George Hermanson

Thinking about the remit on the 20 articles

I know I don’t have the remit in front of me re the additions of other statements of faith of The United Church.  So I don’t know what they are asking.  I also know that Touchstone is coming out with a series of reflections.  I look forward to that. Still I want to offer some thoughts on the subject in hopes of beginning a debate.

I have been tossing around some ideas  and as a discussion starter I offer these ideas.  I also am willing to change my view as these are provisional reflections.

My gut reaction is to vote no on the remit. I do so for the following reasons.

There is much debate around the 20 articles being a historical statement and the aspect of in essential agreement places them not as creed but a reflection of what were the basic theological concerns of the time.  My fear is by adding the other statements, which are also reflect a time and place in our history, we will be sliding in, by the backdoor, a creedal test.

I never look at the 1940’s statement and while, in some sense, the Song of Faith is closer to my theology, to use it as an affirmation misses the point.  It reflects very much the confusion in the current thinking of The United Church.  It tries to say something that resonates with too many views and, for  me, it is not cohesive in its theological perspective, so I say yes and no all the way through it.  Of course the essential agreement statement can work for all.  But in revising the bases of union I think we are giving too much credibility to provisional statements which are even more time bound.  At leas with the 20 articles we know its historical context.  The Song of Faith is a statement looking for a consensus. That means it really is time dated.

Part of my thinking is influenced by my experienced.  When I was ordained I objected to the doctrine of God, which was so foreign to my Panentheism.  I think I reflected the Zeitgeist of the fact fundamentalist liberal.  I had seen the articles more as a creed. I was asked did I believe in God and my response was a short riff on panentheism. The committee was happy and said I was in essential agreement. The rest of the articles could now be seen in that light. ( A footnote is the person who said I was in essential agreement went on to be a leading figure in the committee of concern - a nice irony.)

My fear is by adding more statements we will make weak the essential agreement aspect  It is not a defining creed.  To add more will be moving more toward a narrow understanding of orthodoxy.  That orthodoxy may actually reflect a more liberal perspective, which could be ok, but in doing so we will create more debates over the meaning  “the traditional historical orthodox” understanding of the bases of union.  By leaving it alone no side will be the orthodox side and diversity will be held by the words essential agreement.

Of course this does nothing with the issue of post theism and the different understandings of theism.  Those who are not in essential agreement with some form of theism will not be happy  even with the additions. As one who rejects the supernatural and wholly other aspect of the bases of union, I can live with the 20 articles.  This theological discussion is not solved with the Song of Faith nor the 1940 statement.  If anything they allow us to ignore it.

Reading The Bible As If It Matters

 The Madawaska Institute for Culture and Religion                 
                                 Where Spirit & Life Meet            
              Series on Transforming Theology for the sake World and  Church                                            
                Reading The Bible As If It Matters
Oct 12  to 14,  2011.  The event begins on Wednesday Morning and ends on Friday at 5 p.m.   

We will use the seminar and interactive methods.  Meet each day from 9 to 5 and lunch is included.  We limit the event to the first 20.  A deposit of $25 is needed.

Leader: Ronald L. Farmer was the Irvin C. and Edy Chapman Dean of the Wallace All Faiths Chapel and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Chapman University. He chaired the Bible and Contemporary Theologies Group of the Society of Biblical Literature, serves on the Advisory Council of the Process and Faith Program at Claremont School of Theology. His publications include Beyond the Impasse: The Promise of a Process Hermeneutic (1997); Revelation in Chalice Commentaries for Today (2005); and a mystery/suspense novel, Awakening (2009), Currently, he is working on his second novel and co-editing a collection of essays promoting interfaith dialogue and cooperation among Jews, Christians, and Muslims.  If  you go to Process and Faith, and check Creative Transformation, you can read some of his work.

We will cover these topics:
* An Introduction to Process Hermeneutics.  How this will help us read the Bible so we transform the church for the sake of the world.

Applications to Revelation; the recovery of the idea of Paradise.

Application to the Hebrew Scriptures

Examination of New Testament texts and application for preaching.

New Testament Christology: Looking through Different Lenses

COST:  $225 - Members- $190  Lunches included -  Oct 12 to 14  Burnstown (Ottawa) Ontario

To register george@hermanson.ca  Because we limit the number so it is an intimate event a deposit of $25 is required:140 Fleming Dr. Burnstown Ont. K0J 1G0  ph 613 432 8852

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. 

A Parade of Pilgrims

Palm Sunday
April 17, 2011
Aylmer United Church
Matthew 21: 1-11 Suzanne Sykes
A Parade of Pilgrims
When I lived in Israel,
and when I had a break from working
on the kibbutz in northern Galilee,
I used to travel to Jerusalem
on my days off.
While I was there
I stayed in the Scottish Hospice.
The Scottish hospice was a sanctuary.
A bit of European civilization,
a taste of home,
in the middle of relentless Israeli life.
Every afternoon, precisely at four,
tea was served in the main lounge.
This was a long room
with windows overlooking the valley
to the walls of the old city.
It had a huge fireplace at one end
that was lit with a roaring fire
on chilly winter and spring days.
You could drink English tea
imported from India and Ceylon,
and eat the delicious little cakes
from the Arab Patisserie
in the old city.
It was a time for hospice residents,
visitors to Jerusalem
from around the world,
to meet each other.
Conversation was welcome and lively.
And I met some amazing people,
including our own Dr. Robert McClure.
Hanging on the wall over the fireplace,
dominating the room,
was a large painting of General Allenby,
mounted on his war horse,
entering Jerusalem
through the Jaffa gate,
as so many conquerers
had done before him.
The armies of the Assyrians and Babylonians,
Cyrus of Persia,
Alexander the Great,
General Pompeii of Rome,
Muslim Caliphs and Crusaders,
Ottoman Pashas,
and finally,
in 1917, the British.
All of them had conquered
then claimed the city
through the Jaffa Gate.
Jerusalem had been conquered so many times
that there was a saying:
every conqueror would enter the city,
mounted on a war horse,
through the Jaffa Gate.
So here is this painting,
prominently displayed in the Scottish Hospice
celebrating the most recent foreign victor
in a long line of conquerors.
What does it say about our story?
Pontius Pilate,
governor of Judea in the time of Jesus,
also rode his war horse through this gate.
In Rome, Palestine was known
as a small, troublesome province.
You got sent there as governor
as punishment for some displeasure
you had caused Caesar.
It was not a plum job.
And during Jewish religious festivals
there was always,
always, unrest -
even more unrest than usual.
So the governor had taken to showing a display of force
to pre-empt any thought of uprising.
Accompanied by his legion of soldiers
in full battle gear -
amour, spears and shields -
he rode a white stallion through Jerusalem -
in though one gate and out the opposite.
It was a show of force,
intended to intimidate
and frighten the local population,
and keep them in their place.
So what does Jesus do?
In a mocking parody of the governor,
he rides a donkey,
a lowly beast of burden
in the opposite direction.
He enters through the gate that Pilate exited from
and reverses Pilate's journey.
The action is itself a parable -
a reversal story.
It turns the power of Rome backwards
and mocks it.
It disempowers the Roman military.
and challenges Rome.
It lead to Jesus crucifixion.
Pilate needs a whole legion
to demonstrate his importance
and control.
But Jesus is accompanied by ordinary folk
who wave palms and sing.
Children singing Hosannas
replace the barked orders of generals,
colourful peasant cloaks
flutter in the sunshine
rather than the banners
of the Roman legions.
Waving date palm branches
a symbol of God’s everlasting goodness
and abundance
because it produces fruit all year long.
replaces the bread
thrown at the starving crowd
by their Roman overlords
to pacify them.
It is a visual statement
that it is God who feeds us -
a testament to God’s goodness and care.
Jesus’ power is rooted in relationships of abundance and joy,
in the overwhelming,
everlasting love of God
and in God’s desires
for the good of the world and all its creatures.
Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem,
presents us with a question.
It asks: who will we be
as we enter the holy city,
paradise,
the shalom of God?
Do we come as conquerors -
warriors in the service of some temporal, transient power?
Do we come serving the interests of the powerful
by whatever name they use -
economic recovery,
national security,
personal freedom,
global market economy,
democracy?
Do we come as lords over nature and the poor?
Do we see the natural world
as resources for our use,
merely means to an end?
Do we share the world’s assumptions
about what is good,
true and beautiful?
Or do we come into the city of God,
into God’s kingdom,
joyfully singing songs
of thanks and praise,
confident in the continued care
of our creator.
Do we come as people
whose allegiance is to God
and who march with God’s banner
of love over us.
Do we journey through life
under the shelter of God’s care,
surrounded by God’s desire
for our well being
and the well being of all creation.
Can we answer those questions
with confidence - Yes!
for that is our task as God’s people.
Think again of that portrait of General Allenby
in the Scottish Hospice.
The story goes
that before he actually went into the city
through the Jaffa gate
he got off his horse
and walked.
He entered Jerusalem on foot.
He broke with the tradition of conquerers
and instead
entered the Holy City as a pilgrim.
He came to Jerusalem
in the footsteps of millions of pilgrims
who trod that path before him.
Between the children and the generals,
between Palm Sunday and Good Friday
we walk as pilgrims
on the pilgrim way.
We follow in the footsteps
of the faithful
who travelled this way before us.
We enter the holy city,
that place of celebration and great grief
on foot.
The life of faith is lived
between the celebrations of Palm Sunday
and the unspeakable loss of Good Friday.
Waking as pilgrims
is a metaphor for living the life of faith.
We live with our feet on the ground
connected to the natural world
of God’s creation.
We journey,
eye level with other pilgrims,
seeing their worth as human beings,
loved by God,
no matter their outward state.
We live the life of faith
remembering that God loves
and cares for us,
for everyone,
for all of creation,
and God wants justice and peace,
abundance and joy
for us all.
Amen.

Transfiguration Sunday

Transfiguration Sunday
March 6, 2011
Kanata United Church
Exodus 24: 12-18 The Rev. Suzanne E. Sykes
Psalm 99 (p. 819 VU)
Matthew 17: 1-9 suzanne@stoneisland.ca
Transfiguring Visions

In popular imagination climbing mountains is an iconic experience. Think of the hundreds who attempt Everest. Or the great popularity of rock climbing. People climb something to bun gee-jump or parachute off of it. We climb both actually and metaphorically. We can climb to the top of the heap, the corporate or bureaucratic ladder. We climb to test ourselves, to be exhilarated, to experience power or exercise control, and in every case, we climb in order to see the world and ourselves differently.

Our Old Testament scripture lesson is about a mountain, a climb, and a different, transforming vision. Moses journeys up the mountain to encounter God. He enters the cloud - the shekinah - the divine glory - that veils God’s being like a cloak. It is a life changing, transfiguring experience. Tradition tells us that Elijah didn’t die but was translated into heaven - another kind of dramatic transfiguration.
In our Gospel story, Jesus climbs a mountain and encounters Moses and Elijah - the Torah giver and the prophet. The two greatest figures in Israel’s religious history, meet and talk with Jesus on a mountain including him in their very special company.

The transfiguration of Jesus tells us, as it told the disciples, that Jesus belongs in the company of those God has chosen and specially blessed. The disciples have a revelation. They see the real Jesus. They gain a peek into God’s nature through Jesus like they do with Moses and Elijah. When the disciples see Jesus with Moses and Elijah they realize that Jesus is as important, as transformational to their religious and spiritual life, as the two greatest figures in their history. He truly is the founder of a new spiritual path. He really is the real deal.

Mountains are still places of vision and clarity. Several years ago while on sabbatical, I went up mount Baldy in California. You leave the smog and the fog of Los Angeles behind and climb up winding roads until you emerge into crisp, clean air and bright sunshine and look down on the cloud that you have just left. A cloud that covers and hides the city.

When I lived in Israel, in the mountains of Galilee, I could step outside my door on the mountain kibbutz, and below me, spread out along the valley, less than a hundred feet below, were the clouds of winter - looking like cotton wool - pillows that would hold your weight if you walked on them. Overhead, clear sunshine and crisp, cold air with the sharp smell of snow from Mt. Hermon across the valley.

Mountains give us, as they did Jesus and the disciples, a different perspective on the world. A perspective that is both clarifying and disorienting. That is the nature of transfiguring moments: seeing with greater depth at the same time that the ground is falling away beneath you.

Then as now, if you want to get away from the world and its business, you go up a mountain, or in our part of the world, a hill. If you want clarity and vision, you go up a mountain. If you need time to get away and reorient yourself to what matters in life, you go up a mountain. If you need an epiphany, a revelation to refocus your life, if your spirit cries out for transfiguration, you get out of the city and climb a mountain. It is no accident that so many places of worship in all faiths are built on hills. We intuitively know that mountaintops bring vision and clarity, epiphany and even transfiguration.

How do we respond to a transfiguring epiphany? Peter offers one way. Build a monument - an altar. There is a long tradition of shrines, cairns, booths, in Israel. If you met God, encountered an angel - which is an emanation of God - if God helped you win a battle, if you were healed, you built a shrine at that place to mark it for everyone.

Or think of Europe. The whole countryside is dotted with little wayside shrines. And we don’t even have to go that far - there are lots of shrines in the townships of Quebec. My own favourite is at the intersection right in my own village of Burnstown. Made of an old bathtub turned on its end
and sunk one third in the ground with its back to the prevailing wind, it holds a beautiful statue of the Virgin Mary - seasonally decorated with garlands of flowers, or leaves, or now, with snow.
Like the shrines in Israel they are an announcement. They say to every passer-by: I met God here. Stop for a minute:you might too.

Peter is a traditionalist - part of a long line of monument builders. A monument is a sign that alerts others that revelation is possible; God can be met in this place. A meeting with Moses and Elijah - well that is a momentous event - a monumental event - that just cries out for, well, you get it.
But the announcement from the cloud tells Peter otherwise. This may look like the same encounter with God as in the past; it may look at first sight that it stands squarely in the tradition, but in fact it turns the tradition on its head.

The transfiguration tells Peter and us that God cannot be confined to any place, time or tradition. Building a shrine is redundant, for God and God’s boundless compassion is everywhere and for everyone.
This morning’s text asks us to think of those mountain top experiences in our own life. To remember them, savour them, treasure them and draw strength from them. But it does more than remind us. It invites us, in these times of change and uncertainty in the life of our faith and our church - and, considering the events unfolding in the Middle East - the world - to hope for an epiphany for ourselves. To hope for a transfiguring epiphany with all its disorienting and clarifying effects. It invites us to long for a particularly vivid and arousing experience of God for ourselves, and a spiritual visionand path for our day.

On the mountain of transfiguration, the disciples realized that with Jesus, they encountered the living God. They went on, eventually, to be that for others. Like them, we are called to be that window into the love and compassion of God for everyone we meet.

It’s a tall order. Be a window into God’s love and boundless compassion in order to heal the world. Yet that’s what the Christian life is about. Transforming visions of clarity and beauty and healing that stir us to live them for the sake of the world.

On this  Sunday before we begin the long forty day journey through the valley of Lent, remember and meditate on the mountain tops in your life. Draw strength from them to sustain you through the Lenten journey to come.And be at peace, trusting in God’s compassion and care.
Amen.

c. 2011, Rev. Suzanne E. Sykes

Book Review - Faith in a Time of Change

Faith in a Time of Change - ed Michael Kooiman

I wanted to like this book for it has some very wise people, who love the church,  writing in it. But I have problems.  It was a quick read that was unsatisfying.  Unsatisfying because of the nature of the book.  I am not a fan of one page reflections.  I want some depth when I read.  It had hints of depth but each vignette stood on its own, no follow up by other posters.  ( It came from posts on Emerging Spirit) They did not seem to engage one another or the ideas of others.

Those who are in the book give some quick analysis, but again no where the depth needed if we  want to engage the church in reflection.  The nature of the book is there is no overarching coherent theme or theology.  I know the book is not designed to do that but why then spend time engaging it?

For some the book will have some value, and it did for me in a few occasions.  The value is that it will give some handy and very short hand snap shots.  Some will be useful in jump starting a discussion in a study group.  Some could find their way into a sermon.  But would I pay money for it?  If this type of book appeals to you, then yes.  But for me the briefness of each piece did not stick. A day after reading it,  did I find a new insight, that calls to me today? No. 

It is earnest.  The posts are from those who care for the church.  It is thoughtful.  But its programatic nature gave a short shift to theological exploration.  Of course I am asking something of the book that it did not set out to do.  So the sometimes mix bag of programatic ideas is what it sets out to do.  Given that there are a few ideas that will stay with you if you are a fan of such material.

The Madawaska Institute for Culture and Religion Where Spirit & Life Meet

The Madawaska Institute for Culture and Religion Where Spirit & Life Meet

Presents: Transforming Ministry: Spirituality, Leadership, and Mission June 7 - 9 2011

Ministry can transform the lives of pastors and their congregations. While the challenges of ministry have never been greater, possibilities for spiritual adventure abound for pastors and spiritual leaders who embrace the novelty of our time with spirit and creativity. The post-modern ethos and the challenges of pluralism and the disestablishment of Christianity invite adventurous pastors to explore new frontiers of spiritual leadership, personal and community transformation, and missional faith. The journey is ultimately spiritual – but not otherworldly; it is the journey of a holistic spirituality in which the margins become the frontiers of a new vision of ministry and Christianity.

Through the integration of spiritual practices, imaginative prayer, lectures, conversations, and generous time for refreshment, this seminar will explore the following themes 1) Tending to the Holy: practicing the presence of God in ministry 2) Practices for spiritual transformation: a dialogue with Philippians 3) When mysticism becomes mission: Acts of the Apostles as a post-modern gospel 4) Healing ministry and ministers: Mark’s Gospel as an invitation to healing the world 5) Prophetic hospitality: how to go from opposition to contrast 6) Process theology and ministerial transformation

Leader: REV. BRUCE EPPERLY, PH.D., is a teacher, spiritual guide, writer, lecturer, retreat leader, and reiki teacher. The author of seventeen books Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary, Pennsylvania, USA.

Books: Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry has been named the 2009 Book of the Year by the Academy of Parish Clergy! with Katherine Gould Epperly Feed the Fire!: Avoiding Clergy Burnout:Bruce Gordon Epperly , Katherine Gould Epperly Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed Bruce Epperly Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living by Bruce G. Epperly

COST: $250 - Members- $200. Lunches included - June 7 - 9 Burnstown (Ottawa) Ontario

To register george@hermanson.ca

Because we limit the number so it is an intimate event a deposit of $25 is required:140 Fleming Dr. Burnstown Ont. K0J 1G0 ph 613 432 8852

Jazz, True Grit, and Come And See

Year A
Season of Epiphany
2nd Sunday After Epiphany
Sunday Between January 14 and January 20 Inclusive
January 16, 2011 

Faith-provoking, historical insights into the lesson by David Ewart, John 1:29-42.

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

The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

Over Christmas I visited with long time friends and of course we talked about both the past and the present. The issue of faith and our place was central to who we were and are. In one sense our theme was still the U2 has a great song called “Still haven’t found what I am looking for.”

Then over the beginning weeks of January I gathered with another set of friends. Watched movies, ate well, and shared wine and conversation. We started with True Grit, a version of Calvin that only two Jewish boys could tell. Satisfying in sound, visuals, and dialogue. Under the images was that great old gospel - “Leaning on the everlasting arms.” The movie ends, both with better conclusion than the first version, no nice happy ending, and a reprise of the Peggy Lee song, “Is that all there is?”

Through out all the conversations was the question of how to hear supreme love... to hear John Coltrane’s “Love Supreme.” The yearning for what Whitehead calls the Adventure of Ideas, harmony and intensity that moves, our feet, our bodies, into new realities. These songs reflect the perennial existential question of what makes humanity flourish? We come to the questions about what is worthy of us at different stages of our life. Context shapes our question of what is it that we want to define us.

I can imagine the early church asking is this all there is? We have been subjected and pushed to the edges. They asked in their time and place how will we flourish?

Christ The King

Year C
Season of Pentecost
Sunday Between November 20 and November 26 Inclusive
Reign of Christ   or   Christ the King Sunday
Last Sunday of Pentecost Season
November 21, 2010, 26th Sunday After Pentecost

Read the Bible passage: Luke 23:33-43, The Message;   or   Luke 23:33-43, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Read the Bible passage: Jeremiah 23:1-6, The Message;   or   Jeremiah 23:1-6, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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

Faith-provoking, historical insights into the lesson by David Ewart, Luke 23:33-43.

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

The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

Note: This sermon was preached November 25, 2007 at Edwards (Knox) United Church.

Our narrative today focuses on Christ the King. A different kind of king - a king whose function is to bring compassionate/justice. A king  whose very way of being is one of redemption and care of the least.

Jeremiah speaks to a people whose world has been turned upside down. Luke speaks to people whose world is in turmoil. The writer of Colossians writes to small community that feels it is being tested.

This is the Sunday that is the Christian New Year's Eve. It is a tipping point in the church year. We begin to move again to Advent, looking for light to break through the cracks in our dark reality. We begin another time of waiting with anticipation, living into the future with hope, because of a confidence in the aims of God  working for healing and forgiveness.

The Madawaska Institute

Where Spirit and Life Meet

Upcoming Conferences

March 4-5, 2011( with Knox United Church) John Dominic Crossan
God and Violence – Where’s the Justice?

June 7-9, 2011: Dr. Bruce Epperly
Transforming Leadership: Mission and Spirituality for a Post Modern Age

Spring 2012: Dr. Sharon Betcher - to be announced

Membership

We invite you to become a member of the Madawaska Institute. Memberships help us plan future events and secure quality leadership.

To join: send your name, address, phone number and email to:

The Madawaska Institute
140 Fleming Drive,
 Burnstown, ON   K0J 1G0.

Annual memberships are $25, beginning January 1. Make cheques payable to The Madawaska Institute.

Previous Conferences
Dr. Jay McDaniel - Jazz, Buddhism and Jesus (21010)
Dr. Philip Clayton - Transforming Theology (2009)
Rev. Dr. Bruce Epperly -Transforming the Church (2009) Fire & Wind: Progressive, Pentecostal, Process Relational Theology for Church Renewal (2007)
Dr.Rita Nakashima Brock - Saving Paradise (2008)
Dr. John Cobb Jr. - Public Policy and the Common Good (2006)
Dr. David Griffin - Process Theology, Global Democracy & Peace (2003)
Dr.Marjorie Suchocki - Resurrection in a Despairing World (2004)

George Hermanson
www.georgehermanson.com