1/25/26 God Shows Up

0:01 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 and 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. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.

0:36 Chapter 4, verses 12 through 23. When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled. Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light. On those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death, light has arisen. From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting their net into the sea. They were fishermen. He said to them, Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men. At once they left their nets and followed him. He walked along from there and saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and his brother John.

1:32 They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him. He went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every illness among the people. The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Wait, you have a seat. So back in 1973, my grandma Helen was a nurse. Actually, she was the head nurse at a place called Sinai Hospital down in the Twin Cities. And she was a really hard worker. She loved her job. She loved being a nurse. She loved caring for her people. In fact, as a head nurse, she took care of other nurses. And she loved that.

2:25 She loved just helping all of these, particularly they were younger nurses, and she helped them just like get their job done, be able to take care of patients. It was honestly, I would say, that her job as a nurse was everything to her. And then also in 1973, the Supreme Court passed a Roe versus Wade legalizing abortion in this country. and almost immediately at her hospital her nurses were being forced to participate in abortions either to participate in them or even to dispose of the remains of these children And so my grandma, she said, I won't do this. I won't do this. Not only will I not do this, she said, I realize this. Not only does my faith say I can't do this, but also I realize I've seen the remains of these children.

3:20 They're human beings. and you can't make my nurses do this. And so she went before the board, she went before her bosses, and she said, here's the thing, I've served this hospital for years and years. I've helped you, I've done everything you've asked. Here it is. Either you stop doing this, or I'm gone. and they did not choose to stop. They made their decision, and so she left, and she was devastated.

3:55 Because this work wasn't just my grandma's livelihood. This was her life. This was, in many ways, you could say this was her identity. And talking to my uncle about this, he's like, yeah, your grandma was crushed. In fact, he said, if it wasn't for her faith, he said, I don't think she would have, I literally don't think she would have lived, she wouldn't have survived. and go back to 1973 and think like how for my grandma in this situation how do you come back from that how do you come back from this thing of like everything you've worked for everything you are all of a sudden is just gone and you make this big decision, and what did it do? I mean, honestly, if you think about this, she made this big decision that affected her life, but what did it do? Like, honestly, you can say, like, there's nothing. It did nothing.

4:47 Then you say, what did God do? She made the sacrifice out of her faith. What did God do? And you say, well, I don't know, nothing. You can ask the question, okay, she made this big, big step. Did God show up? I'd say this. I imagine that we all have been, are, or will be at some point in a situation like this. Not necessarily something where we have to put our life on the line, our livelihood on the line because of our faith. But I mean this. I mean all of us are going to find ourselves in a place where we're asking that question. Is God going to show up? Like no matter what I do, is there any coming back from this? Every one of us is going to be in that position where we say, okay God, things are so broken, how could you ever fix this? we might even find ourselves saying there is no way God could ever use this there's no way God could ever use this much pain to do any good again we just we find ourselves asking that question is God going to show up because because the reality is when things are hopeless how could he the gospel today is kind of fascinating.

5:58 Not kind of, it is very fascinating. The context for the gospel today, I don't think most of us, when we read the gospel, here's Matthew's gospel, here's Jesus starts his public ministry. I don't think many of us right now in the 21st century realize how hopeless things were for the Jewish people when Jesus shows up. I don't think we realize how hopeless the Jewish people should have been when Jesus shows up. Why? Because you go back 2,000 years before Jesus, here's God who makes a promise to Abraham, right? God promises Abraham three things. He says, okay, I promise you, you're gonna have land, you're gonna have a kingdom that lasts forever, and you're also, the whole world is gonna be blessed through you. It's a big promise from God to Abraham. So 1,000 years later, David shows up and he takes all 12 tribes of Israel, right? To all the 12 tribes, the sons of Jacob. He unites them in a kingdom. So you think, okay, 1,000 years, we waited for 1,000 years, finally, here's the kingdom. God promised a kingdom, we finally have the kingdom.

6:52 These 12 tribes united, one king, amazing king, David. After him was Solomon, who's okay. After him was a guy named Rehoboam, who was not good. In fact, it takes basically two generations after David for the kingdom to split. What happens under Rehoboam is those 12 tribes, the kingdom of God breaks into one kingdom of 10 tribes in the north called the kingdom of Israel and two tribes in the south called the kingdom of Judah. think okay but still you get some hope we still have hope because maybe God will be able to stitch these 12 tribes back together somehow well what happens is 200 years later what happens is the Assyrians come in from the north and they begin picking off those top 10 tribes just only 200 years after this the Assyrians obliterate all of the top 10 tribes imagine it's like it would be like this it would be like here we are in Minnesota it would be like Canada invades and where they begin invading is North Dakota and Minnesota.

7:51 And then they take out every other state. And the only two are left are like, I was gonna say Texas, but that's too big. Like Louisiana and Florida are the only two states that are remained. So we do two things. But everything North of this is just gone. And so when people think of like, oh man, remember Minnesota, North Dakota? That was the beginning of the destruction. This is what happened with the two tribes in the North are Zebulun and Naphtali. And so those two tribes, all 10 are completely gone forever. There's literally no coming back from this because those 10 tribes are not only annihilated, they're dispersed. And then only 100 plus years later, the Babylonians come in and they take out the bottom two tribes, bring them to Babylon. Like 90 years later, some of them come back, they rebuild the city of Jerusalem, they rebuild the temple.

8:37 But there's no hope. Because the Persians took over after that. They were horrible to the Jews. And Greeks took over after that. You have 1st and 2nd Maccabees, they were horrible. Then they'll hear the Romans. Now imagine this. Imagine being Jewish. There's no coming back from this because God's promise was united 12 tribes, this kingdom on earth. You cannot find them because they don't exist anymore.

9:01 Just imagine being that hopeless and realizing, asking the question, what could God ever do with this? Is God going to show up? That's why I love the beginning of the gospel today. It says, when John the Baptist was arrested, it's like, okay, if things are bad enough, We have one guy who's pretty good. He's John the Baptist. But even the whole story continues with, and then he's arrested. And then what? when things are absolutely hopeless. If you're keeping score right now, things are absolutely hopeless. And then it says, Jesus went to the region of Zebulun and Naphtali.

9:41 So then Jesus leaves Louisiana and he goes up to Minnesota. and he begins to do what? He goes to the place where things were destroyed, and he announces that things are going to be restored. He says, first words are, kingdom of heaven's here. The kingdom's here. And then what does he do? Gets two brothers, Simon and Andrew. Okay, you're coming with me. Two other brothers, James and John, you come with me. He's got four. How many more does he get? Eight. total of? Twelve? How many tribes were there originally? Twelve? Here's Jesus. What's he doing? He is the king. He's reassembling the kingdom. Here's the reality. When it seemed like there was no hope, when it seemed like there was no way, when it seemed like God even didn't even care, when it seemed like God could do nothing in a situation, what happens then? And then God shows up. He begins doing what? He begins creating a kingdom where there was no kingdom. He begins creating a kingdom where there was not even a kingdom. There was no hope for a kingdom. So a couple years ago, there was this Jewish rabbi a couple years ago. And he said this. He said, okay, Christians are making the claim that Jesus is the Messiah. I'm a 21st century rabbi.

10:54 There's a lot of baggage in 21 centuries. So what if I was a rabbi living at the time of Jesus? And I heard Jesus preach and I saw what Jesus did. Would I have been someone who said he's the Messiah? Would I have followed Jesus as my rabbi? So he looks through all of the life of Jesus in the Gospels, and he's like, yeah, actually, Jesus checks all the boxes. Jesus checks all the boxes of the Messiah. He does everything that God had promised the Messiah would do. He said, but at the end of the day, I don't think I would have followed him. Why? He said, well, for one reason. Because there was one massive box that he said, I don't believe Jesus checked. And that box was the Messiah was going to restore the kingdom. He said, look around, I don't see a kingdom. So there's this theologian who wrote a book in response to him. That theologian's name is Pope Benedict XVI. But Benedict wrote a book and he said, actually, the kingdom exists, the kingdom that Jesus established, the kingdom that goes around the entire globe, the kingdom that doesn't just encompass the 12 chapters of Israel, but the kingdom that encompasses every human being on the face of the earth.

11:53 The kingdom Jesus established is the Catholic Church. That when Jesus started inviting Simon and Andrew and James and John and Thomas and Bartholomew and Matthew and all these apostles, he established a kingdom on this earth. And here's the crazy thing. That kingdom literally exists on every continent, in every nation.

12:15 To realize the Catholic Church is God's plan of salvation for the entire world. It's a place where everyone belongs. And not only a place where everyone belongs, it's a place where every kind of person belongs. Regardless of your race or ethnicity, regardless of your nationality, male or female, you belong. Wealthy or poor, you belong. Smart or not smart, you belong. powerful or weak or healthy or sick or saint or sinner. Every kind of person belongs in the kingdom that Jesus established. And the reality is if you look around this planet, look around this globe, there is a kingdom that Jesus established. when did it happen? It happened when it seemed like there was no hope.

13:02 And how did it happen? It happened in a way that no one could have imagined. Because that's really the big question. The big question really isn't, is God going to show up? This is what we have to understand. The question is not in our lives, especially when things are desperate. The question is not, is God going to show up? The question is, how is God going to show up? how did he establish a kingdom he how did he do it he did it in a way that no one could have imagined no one could have anticipated so last week and i met the uh a priest out in california he used to be the pastor for jonathan rumi if you know who jonathan rumi is he's the the actor who plays jesus in the chosen and he said this he said oh yeah jaya jonathan hi we knew him back we knew him back when he was a starving artist we knew him back when he was a struggling actor we knew him back when actually uh he had so little money we our parish actually paid his rent a couple times. Like he was pretty desperate. He said, he was so desperate that a couple times I sat him down like as his spiritual father, like, bro, are you sure you need to keep doing this?

13:59 Like maybe you should, uh, you know, take up carpentry or something. I remember I actually heard Jonathan tell the story about how desperate he was. He said it was a Saturday morning in May and he woke up and he saw that he was overdrawn by 100 bucks. He was in debt. He had $20 in his pocket, that was it. He said, I have no idea how I'm gonna pay rent next week or next month. I have no idea how to pay my other bills. And he said, I was just so, so broken and so desperate. He's just like, there's no hope. I've been doing this, I've been trying to do this acting thing for over 20 years. he said, I was so desperate, I knelt down in front of my crucifix, hanging on my wall, and I just prayed. I said, God, I said, God, for years, I've been asking you that if there's something else I should be doing, just show me what it is, because this is extremely difficult.

14:57 He said, but God, you haven't given me any indication that I should change, so here's what I'm going to do. He said, God, I just, I'm going to trust in you. he looked at his crucifix and he said, okay, Jesus, I just surrender it to you. I surrender all of it. I surrender how I live. I surrender how I eat. I'm going to surrender to you, Lord God, even how I pay my rent and my entire career. You said my yoga is easy and my burden is light. So here it is. It's yours now.

15:28 I'm just going to trust you. So he said he went out, used the 20 bucks to buy a big breakfast. he left the restaurant and he started worrying again he was like no god not my problem he said you take care of me take care of me that afternoon he got home and had some mail and opened up one envelope had a check opened another envelope a second check third envelope a third check opened a fourth envelope four checks he said each check was bigger than one for him he said end of the day I had $1,100. I had enough to keep on going. He said not too long after this, Dallas Jenkins calls him up and says, hey, you want to work together again? I've got this idea for a TV show about Jesus. That's crowdfunded. And Jonathan says this. He said, I was curious to see how God would show up, if he would show up. He said, no, no, no. I knew he would show up because that's the reality.

16:28 That's for every one of us. The question is not, will God show up? The question is, how is God going to show up? The question is not, will God use this? The question is, how is God going to use this? This is the last thing. Back to my grandma. Back in 1973, when my grandma quit her job, the hospital didn't change their policies. And the laws, no laws were changed. No culture was changed. Essentially, you could say nothing was changed. She sacrificed everything, and it didn't do anything. but she passed on her conviction about life to my mom. You know, it's funny, I've maybe mentioned this to a couple people before, but my mom, all growing up, she had interesting things on our fridge. One thing on our refrigerator all growing up was an image, a photograph of an ectopic pregnancy.

17:22 It was of an infant that was only, I think, 20 weeks old in the womb. Maybe less than 20 weeks old in the womb. but it was outside the womb because it had passed away and it was not like this droplet. You could see like, oh wow, if you look at this, if you look at this photograph, that's a baby. That's a human being. You can see that even at just a couple weeks old, that's a baby. That was on our fridge. Second thing on our fridge was this political cartoon that was about how pro-choice mentality is inconsistent. The third image, and this is the most graphic image, there was an open trash bag. from a clinic where they perform abortions, and inside the trash bag had been thrown up behind the clinic. Someone had opened it up, and there were the remains of babies.

18:12 And someone took a picture inside that trash bag, which was on the refrigerator growing up. So it was really fun to have friends over. But because of my grandma, my mom had this conviction. because my mom, I had this reality that no matter how much I would want to argue the difference, like, no, if you look, you see a baby. That's the reality. If you look, this is all of us. If you look, you see a baby. But my grandma's choice didn't change culture or policy or a law. My mom's being pro-life didn't change culture or policy or a law. And my being pro-life hasn't changed any culture or any policy or any law. But three years ago, three years ago, I was giving a talk at a thing called March for Life. This last Wednesday or Thursday was the 53rd, I think, anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Three years ago, I had a former student. She had contacted me.

19:04 I was invited to give a talk at the March for Life. She said, I don't know if you remember this, but 13 years ago, three years ago she texted, she said, or she contacted me, she said, 13 years ago, she was a student here. And she was in a relationship that was very difficult and problematic.

19:26 And she got pregnant. And she thought there's no way, there's no hope. She was like, my life is over. there's no way coming back, no way to move forward, no way to come back from this. She said every one of her family members are like, or her friends are just, hey, just get rid of it. You'll be fine. Just put it in your past. Just get rid of it and you'll be fine. You can move. Then you'll have a future.

19:49 She said I came to the Newman house and I was just sobbing. I'm like, Father Mike, I can't do this. She said, I looked at you and I was like, I can't do this. I can't. I'm not ready to be a mom. And she reminded me of this. She said, you looked at me. You said, you already are a mom. You are pregnant, you already are a mom. And you're not alone. she carried that baby to term. I was able to entrust her son to a couple that was really struggling a lot with infertility.

20:37 Two weeks ago. that 16-year-old boy was at one of our high school retreats. And I just, the whole weekend, I was like, man, it's incredible. As I saw this young man just like laughing with his friends and praying and in adoration, going to confession and just like being a, being a bro. being alive, being a gift to his friends around him,

21:12 being a gift to his mom and dad who on their own struggle to have kids. I realize my grandma made that choice. She didn't change policy or culture or laws. My mom was probably, she didn't change culture or policy or laws. And me, I haven't changed culture or policy or laws. But there is a young man who is alive right now.

21:38 Because we know this is true. Even when it seems like things are hopeless. Even when it seems like, how could God ever do something with this? How could there ever be a way that God makes a way in this difficult moment? The question is never, will God show up?

22:01 Will God do anything? The question is only, how will he show up? And how will he do what he always does? Which is make a way when there seems like there's no way.