George Hermanson

Who are you going to Serve? Easter 6, May 29,2011

Acts 17: 22 -31            Who are you going to Serve?    Easter 6, May 29,2011
John 14:15-21                          The Reverend Dr. George Hermanson

We are often surprised how some the issues in the NT are so current.  Did you not resonate with the lesson from Acts?  Did it not sound familiar? Paul’s encounter before the Areopagus is a very current issue.  There is a lively discussion of what it means to be a religious  in our time.  To state the obvious we live in a pluralistic world.  Inter faith is high on the agenda.  The role of religion in our society is a passionate discussion, with many conflicting voices.  Within the United Church there is a range of ideas about the character or nature of God.

In the pages of the Observer there have been many passionate letters about the idea of post theism.  We speak of seekers as those who seek some sense of the divine.  The discussions reveal how many have experienced the church.  Some have been touched by the church, but are disconnected and feel at its edge.  Others have decided that religion is not worth any energy.  Then, there are those for whom there is some nostalgic feeling for faith and turn up now and again. And then there are those who are spiritual but not religious.

Despite living in a secular age, it is like Paul’s time; there are many unknown gods.  In Paul’s time there was an active belief in some transcendent reality, there was some sense of God. Paul suggested that not all the ideas were sufficient to create meaning.

The issue of whether all ideas about God are equally helpful is still an active issue. Today, for most people, the idea of some transcendent reality, which we have called God, is not the default position. We have reduced God to being good.  In place of God, many other activities and ideas now claim our ultimate loyalty.  For some God is our creation, our projection that creates social identity that issues in doing good. In this view, the  sense of God is an optional belief and does not refer to any reality.  This is the view of some in the church. It is a logical extension of reducing faith to action and being a good citizen. The nature of the church is to form good citizens.  It is civic religion, where we worry about acting but not the the reasons for the actions.

Some decry this but like Paul we should see this situation as an opportunity to rethink our faith, to examine what we have committed ourselves to, to ask who are we going to serve? 
I think this time of many questions does suggest there is a deep yearning for a sense of God. We do want our lives to make sense.  We do seek a wider understanding of ourselves, more than surface behavior.  We have been touched by a sense of wonder.  The problem is many do not have the language to express that wonder.  Old images no longer are satisfying, do not give us a sense of God, a sense of wonder who is with us, in us and around us.  Our language sometimes does not have the power to help us feel the One in whom we live, move and have our being.

In looking for new images think of it this way.  It is said we all have music in our souls.  There is melody and beat to our existence. We all feel music.  To make that sense active and known it takes someone creating notes and writing music This act of creation, making a  tune is needed  to make the feeling live.  It can be country, it can be classical, it can be rock and roll, it can be folk and it can be jazz.  It takes some form to make clearer the intimation of music in our soul.

Like music, Paul is suggesting the sense of God is universal.  The problem is many do not have large enough container to give us a sense of God who is worthy of our worship.   In a time of small images it is easier to have no image.

Within our tradition is a sense of God who actively cares for our world.  One image that informs me is that God is active in the here and now.  In the affirmation of God in Jesus we affirm God is in all of us, as close as our breath, deep in our soul.  God is not far from us and we feel God in our living, our being.

This image is a God who is not separate from us and things, is the one who exhibits best the relational experiences we have, Love Supreme.  We know we are tied together, influencing one another by being present to the other.  It is by by listening to our words and action we tell one another how we are related, how we are present one to the other.  In a similar way God is the one who is the power of relational presence, who works with persuasion through all experience, in every nanosecond, filling every open space with beauty, harmony, intensity, and novelty.  There is no one center to the universe - everywhere is here, all is a center to all that is.  God is in every center filling all open space with beauty.  God’s aim is always present.  And that divine aim is directed to each of us, through our relationships, through our communal worship, in the community-the sharing of the beauty.

God works with the world as it is in order to bring it to where it can be. (Marjorie Suchocki) This means God is in relationship with each of us and all of reality.  God in this sense needs us and the world.  God depends on us to live out the divine aim of love for all.

This is the affirmation of John - the sense of God is present, the divine spirit is here in us, in our worship and by extension our living.  Our actions show a radical knowing of the truth about reality - the universe is infused with divine love. The job of the church is to make this clear by words and action.  We focus the love for when love is not focused it spins away into meaningless chatter and noise. 

We are invited to a radical affirmation of the hospitality.  Love is incarnate in this world as we share love, when we know that there is more - a surplus of beauty which calls us into a way of living which hosts the world.  In each moment of worship we school ourselves, to move from indiscriminate serving our personal projections to the project of serving God, through care of this world. Each time we nurture life into transformation, care for the world and its reality, work so more people participate in fulness, then we show God at work in us. It begins in letting the aim of God be our identity, it begins in worship that opens us to God and it leads us to the care of all. 

All We Need Is Love

Year C
Season of Easter
Pentecost Sunday

Acts 2:1-21
Read the Bible passage: Acts 2:1-21, The Message;   or   Acts 2:1-21, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Faith-provoking, historical insights into the lesson by David Ewart, Acts 2:1-21, Holy Textures.  

Click here: George Hermanson's sermon, for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this sermon.

The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

In our Acts passage we get the marching orders for the church. We may puzzle over the meaning of the coming of the Spirit. They did then. The watchers ask if the disciples were drunk.

It is called ecstatic speech. We have all some experience of this when we are so excited we cannot get out our words or they tumble over one another. Then there are times the moment of awe is so great we say nothing. There is nothing magical about this experience, and the writer of Acts uses colourful and metaphorical language to tell of a moment when the world changed.

We all have a moment or event in which our world changed. We heard or saw things in new ways, heard or saw things that we had never had before. Our world was changed, we were changed.

Discernment

"Ascension living calls us to being 'clothed in power from on high.' This is the development of spiritual eyes and insight where we see God is in all things."

Year C
Season of Easter
Ascension Day

Acts 1:1-11
Read the Bible passage: Acts 1:1-11, The Message;   or   Acts 1:1-11, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Luke 24:44-53
Read the Bible passage: Luke 24:44-53, The Message;   or   Luke 24:44-53, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Click here: George Hermanson's sermon, for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this sermon.

The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

When I was in seminary we would issue a joke course outline, and one course was on the ascension - "It will meet in the elevator." Ascension Sunday is one that is often ignored in the UCC. Yet it is an important moment in the gospels. For Luke it is a literary device to get Jesus off stage so the church could get on with its work.

It is the time after Jesus’ resurrection where followers become leaders, and must speak with their voice, testify and witnessing to their world. Like a good spiritual leader, Jesus must depart physically so we can mature as spiritual leaders. The early church claimed the Spirit that informed Jesus, that comes from God, to witness and testify in their time and space. We, too, are called to live out of the Spirit of God, to find our own witness and testimony for our age.

What Is Our Business?

"God is seeking to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth. ... we live not for rewards after death, but because our living will make the common good better. Faith is the ground for compassionate action in our world that needs healing."

Year C
Season of Easter
Fifth Sunday

Acts 11:1-18
Read the Bible passage: Acts 11:1-18, The Message;   or   Acts 11:1-18, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Click here: George Hermanson's sermon, for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this post.

The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

Peter Drucker, who developed one of the first executive MBA programs at Claremont Graduate University, said the first question any organization needs to ask is: “What is your business?”

This is the question the church is at the moment asking, both in the context of what it means to be The United Church of Canada, and how to be the church in a community.

Now it would seem self evident that we know what we are about. However, it isn’t. We have as many theories about being church as there are people. For some it is a question of survival; we must grow. For others, it is to be the same as it was years ago. For others, it is to speak to power words of justice and compassion. For others, it is to support what they think are the values of traditional society. For others, it is to have correct unchanging doctrine - this is what you must believe. For others, it is to enhance their sense of God and have a spirituality that sustains them in their daily living.

The Shepherd

"To get more fully at this reversal image of the shepherd I would ask you to imagine ... There is this burly, bearded, tattooed motorcycle bad guy with the lamb around his shoulders. No way, is our first response. Redemption comes from there?"

Season of Easter
Fourth Sunday

John 10:22-30
Read the Bible passage: John 10:22-30, The Message;   or   John 10:22-30, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Click here: George Hermanson's sermon, for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this post.

The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

When we go to a movie or see a drama there is always some music to introduce the main characters. In today's text we have two main characters - the lamb and the shepherd. The first we are introduced to is the lamb. For the Psalm is told from the viewpoint of the sheep, not the shepherd.

The image of us being sheep also has it problems. It tends to be used to put down those who follow without thought. It is kind of mindlessness that some critics of religion place on believers. I think most of us are uncomfortable with being thought of as unthinking, sheep like followers. If we had music to underline the character it would be Neil Young’s, Helpless, Helpless.

Helpless

We are not really happy with this sense, for after all have we not got some strength and power to deal with the issues of life?

The Shepherd As Outcast

Season of Easter
Fourth Sunday

John 10:22-30
Read the Bible passage: John 10:22-30, The Message;   or   John 10:22-30, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Click here: George Hermanson's sermon, for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this post.

The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

Every Sunday when I was growing up I looked at the stain glass image at the front of the church. It was so vivid that when I close my eyes I can still see that iconic picture of Jesus as the great Shepherd. There he was in vivid color, with the lamb over his shoulders.

There was a strange comfort in that image. But being a prairie boy lambs and sheep were not in my experience. Cows, pigs and chickens yes. And raised on Saturday afternoon cowboy movies - shepherds were always the bad guy, moving into ranching territory and ruining it. So the comfort was always colored with threat. When it was to be a comfort it turned into the image of the lonesome cowboy caring for the cattle. And those shepherd songs became cowboy songs on the lone prairie.

The BBQ On The Beach

Season of Easter
Third Sunday

John 21:1-19
Read the Bible passage: John 21:1-19, The Message;   or   John 21:1-19, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Click here: George Hermanson's sermon, for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this post.

The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

John gives another experience with the risen Jesus. We have just come from the upper room event with Thomas, which followed the earlier event with Peter and Mary. Now we are back to lake Galilee.

The disciples have gone back to their earlier habits of life - fishing. A small question emerges of why? Here they are - back fishing. Then a stranger on the shore yells at them - “lads, you haven’t caught any fish, have you?” They respond with some frustration -no. The man yells again - “try another side.”

Lets stop for a moment to experience the narrative - to play with its meaning. The old habitual way of fishing was not working. Like many of us, the habits of the past keeps us acting the same old way, even when it does not work. Then a word comes - change - try another approach. Rethink and break your old habits.

Standing With Thomas

Season of Easter
Second Sunday

John 20:19-31
Read the Bible passage: John 20:19-31, The Message;   or   John 20:19-31, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Click here: George Hermanson's sermon, for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this post.

The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

Thomas is a most modern man. He fits with zeitgeist, the sensibility of our time. If you read the articles by Robert Silbley in the Citizen over Easter weekend you would have caught the sensibility of what is called modernism - a sense of that what we know is determined only by the five senses. Then there was the front cover of MaCleans - Is God Poison? - a study of the latest books by atheists, some of whose books have been on the best selling list.

Built into our modern consciousness is a skepticism about taking anything at face value. Before we commit ourselves to something, we want to know whether it will work thus worth the energy or commitment. So Thomas would not of been out of place in our time. For after all he is known as "doubting Thomas."

However, to read him and his question this way is to do a disservice to the him and the issues he represents. He is a child of our time. However, when we read more deeply we find he expands what is meant by experience. And as such he is a helpful illustration of a faith that affirms reason as part of a belief system.

The Rising

April 4, 2010
St. Paul's - Richmond United Church
Season of Easter
Easter Sunday

John 20:1-18
Read the Bible passage: John 20:1-18, The Message;   or   John 20:1-18, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Click here: George Hermanson's sermon, for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this post.

Short, easy to use, faith-provoking insights by David Ewart, John 20:1-18, Holy Textures

The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

One of the warnings we get is be careful with your personal information because there are people out to steal our identity. Identity theft is with us and it has always been with us. Those who experience it speak of losing their sense of self. They have become a nobody - a sense they no longer exist. They say their sense of self - their soul has been stolen. They no longer exist, cannot be seen. In the past, though, it was much more violent. The Romans used the Cross to achieve this - the one crucified becomes a nobody. Their identity stolen. Their reality is destroyed - it is as if they never existed. Crucifixion destroyed identity.

Yet here we are with Mary. The one she loved was crucified. The Romans tried to wipe away any sense of Jesus - to make him a nobody, to wipe away all memory of him. But for Mary it was not an end. She is still searching. She is looking for meaning. We, too, gather this Easter morning to celebrate the memory of a crucified one - Jesus.

The Seeker, Year B, Easter 5, Sermon

May 10, 2009
Edwards (Knox) United Church
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Mother's Day

Acts 8:26-40
Read the passage: The Message   or    The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) 

John 15:1-8
Read the passage: The Message   or    The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) 

Click here for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF version of this post.

The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

In Acts, Philip asks if the Eunuch understands what he is reading. He replies that he needs a guide. What an important metaphor for mother's day. An important reminder of the role of the church.

One afternoon a friend of mine, when we were teenagers, dropped in to see me. I was not there. Only my mother was there. Jack sat down with her and began to ask questions. My mother listened. Finally, as it was getting dark, my mother said, "Maybe we need to turn on some lights." What is so important to me is that the conversation went on and on, questions asked and responded to. There was no hurry. For Jack, he had been listened to, taken seriously. It was for him a life changing experience, for when my mother died, he flew out for her memorial service.

Questions are the stuff of life.