2/8/26 Wasted Potential

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 in your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Glory to you, O Lord. Chapter 5, verses 13 through 16. Jesus said to his disciples, You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket. It is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. I'd like you to have a seat. so a little while ago i was able to have a conversation with a man named daryl woods senior it was for a podcast called called um and uh daryl woods his story is is remarkable he um is from detroit and uh not a good place not a good part of detroit he from his literally from his mother's womb he had a tragedy in his life uh when he was still in his mother's womb his father died and his mom who had three older he had three older older older siblings she just went into a tailspin like she just i'm kind of in his words she kind of lost it and she took to drugs got hooked in heroin started living on the streets and so daryl went with his brothers i went to live with his grandma and and there they're in his grandma at grandma's house uh there were 11 kids they were coming and going and so he was just kind of one of those younger kids who just did his best He said his grandma loved him, grandpa loved him. But at one point, at 12 years old, he just wanted to be with his mom. And so at 12 years old, he ran away from his grandparents' house to go downtown Detroit, basically, to be with his mom. And she welcomed him, you know, as best as she could. And the neighborhood kind of welcomed him as best as they could. In fact, there was this man, he called, Daryl called him Superfly, Superfly someone, who was kind of like a drug king in that area. and he said, this guy, if I would go to school, every day after school, he'd give me 25, 50 bucks just for going to school. He wanted to keep me in school. He said, at one point though, I just was like, you know what, if I have all this money, I am going to gamble. And so Superfly once pulled up, he sees Daryl gambling on the corner at 12, 13, 14, and he says, that's it, you're cut off. I'm not giving you money so you can gamble. I'll give you money so you don't have to have a life of crime. So he cuts cut off. At 14 years old, he begins becoming a drug dealer. At 14, he's also shot and has to go to the hospital. Almost dies, but doesn't die. At 15, he purchased a home with the money he was making, dealing drugs in the corner. At 15, he also got the girl he was seeing pregnant. At 16, he became a dad. His son was born. At 17, his daughter was born. At 18 years old, he was arrested. and at 19 years old, he was convicted and given life without possibility of parole. What had happened was, in a sentence for life, he had gone with his cousin to go buy drugs for his cousin into this house and some guys followed him to this house. He didn't know what these guys were. They started arguing with the other drug dealers and so these guys behind him, he didn't know, pulled out a gun and shot some people. He and his cousin ran away but even though they didn't know the guy, They were found guilty of aiding and abetting this murder. And he spent the next 29 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. I mean, obviously, Daryl's not innocent, right? He did a lot of bad stuff. But he also wasn't guilty. He wasn't guilty of that, right? He wasn't guilty of the crime that he was in jail for. Regardless, you think about this. All of those years, I mean, 29 years from the time he was 18, 19 years old, for the next 29 years, just wasted. Like all the chances he was given, even the drug dealer on the corner who wanted to pay him to go to school, that chance wasted. His grandparents who would have raised him in a place safe, far away from the world of drugs, the world of violent crime, wasted. And if you look at Daryl Woods, you might think like, man, that was so much wasted potential. I've been reflecting on the tragedy of wasted potential. Because that's what it is. I mean, wasted potential is just a tragedy. It's in all of our lives, right? No, quick thing. When we think potential, I think sometimes we think something, oh, you could have had this potential. Like if I had been given a chance when I was a kid to live in a city where they had gymnastics, I had the potential to become an Olympic gymnast. Well, no, I didn't have that. I could have had that chance. That's not really potential. That's like potential potential. Real potential is, no, you had the chance. I think real potential is, no, it actually was yours. It when you did have it in you It when you did have that chance It when you had what you needed and you just didn use it I think that what wasted potential is You had all that you needed and you just didn use it I think that's one of the, working on a college campus, I think it's one of the awesome things in working with junior high, middle schoolers, high schoolers. I think it's one of the awesome things about youth is that to be young means to have potential. Like, in fact, to be young means to have a certain kind of potential that no one else in the world has. People who are not young, it's an incredible resource. Warren Buffett, right? Warren Buffett is an investment guy. He is probably, I think they estimate, worth roughly $150 billion. $150 billion. And yet, my guess is this. My guess is that if you asked any one of our students, none of them would want to trade places with Warren Buffett. because even though he's worth $150 billion, he's also 95 years old. And so imagine Warren Buffett, if he could trade a place with any one of our students, regardless of whether their situation or their circumstance, regardless of how much money they have or don't have, he might take it unless he's at peace with his life and he's very content and ready to die. But none of us would ever, ever trade places with Warren Buffett. Why? Because we know the value. We know that youth has such potential that it's so valuable. And here's the crazy thing, you have it. to our students you have this sidebar people my age old people and people older than me um we have a we have potential as well it's just a different kind of potential so if you're like oh man my young potential's gone like yeah maybe it is but you have other potential the point is this every one of us has been given some degree of potential and the tragedy is every one of us is guilty of wasting our potential in something I did have, and I just didn't use it. As Christians, as followers of Christ, this is so critically important to us. Why? Because I think sometimes, even if we know who Jesus is, even if we, like, no, no, I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. We could say all the creed. I think so many Christians, we walk around as if one day God might choose us. I think we walk around as if maybe one day we might be good enough for God to claim us. I think sometimes, even as Christians, we walk around with this notion of, well, someday I might be given a chance. And yet, in the second reading today, St. Paul writing to the Corinthians, what does he say? He says, the first thing I preached to you in Corinth. Like, I didn't preach sublimity of wisdom. I didn't preach this, you know, any philosophy. all I preached to you was Jesus Christ and him crucified. Basically what he's saying is, I pointed to the cross and I said, this is the sign of God's love for you. That already, regardless of your life, regardless of your past, regardless of where you're living or how you're living, this is God's love for you right now. They basically pointed to the cross. Here's Jesus crucified and said, this is proof that God has already made his choice for you. Do you realize this? This is the truth. That God became one of us. he made it possible to have a new life Christ lived on this earth for us and died for us made it possible for us to be forgiven that he put out his Holy Spirit on us and made it possible for us to be adopted by the Father that he basically in giving that Holy Spirit Jesus has made it possible for us to be a new creation and this is the thing this is all of this you already have like this isn't all like you could have someday hey, this is, no, if you're a follower of Christ, you already have all of these gifts. It's a gift of grace that nobody earns. And this is the crazy thing is that Jesus has done all of this for you and for me. What's that mean? That means you and I have amazing potential. The question is, out of all that we've been given, has it been wasted on us? like has has has is the gift of god's grace just been wasted potential you say well i know i have the grace but i just don't want to use it right now or i can say well i i know i i know i have access to the mass but it's just kind of boring for me so i know i have access to the father's heart i can pray at any time but i'm going to pray later different time i know i have access to god's word but my phone is here and i'd rather not look at the bible I'd rather just share my phone. We can even say like, I have access to God's mercy, but I don't know. I feel like I'm disqualified. Here's a crazy thing. Wasted potential. All of these gifts you have and I have and we just don't use them. Again, the disqualification thing, I think sometimes it's interesting to wonder this. Do we realize that the things that we believe disqualify us are absolutely no surprise to God? Like just pause on this for one second. the things that you and I will say like yeah that means I I can't belong to the Lord that's actually that doesn't shock him that doesn't surprise him that he knew your weakness when he chose you that God knew what your struggles were going to be when he claimed you do you realize the truth that Jesus knew your sins when he picked up the cross he knew all of it none of it is a surprise that he did that so that you and I could be free he did that so you and I could be forgiven he did that so you and I could have new life and the crazy thing is this you being here at this mass you praying right now you going to confession right now One of the things that means is it a declaration It a declaration Basically every time you pray every time you go to Mass, every time you go to confession, every time you even raise your eyes to the Lord, every time you open the Bible, what you're saying is, Jesus, I am not going to let what you did for me go to waste on me. I don't want to have this wasted potential. Jesus, I am not going to let what you did for me go to waste on me. and this actually is part of Daryl Woods' story, that his grandmother was very, very Christian, very devout, she would always bring him to church, and he said, well, that meant Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, again on Sunday. It was a lot. But he said when he was arrested in jail, he said, that's when I really prayed. He said, that's when I really read my Bible, and I said, I asked him, I said, is that looking for loopholes? He's like, well, yeah, but also, I realized, wow, Lord Jesus, if I get convicted, you are all I have left. and I've wasted my life up to this point. I cannot waste my life from this point. Basically, Daryl said, Jesus, I will not let what you did for me go to waste on me. And he just dove, even after jail, even when that loophole thing was done, when he's in prison, and thinking, I'm in prison for life, he just dove into scripture, dove into prayer, dove into the reality that, Lord, you made it possible for me to have joy at all times. You made it possible for me to have peace even in the midst of prison when I didn't do what they told me that I did. I'm not going to let what you did for me go to waste on me. This is our invitation to say, okay, God, no wasted potential. Not getting in my life. Whatever you've done for me, no wasted potential. So here you are, what you have, and what you are. What you are, because what does Jesus say in the gospel today? He says what you are. He says, you are the salt of the earth. He says, you are the light of the world. Now again, highlight this. He's saying, this is what you are. He doesn't say, this is what you might have. This is what you might be. He says, no, you are the salt of the earth. This is your potential. You are the light of the world. This is your potential. And you know, it's so fascinating. So many times I go back to Acts of the Apostles. And in Acts of the Apostles, after Jesus has risen from the dead, you might have heard this before. Jesus has risen from the dead. He's lived with his apostles for 40 days. He's been teaching them. He's been instructing them. He's been, again, as a resurrected Christ, shaping them. And he brings them to Bethany. They're overlooking the city of Jerusalem. And up there, you can see everything. You can see the upper room where the first Eucharist happened. You can see Golgotha. You can see the tomb, all these things. And the apostles ask Jesus a question. They say, Lord, we know who you are now, right? You're the one, you're the king to restore the kingdom. Are you going to restore the kingdom now? And Jesus says two mysterious things. One is he says, I'm not telling. you're not going to know the day or season, you're not going to know the hour. Second thing he says is, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and then you will be my witnesses here in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. So in response to the apostles saying, okay, Lord, we know who you are, you're the king. Are you going to restore the kingdom? He looks at them and he says, no, you are. You're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, then you're going to be my witnesses here locally, throughout the region, to the ends of the earth. And that's an echo of what he says today. You are the salt. You are the light. How are you going to spend, how are you going to spread the gospel? Be salt. Be light. Basically, Jesus is saying, Lord, how am I supposed to do this? Be who you are. So when Jesus says, be salt, be light, what's that mean? Okay, well, keep this in mind. Ancient world. Salt has at least four properties. Salt is valuable, right? In the ancient world, that's where we get the word salary from. People would be paid in salt. Someone's worth their salt that gets paid. is value. Secondly, salt is a preservative. You don't have any refrigeration. You have some meat covered with salt. It cures it, right? It keeps it. Thirdly, salt is antiseptic. So, you know, it can clean out a wound. You get some salt in your wound, it cleans it out. But the fourth property of salt is that salt and the one that Jesus focuses on today is salt gives flavor. If you ever just taste salt on its own, we sometimes do that. It doesn't taste like anything. In fact, it's pretty horrible. But if you have think of something amazing. Think of a really good steak. If it doesn't have salt, it is not a really good steak, no matter what. I don't care who you are. Like, if that steak doesn't have salt on it, it's missing something. If you put salt on it, it brings out all of the good properties of steak. Same thing. Here's a little pro tip. If you like butter on your toast, sprinkle a little salt on the butter after you put it on the toast. It will make the, it'll pop. It'll be amazing. It'll be incredible. Same with peanut butter, put a little salt on there. Why? Because it brings out the goodness that's already there. When Jesus says, be salt, what he's saying is basically what Christians do. You live in such a way that the goodness around you is revealed. Daryl Woods started in prison. In prison. He started a number of ministries, worked for the NAACP in a number of ways, but also he started this ministry called Cared Straight. I had heard of Scared Straight, right, where he takes some juveniles who are at risk youth and bring them into the prison and they just, prisoners just yell at them and tell them like, here's how awful it is here and just surround them. And he said, listen, I grew up on the streets. He's like, I wasn't scared of anything. He said, all these kids that we brought in to the prison, they walk around with AK-47s. they walk around with AR Like they not afraid of anything They not lacking fear He said they lacking love And so he said what we do is bring him to prison and we just surround them with love These are kids who have been scared their whole lives They never been loved And so he started this thing called Cared Straight. This is Daryl saying, I'm going to be salt. I'm going to show them that actually in this world that even can be deadly, in this world that can be brutal, in this world that can be cruel, there's also such a thing as love and people who care about you you can even find joy in prison you can find joy in your life Jesus also says be light he says you are the light what's the light of the world? basically lights don't reveal themselves for themselves think about a light bulb or a candle or the sun even you don't look at those things on their own a light reveals what's around it. So Jesus says, you are the light. What's he mean? Live in a way that people can see the truth. Live in a way that people can see reality. In 2003, Daryl had his, he had been working to overturn his case. In 2003, the judge that found him guilty found him innocent. And you thought that I thought when he's telling me the story, I was like, oh my gosh, That was incredible. 2003, wait, that's only a few years after you were arrested. Turns out that someone else came in and said, no, no, no, you guys did the paperwork wrong. Gotta stay in jail. And I was like, bro, how was that? Like, that must have, if you weren't mad at that point, you must have been furious at that moment. What'd you do? And he said, just praise God. What? He said, well, we say God is good all the time. All the time God is good, right? I'm like, yes. He says, you gotta mean it. I was like, that is incredible. here is someone who could bring out the goodness in any situation. Here's someone who was living in such a way that people could see the truth. Why? Because salt makes life good and light makes truth visible. That's why Jesus says if you waste that, if you have wasted potential, if salt loses its taste, if you light a lamp and then hide it, it's a tragedy. Why? Have you noticed this? It's not like you became evil. Salt didn't become evil. It's not like the light now became destructive. It's just hidden. The salt just lost its taste. But it's because it became ineffective. It became indistinguishable. And therefore it's wasted. You and I have been filled with the Holy Spirit. We've been given God's access, access to God's grace. And we've probably said, God, I don't want to let what you did for me go to waste on me. We have to take that next step and say, God, I don't want to let what you did for me end with me. If it ends with us, we are salt that's lost its flavor. We are a light that is hidden. We are indistinguishable. We are ineffective. And that is a tragedy because all of that wasted potential, if we say, it ends with me, but this is the last thing. We also can declare, God, I will not let what you did for me end with me. Give me a mission. And then what we do is we're gonna wait for our mission. What we do is then we're like, okay, God, I'm gonna get done with school. I'm gonna get done, I'm gonna get whatever the next milestone in my life is. I'm gonna wait for that and then I'll go on mission. As opposed to Jesus says, no, listen, you are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth. You don't have to wait for this. Remember, you've been given this. I asked daryl the last daryl story I asked daryl When did you start this whole cared straight thing where you started bringing in juveniles and they actually mayors and governors And other other people from law enforcement were sending you their people and he said Um, I was about four four years after I got arrested. It's like, okay, so you were 23 when you started Meeting these teenagers these adolescents where they're at you didn't wait. You didn't wait till you're like 30. You didn't wait till you're 35 He's like no, I just figured i'd start right now you don't have to wait for your mission. Darrell Wood Sr. was light and salt in prison. As essentially a kid, you can start right where you're at. Why? Because you are the salt and you are the light and you have nothing to wait for. coolest thing at the end of our conversation Daryl pulled out a badge it was some credentials I think he was waiting to the end of our conversation by the way here look at this he serves as a vice chair of the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners there's an oversight committee overseeing the prison system and the police force and I think man this is where you're at now a free man overseeing law enforcement as a man who had been in prison for 29 years. But it started with him saying, Okay, Lord, I'll start here. In really bad conditions, I will not let what you did for me go to waste on me. And then further, I will not let what you did for me end with me. and so a story isn't tragic a story is not a tragedy it's a story is what could have been wasted potential is actually used for the glory of God