George Hermanson

Two Empires

October 19, 2008
Edwards (Knox) United Church
Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost

Matthew 22:15-22
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The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

This morning we welcomed two new members into the community of faith by baptism.  Baptism begins the process of the development of Christian character. This is a formation of an identity that is centered in a sense of God. This sense gives an identity for world care.  It is a development of a faith that is more than private and has public implications for how we act and live in the world.  We are forming a child of God so that they will reflect in their living the beauty and aim of God.  An identity that has implications for our social and political worlds.

The Gift of Thanks

October 12, 2008
Edwards (Knox) United Church
Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost
Thanksgiving Sunday (Canada)

Deuteronomy 8:7-18
Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Luke 17:11-19
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The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

Thanksgiving. Giving thanks. The importance of such activity is clear because we, as a society, have institutionalized it by a holiday weekend. This very event suggests that gratitude is crucial to human growth and societal cohesion.  Yet the very fact of this thanksgiving weekend comes with ambiguity.  For some, rather than a reflection of giving thanks, it is a time to close up the cottage. At the same time, it can be a time of feasting, with the joy of a gathering of family and friends. And even at the feasting we can feel a resentment of obligation. The meaning of the weekend gets lost. As well, we complain that gratitude is in short supply. Our society does not know the meaning of thanksgiving. The holiday, and our complaints, do remind us that a sense of thanksgiving is important to our well-being. It is a basic glue for our life together.

Paradise and Sacraments

October 5, 2008
Edwards (Knox) United Church
Twenty First Sunday After Pentecost

Matthew 3:13-17
Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Acts 2:37-42
Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

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The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

I have been exploring the concept of paradise. I have tried to indicate how a recovery of the image will aid us in our religious sensibility for our daily living. I have suggested that paradise is an image about the beauty of this world, that it is this world God loves and calls us to care for it.

We have thought of our beautiful earth, God’s good creation, as our original paradise home. We have considered how early Christians decorated their sanctuaries with images of paradise - the garden of Eden, scenes from Bible stories, saints of their own community and men and women from scripture. They made and thought of their church as a paradise on earth. We noted that Jesus called his followers friends, making us all friends, equal partners, in paradise. And then we thought about hospitality as the mark of true friendship. It is through our generous hosting of each other and all people in our community and our world that we make friends out of strangers and create a paradise of peace, justice and abundance and beauty, in our congregation, our community and our world. And we explored how prayer forms our minds in paradise.