George Hermanson

Written On Our Hearts, Year B, Lent 5

March 29, 2009
The United Churches of
Northcote - Haleys - Adamston
Fifth Sunday of Lent

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) 

John 12:20-33
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The Rev. Suzanne E. Sykes (George is away this Sunday)

I am kind of intrigued by our culture’s fascination with piercings and tattoos. When you think of it, it is kind of amazing - the willingness of some people to undergo often painful procedures in order to decorate or brand themselves.

A friend just gave in to her daughter’s wish to get her ears pierced - she’s five. I have to confess that I too have pierced ears - but I was 16 when I did it. That makes some kind of sense - if you’re old enough to drive you should be old enough to get your ears pierced.

And I’ve seen lots of women, and some men, who have multiple holes in their lobes for multiple studs and earrings. And it isn’t just ear lobes that get pierced. That seems pretty tame nowadays.

And then there’s tattoos.

The Light Shines In The Darkness, Year B, Lent 4

March 22, 2009
Edwards (Knox) United Church
Fourth Sunday of Lent

Numbers 21:4-9
Read the passage: The Message   or   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) 

John 3:14-21
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The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

One of the childhood fears is the monsters under the bed or hiding in the closet. Some children need a night light so they can sleep with confidence. Other times a parent comes in to shine a light under the bed. It is not just children who have a primal fear of the dark. All horror movies have scenes of ominous movements in the midnight hour. Leaves move and seem to make loud noises. Shadowy figures are just beyond our light.

One of the most important evolutionary moments was the discovery of fire. At night a fire would be lighted and the community gathered around it.  A sense of security would come. We still have that feeling when we camp, the comfort of the fire in the dark night.

In a vision quest, one of the disciplines is to go out into the woods without light. I have done this and the night gets nosier and stranger. One has to learn to embrace the night and the dread that is there. Metaphorically one has to shine a light on the fear.

Sabbath Time

March 15, 2009
Edwards (Knox) United Church
Third Sunday of Lent

Exodus 20:1-17
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John 2:13-22
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The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

Thomas Long tells a great story about the Ten Commandments. There is a monument of the Commandments that used to be in the Alabama Supreme Courthouse. It weighs 5,280 pounds. And, as Long points out, that works out to about 500 pounds per Commandment. Pretty weighty. And this hefty boulder gets lugged around from one public appearance to another on a flatbed truck. It is moved on and off the truck with a crane - a 57 foot, yellow, I-beam crane. What caught me in the story was this: the monster crane visibly buckles under the weight of moving this immense piece of engraved rock back and forth, on and off the truck.

Now all of that kind of spoke to me about how the Ten Commandments can feel in our lives - like a rock - a boulder so immense, inert, that we stoop under its weight. The Ten Commandments lie there like an immovable force and make their demands.

It is clear that Moses and God thought that the giving of the Ten Commandments was a momentous, liberating, identity forming, relationship-building event in the life of this new community of newly liberated captives. How were the Ten Commandments seen as life giving, liberating, invigorating?

Take Up Your Cross

March 8, 2009
Edwards (Knox) United Church
Second Sunday of Lent

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
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Romans 4:13-25
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Mark 8:31-38
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The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

Our Lenten texts call us to the discipline of renouncement. They speak to the Buddhist idea of detachment. They speak to the spirituality of freedom - a new understanding of sacrifice; where the cross is not blood sacrifice.

Freedom in our culture is often, as the song puts it, "nothing left to lose." Often freedom is taken as freedom from responsibilities, from being connected. I like to reframe "nothing left to lose," as the idea that in renouncement, in sacrifice, we have found a true center of gravity, a more centered way of life.

Freedom includes obligation and responsibility. Freedom is the ability to commit oneself to God and noble causes. To take up the cross is to have the freedom to commit to worthy causes.