Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 06/20/21 Everyday Courage: Into the Storm

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

Homily from the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time. God is in the storm. There are times when we do everything God has asked us to do…and we still find ourselves in the midst of a storm. In those moments, we are called to resist resentment and embrace courage. In those moments, we are called to run into the storm, confident that God is in the storm. Mass Readings from June 20, 2021: Ezekiel 17:22-24 Psalms 92:2-3, 13-162 Corinthians 5:6-10 Mark 4:26-34

So a couple of years ago I heard a talk this woman was giving. She described how her father raised her and basically one of the stories she was relaying was that when she Easter rolled around every year They had Easter eggs hidden outside so plastic Easter eggs with different denominations of money inside them and and she learned I mean as a young young girl probably like three four years five years old That the harder the eggs were to find that the more money was inside the egg and so she said when she was five years old she learned her lesson. She like okay, no No, she's all these eggs that were kind of like really obvious, really easy to spot, easy to, easy to collect. She ran past all of them, didn't collect any of them because she knew.

Like no, the hardest egg is the one with the most money in it. So she tracks it down, finds the one, she works really hard, gets the egg with, that was the hardest to find. She opens it up and inside was dog poop. And she looks at it, looks at her dad who's watching her do this whole thing, and she throws it to the ground, bursts into the tears, runs into the house, runs upstairs into her, into her bedroom, and she's crying there and her dad falls her because he's a good dad even though contrary to appearances and he sat down with her and she's wailing she's like why would you do that why would

you put dog poop in this egg that was so I worked so hard to find and he said to her he said because you need to learn he said you already learned the first lesson the first lesson was when you work hard you get more and you already learn that lesson so you need to learn the next lesson which is sometimes you can work really really really hard and all you end up with is dog poop. She was like, and I was five. But still, but there's something about this that's so true. Something about this that's really true. You can do everything right and sometimes all you end up with is dog poop. I recently came across story of a couple, Nick and Jennifer Tom. Nick and Jennifer, they both went to Franciscan

University of Stubanville and they met, I think, on the first weekend. They were on campus and kind of one of those love at first sight for him at least. least, she learned to love him later on. And it was one of the situations, one of those situations where, here they go, they go, they go into a Franciscan, like basically, like, we're hardcore Catholic, we're going to do life right. So they did school right, and they did work right. He got a job at Ave Maria Radio, and worked with Al Cresta for years after they graduated from Franciscan University of Stubanville, and they got married, and they were doing life right. They're doing everything they should be doing, right? And they were praying. They were, in their

vocation, they were serving. And when they were 27 years old, when Nick was 27 years old, they were driving home from Daily Mass, again, doing everything right. And at one point, he looks over at Jennifer and she sees that one side of his face is drooping and he said, I don't know what's going on, he pulls over to the side. She thinks he's having a stroke. They didn't recognize that it was the first of many seizures he would experience. In fact, before they could diagnose him accurately, he had over 40 significant seizures

until they realized that what was going on is he had a slow growth brain tumor that was going to be fatal. And this happened even though they were doing everything right, they found themselves in the middle of a storm. Even though doing everything right, they found themselves in the middle of a storm. And we see this again, right? First reading Job, if you know the story of Job, and I know you know the story of Job, here is Job in the first chapter, God establishes.

No, Job is righteous. Job is good. Job does everything right. And Job lost everything good. And he found himself in the middle of a storm. You know, I think it's one thing to find yourself in a storm because you know you messed up. It's one thing that, like, find yourself in the middle of this, like, awful moment, dog poop moment, when you know it was, again, that's my fault.

In fact, one of my favorite quotes, I've quoted, I've already, I've said it before, I'm going to say it again. And the quote is, everything happens for reason. Everything happens for reason. Sometimes that reason is you're stupid and you make dumb decisions. Like that is one of those things that's sometimes true. but sometimes it's also possible you can find yourself in the storm, even though you've done everything right.

So last week we started talking about a guy named Tobit in the book of Tobit. And here he is, he's traveling Naftali, he's in the northern kingdom, and still he's worshipping God. He's traveling all the way down to Jerusalem even though no one else is traveling with them. And then what happens is the Assyrians, they come in and they put all the people from Naphtali and all the people in the northern kingdom to exile. He gets moved. He gets displaced to Nineveh.

And even then, he's still doing the right thing. mentioned last week that he is, what is he doing? He's keeping kosher. He's keeping the dietary laws of the covenant people. He is taking care of the poor and he's also burying the dead and at one point the king Shalmaneser finds out that here is this man, this Jewish man who's burying the dead and he finds out he's doing this good deed and what does he do? He punishes him.

He basically confiscates all of his property, takes everything away from him except for his wife and his son Tobias and brings him even even even even. into even further exile. You think, what the heck? You can think of Job looking at his life saying, are you kidding me? I'm doing everything right and nothing's going right. In fact, later on, he gets restored.

He gets come back to Nineveh. And the first thing he does is to celebrate, he's going to celebrate that someone had died. And so he says, wait, before I even eat my food, I'm going to go bury the dead. And he does this, and then that night he eats and he goes to sleep. And this is where the story gets kind of funny.

He goes to sleep, outside because it's hot and it says that then this bird comes along and poops in his eyes and he goes blind for the next four years you think like this guy cannot cut get i thought joe was bad this guy cannot catch a break and sometimes it's true that um you can do everything right and you still find yourself in the storm i don't know if you've ever if you've ever been in that place where yep sometimes it's maybe because you messed up i'm stupid make bad decisions sometimes it's like no actually i don't know what's going on because i was i've been trying and i'm still in the storm Like I've been actually really, really working hard to be good and I still got sick or they still got sick or I lost my job or they lost their job.

I was trying to be a good spouse but marriage is just falling apart. Trying to be a good parent. But my kids are just, I don't know, what they're doing. I was trying to be good and I found myself in the storm. You know, it gets even worse in the gospel. Because in the gospel here are the apostles, right? The disciples are in the boat and they're in a storm and you have to ask the question,

okay, why are they in this, why are they in this particular storm? And the answer is, the reason is, because Jesus told them to go there. Imagine if you were one of the fishermen, like you grew up on the Sea of Galilee, you could probably read the signs of nature and whatnot and you could realize, okay, there's a storm coming and Jesus says, yeah, go out, go, let's go out into the storm in the middle of a lake, the Sea of Galilee,

that you probably, if you're a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, you probably have people in your family, people you know, who have died in the middle of storms. And the only reason you're in this particular storm is because Jesus said, I want you to go out into that storm. The only reason you're a storm is because you're doing exactly what Jesus told you to do. And so I imagine that if that was your case, if that was the situation in your life, in my life, we would have the same question that the disciples have. And the question is, Lord, don't you care?

Don't you care that we're perishing? Don't you care that we're out to die? In that question, I would say this, unresolved, that question. question, like many other things, will lead to resentment. Unresolved, that question, God, do you not even care? You find yourself in a storm and you ask the question, God, do you even care? If that question goes unresolved, it will lead to one of the most deadly things in any human being's life, and that is resentment. Because, you know, have the emotion, that's fine. Whatever the emotion is. To anger, be afraid, to be frustrated, to be annoyed, all those things

are fine. But to allow those emotions to become the disposition of resentment is absolutely deadly, which is why in the middle of a storm, you and I need courage. And we started talking last weekend about courage, and how courage is every other virtue in the moment that virtue is needed the most. Like every other virtue in the testing point.

And it's in the middle of the storm that we need courage, and not simply courage to run away from the storm and not even just courage to endure the storm. But the courage to run into the storm, the courage to enter the storm. So years ago I came across this analogy or this metaphor as comparison between What cows do when they sense a storm coming and what buffalo do when they sense a storm coming When the cows sense a storm coming with the cattle are out there They do what you think would be the wise thing. They start walking away from the storm

That seems to make sense But one of the things it does is it makes the storm last longer Because as they're walking away from it the storm's going with them and they're in the storm longer because their goal is, I just want to get out of the storm, I just want to escape the storm. But when Buffalo, sense that a storm is coming, they do the exact opposite. When Buffalo sense the storm is coming, they go into the storm, they face the storm, they go into it.

And it's not being, they're not being cowardly, they're not being rash, but they're realizing, okay, this storm is here. Let's face it. Remember, Aristotle has said that the extremes of courage are being cowardly or being rash, right? just avoiding as much as I possibly can or just leaping unnecessarily. And the Buffalo are not being rash and they're not being cowardly. They're saying the storm is here. There's no avoiding it.

We have to face it. We have to enter into it. There's no escape. What I need to do is I need to engage. That's not bravado. That's courage. So we experience resentment. God, I'm in the middle of a storm.

Do you not care? How do you engage? I was not talking to a psychologist. I was listening to a psychologist talk. And she was saying that when you experience, in the middle of resentment, one of the things we need to do is we need to get curious. Meaning we just need to start asking questions.

I'm experiencing right now anger. I'm experiencing frustration. I'm experiencing fear right now. I'm experiencing all these things in my life. I'm experiencing abandonment. And I have to get curious, which means I have to start asking the questions. The question like, why am I feeling this?

The question that really engages and says, well, why did I expect a different outcome? Why did I expect there to not be storms? Because I think a lot of times when we experience resentment over the fact that we're in the middle of a storm is because we didn't expect there to be a storm in the first place. So why? Ask the question, why did I not expect there to be a storm?

Why did I expect there was a different outcome? And even the biggest question, I think, which is, I'm in the middle of a storm. How was God calling me to respond? To be curious. Because courage is a remedy for resentment. So go to the gospel. I think Jesus helps the disciples get curious

because what's he do? He starts asking them questions. He asked them, why are you terrified? Which I imagine they're sitting in the boat going like, okay, we get it. Jesus, you're a carpenter and wood floats. But we're fishermen and we know people sink. That's why we're terrified. Basically, Jesus asks them the question. He's getting curious. Why are you terrified? Answer, because this could kill us. Because this storm that you brought us into could kill it, has the potential to end every one of our lives. That's why. That's a really good question. That's a really good answer. and he asks the next question, remember, to get curious, do you realize I have resentment?

I need to get curious. And he says, do you not yet have faith? And remember that faith, really simply put, faith is trust. If you have faith, it means I have trust. Not in an outcome. I don't have trust, like, yeah, it'll be all fine. Faith is trust, meaning trust in a person, trust in Jesus. And also remember, courage is every other virtue the moment it's needed the most.

So yeah, you had faith. You had trust in me when it was sunny. You had trust in me when I fed 5,000 people. You had trust in me all these other times. Do you not have the kind of trust that goes into a storm? Because here's the deal. I love the fact that Jesus asked the question, do you not yet have faith?

And I want to point out, Jesus, this is chapter 4 of Mark's Gospel. This is early on in the lives of the disciples, knowing who you are. So maybe they don't have that kind of trust in you yet. But you can almost hear the subtext of what Jesus is asking. when he says, do you not yet have faith? What he could be asking them is, do you not realize? You might not realize this,

but for the rest of your lives, I will be sending you out into storms. You just started following me. But you may not realize this yet. You may not realize that for the rest of your lives, I will be sending you out into storms, and you will have a choice, either to escape, to run away, to hold on to resentment, or to engage, to run into the storm.

to run into the storm, to have courage. The author to the Hebrews in the letter to the Hebrews, in Chapter 10, he's writing to Christians who know what it is to be in storms. They know what it is to be persecuted for the very fact that they believe, what you and I believe, that they are following Jesus Christ. They know what it's like to be in a storm. And he writes to them and he says, here's the thing about Christians though. He says, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 39, he says,

We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed. We're not of those who shrink back. We're not those who run away from storms. That's not what Christians do. It's not what Christians do. We're not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. So Tobit is blind.

Gets all the stuff taken away, gets some of it back, becomes blind doing the right thing. But before he goes blind, before he has the worst night of his life. His neighbors see him burying this dead person and they look and they just marvel. And they say these words, they say, he is still not afraid. After everything was taken away because he was doing the right thing. Some of it gets restored to him and they look at him, burying the dead again, doing the right thing again, doing what he knew he needed to do, doing what was required, having an everyday courage that just like showed up again and again. And they say he is still

not afraid. He has already been hunted down to be put to death and he ran away. Yet here he is burying the dead again, running into the storm. Everyday courage runs into the storm. And everyday courage is what Nick and Jennifer Tom had. You know the same week that Nick was diagnosed with this slow-growing brain cancer, Jennifer said she just felt like she should take a pregnancy test. They had been infertile their entire marriage and that week her pregnancy test came back positive. So even in the midst of this diagnosis that said Nick you're going to die. Jennifer had a diagnosis that said there's going to be

new life and so they realized okay wait a second we're still alive. Yes we're in a storm. Yes this is a horrible horrible moment for us. We are still in a storm but we're also still alive and there is still life to be lived in the storm. Again remember this is everyday courage. So they had their first child and they adopted two other children. They were foster parents for five years. Matt, after his diagnosis, he started running because he's like, no, if this is the storm of life, I'm going to be running into a storm.

I'm going to be running into life. Just because I have this diagnosis doesn't mean my life is all, just because my life is going to end doesn't mean it's already ended. And he spent the next 15 years with his wife, Jennifer, and their kids running into the the storm and you realize how is that possible? Well, it's possible because they knew. They knew the truth that Job knew. It's the first reading today. Here's Job, who did everything right and lost everything good. And what's the very first line of the first reading say? That God spoke to Job out of the storm. What does that mean? That means that God's in the storm. In the gospel today,

it says that Jesus is asleep in the stern on a cushion. What's that mean? That means that Jesus is in the storm. And Jennifer at one point in the midst of Matt getting weaker and weaker and weaker, she said, I remember thinking, whatever comes, God will be there and we will be fine. And we're thinking no matter what happens, whatever comes, God will be there and we will be fine. What is she declaring? She's declaring that God is in the storm. This is this last thing here. Nick died last November 2020, not full of resentment but full of courage. Jennifer continues to live, raising their kids, not full of resentment, but full of everyday courage because how did they live?

For the last 15 years, for the last lifetime they've been living as those who do not shrink back from death, but as disciples of Jesus as Catholics who run into the storm. Nick lived with courage. With Christ, he was running into the storm. Jennifer continues to live with courage. And with Christ, she is running into the storm. And you and I are called to live with everyday courage. And with Christ, we're called to run into the storm.

Because we know what they knew, what Job knew, what the disciples knew. We run into the storm because Jesus is in the storm. Thank you.