Sermon Notes May 8 John 17, Rev. 22

May 8 Acts 16, John 17, Rev. 22

Campaign season is full or perhaps should be of visions of the future.I was  surprised by the downbeat tone of the Republican primary candidates.we are a long way from Reagan’s morning in America. Their vision for the future is bleak unless we see the radical changes many proposed.When I was young Star Trek painted a vision of an united earth exploring the universe. Now instead of the hope for utopia, dystopian visions and images of the living dead such as zombies predominate in popular culture.I fear that life is too big a burden for many of us. We project a bleak perspective on the present on to the future. too many of us merely exist; one could dare to call it a living death.Prayer gives us a vision of a better future.

Recall that Revelation is a worship, prayerful vision;.In Revelation we come to its conclusion.Some of its striking images are pulled into use one more time. Its urgency sounds misplaced as 2000 years have passed without a climax or conclusion or proper ending to God’s working with humanity It seems to me to be a new Eden, with a crucial difference. the Edenic paradise could be marred by evil. .The horizon seems as distant now as it must have then, maybe farther off.The forces of evil are kept out or disappear like the power of Sauron in the end of Lord of the Rings,or a  black hole beyond the event horizon It is an expansive vision of continual morning and the symbols of evil and night no longer there-Alpha and omega pt-morning star, the bright star of morning- water of life and thirst-coming soon-don’t seal it, but we do it by ignoring it or by twisting it to some rigid design as in Left behind-It concludes with this vision of wonder not the Armageddon focus of so many American Christians. On the other hand, how we yearn for the world to look the way God envisions it. Especially when we feel ineffective or impotent we yearn for divine aid.

Jesus has an unanswered prayer at the end of the his long goodbye to the disciples. In John’s gospel, Jesus is in unity with the Sending One, the Father,. That unity si demonstrated in prayer.In the closing prayer Jesus has a focus on unity as a sign of the new age in the church itself. the visions are not competing as one follows another but one is more intimate and Revelations soars into a universal view of a new and better future.not uniformity but Acts is not story of pluralism is it? Here Jesus breaks the narrative enclosure and moves to speak directly to us as those in the future. He prays that the close relation of Jesus and the Father would be ours as well.this is our community being brought into the scripture.“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”  “Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is Himself the way”  Barth-  “What you are is God's gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.”the most we can do through genuine prayer, is to make as much room as possible, in ourselves and in the world, for the kingdom of God, .” t“firstly, prayer is a conversation between God and the soul, and secondly, a particular language is spoken: God’s language. Prayer is dialogue, not man’s monologue before God.” ― Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer