Vision for Tomorrow 11-27-22

Vision for Tomorrow

Is 2:1-5; Mt 24:36-44

Mt 24:36-44

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Is 2:1-5

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

Prayer

Gracious God, we want peace but keep preparing for, paying for and making war. We long for, pray for and sometimes work for justice for all but still injustice abounds. The gaps between rich and poor grow greater, and we are unwilling or unable to do much about it. We try to wrestle ourselves out of our bad habits, our self-destructive behavior, only to find out how we weak we are. We boast of our freedom to what we want, how we want to do it and yet we feel tethered and trapped. Lord, we hope for ourselves and our world in the worst sort of way. Come Lord Jesus, give us that which we cannot create for ourselves. Come and make our tomorrow more that we can make of our today – amen.

Nobody can live just for today. To get through today, we each must have some vision of tomorrow. Many times in life, it’s only because of our faith in, our vision for tomorrow, that enables us to get up, get out of bed, and make it through today. The student gets up, gathers laptop and papers, and goes to class, not necessarily because the class today is invigorating (it often is not) but rather because the student has her “eyes on the prize,” the student is thinking beyond the present into the future. This class (and maybe the next one) will be boring but one day, someday there’ll be graduation.

One of my best friends at work, Zach, his father was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was lucky because it was found early and his words were “I just can’t wait to have my operation,” he said. Nobody has ever endured the inconvenience, perhaps even pain, of a surgical operation because of joy in anesthesia and surgery. What makes surgery endurable, sometimes even welcomed, is the expectation for life post-surgery, the hope that the surgery will be a success and chemo and/or radiation will be less of an issue.

Jesus told us to “take no thought for the morrow,” to allow tomorrow’s cares and worries take care of themselves. But sure, he didn’t mean not to give any thought to tomorrow. He must have been talking about not being filled with anxiety about tomorrow. 

If I say to you, “I want you to put tomorrow, or any thoughts out of your mind about the future, which you don’t know, to the side and focus entirely upon the present that you know,” you can’t do it. Nobody lives without some vision of the future. So, the issue is not, “Will I think about tomorrow?” because you will live today on the basis of some expectation for the future. The question is, “Which vision of tomorrow will be yours?”

Tell me how you are living your life right now, and I will tell you what your vision of tomorrow looks like. Tell me your vision for tomorrow, and I bet I can figure out your attitude about today.

As we begin the Christian season of Advent, let us acknowledge it’s a curious set of Sundays to prepare us for Christmas. The scripture we read during these Sundays prepares us for Christmas 2022 by looking back and by looking forward. We look back by reading scripture such as our lesson from Isaiah today. Isaiah spoke these words, received directly from the Lord, sometime around the sixth century before Christ, a dark, difficult time for Israel in which God’s people had been carted off into exile and were suffering terribly. Their cities had been destroyed, including the holy city of Jerusalem. All hope extinguished by conquering armies. Everyone uprooted and taken away to captivity in a foreign land.

And what is God’s response to this horrible national tragedy? God makes promises: In the days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house
will be the highest of the mountains. It will be lifted above the hills; peoples will stream to it. Many nations will go and say, “Come, let’s go up to the Lord's mountain, to the house of Jacob’s God so that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in God’s paths.”(Isaiah 2:2-4)

The tiny (by comparison with their Babylonian captors) nation of Israel, will be established as the center of the world. “Many nations” will “stream to it” and join Israel in the worship of the God of Israel. All the world will acknowledge Israel’s God and seek the wisdom and instruction that can come only from God’s chosen people.

Isaiah’s promise must have seemed a long, long way from Israel’s present reality. But that’s the way it is with promises. All promises are in the future tense. God promises to give Israel a radically different future than their sad present. God will do for Israel what Israel can’t do for itself—make a way when there’s no way, write a better story of tomorrow than the story being lived out today.

There’s more: God will judge between the nations, and settle disputes of mighty nations. Then they will beat their swords into iron plows and their spears into pruning tools. Nation will not take up sword against nation; they will no longer learn how to make war. Come, house of Jacob, let’s walk by the Lord's light. (Isaiah 2:4-5)

The people who tried to rely upon military might for their salvation and were sadly and painfully disappointed, the people who were the victims of their oppressors larger armies and superior armaments, will be delivered to a day when “God will judge” between nations and “settle disputes of mighty nations.” Where once there were swords, their will now be implements of beneficial agriculture. Swords into plow, spears into tools to cultivate fruit and then that blessed, sweeping promise: Nation will not take up sword against nation; they will no longer learn how to make war. (Isaiah 2:4b)

I wonder, perhaps you are here this morning, today, this Sunday, this present reality, with all of its challenges, its signs of woe in the news, reports of wars and rumors of wars wanting to get a glimpse of tomorrow.  “What’s ahead for the future?” is a question that everybody asks. Behind that question is the question, “Will the future a cause for hope or for despair?” It makes all the difference what you see of tomorrow. 

I was reading the other day about the horrible epidemic of drug abuse in Scotland, all the people dying in this small country from drug overdose and abuse, Norway and Sweden too. Of course, their drug problems pale before our national drug problem, but still, their drug problem came as a surprise to me. One public health worker was asked about the scourge of drug related deaths in Scotland. She replied, “Sadly, we have many, particularly many of our young adults, who have just given up on the future. They aren’t convinced that their future will be worth living because it’s a dead-end for them. Drugs promise to take away some of the pain caused by what they perceive to be a bleak future.” 

I wish I could get those despairing young people to hear the words of Isaiah, Jesus’s favorite prophet. If tomorrow is left up to us, if our efforts are the only thing that makes any difference in this world, then considering our past track record or our present reality, well, it looks grim.

But if Isaiah is right, if there’s a God who doesn’t give up on humanity, if we indeed have a God who makes a way (otherwise known as Exodus, Cross, Resurrection) then we have hope. Do you see it? What’s around the corner? What’s next?

Those are Advent questions. Part of the significance of the advent of Jesus Christ, the babe of Bethlehem, one of the things we learned about God in the coming of Christ, is that God is determined to get God’s way with us and with the world. God isn’t stumped by any mess we have made of the present. Our mistakes, our inability to solve our problems, to find a way through, do not thwart God’s ultimate designs for us. 

God promises to give us the peace we cannot earn for ourselves. Tomorrow is not condemned to be just a sad repeat of now. That’s the vision that Isaiah beckons us to see. That’s the hope that holds us. We can be honest about the challenges we face, tell the truth about the injustice and heartache, the violence and threat that surround us, became we have a hope that’s beyond merely present arrangements.

“How on earth did you persevere, raising six children, four of whom were foster kids whom you adopted?” I ask an amazing mother. “Through it all, she said, I kept closing my eyes and seeing each one of those kids walk across the stage at their college graduation. All but one eventually did just that. That hope kept me going no matter how bad things got.” “It’s a fairly depressing, confusing, violent movie,” said a friend after watching a recent film. “But keep watching. It all comes together in the end.” That could almost be a summary of Isaiah’s vision.

You look at your own life, the stumbling and mistakes, the wrong turns and the unexpected blows you’ve received. You look at the world, the ways that tyrants still oppress the weak, the way the poor continue to be crushed. You look at countless churches across the spectrum, struggling to make a difference, struggling to keep the faith alive, vibrant, relevant. And far too often we are left wondering, how is it possible, I ask, to live with hope, to have any confidence that tomorrow could be better than today?

Superficial bromides like, “Look on the bright side of life,” or “Stiff upper lip,” or “Things are not as bad as they seem,” aren’t much help if you have a modicum of truth about our situation. Wherein is our hope? What about tomorrow? Another vision of Isaiah, that was caught by Matthew, in order to show to you, gives answer. “Look! A virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, And they will call him, Emmanuel.” Therein lies our hope, yesterday, today and tomorrow - thanks be to God – amen.