Imagining a Brighter Future

 

Isaiah 9:1-4   Matthew 4:18-22

 

      Recently it was reported that unless they get new sponsorship Morgan McClure racing in Abingdon will have to close its doors.  This is a team that not too long ago won the Daytona 500.  On Friday there was a story in the paper about Robert Yates Racing.  The headline was "Lacking sponsors, once-dominant Yates Racing fights for survival."  This was a racing team that won the Daytona 500 and has competed for the championship every year.  Now they have fallen on hard times.  Yates was quoted as saying "The thing that we didn't do is we didn't grow.  Our vision wasn't large enough."

 

      There was a time when Israel was a dominant country.  David was king.  Their boundaries expanded.  But that was two hundred years before the time of Isaiah.  By the time Isaiah was born the nation had fallen on hard times.  They nation split into two and the southern kingdom of Judah was struggling for survival.  They were looking for a new king from the line of David.  They wanted to return to the glory years of the most successful king they had ever had.  Whenever a new king rose to the throne there was an air of expectation.  Would he be the one?  Is he the one we have been waiting for?  Is the darkness that surrounds us about to turn to light?

 

        We are in the midst of presidential primaries.  I think there is that same air of expectation.  We are in the midst of a war, the economic forecast is bleak, people are looking for someone to lead us out of the darkness into the light. 

 

         I think something similar happens in churches.  A church is founded with great enthusiasm.  There is a period of growth and then there are some down years.  At that point all people can remember are the glory years.  As they look for a new minister they hope for someone who will return them to their glory days. 

 

         What Isaiah is saying to the people of Judah is that you need to stop dreaming about the past.  That is over and done with.  As you look to the future know that God will create a new possibility for Judah.  Your task is to imagine the glorious future that God is going to bring about.  The joy that you will experience on that day will be like a farmer who has a plentiful harvest or an army who is victorious and is dividing up the spoils.  There will be no limit to the peace and prosperity of the kingdom of God.

 

          The prophet is trying to get the people to imagine that joyful future and then to live their lives trusting in that future.  Try to see God's vision for the future and live in a way that will help that vision become reality.

 

         The writer of the Gospel of Matthew is sharing with his readers that he believes that it is in the person of Jesus that God's vision for the future is lived out.  In the person of Jesus the moment has arrived when God will create a new possibility for his people. 

 

          When that happens people will be called from family relationships and they will be called from the midst of the workaday world into a new relationship and a new vocation.  Peoples lives will be rearranged.  James and John will still be brothers.  They will still be sons of Zebedee.  They will still be fishermen.  They will now be brothers and sons and fishermen who do the will of God.  Their lives are transformed because they have seen the light.

 

          Isn't that what Jesus was trying to get across to his disciples?  Come, follow me and vision a new future.  One in which the lame walk and the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and people are raised from the dead.  Come and help me make that a reality. 

 

          Last week we heard about the Psalmist who was pulled out of a desolate pit and called to serve the Lord.  This week we are told of four men, engaged in their regular occupation, being called away to serve the Lord.  We are being called, wherever we are in our lives, to be servants of God.

 

        This is not about becoming better teachers or better chemists or better doctors.  That may be a by product.  It is about becoming better servants of the Lord no matter what our occupation is.  Teach as one who envisions God's joyful future.  Do lab work as one who envisions God's joyful future.  Examine your patients as one who envisions God's joyful future.

 

        When God's reign begins there will be a moral turn around, there will be a reversal of direction, there will be a transformation of life as we know it.  Come, follow me and share this vision with the world.  If it is a vision of peace and prosperity in the kingdom of God, there is no way the vision can be too large.