Right Now Counts Forever
Luke 5: 1-16
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Rev. Daniel T. Hans
October 14, 2007

In our world of planning and preparing, of analyzing and strategizing, impulsive actions are an anathema.  Impulsivity has become synonymous with carelessness.  Impulsivity is stigmatized in attention and personality disorders.  But what if impulsivity is a blessing and not always a curse?  What if impulsivity is of God?  What if God is impulsive? 

An impulsive God sounds strange to our predestination-rooted Presbyterian faith. Speaking favorably about impulsivity sounds foreign to our intentionality-directed and organizationally-driven churches.  Stranger still is it to hear me, the prince of planning and admiral of administration, speak positively about impulsive spontaneity. (As most of you know, I plan my times to be spontaneous!)  However, our passage in Luke demands us to be sponsors of spontaneity for this text pulses with impulsivity.

I

Listen again to the actions of Jesus and his first followers. 1) Pressed by the crowd and seeing an empty boat, Jesus hops into it in order better to speak to the crowd. 2) Finishing his lesson, Jesus tells the fishermen to try fishing again. As a footnote: a seasoned fisherman getting advice from a preacher on how to catch fish is like Notre Dame’s football coach sending in a crucial play that was called by the team’s chaplain priest. 3) When one of the fishermen, Simon Peter, sees the huge catch he drops to his knees before Jesus. 4) Simon and his partners leave everything – their big catch, nets and boats – to follow Jesus. All of these actions are surprisingly impulsive.

5) The impulsive spontaneity continues in another incident in another town when a diseased man falls on his face before Jesus. The leper falling on his face & Simon falling on his knees reflects one of Karl Barth’s three responses to God’s grace: humility, gratitude and humor. In both men we see impulsive humility. 6) The leper says, “If you so desire and so choose you can heal me.” 7) Saying: “I so desire and so choose” Jesus heals him then & there.  In a later sermon in this series, I will address how Jesus’ healing ministry is to be understood in our world of modern medicine.
8) Immediately Jesus tells the healed man not to tell anyone.  The gag order is to avoid the crowd jumping to conclusions about Jesus as God’s Messiah, God’s Sent One, before Jesus can fully reveal what kind of Messiah he is, as Lou addressed last Sunday.
9) With his fame and following growing, Jesus repeatedly abandons the crowds to find a quiet, private place to pray. Throughout this passage there is the clear sense of important things with future possibility happening right now, in the moment.

Granted, the biblical writers condense events to give us a sense of immediacy in the action. Nevertheless, I think it fair to say that Jesus did not begin each day by carefully planning every detail of his work and then purposefully working every detail in his plan. Jesus let events unfold. He allowed himself to be surprised. He responded in ways that surprised him.
He saw value in spontaneity and impulsivity. Jesus saw God in the moment and he served God right now.

Also, it’s a given that not all impulsivity & spontaneity is positive.
As a four-year-old I used to walk to the end of my street and watch the workmen build new homes.  One morning after watching for a while, I got hungry.  Seeing a lunch box just sitting there, I impulsively opened it and devoured the lunch inside.  When the owner of lunch box found me polishing off the last of his lunch, he had me show him where I lived.  My embarrassed and apologetic mom made a lunch for him.

Not all impulsivity leaves a good taste even though the spontaneity may taste good! While impulsivity, at times, carries a justifiable negative tone, there is something about the surprise, the unexpected and the spontaneous that is of God.

II

Does not God’s grace fit that description? Grace is the love of God unearned, unmerited, & unexpected by us, nevertheless, freely, completely, and unconditionally given to us. Those Galilee fishermen did not merit Jesus’ blessing of a great catch or his invitation to follow him. Grace comes to us not as payment but as gift. Grace comes to us by surprise and it changes our lives. When we realize how fully and freely loved we are by God, how can we be content with the ruts and routines of life as it used to be?

I am convinced the greatest expression of divine impulsivity and spontaneous grace in our passage is Jesus’ call to the fishermen to become fishers of people, to catch people. I have a hard time imaging Jesus getting up that morning and thinking, “Okay, how can I catch some fishermen with my net?” I believe Jesus stepped into that day, as he did every day, open to the possibilities God set before him but not having a clue as to the details of those possibilities or how they might play out.

Bearing that in mind and recognizing that we are here this morning for a typical passive and predictable worship service, what would it mean to us to hear Christ’s call to join him in catching people with the gift of God’s grace?
What would it mean to us to use our abilities and opportunities to do something with our lives that reaches beyond making a living to shaping destinies?  What would it mean to us to live each day aware that each moment matters, that right now counts forever?

This morning’s stewardship focus was on mission “out there” or “over there” by promoting participation in our numerous mission trips and projects. Now, I target mission right here, right where we are, & right now.
Both dimensions of mission are crucial for our faith and our church
Not everyone one can go to Honduras or South Dakota or South Carolina but each of us can step into our work place or our neighborhood or our home to serve Jesus Christ right now. Whether it is far away from home or right next door or within our home, when Jesus calls us we can all say: “Here I am, Lord.”

III

I set before us four impulses to guide us in living for God, open to what God can do in and through us right now, as we heed Jesus’ call to fish for people.
Impulse #1 is: knowing about the other person. Other people are always around us and with us. But do we know these others? Do we know what is going on in their lives? Do we know their struggles and needs? There’s a big difference between being aware of others and noticing them. It’s like the difference between hearing and listening.

In his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steve Covey identifies habit # 5 as “seeking to understand [others] before seeking to be understood [by them].” Spend time listening in order to know the other person before spending time talking in order for the other person to know us.
We have been given the message of God’s grace to offer to others.  We need to know who they are and where they struggle if we want that message of meaning to make a meaningful connection.  Are we open enough to God in the moment at hand, right now, to take the time and make the effort to know the people around us?  Who is one person whose life intersects with yours whom you need to get to know better so that person can get to know better the grace of God in Jesus Christ through you?

IV

Impulse #2 in fishing for people is: respecting the other person. Every person is unique and loved by God and can serve God.  Therefore, every person is worthy of our respect regardless of his circumstances or her choices or their mistakes.  Do we respect others enough to think about and pray about ways to communicate the message of God’s grace to them rather than simply rush by them or write them off as a lost cause?  Peter Gomes, Dean of Chapel and professor of religion at Harvard University, writes in his book, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart: “We have reached that point where so many thousands of able, disappointed and questing people are prepared to exchange the good life for the life that is good.”  Gomes recognizes a spiritual hunger in people all around him even at Harvard.

I spent last weekend with college seniors at my daughter’s college parent’s weekend.  They are all focused on finding jobs after college, jobs that will let them attain the good life or maintain the good life they have enjoyed from their parents.  While money is a high priority for most of them, I know in time, many of these students will discover that seeking the good life for self cannot hold a handle to living a life that is good for others.  In Jesus God gives us a look at the life that is good for others.  Are we open enough to God in the moment, right now, to respect others enough to share with them a glimpse at the life that is good?  Who is one person whose life intersects with yours and whose life can be enriched by a greater respect shown to him or her by you?

V

Beyond knowing about the other person and respecting that person, the third impulse is: taking risks for that person.  Acting on behalf of others, spontaneously and impulsively, carries a price tag, that of the risk of having our best intentions and genuine efforts ignored or rejected.  Taking risks for the other person usually means taking risks with that person.

A willingness to take a risk with another person resulted in a woman in her 80s being baptized and becoming a member of a church. She had attended that church for decades with several different pastors. When asked by a newly arrived pastor why she finally decided to be baptized, she replied, “You are the first pastor who invited me to ask Christ into my life.”

A willingness to take a risk with another person resulted in a man, whom everyone assumed had no interest in the Christian faith, beginning to attend church regularly and getting involved in several mission projects.  When asked what brought about the change, he said, “My golfing buddy told me how important his faith was to him and then invited me to come to church with him.”

Are we open enough to God in the moment, right now, to risk reaching out to people with the grace of God, not knowing how they will respond?  Who is one person whose life intersects with yours and whose life can be transformed by an invitation from you?

VI

Impulse #4 is: giving our best and giving our all – every moment. To be good stewards of every opportunity to fish for people with the grace of God means to serve with what we have, with whatever we have.  Being stewards of right now and servants in the moment means: don’t hold back from God and don’t give to God less than our best and don’t expect someone else to do what God is calling us to do.

Years ago a priest retired after many years of faithful service to his parish in Italy.  Everybody loved him and so the parish wanted to do something special for him.  The people were grape farmers and wine makers so they decided to make him a gift of their finest wine.  A wooden barrel was set in the village square. All were to bring a stone jug of their best Chianti and pour it into the barrel.  The following Sunday after Mass they would present the filled barrel to the priest.   The priest was so moved by their gift that he wanted to share the barrel with everyone in the town.  He called for glasses and a spigot. When he turned the spigot handle nothing came out but water.  Everyone, thinking that it wouldn’t matter if he put in water instead of wine, had left it to others to provide the wine.

In our fishing for people, if we cautiously wait for somebody else to reach out to a specific person with God’s love or to invite that person to church, that person may never hear the message that turns water into wine and may never get here to discover God’s grace in Jesus Christ. So don’t hold back.

Be open to God.  Use whatever abilities and opportunities, God gives you.  Be spontaneous in God’s Spirit.  Be impulsive with God’s grace because each moment matters.  Right now counts forever.

Return to the Sermons Menu