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?