Sermons

February 4, 2001

ARE YOU HEARING THE CALL?

(Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11)

A Sermon by Gordon E. Simmons, Pastor

Reformation Lutheran Church

When I was young, and was playing outside with my friends – I lived in a neighborhood with little houses and big back yards, so there was plenty of room to roam – and when it was time for me to come in, my mother would stick her head out the back door and yell my name. I never thought of my mother as having a particularly loud voice, but when necessary, if I had perhaps wandered off a block down the back alley, she could make her voice heard. Sometimes if I was far enough away, I could pretend not to hear her. You know the old excuse, “I didn’t hear you, Mom!” But of course if I didn’t come when she called, she’d just come looking for me, and then when she found me, the consequences were not usually better. I learned that when my mother called, as faint as that call might me, I’d better get home.

Calls are different today. Now when we talk about “getting a call”, we usually mean on a telephone, a cell phone, a beeper. And it’s hard to get away from being called. There are now teenagers and even younger children who have cell phones so that they can always stay in touch with their parents. They don’t use them to talk with their friends. They just use them stay in close touch with their parents. (Well, that’s what I’m told.) Today, because of all the electronic technology, it’s pretty easy to get a call from somebody.

In the Bible, the word “call” is used in a different way. In the Bible, when you get a “call”, it’s from the Lord. Sometimes the call seems to come in a loud, booming voice from heaven. And sometimes the call is delivered by messenger. But the call itself, it comes from the Lord.

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Isaiah, chapter 6. This man Isaiah was standing in the Temple, and all of a sudden the Lord appeared before him. We have a New Testament call experience in today’s Gospel lesson, from the 5^th chapter of Luke. It’s the story of the call of Peter. One day Jesus was out on the Sea of Galilee. He was preaching, not fishing. He had managed to get some help from one of the fisherman, this man named Simon (who was later called Peter), and the fisherman took him out in his boat just a little ways off shore, so that he could be separated from the great crowds, and from the boat, Jesus preached to the people. But when the sermon was over, Jesus turned to Simon and said, “Why don’t you row out to the deep part of the lake, and we’ll go fishing.” And Simon said, “We’d been out there fishing all night long, and we didn’t catch anything.”

Didn’t I tell you? Our first reaction, when God tries to get us to do something, is to think, “I can’t do that.” It will be too hard. I am not able. I can’t be kind to that person; I can’t even talk to her. I can’t solve that problem; it will never go away. I can’t change my life; not the way God really wants me to change it. I can’t share; not to the extent that it would cause me to give up things that I think I need. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. Most of the time we are like Simon. Jesus sends us to do something, and we think that’s not going to work.

But Simon and his men went out into the deep. And they threw their nets over the side. And in no time at all the nets were filled with fish. So many fish that their nets were breaking. And Simon, who suddenly feels more inadequate than ever, hears Jesus saying, "What you have done today is nothing compared to what you will do in the future." Instead of fishing for fish, I’m going to have you fishing for people. And Simon Peter, who by this time must have been hearing the call, left everything and followed Jesus.

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So, have you ever been called? Maybe it’s happening today. Are you hearing the call of Jesus?

I want to tell you about how I was called. It’s happened more than once really, and in different ways. Just because God called you once doesn’t mean that the phone might not still be ringing.

The first time I was called was when I was baptized. I was just an infant. I didn’t know what was happening. My father had just died. But my mother took me to the church to get baptized. And that was a call from God. The truth is that God starts calling us long before we ever hear it. It’s as though God wants to get the word in early, so that we don’t miss it. And from my earliest days that I can remember, in Sunday School, and when I was reading the Bible, I could hear God repeating the call. “I love you. You are one of my children. I have something for you to do.” It was a call from God. Sometimes I heard it. Sometimes I tried not to. It was always there. God is always trying to speak to us. The only question is whether we are listening.

Many years later, I was 41 years old, and had served in the ordained ministry for 16 years, in several different capacities. It was my job in those days; I was serving on the staff of the bishop, to find pastors for churches that were looking for pastors. I had already found two different pastors over the years for Reformation. In late 1986, I was looking for another. And then I began to understand that God wanted to send me. It was something I hadn’t thought about. You know, sometimes pastors think about being sent to far off, even exotic places. Reformation was a church only a short distance from where I was already living. But you know, sometimes God sends us to do things in our own backyards. You don’t have to go a long ways away to follow the call of God. God has things for you to do in your family, at your work, at your school, in your neighborhood, at your church. Sometimes God sends off to strange places, that’s how I got here in the first place, from Nebraska. But sometimes we are already in the place where God is calling us to do something. And 14 years ago, today, I walked down this aisle for the first time. A very small group of people was here. And I remember thinking to myself, “My God, what have I done?” But when God calls us, God equips us. God doesn’t send us to do things that we can’t do. Because when God calls us, we get filled with the power of Jesus.

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There is a young man from our church, some of you know him, many of you don’t, who is about 22 years old now, and has been locked up most of the time for the last 8-9 years. Group homes; reform school; jail; now prison. It’s not a very happy story. I’ve spent a lot of time with David over the years, and his family and others have too, but nothing seems to have helped. He could always seem to find trouble. Last month David wrote me a letter and he asked me to share it with you. It’s a letter unlike anything he’s ever written me. It was long. Eight pages. Usually David would just write little notes. And it was literate. That was a change. David has finally received his G.E.D., and you can tell by the way he writes. And David is reading the Bible. I don’t if David ever read the Bible much before. He’s reading it now. Probably studying it with someone. He began the letter by saying this: “Pastor, it seems like you and my mother are some of God’s angels sent down to make sure my life doesn’t go astray. Sometimes in a man’s life you need a helping hand to guide you or teach you what’s going wrong, and how to go about things in a better, more mature way. See, there’s good in everybody, but sometimes it’s deeper inside than the next person, and it might take longer for that good to come out of him than others. But when he finally sees and feels that good in him, he sees the light of life that has never come upon him before, and changes will come, and in a positive way, instead of the negative results in the past.”

He wrote: “Pastor, we were created by God to feel right and good about ourselves; however because of the presence of sin in the world, a sinful nature came upon us through the fall of mankind, and we cannot do everything right. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, he imparts to us the gift of righteousness. By faith, we are made right with God.” (I thought, this boy’s getting some theology!) The next five pages of the letter were Bible verses, and David’s explanation of them. Something’s happening to David now. I think part of the reason David wanted me to share this letter with you was so that if any of you are struggling in your lives, you might avoid some of the mistakes that he has made. Something is happening to David now. Perhaps, for the first time, he is hearing the call of God. He’s never written a letter like this before. Perhaps David is beginning to understand that God has something for him to do with his life. We’d better surround David with prayer. He’ll be in prison until next November. I’m praying that this time it will be different.

In the meantime, we all need to be listening to God. God may be calling you today. Certainly, God has something for you to do. It may be a little thing, in your family. It may be a change of direction in your life. It may be giving up something that is evil, or taking on something that is good. It may involve you in your church, or if you don’t have a church, it may involve you in this church. Is God calling your today? Are you listening? I know that sometimes the voice of God is hard to hear; there is some mystery about it. But when we listen, the message becomes clearer. I believe God is calling you today. Are you hearing the call of God?

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