Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 07/14/24 Borrowed Time

Episode Date: July 13, 2024

Homily from the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Does God have permission to say "I want it back?" We are all living on borrowed time. And borrowed gifts...and borrowed strengths... Everything we have has been loaned to us from God. At some point, God will interrupt our lives and will ask for His gifts back. He will interrupt our lives and ask for us to return all that has been entrusted to us. Will we be free enough to say "Here it is. I hope that the way I used it glorified You."? Mass Readings from July 14, 2024: Amos 7:12-15 Psalms 85:9-14Ephesians 1:3-14 Mark 6:7-13

Welcome to Sunday homilies with me, Father Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this in other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up at ascensionpress.com slash Sunday, or by texting Sunday to 33777. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you.

In reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark, Chapter 7, Chapter 6, verses 7 through 13. Jesus summoned the 12 and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick. No food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals, but not a second tunic. He said to them, whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave.

whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet and testimony against them. So they went off and preached repentance. The 12 drove out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. The gospel of the Lord.

Might you to have a seat. So I have a friend who a couple years ago, he's a grown man. He's in his I think 50s or early 60s, but a couple years ago he thought he was done. Well, he was dying. All the doctors and nurses in the hospital he was in thought he was dying.

He had a bleed and they couldn't find the source of the bleed. And so he just, for days and days and days, they just kept pumping new blood into him. And it was one of those situations where it looked like all was lost. It looked like every, it looked like his life was over. Like that was the end of it. Thanks for God, there was truly a miraculous intervention. God interviewed in a remarkable way. his life was saved.

And ever since that moment, he has this phrase, he says, and now, he's from Texas, he always says, and now I am living on borrowed time. That's the time thinking, he's now I am living on borrowed time. That's not a very good Texas impression,

but like, but this reality is, that's what he says, he's, now I'm living on borrowed time. And I think about that, that phrase, borrowed time. And the reality, of course, is that every one of us is living on borrowed time, every one of us. In fact, if we really think about it, everything in our lives has been loaned to us. Like everything in our lives has been borrowed. Like our time, our health, our lives, our talents, our gifts.

Like every single thing that you and I have has been loaned to us, that we're borrowing every piece of it. And so what that means? A number of things it means that it's been entrusted to us. It means, again, everything's been given to us from God. He's been loaned to us from God. We're borrowing this from God. So, number one, it means that God's entrusted to us. Number two, it means that we are stewards of these lives. That you're a steward of your health, not an owner of your health.

That you're a steward of your gifts, not an owner of your gift, that even our lives, you're a steward of your life. You're a steward of your time, not an owner of your time. I'm not an owner of my time. I'm merely a steward. And the third reality is, this is loaned to me at any moment, at any time, time, God can ask for any or all of it back. I mean, we know this, but this is how it goes. If you borrow the lawnmower from your neighbor or your weed whacker or his chainsaw,

like you realize you borrowed it for a purpose, right? You borrowed it to mower your lawn or to whack your weeds or cut down trees at any moment because it's your neighbors, your neighbor can walk across the property line and say, hey, I want that back. Those four words, and you're not mad at your neighbor. You might be, but that's ridiculous. because it belongs to your neighbor. And so because it belongs to your neighbor, because you've merely borrowed it, at any moment, for any reason,

your neighbor can say those four words, I want it back. If you borrowed a sweater from your sister, from your brother, whatever kind of thing, at any point, they say, hey, can I borrow this thing? At any point, your sibling could just say those four words. They could simply say, walk into your room and say, I want it back.

And you might be upset by that. You might be annoyed by that. but it is not unjust. Why? Because it's not yours. It was merely entrusted to you. That means at any point, for any reason, they can say those four words. I want it back. And this is the reality about God. God can interrupt our plans. And he's not being unjust. God can take his gifts back. And it's not being unjust. This isn't the first reading. The first reading is from the book of Amos and it's about the prophet Amos. And you know what's funny about Amos, there's not a lot we know about him. He's pretty famous now, but other than that, that we know that Amos, you guys, famous Amos?

No. Okay, anyways. So we know that Amos is from Toccoa. We know that he didn't belong to a family of prophets or family of priests. One thing for certain we know is that he thought his life was going in one direction. And God stepped in and took his life in an entirely different direction. He says that in the reading today, it's Amos chapter 7. He says, I wasn't a prophet.

I don't belong to a family of prophets. I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. And then he says his words, he says, but the Lord God took me from the sheep. He took me from the flock and said to me, go and prophesied to the people of Israel. So Amos's life, his life plan? One thing.

And God steps in and says, no, no, no, different plan. Amos says, like, no, I'm on this road. And God says those four words, that four words that he says to every single one of us, he says, I want it back. No, this is reality. God can do this. God can do this in every one of our lives. Now, keep this in mind.

Just because God calls us to a different road, that does not mean necessarily that we were on the wrong road. This is really important. It wasn't that Amos was doing something wrong by being a shepherd. It wasn't that Amos was doing something wrong by being a dresser of sycamores. He might have been on the exact right road, but he didn't know for how long he was going to be on that road. And sometimes people get frustrated by this. And they're like, I thought God was calling me to this thing.

So I said yes to this thing. And then all of a sudden, he told me to take a turn. That's how you get places. That's not God fooling you. It's not God tricking you. It's not you even having bad discernment. That's how you get some words. So if I was going to direct someone from the Twin Cities of the St. Paul, Minneapolis,

to the University of Minnesota, Duluth. And I would say, hey, get on I-35 North. And they got on I-335 north. And at some point, I would say, okay, now, get off I-35 and go on 21st Street. Like, no, I thought you told me to get an I-35. Yes, get a 935 until you get to the proper moment. And at the proper moment, you take 21st Street. The same thing is true when it comes to our lives.

God can be calling us down one road and then say, okay, now it's time. It's the proper time to take a new turn. It's now the proper time to take a new road that God can actually come in and change our course. But here's what we need to know. This is just kind of a little note on discernment. This is so important for us. Before we go any further, if God is asking you, or you think God is asking you, to take a major turn in your life.

Or he's calling you like he's calling Amos. There's three things, just keep these three things in mind. Number one is I would say, seek counsel. Like, talk to someone other than yourself. If all this like discernment is happening, I think God's calling me to do something big for him. If all that's happening in your own mind, it shouldn't be. There should be people who are wiser than you that you look to,

people who are wiser than you that you actually can say, hey, this seems like to me, God is calling me to this thing, Is that, does that resonate with you? Does that seem right? No, make sure that they're faithful people that they're praying, that they know the voice of God. You might say, no, I know God's voice. I don't need to ask anyone else.

Yeah, you do. This is what all the spiritual masters have always said. Seek counsel. Don't trust your own mind. Number two is this, is keep this mind. Attend to reality. If you think God is calling you to a big, big change or God is calling you to invite someone else to a big, big change,

attend to reality. What I mean by that is, among other things, is if you or the people you're interested in calling to a new change are already in their vocation, the answer is done. Like, kind of the idea is, is realize, God is never going to call someone to break a legitimate promise that they made. Whether that promise was to the church, to another person, in a courthouse, God is never going to call a person to break a legitimate promise that they made

for the sake of whatever this call is. Never happens. And number three, so not only, Seek counsel, attend to reality. And the third thing is, listen to their answer. This is really important. It's just, this is all basic, right? This is just really, really simple.

Listen to their answer. And this is one of those things like here on campus, we have a lot of people who are, you know, wanting to discern marriage. Praise the Lord for that. Or they're pursuing religious life. Praise Lord for that. Or entering seminary.

Praise Lord for that. But here's the thing. If Jack thinks that, hey, Emily, we should get married. And Emily says, no. Jack, I prayed about it. You're supposed to get married. Like, no. Jack, pay attention to our answer.

And it might break your heart. I was praying, and it seemed like very, very clear. The Lord was calling me to marry you. But Emily says, no, that's the answer. The same thing is true. It's a heartbreaking answer. The same thing is true when it comes to someone applying for a seminary or to a diocese or to a religious community.

They say, no, the Lord has convicted me. I know that he wants me to be a priest. I know he wants me to be a religious sister. But sometimes the community says, we hear that, we're discerning with you. And the answer is no. In order to have wise discernment, We need to seek counsel, we need to attend reality, and we also need to listen to the answer.

No, okay, keep that in mind. If someone says no, believe them. That being said, we're living on borrowed time. That being said, every one of us is living our lives on loan. And at any moment, God can say those forwards. At any moment, God can simply say, I want it back. The question is, do I live with the awareness and the acceptance of that? Because God did that to Amos, and then Amos did that to Israel.

Now, here's the reality, right? God called Amos from being a shepherd and being addressed from from Sycamores to being a prophet and go to prophesied to the people of Israel and the people of Judah, right? Remember the kingdom divided into two, ten tribes in the north, Israel, two tribes in the south, Judah. And here's Amos, who's prophesying to them. What was his message of prophecy? You should read it in the book of Amos. Basically what Amos is saying is, okay, Israel and Judah, you become wealthy.

You have a ton of prosperity. Like, you're doing well, but you're not doing good. And that was part of Amos' message, right? It's this. The fact is that they were doing so well that they forgot to do good. That they were so prosperous. They were so wealthy. They were so taken care of that they stopped taking care of the people around them.

That's one of the dangers of wealth, right? That's one of the dangers of prosperity. that's one of the dangers of blessings. So you can ask the question, what would you rather have blessings or burdens? And I think we say, okay, blessing, please. Would you rather have prosperity or poverty? Duh, prosperity.

What would you rather have? Strength or sickness? And the answer, again, all of, it should probably come back every single time. I'd rather have blessings. I'd rather have strength. I'd rather have prosperity. But scripture reveals this,

or scripture reveals that blessings are just as dangerous as burdens at time. That blessings and burdens, can just as easily become barriers to doing God's will, that poverty and prosperity can become obstacles to doing God's will. In fact, wise people forever have pointed this out. In fact, the book of Proverbs, it's chapter 30, verses 8 and 9. It says this. It says, here's a prayer in the book of Proverbs.

A prayer to God where someone actually says, God, give me neither poverty nor riches. feed me with only the food that I need, lest I be full and deny you and say, who is the Lord, or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of the Lord? There's a wisdom here, right? Because that person realizes that burdens and blessings can both become barriers. So, God, please, don't let me be more prosperous. Don't let me be wealthier, rather than so that in my wealth I say, no, I'm taking care of.

I can forget about God. Or don't give me so much poverty. God, don't give me so many burdens. that in my being beaten down, I resent you. Or am I being sick, I curse you? Or am I being hungry, I steal and profane your name. There's a wisdom here of being able to say, I realize that burdens and blessings can both be dangerous.

Because why? Because we're living on borrowed time. Because every one of us is living life on loan. And it reminds us that at any moment, God can at any moment step in and say, I want it back. It also reminds us that all of this, everything we have, has been entrusted to us. Again, keep this in mind. At any moment, God can say I want it back, but at every moment, this has been entrusted given to us. Your life has been given to us for a purpose. Your strengths and gifts have been given to you for a purpose. In fact, the second reading from St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians, which I think has one period in it of like a whole page of St. Paul, he just needs to learn some

English grammar. But St. Paul, he goes to this whole thing, Evisions chapter 1. And he says this. He says, listen, you're Christians, you've been blessed in Christ. He said, you've been chosen in Christ. He says, you've been destined to Christ. You've been granted forgiveness and redemption in Christ Jesus. All of these incredible blessings that God gives to us by his own grace. And these are the gifts that we get to claim as Christians, blessed, chosen, destined, forgiven, redeemed, all of those things. those are gifts God's given to us. Why? There's gifts God's entrusted to us. Remember, we're living on borrowed grace.

Why? Why did he give those gifts to us? And St. Paul answers, you are blessed, you were chosen, you were destined, you were forgiven and redeemed for the praise of his glory. Why does God give you blessings? Why does God give us strength?

Why does God give us prosperity? Why does He give us wealth so that A, we can become a blessing to others, but B, so that in becoming a blessing to others, God may be praised and He may be glorified. That's the whole point. The entire point is, I'm entrusting you with these gifts. I'm loaning them to you. You're living on borrowed grace.

You're living on borrowed gifts so that everyone who comes into contact with you may know that God is glorified, even when he takes them away. because at some point he's going to say to every gift and every grace and every blessing and every strength I want it back. There was this movie that came out relatively recently. It's an Angel Studios movie. It's called Sight. And it's a movie about a true story about a man from China who became a physician and he's an eye surgeon.

And he lives in, I think, Atlanta now or in the United States. And he does eye surgeries that he and his team have made breakthroughs in restoring people's sight. It's just a really cool movie. In it, it's told in a lot of flashbacks. One of the flashbacks is when he was a kid in Asia, in China, and his best friend's father had a factory accident and he lost his sight. And years later, I think they're teenagers, he and his friend, and her dad is talking with them. And he, again, he's completely blind.

But he's not bitter. This is one of those remarkable things. He's blind, but he's not bitter. The goddess said, I want it back in some ways, right? But it doesn't resent that. In fact, he says this line that just struck me in a really deep way, he said, for most of my life I was able to see. And now I can't, but for most of my life, I was able to see.

And he just kind of compared his life to a musician in China who was born blind. And he said that this musician, he has to imagine what two rivers coming together under the moonlight would look like. He says, I just get to remember it. And rather than seeing what he lost, he was grateful for what he had. And I think about this in a lot of ways because that is all of our lives. At some point, God's going to say, hey, I want that back. A couple months ago, a couple weeks ago, I guess, I was in my family's neighborhood, and I was driving my car and all these people were running on the side of the road.

And I used to be kind of a bigger runner. And so I remember thinking like, oh man, I used to do it all the time. And for whatever reason, I haven't been able to run physically for a couple of years now, especially in the last couple months. And I remember thinking like, oh, I remember when I could do that. But I had already watched this movie, right? And so I had this man's voice in my head saying, for most of my life, I was able to see. I just saw these runners on the side of the road and going, wow, this is amazing. For most of my life, I was able to run.

And at some point, God says, I want it back. That's with every one of our blessings. And actually every one of our burdens, too, at some point, God's going to say, I want that back. So I just, we're about to start next month. We're about to start my 20th year here on campus at UMD. And I'm so grateful to be able to be on a college campus that many years, these incredible students. And I know this. At some point, God's going to say, okay, I want it back.

Go somewhere else. For the last number of years, I've been able to make videos with Ascension Presents and make the podcast and all these. And at some point, I know this. God's going to say, okay, that's it. I want it back. At some point, for a lot of my life, I've been able to be on mission. And be able to go to some amazing places and talk to amazing people. And I know this.

At some point, God's going to say, all right, I want it back. And that's not just true for me. That's also true for you. It's true for every one of us. That the day is going to come like that day came for Amos. God said, okay, I want it back. Amos said, the Lord took me. from the flock and he told me go somewhere else and he said, I want it back.

The question is, what do we say? The last thing, very short, what do we say when God says I want it back? I think our response is, here it is. God says I want it back. And we just simply say, God, thank you for letting me use it. God, thank you for letting me see while I could see. God, thank you for letting me run while I could run. God, thank you for letting me love this person while they were still in my life.

God, thank you for letting me serve while I could serve. Thank you for loaning it to me. When he says, okay, today's the day. I want it back. I hope every one of us could say, here it is. Thank you. I hope that you are glorified.