George Hermanson

A Surprising Answer

Year C
Season of Pentecost
Sunday Between July 10 to July 16 Inclusive
July 11, 2010, Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

Read the Bible passage: Amos 7:7-17, The Message;   or   Amos 7:7-17, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Read the Bible passage: Luke 10:25-37, The Message;   or   Luke 10:25-37, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Faith-provoking, historical insights into the lesson by David Ewart, Luke 10:25-37.

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 times of terrorists and wars, where we read about those who seek our ill-will we have this challenging parable of Jesus. On first reading it seems to tell us that we are to love one another as we love ourselves. It seems to be a variation on the golden rule. It goes beyond what is demanded and sets a standard that asks much of us.

It starts out innocently. Luke has Jesus engaged in a advance seminar about the law. A good question is asked about what is the most crucial thing we can do with our life - what is the most basic attitude we must have to have a fulfilled life? Jesus responds with the summary of the what was considered to be the law - Love God. Love self. Love the neighbor.

Into A Far Country

Year C
Season of Pentecost
Sunday Between July 3 to July 9 Inclusive
July 4, 2010, Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

Read the Bible passage: 2 Kings 5:1-14, The Message;   or   2 Kings 5:1-14, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Read the Bible passage: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20, The Message;   or   Luke 10:1-11, 16-20, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Faith-provoking, historical insights into the lesson by David Ewart, Luke 10:1-11, 16-20.  

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

After church we are leaving for a brief trip to visit friends. Suzanne has done her usual due diligence of preparation. Got the Google maps. We figure out what we will need by checking the weather forecasts. Lay out our things. Wonder if we are taking too much or not enough. Worry. Seek for just right information as we go into a far country.

Planning is big on our agenda -for we want to make the best use of our time and we want to arrive without too many distractions. There is an irony to all of this because we live a time a great prosperity, yet with great dissatisfaction. We have genuine shortage of time, and deep shortage of deep spirituality. There is a deficit in meaning and both rich and poor are afflicted by this deficit. To fill the emptiness many turn to consumption which in turn commodifies us. Rather than growing free time for compassion, we are even more closed in - worried, scared. Prosperity has exacted a terrible price from its favourites.

Forgiveness

Year C
Season of Pentecost
Sunday Between June 12 to June 18 Inclusive
June 13, 2010, Third Sunday After Pentecost

Read the Bible passage: Luke 7:36-8:3, The Message;   or   Luke 7:36-8:3, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Faith-provoking, historical insights into the lesson by David Ewart, Luke 7:36-8:3.  

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

The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson

Let us use our imagination for a moment. You have seen this scene in such TV programs like Rome, or some movie about ancient Rome. Picture the room when the dinner is being held. A group of men is at a table and they are eating in the Roman style. See them on a couch. That means two people on a couch, this is so intimate conversations can happen. Those who get invited are the elite of the village - those who are learned in the Law. High level of conversation. Behind them are the outsiders, who can only approach in supplication.

The first thing to ask is why this Roman style of eating? It tells us much about the context of Luke’s story. This means those there had become captive to the culture of the oppressor.

What's On Your Resume

Year C
Season of Pentecost
Sunday Between June 5 to June 11 Inclusive
June 6, 2010, Second Sunday After Pentecost

Read the Bible passage: Galatians 1:11-24, The Message;   or   Galatians 1:11-24, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Read the Bible passage: Luke 7:11-17, The Message;   or   Luke 7:11-17, The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Faith-provoking, historical insights into the lesson by David Ewart, Luke 7:11-17.  

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 reading of Galatians there is a travel log. Often when someone tells us of a trip our eyes glaze over. Did your eyes glaze over when you were listening to the letter of Paul to the Galatians? All those towns and places he visited. He talks about his former vocation and now his new mission. Think of it as a resume. He is telling us about what is important to him and what motivates his passion. His resume begins with what is important to how he lives.

As you now know this Sunday is a celebration of the 85th anniversary of the United Church of Canada. The question for our future is what is our business? What is so important we will give our lives to it. In part, we answer that by what is on the resume of the church and how that has informed our personal Christian resume.

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.  

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.