we find him? That's all they wanted to know, is tell us where the priest is, tell us where to find him. And you'll go home. He also has a family,

wife and children. You can go home right now if you just tell us where the priest is, but this man, he knew the reality of what would happen. If he told them where the priest was, they would arrest the priest, kill him, and then he and his family and all of his friends were Catholic would not have mass for who knows how long, maybe, maybe years, until they could get another priest. And so heart of love for the Eucharist. He's like, I can't, I can't live without the Eucharist. My children cannot live without the Eucharist. My family, my friends cannot live without the Euchar. So for three to four weeks, constantly tortured, asked to answer one question. He absolutely refused. Until finally, the officials were like, he's not going to break.

Like, this guy's unbreakable. He's not going to crack at all. So they just sent him home. That's like, that's incredible. I mean, to think about this. This man is alive right now. A hero. Like a hero for the Eucharist. A hero, someone who actually, I could never do that. I'm thinking like, God, could I do that? God, help me do that. Don't make me do that. I just, I don't think I could do that. A hero. As soon as he could, what he did was he got his family together, got some finances together, moved to the United States. And he came to this country not very long ago. And immediately it was one of these things where he was just like, this is amazing, this is incredible. Because he could walk into a Catholic church, walk in the front door in the middle of the day with his whole family. He could walk down the sidewalk, going to church with the whole kid, all the family dressed up. He could walk out of the Catholics. There's not wondering who's going to see me walk out of this church. He was like, God, this is the best thing ever. This is, I love this country. This place is amazing. I get to worship you and no one's going to stop me. So he'd take his family down, Sunday Mass, taking him to daily Mass.

But he also realized something else about this country, how good it is. That unlike communist China, if you work hard, you get stuff. If you work harder, you get stuff. If you work harder, you get more stuff. And so this man was like, wait a second, I can, I have a job now and I can work more hours and give my children more things. I can work longer days and I can give my children more opportunities. And so that's what he started doing pretty soon. He was like, if I grew up to work early, early on the weekdays, then I have more opportunity. And so he stopped going to daily mass. Then, you know, as weeks went on, he realized, well, actually, if I work on the weekends, I can get some overtime. And he occasionally, he started.

missing Sunday Mass occasionally. And then he started for a couple years only going to Mass on Easter and Christmas. And when my friend Mark told me about this man, he said, and then last Easter and last Christmas, he didn't even go to Mass. I was just like, take a moment to think about this. This man is a hero for the Eucharist. This man couldn't be broken by the Chinese government. He couldn't be broken by torture. He couldn't be broken by electrified cattle products. nothing could break him. And this is one of the things that we just have to realize

right now, this is the point of the whole thing. What communist China couldn't do to this man, what torture couldn't do to this man, what cattle prods could not do to this man,

our culture was able to do to this man and it didn't even have to try. Didn't even have to work at it. Our world, just living in the place you and I live every single day was able to take this man and rob him of his faith. And it didn't even

target him. Wasn't even making an effort. It was just the fact that here he is walking in this place that you and I walk every day. And what happened is the world proved to be a not friend. In fact, more dangerous than cattle prods. And the truth is that I can be next. Like we have these enemies. We're behind enemy lines. We know that you guys know this already. You've lived your whole life behind enemy lines. And you know the truth that you could be next too. That if I go with the world, if I go with the culture, if I live the life and my life looks just like the people on my floor, I will not get to heaven. Full stop. If I live my life like the people down who live down the block and just look no different than them, I will not get to heaven. If I live my life like everyone

else at work and I look just like everyone else at work, I will not get to heaven. Full stop. Because if I live like this world and this world is a not friend of Jesus, then I die as a not friend of Jesus. What does that mean? Well, it means I have to stand. It means I have to make a decision. That means, man, I have to realize I'm living behind enemy lines. And I've got to stand for him.

I've got to stand against the not friends of Jesus. And that doesn't mean we hate the world. Not at all. Not even close. For God so loved the world that he did. gave his only son, that all who believe in him would not perish but would have eternal life. But that means that in love, we have to stand. Stand for Jesus. Stand apart from sin. And stand against all of the not friends of Christ. Here's my invitation. If right now you want to make

that decision, I don't want to be on Sunday saying Hosanna and on Friday saying crucify him, I want to stand for him and I want to stand against the not friends, the enemies of Christ. I invite you right now to stand and profess our faith, to stand for Jesus and profess what we believe, to stand against the enemies of Christ and say that actually I am unmoved. I will not be the villain of my own life. I'm not going to be the enemy of my own life. I'm going to be the hero of this story next to Jesus, standing with him, standing for him, standing against his enemies. I believe in one God.

the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary. and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontchus Pilate. He suffered death and was buried and rose again on the third day. In accordance with the scriptures, he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living

and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son, is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.