Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 6/25/23 The Fear of the Lord

Episode Date: June 24, 2023

Homily from the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We must cultivate the fear of the Lord in our lives. If we do not, then we will have only a partial vision of who God truly is. If we do not cultivate the fear of the Lord, then we will never have the proper relationship with God that we are made for.Mass Readings from June 25, 2023:Jeremiah 20:10-13Psalm 69:8-10, 14, 17, 33-35Romans 5:12-15 Matthew 10:26-33

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 in your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless.

The Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Chapter 10 verses 26 through 33. Jesus said to the 12, I fear no one. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness,

speak in the light. What you hear whispered, proclaim on the rooftops. And do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna are not two sparrows sold for a small coin, yet not one of them falls to the ground

without your father's knowledge. Even all the hairs on your head are counted. So do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows. Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I will acknowledge before my heavenly father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly father,

the gospel of the Lord. So I've been reading this book that's been making it really kind of a big impact on me. It's by a Protestant pastor who the first thing I noted was he shared the story about how in 1994 he had written his first book. And his secretary told him that Jim Baker, who at that time was in prison, had contacted him. So if you don't know anything about the story, Jim Baker back in the day was kind of the biggest televangelist around. He had the biggest following. He had the biggest movement of Christianity. he might want to say like in throughout the 80s and in the at the end of the 80s he was accused

of uh male fraud and wire fraud and in some other conspiracy type things and and it turned that he just is his whole life just tanked and he was actually convicted of fraud and sentenced to 45 years in prison so he went from being like the biggest Christian televangelist in the world to being a prisoner so this was 1994 so he had 45 years he only had to serve five years of those five of those years And anyways, he calls this man, this pastor, and says, basically, I'd like to you to come visit me in prison. So he's four years into a five-year sentence. And he says, great, sure, I'll come by. And he came and he started visiting with Jim Baker.

And he said, among other things, Jim Baker had said that him being in prison wasn't God's judgment on him. He said, my being in prison was God's mercy on me. Because I was living a life apart from his law. I was living my life apart from what he had told, what I knew to be true. I was not living what I knew to be true. And this was God's mercy on my life. if he hadn't done this, I would have gone to hell. And so the man wrote the book who was visiting him and said,

the conversation came up going on. And he said, well, Jim, let me just ask you the question. And all that time, like with all the adultery and with all the stealing, with all the fraud, with all this stuff, he said, he asked the good question. He said, but you're ministering. He said, when did you fall out of love with Jesus? And that's when this man said that Jim Baker stopped and said something that shook him

to the core. Jim Baker looked back at him and said, ah, I never did. He said, but yeah, for seven years, you were doing all this and this and this, all these sins, all this, all this crime. So you know, for seven years, he said, I never fell out of love with Jesus. He said, what I lost is I lost the fear of the Lord.

That was the key. That was it. I never fell out of love with Jesus, but I lost the fear of the Lord. And there's one thing, I would say that we've lost as American Christians, as Americans, as Catholics in general. We've lost this thing, the fear of the Lord, which if you know anything about scripture,

Proverbs chapter 1 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And what's wisdom? Just like a race to the end here. What's wisdom? It's just knowing a bunch of stuff. It's not just a bunch of data. It's not just a bunch of knowledge.

Wisdom has having a relationship with God. It's knowing who God is. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of the wisdom that reminds us who God is. If I don't have fear of the Lord, I will never know who God is. Now, let's back up for a second because I know I launched into the idea

of talking about the fear of the Lord and you say, wait, Father, but in the gospel today, Jesus says, do not be afraid like three or four times, and you would be right. He says, fear no one. He goes on to say, he says, do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but can't kill the soul. At the end, he says, don't be afraid, you're worth more than many sparrows. But buried in there, Jesus does say, but I shall tell you of whom you should be afraid.

In the midst of all these words about don't be afraid of those who can kill the body but can't kill the soul, don't be afraid of anyone, don't be afraid because God loves you. He said, the middle of that, he says, but I shall tell you of the one you should fear. Who's that? He says, the one who can, after killing the body, throw the soul into Ghenna, body and soul into Ghenna. Now, some people, scripture scholars, some of them would say, well, maybe that's Satan. Maybe that's the one.

You'd be afraid of Satan. But most scriptures scholars, most Catholic scholars would say that's actually an incorrect interpretation. Who Jesus is referring to, he's not referring to Satan, the one who can cast both body and soul and to Ghena. He's referring to God himself. I shall tell you whom you should fear, God himself. Remember, the first stage of wisdom is fear of the Lord.

The first way we can even know who God is is through fear of the Lord. And so we have to ask the question. If I don't, you say, but I'm a Christian, I don't have to be afraid of God. You're right, you don't have to be afraid of God. Very different. Fear of the Lord and being afraid of God are two very, very different things we're going to talk about in a second. But we have to realize that we haven't outgrown and we never will outgrow the first stage of wisdom, which is fear of the Lord.

and if I've never known that, if I've never known fear of the Lord, I have to ask the question who am I approaching when I approach God? If I've never actually known that sense of overwhelming awe, in fact, scripture talks about a terror. If I've never been even slightly unsettled, when I've approached God, I have to ask the question, who do I think I'm approaching when I'm approaching God? Who do I think I'm praying to when I'm praying to God? when it comes to the mass and I'm approaching even for Holy Communion,

if I've never, if I've never been overwhelmed by the sense of fear, who do I think I'm receiving? I think too many of us, we have this, we have our Nerf version of God, right? It's that Nerf, you know, we don't Nerf, right? You have a football, you have a soccer ball, you have any kind of ball or whatever the toy is. If you've nerfed it, you just make it softer. You just make it so, oh, if it hits it in the face, it's not going to hurt. If you don't catch it, no big deal.

It's going to bounce. I think we've nerfed God. I think we've taken God who is a grizzly bear and we've turned him into a teddy bear. Here's God who we wouldn't dare approach and we've made him into a toy. I mean, all throughout Scripture, I mean, virtually every time

someone actually encounters the true and living God. They're overwhelmed by fear. I mean, go back to Exodus where here's the people of Israel. God reveals himself to them in chapter 19 and it's called the Great Theophony. Basically, he sets them free from slavery, right? Ten plagues, bam, bam, bam, one up to the other.

He leads them through the, the Red Sea and they get to Mount Sinai. It describes like this, Moses describes it like this. He says, on the morning of the third day, there are peals of thunder and lightning and heavy cloud over the mountain. Very loud trumpet blasts and all the people in the camp trembled. But Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God and they stationed themselves at the foot of the mountain and Mount Sinai was all wrapped in smoke for the Lord had come down upon

it in fire. The smoke rose from it as from a furnace and the whole mountain trembled violently. Moses spoke to God and God answered him with thunder. And then what happens in the next chapter is when the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, it said, and the trumpet blasts and the mountain smoking, they all feared and trembled. They took a position much further away and they said to Moses, you speak to God for us and we'll listen, but don't let God speak directly to us. They had encountered in some small, small way the reality of God and they're like,

we can't, Moses, we'll just go through you from now on. Because they didn't encounter a Nerf version of God. They encountered the real God. In fact, all throughout Scripture, in fact, you have, we heard from Jeremiah today. Jeremiah talks about this. Isaiah talks about this in Isaiah, chapter six. When he's called to be a prophet, what happens is he says, near King Uzziah died, Isaiah chapter six, says, I saw the Lord,

seated on a lofty, high and high throne, train with his garment filling the temple, seraphim of flying all around him. And they all cried out, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Host. All the earth is filled with his glory. And that sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke. And then I said, woe is me, I am doomed.

Because I'm a man of unclean lips, living among people of unclean lips, and I fell down to the ground as though I was dead. This is not a Nerf version of God. This is the true and living God. And this is the proper response to the real God is fear. The proper response to the true.

God is awe. It's actually to tremble. It's to recognize, I am not God. You are God. To say, you are God and I'm not, you know, after at the end of the book of Job, and Job is someone, Job is someone who could be defiant against the Lord, right? Because a lot of terrible things, horrible things happen to Job. But at the end of, in the book of Job, when God reveals himself to Job, in the Job chapter 42, God reveals himself. And Job responds by saying, I've dealt with things that I do not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know. I heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you. Therefore, I disown what I said, and I repent in dust and ashes. In fear, fear is the proper response to the true and living God.

And I realize what happens right now. People would say, okay, Father, that's fine. That's the Old Testament God. We're not talking about Him. We're talking about the New Testament God. We're here as Christians. So let's talk New Testament. I say, yeah, let's talk New Testament. How about the moment when Jesus goes up the mountain with Peter James and John. He's transfigured and he reveals his glory. What happens there? Well, they all fall down to the ground as though dead. They all fall down to the ground terrified when they hear the voice from heaven. So there's that. Oh, even better. John, John, who has seen, remember John the beloved, who has seen Jesus transfigured on Mount Tabor. He has rested his head against Christ's chest on the night of the last supper.

He stayed with Jesus faithfully all the way through the crucifixion. Here is John the beloved, who who was so close to Jesus, you might even say his very best friend that in the very first chapter of the book of Revelation, says, I, John. John is now 90 years old. So this is an entire life not only of knowing Jesus intimately for three years as his closest friend,

but then also serving Jesus for the next 60 years or however maybe even more as Jesus' apostle to the world. And it says on, he was on the island of Pappmos. He says it was on the Lord's Day. He's returning from offering Mass. And he heard a voice behind him, and he turned around and he saw Jesus. And he said, when I saw him, I fell to the ground as though I was dead.

He would have stayed there. Except Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him and said, get up. See, this is the reality. When we're not dealing, we're not dealing with the Nerf version of God. We're dealing with the real God. The response is very, very different. In fact, it's not just like, well, that was Mount Sinai. I remember with all the smoke and all the fire

and all the, all the peals of, peels of thunder. In the letter to the Hebrews chapter 12, this is this kind of the last one here. Letter to the Hebrews chapter 12, what he writes, he's writing to Christians, and he says, You have not approached that which could be touched

in a blazing fire and gloomy darkness and storm and a trumpet blast and a voice speaking words such as those who heard beg that no message further be addressed to them. He's referring to Book of Exodus. He says, you haven't approached that. You've approached not less. You've approached more.

God is not less awesome in the New Testament. God is more awesome in the New Testament. God is not less frightening in the New Testament. God is more frightening. Because in the Old Testament, it was a sign. In the Old Testament, it was a phry. In the Old Testament, it was angels speaking. In the New Testament, this is God himself who has spoken.

In the New Testament, we're actually, when we approach the altar, we're approaching God himself, not an image of God, not a figure of God, not an idea of God. We're approaching God himself. That's why the author goes on to say, he says, once more, here's listen to this. Therefore, we who are receiving the unshakeable kingdom should have gratitude with which we should offer worship pleasing to God in reverence and in fear, for our God is a consuming fire. We're not approaching a God who's less. Jesus doesn't reveal that he's less.

He feels even more. Our God is a consuming fire. He is not a teddy bear. He's a grizzly bear. Or maybe you'd say in the words of C.S. Louis, if you're familiar with The Chronicles of Narnia. in Narnia, there is the character, Aslan, and Aslan is the lion, and Aslan is the figure of Jesus in Narnia. And at one point in the very first book, when the kids get to Narnia, and they're talking to Mr. Mrs. Beaver, and Lucy is the youngest daughter, and she asks Mrs. Beaver,

she says, well, is Aslan who we're going to meet? Is Aslan quite safe? She says, I should feel rather nervous about meeting a lion. And Mrs. Beaver response, she says, that you will, dearie. Make no mistake. She says, I feel rather than nervous. Yeah, you will. And make no mistake. She says, if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or just plain silly. Then Lucy says, then he isn't safe? And Mr. Beaver responds by, Mr. Beaver responds by saying, safe, don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe. But he's good. He is the king, I tell you. Like, this is, this is the

This is the, I mean, in some ways, the secret, right? This in so many ways is the revelation of Jesus. It's that we approach the real God. He, actually, even more, the real God approaches us. And how we respond to him as he approaches us, tells us everything we need to know about where our heart is. Am I playing with God? With a Nerf version of God?

Am I snugly with my teddy bear God? You have a safe God or do I have a God who is not safe, but he's good? You know, and think about, and I'm guilty of this in so many ways. I mean, even when it comes to scripture, I remember it was my last year in seminary, just, I mean, probably a month before I got ordained, maybe even less than a month before I got ordained. And I went in for a final in scripture. And it was a sit-down kind of oral final with me and the professor. And he wasn't like a super strict kind of a person. He was pretty fast and loose when it came to a lot of things.

But at one point he asked me a question about the Bible. And I said, oh, yeah, that's the part in the Bible where Jesus says, and I made the quote. And I said, you know, yada, yada, yada. I didn't finish the quote. I just said, you know, Jesus is it blessed out of the poor, yada, yada, something like that. and he stopped me and he said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're talking about the word of God here, not yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. Especially coming from this guy, who, you know,

he didn't necessarily come across as someone who loved scripture, just studied it a lot. But yeah, blessed of the poor, yada, yada, yada, no, no, no, no. This is the word of God. We don't yada, yada, yada, the word of God. Same thing, I just was able to travel to Israel relatively recently, and we could go to all these holy sites, And one of the things you want to do is you just want to enter into, like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,

where you walk in and right up here to your right is where Jesus himself. Jesus, that's where Jesus died. And whatever here to your left is that's where Jesus rose from the dead. And you want to walk in, you just want to treat every stone that's there, even though the stones don't go all the way back to Jesus that you can touch. They're underneath those stones, the ones you can, that were Jesus actually touched. You just want to walk in and just don't want to keep your hands to yourself because I can't touch any of this.

And yet, I walk into the Church of Holy Sepulchre, which is maybe the whole thing. holiest place in the world, or where at least the holiest things, most powerful things in the world have ever happened. And it's like a zoo in there. You just think, do we have a sense of what happened here? Like, do we have any idea of what happened here? Same thing is true when it comes to the mass. That we can walk here into this little chapel, garage chapel, or into your local church and just do I have any, when I look at the, when we look at the altar, when we look at even the tabernacle, here's Jesus present, do we ever stop and think, okay, what happens at that altar? What happens at that altar is the representation of the great sacrifice of Calvary.

That's what happens here every single day, or when it comes to even the tabernacle. Do I realize who is in there? Is it my Nerf version of Jesus or is it the real Jesus? Is it my teddy bear or is it the grizzly bear? Even when it comes to the name of Jesus, how do I say the name of Jesus? You know, in the catechism,

there is a section that talks about the commandment not to take the Lord's name in vain. It offers a quote from Cardinal Newman about just the way in which we ought to, in which we have to reverence the name of Jesus. And it's so powerful because he says, he says, okay, when it comes to feelings of awe or fear, fear of the Lord, they are a class of feelings that we should have.

In fact, he says, yes, and having an intense degree if we literally had sight of the Almighty God. I mean, think about those feelings of fear and awe. He said, the other feelings we should have if we literally had sight of the Almighty God. Therefore, he goes on to say, they are of the class of feelings which we shall have if we realize his presence.

So I don't have to imagine that if I stayed before the Lord got himself, if Jesus walked into this room, that I would fall to the ground as if I was dead. But here's the question. That's the feeling I should have if he walked into this room. But that means it's also the feelings that I shall have if I realized he is in this room right now, that we could not utter the name Jesus without taking our lives into our hands. And if I truly believe that, then I would have to be able to. have to realize that every time I uttered the name Jesus, I'm taking my life in my hands. And so every time I heard his name on a TV show or in a movie or being taken carelessly, taking my life in my hands.

He goes on to say, these are the class of feelings we shall have if we realize his presence. In proportion as we believe that he is present, we shall have them. And not to have them is not to realize or not to believe that he is present. Let's go back to this. Do not feel fear and awe. in the presence of the Lord's name, the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist, the Mass, to not feel in awe

is not to realize or not to believe that he actually is present. If I don't experience this, then I might, maybe I, the God I'm approaching, who am I really approaching? I'm probably approaching the NERF version of God. I'm either unaware or I'm indifferent. I'm unaware or I'm indifferent.

I don't realize who God is. Or I don't realize where God is. And that's, of course, this common temptation, it goes back to the Old Testament. Talks about those people who are not afraid. Talks about those people who do whatever they want. What they say? They say, he hides his face.

He doesn't see. He's not here. And yet, what did Jesus say in the gospel today? There is nothing hidden. It won't be revealed. There's nothing concealed that will not be uncovered. There's nothing secret that will not be known. I said that one of the reasons you don't have the fear of God,

the awe of the Lord, is because we can be indifferent to him. but I think sometimes it's maybe because we live as if God is indifferent to us. I think sometimes we live as if we maybe prefer as if God didn't care about us so much. Again, what is Jesus saying in the scriptures? He says, even the hairs on your head are counted. He says, you're worth more than many sparrows. I think sometimes it would be maybe more appealing to us if we mattered less to God

because then he wouldn't notice and I wouldn't have to let him get close. Because that's the difference between fear of the Lord and being afraid of God. The difference between being the fear of the Lord and being afraid of God is being afraid of God makes me want to hide. I mean, think back to the Garden of Eden back in Genesis chapter 3. He said that Adam and Eve, they failed. And so what happened? They were afraid.

And even Adam says us, I was afraid because I was naked so I hid myself. That's not the same thing. Because fear makes us drawback. Being afraid of God makes us drawback. But the fear of the Lord draws us to himself. This is the big difference. I'm afraid of the dark, why? Because it's the unknown.

Dangerous and things are going to happen. there. I'm afraid of the tyrant because the tyrant is fickle. Who knows what they're going to do next? I'm afraid of the person who doesn't care because who knows what they're going to do because they don't care. It's the difference that your church fathers talked about between servile fear and filial fear. Servile fear is I'm afraid of the master who might just beat me. That's not what we have when it comes to God. Filial fear is, I have a father who loves me and he cares about me and he wants the best for me and I disappoint him. You know, it's true, we can never make God love us more. We can never make us God love us less, but he can be more or less pleased with us. You never thought about that?

God will never love you more, he'll never love you less, but he might not be pleased with me. It may not be pleased with how I'm choosing to live. And I don't want, I don't want to disappoint my father. I fear disappointing my father. That's part of what it is to have fear of the Lord, not servile fear, not being afraid of God, but knowing how good he is. And he draws us to himself. Going back to C.S. Lewis and Chronicles Narnia, another book is another young person named Jill. And one point in the story, Jill is dying of thirst. She's so thirsty. She comes upon a pool. And it's actually her name, too, Jill Poole. And she hears us running water in the distance. And she finds it. And she finds the lion, Asselen, lying right next to the water, blocking

her way. And Asselen looks at her and says, you know, this not pet lion, not a Nerf lion, a real live, terrifying lion who says, if you are thirsty, you may drink. And Jill says, well, I'm dying of thirst. And he says, but then you may drink. And this little girl says, well, may I, she says, could I, would you mind going away while I do? And Hazelan just responds by offering a low growl. Jill says, well, do you promise, do you promise not to do anything to me if I come? And Hassel looks at her and says, I make no promise. With fear and her voice. Jill says, well, do you eat little girls? And Aslan says, I have swallowed up girls, boys, women, and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms. So Jill has this fear and she says, well, then I

daren't come and drink. Aslan says, well, then you will die of thirst. Lastly, she says, well, dear, I suppose I must go and look for another stream then. And Aslan says, there is no other stream that we actually have to approach. There's no other God. We have to approach the God who actually cares about us. The God who is so real, the God whose love is so fierce that he counted the hairs on our head, whose love is so fierce that we're worth more to him, not only than Sparrow's, we're worth more to him than his very life. That is a very high bar. And that is the, that's the God we approach. And so, of course, that's going to fill us with fear. But here's the reality. St. Francis DeSalle said this. He says, we must fear God out of love, not love God out of fear. That God calls us,

Yes, to this first stage of wisdom, fear of the Lord, but in the midst of that fear to approach him, to not stay away, to not stay far back. And this isn't just, as I said, it's not something we outgrow, but it's even for those who are the most advanced among us. St. Thomas Aquinas is the last thing. St. Thomas Aquinas, you know, he was writing, he's written so much. He taught the world so much about who God is. He hadn't yet finished his major work called the Summa Theologica. But at one point, he was in prayer and he had a revelation of God.

God revealed himself to Thomas in such a way that Thomas stopped writing. He left the summa unfinished. And to Brother Reginald, who was a secretary and his friend in the monastery, he said this. He says, the end of my labors has come. He says, all that I have written appears to me as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me. Because the reality of God is that God is not a teddy bearer and God is not a Nerf version of God. and God is not a toy lion. As Hebrew says, our God is a consuming fire.

A consuming fire who says, you matter to me. It comes to consuming fire who says, I care about you, more than you care about yourself, a consuming fire who says, you are worth my very life and my death. So do not hesitate to approach. But with every step, remember, you take every step out of love. But every step toward the Lord we take, we also take in fear. Because God is real.

God is more. God is good. And God is a consuming fire.