George Hermanson

A Surprising Answer

2010-07-21T13:30:31-07:00

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.

Like any good student, the lawyer presses Jesus and asks that most basic question, who is my neighbour? An honest question in times of dislocation and opposing ideas. A good question if there are limits to neighbourliness. Especially when some of our neighbors want to cause us harm.

Luke then offers the story that is now part of our societies ethical formation - The Good Samaritan. It seems straight forward. Yet it is the most domesticated and misused of all of Jesus’ parables. We make it a moral tale rather than an astonishing call to rethink every social and religious value one has.

Luke, like all good preachers, brings together two good but completely unrelated stories to create a programmatic life style for the early church. He turns the parable into an example, as in, “go and do likewise.” He has turned the parable into a story for a pattern of action. The phrase Good Samaritan has become part of the language, as a cipher for concerned assistance. Now that is good as far as it goes. However, leaving it there losses the real power of the story as way of living. When it was first uttered it was like a square circle, an oxymoron. It would have made no sense, in fact, would have deeply challenged the listeners.

So let us forget everything we have been taught. Ignore Luke's editorials at the beginning and at the end of the passage. Even forget it comes from Jesus to get is full force.

A parable is to provoke. In the prophetic tradition, like the Amos passage, one encounters the presence of God.

In hearing the parable, in the action of the prophet one encounters the aim of God. As you hear, God happens, is here, not in the future but in the present. Through a paradoxical experience we are open to the sprit of God. For the parable challenges all conventional wisdom. It lays us bare, naked in our imagination so the moral imagination of God can be centered in us. We are left without pretensions and satisfaction in our own wisdom or the conceit of our society, so the wisdom of God will be at our center - to love God with all of our heart.

Of course there is truth to Luke’s point, that being a good Jew or a good Christian or a good citizen means caring for and loving the neighbor. It would be good if we did that.

If Jesus wanted to make this point he would have made the hero of the story a Jewish person going to the aid of the Samaritan. The parable would have the enemy - the outsider - in the ditch, robbed and stripped. The action would be the listener - us - going to the outsider’s aid, not vice versa. It would be us going to the aid of those with whom we are out of harmony. It does not read that way, The Samaritans were the enemy of those who were listening. To retell it would be the Taliban who comes to our aid. We are in the ditch and our enemy comes to our rescue.

The parable would have astonished and shook the listeners. The parable shatters how we picture the world and makes us rethink everything we thought about how the world ought to be organized. The good guy is the enemy. It makes us think from God’s side of how the world ought to be. It is to let kingdom values inform us so we create better ways of living as family, friends, society, and as an individual.

By understanding that the enemy comes to our rescue, the possibility of another social world has come into view. As a metaphorical tale the parable redraws both the social and the sacred world.

This is hard to get our heads around. How do we understand the enemy? To put it into context many of us have been deeply hurt by the actions of others in personal situation. Society experiences bombings. We have experienced families and friends who have betrayed our trust. We have real enemies.

The parable demands a deep reversal in our psyche and the values of our society. It challenges us about those we have consigned as unworthy, those we think deserve nothing but our contempt, those we have consigned to hell. It challenges us when we believe there are limits to love and tolerance.

It calls us to discern evil and rejecting evil without becoming what we reject. It moves us beyond tolerance based on the idea of that all ideas are relative, to a critical stance about ideas so we can see how they aid or inhibit negative outcomes. We can make judgements about ideas without destroying the other.

We live in a time of profound disagreements about ideas. The disagreements are real, At times seem unbridgeable. In such situation we are faced with two options when we disagree. The first is to hate the other. If we cannot see that even the enemy can offer something to us, then we can treat all neighbours with disregard and use them as pawns in our agenda. If we cannot expect there to be some of God in those with whom we disagree, than we can trample over them.

An option in a disagreement is to know we disagree and know the disagreement is profound. In response we don't internalize the hatred but respond in compassion. Often the abuser wins because we internalize the abuse and become what we hate, untrustworthy and fearful. By clearly identifying the enemy as enemy we now know what belongs to them ... their abuse - their ill-will.

It is even more difficult when our enemies actually want our destruction. If we demonize the other, than we allow ourselves to treat them in ways that removes all their rights and protections. A great insight that comes out of the enemy as a location of God’s surprise is, creating methods of dealing with the enemy that reflect values of justice and compassion rather than vengeance. We will actively seek their well-being. That may include the knowing there is a profound differences and still pray for their healing. It will offer the protection of the rule of law that we enjoy.

By understanding that enemy as capable of good actions we structure our interior landscape. We can disagree. We can seek restorative justice. We desire justice without vengeance. When justice has compassion, we restructure our methods of dealing with those we are in conflict. We break the ties of hatred and that begins to create a new society of care for us and others. As the Psalm put it, we are to be like the God of justice and compassion.

George Hermanson
www.georgehermanson.com

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Why The Emerging Church Needs Process Theology

2010-06-29T15:56:47-07:00

More Franchises - A Second Cup
United Church of Canada
June 19-20, 2010
Toronto, ON Canada
Workshop List (PDF)

Part One

George Hermanson http://www.georgehermanson.com

(Part Two by James Murray follows below.)

We live in a complex world of pluralism. Institutions and ideas are questioned. This creates a tension, because our world as we have known it is challenged by other ideas. There is a tension caused by differences of color and cultures. Because our reality is changing, for some this is a threat to our way of life, and for others a time to celebrate for it brings more color and vividness. In our theological world we often frame the issue as conservative verse liberal, theist or non theist.

How we look at the problem determines what we will see as a solution. The way we have framed the issues suggests to me that we have not asked the basic metaphysical questions. What we have done is to ignore the issue of pluralism and the challenges it represents. We are trying to address the context of post-modernity with the tools of the modernist classical metaphysical view, which is Matter in motion. Put simply, in the modern world view our mind organizes reality. While we have relationships, those are like atoms bumping into one another, there is no internalness. We are to see each other as unrelated individuals. In economics we assume all individuals are self contained. For example, costs such as environmental pollution are considered to be external to the cost of an item. There are relationships but they are external and have no bearing upon who a person is as a person. This metaphysics which emphasizes the lack of internal relationship has a profound effect on religious thinking. Feuerbach used this theory of no internal connection to create the ultimate modernist expression of religion by stating God is only a projection.

Because of this problem in metaphysics, faith has become distorted and until it finds a new world view, we will not arrive at an synthesis. Theologians actually helped remove God as an active agent in history. It is true that within conservative circles the doctrine of revelation allows for God to intervene in history. This means, though, religious knowledge becomes privileged knowledge. So modern liberal theologians had to deconstruct theology to save the possibility of religious experience. But they, in turn, by the linguistic community and mythical and metaphorical turns, made God a distant actor, not present reality. Faith becomes a private experience and is not testable except by action of the believer. The foundational mode of religion was not sustainable.

As classical metaphysics became obsolete, conservative and liberal theology reacted differently Conservative theology retreated into biblical literalism, retaining a God-concept based on classical metaphysics Liberal theology deconstructed theology, rejecting any God-talk based on classical metaphysics Neither liberal nor conservative engage a new, root philosophy of reality

The postmodern alternative is to view everything as energy in motion. Very little of our thinking has probed this issue of metaphysics, and the result is often ill formed as a result. We can see this in the New Age focus on the power of ideas. Process/Relational theology offers us a sound theoretical metaphysics and looks at the world as energy in motion. What is real in this postmodern worldview is a product of relationships which are always in the process of becoming. As Whitehead points out in the Adventure of Ideas, ideas are propositions which can effect the becoming of the individual. Ideas shape who we can become both as individuals and as a society. (For more on that check out Marilynne Robinson’s book on this issue. (Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self, by Marilynne Robinson, Yale University Press, 158 p) This leads me to Peter Drucker, the business theorist, who said the first question any organization needs to ask is: “What is your business?”

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. We throw words around like emerging, missional. We seek a magic bullet. How we frame the issue reveals our foundational view. 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.

Our business is to help people experience God What are the images and words and theologies that will help us to have such a relationship with God that deals with the reality of this post-modern world we inhabit?
As John Cobb Jr. puts it: “The church takes as it mission working with God for the salvation of the world ... assumes the world needs saving ... God cares about the world ... God is already working in and through the world through creatures and especially human beings toward the salvation of the world.” As Marjorie Suchocki puts it: “ God works with the world as it is to lure it to where ought to be.” “God is the supremely related one.” A final note: “God is in the world and the world is in God and God is more than the world.”

Of course to use this one has to ask what is meant by God? What is meant by salvation? This is where the process/relational theology helps. All theology affects what one preaches. We all have theologies that are assumed. We may have learned them in Sunday School, or by listening to sermons, or participating in some reading for a discussion group. The assumed theology is always the default position.

As well, we have assumed philosophical understandings. Most people use the modernist approach of unrelated bits of matter in motion which is incapable of describing what it means to live in the post-modern world where everything is inter-connected energy in motion.

The classical way of doing theology, in a formal way, is to understand we know God by experience, tradition, scripture, and reason. In the post-modern paradigm, we begin with a sense of God, and as with all feelings, we bring those feelings to consciousness. We build models to speak of how we know God. Not all models we have been given help us have a sense of God. Some models of God give us a God unworthy of worship. All models are means of expressing deep feelings and the model gets tested by present experience - the questions of our time; tested by reason - can we hold this idea? They are tested by tradition-how is this model faithful to the past and how is it a better way of affirming the past? The model is tested by an examination of scripture - can we find in scripture hints and confirmation of the model?

To fully develop a post-modern theology we need to deconstruct our world-life-view. We do that by is seeing how dependent it is on what is called modern consciousness. The first aspect of that dependence on the modernist assumption is the putting of human reason at the center of experience. What that does is split knowledge into two realities - that which is testable and that which is not. This has had the effect to make things like beauty, love, emotions dismissed as not being real.

The second aspect is the split between absolutism and relativism as an either/or proposition. This is seen in the debate of whether a religion is an absolute truth, which makes others untrue, or religion is a matter of taste or acculturation and therefore lacking in any authority.

I have found Process theology to be the best model as a postmodern theology. It connects our world-life-view with the social-historical study of the bible. This means asking questions about the location, issues of the time of the writers. It will examine the way those events are interpreted by the writers, and the broader principles that shape the interpretation and are influenced by what has happened are to be understood in this way.

A Christian process theologian holds that this particular past is especially illuminating of the present as well. We can learn from it only as we understand the difference between its time and our own time. We will examine the text by our issues and we let the text examine our time. We will find meaning for our time as well. Usually we can affirm that meaning. Occasionally we must argue against the text. Our task is to wrestle with it, not to treat it as sacrosanct.

For a process/relational theology the content of the message will emphasize God being with us, compassionate and directing, using our freedom and responsibility, and calling us to use these for the good of others as well as ourselves. It will emphasize that, although God is always an important factor in what happens, God does not control it. We discern God’s presence in particular aspects of what happens, not in the outcome as a whole. God is in us and we are in God but also that we are members one of another, and that our lives are interwoven with the wider natural context as well.

Bernard Loomer asserted that there were two primary kinds of power – unilateral power and relational power. Unilateral power is by nature coercive- it is the cosmic moralist, ruling like an absolute king. This is the default position of many. This God gives, but does not receive; acts but does not listen; demands but does not compromise. This makes spirituality difficult for it ignores our desires. As well ideas of creativity and freedom are not real in the sense we have them but are only given at the whim of the one in power. The God model of process/relational is God has only relational power. What is said and done has effect on how God will respond. It gives, but also receives; acts but also responds; has a vision but is open to change and transformation. Freedom, creativity, are intrinsic to each actual entity and relational power works to value that up by offering a dream or aim to each actor. The future is created out of response and anticipation. This idea of Relational power is dependent on diversity, actually welcomes it, and offers novelty to each nano second of experience.

Process theology affirms that God has a vision, appropriate to each moment of experience and, in the broadest sense, for the vast expanses of planetary and cosmic history. God is omnipresent, in all things thus no God forsaken places. In each moment God presents the world with possibilities. God then offers encouragement to achieve the dream. The dream of God is not one of forcing an idea but to does inspires the world with dreams, visions, and possibilities.
This idea suggests God actually experiences us, and what we have done. Needs us. What we do matters and is that which God has to work. We touch God by our dreams and actions. There is a call response built into our relational world and the world becomes through it. This means what we do and how we respond to God’ aim matters and determines what the world will become.

This is a listening God. Before God speaks God has had to receive. This makes prayer, silent, spoken, acted, our living efficacious. What we do limits God but God is not defeated. For in each moment the dream revised is offered back. We can refuse but God does not stop, for there are some who listen and they become for us guides.

The worship service is a central part of church life, for it both reflects and is reflected in other parts of life. If the liturgy and sermon speak of how we are members one of another, it is of great importance that this community of belonging be experienced throughout the life of the church. If God leads by persuasion and the preacher expands the sense of freedom and responsibility through offering new proposals, then relationships throughout the church should be mutual help and support grounded in mutual affection. Structures are needed, but they will be adjusted to fulfill real needs rather than to maintain the authority of some over others.

The strength of community will be tested in various ways. Process theology calls for inclusiveness and affirmation of others, whereas some bring with them to church beliefs and feelings that lead to exclusion. The issues were once chiefly about race. Today they are more likely to be about sexual orientation. Whatever the issue, process theology will seek to draw a circle that takes in all who want to participate in the community’s life. It will also emphasize that there are many communities arising out of different traditions that have a valid message and equal status before God. It will seek not only to be an inclusive community itself but also to show its appreciation of other communities and to work toward a community of communities of which it is but one.

A church informed by process theology will not only be a place of warm community, serious study, and honest interaction. It will also be a place where concern for the wider world, both human and natural, will not only be affirmed but also be expressed in shared actions. This happens most naturally in responding to the practical needs of people in the larger community and taking steps to reduce the use of scarce resources.

All of this has implications for a church. James works in a church that was a Community of Concern. Using this model he persuasively is offering a dream for the future. It may not be heard and process/relational theology says that does not matter, for it is like pebbles tossed into a pool, there are ripples. Given this theoretic outline James will share how it has guided him.

The seven questions for theology:

The first issue is who is God and how is God related to the world?
Then we move into a second level of reflection. Who is Jesus the Christ? Note by that very phrase we are asking about his teachings, his life and his mission. To that we have added secondary questions - like the virgin birth and the way the early church understood him.
Who is the Holy Spirit? (the Trinity - which is how God is related to the Spirit and the Son)
Anthropology - what does it mean to be human? How are we related to animals and the natural world and what distinguishes us?
The meaning of sin? The meaning of salvation? The role Jesus has in redemption and our role? ( soteriology)
What is the church? (ecclesiology)
The meaning of hope in the present and for the future after death. How does Jesus as the Christ fit into this? (eschatology)

To give robust sermons, then, means getting a fix on our operative theology and through our reflection make our theology healthy and strong.

Resources for this paper are John Cobb Jr., David Ray Griffin, Marjorie Suchocki, Bruce Epperly, Catherine Keller and Philip Clayton.

Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry ~ Bruce G. Epperly & Katherine Gould Epperly
Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living (Paperback)~ Bruce G. Epperly
On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process Catherine Keller Fortress
Transforming Christian Theology for Church and Society by Philip Clayton ( Fortress)
God's Presence Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki
Reclaiming the Church by John B. Cobb jr. Westminster
Two Great Truths -David Ray Griffin - Westminster
Process Theology -John Cobb Jr. and David Ray Griffin - Westminster
Call of the Spirit: Process Spirituality in a Relational World By John B. Cobb, Jr., Bruce G. Epperly, & Paul S. Nancarrow P & F Press, 2005. Claremont, CA
1 Corinthians By David J. Lull Chalice Press, 2007
Adventures of Ideas by A.N. Whitehead The Free Press, 1933. Paperback edition: 1967
Back to Darwin: A Richer Account of Evolution Edited by John B. Cobb, Jr. Eerdmans
Christ in a Pluralistic Age by John Cobb, Jr. Wipf and Stock, 1998
A Christian Natural Theology, Based on the Thought of Alfred North Whitehead by John B. Cobb, Jr. Westminster John Knox Press, Second Edition, 2007
Divinity and Diversity by Marjorie Suchocki Abingdon Press, 2003
Earth, Sky, Gods and Mortals Developing an Ecological Spirituality by McDaniel, Jay
The End of Evil, by Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki Wipf & Stock, 2005 (SUNY Press, 1988)
The Fall to Violence, Marjorie Suchocki Continuum Publishing, 1994
God and Power By Catherine Keller Fortress Press, 2005
God-Christ-Church Marjorie Suchocki Crossroad Publishing, 1982
In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being Panentheistic Reflections on God's Presence in a Scientific World -Philip Clayton & Arthur Peacocke, Editors W.B. Eerdsman Publishing, 2004
Living From the Center Jay McDaniel Chalice Press, 2000
Of God and Pelicans: A Theology of Reverence for Life Jay B. McDaniel Westminster John Knox Press, 1989
The Old Testament and Process Theology, Robert Gnuse Chalice Press
Power of Affirmative Faith, The Bruce G. Epperly Chalice Press, 2001
Process Theology A Basic Introduction C. Robert Mesle Chalice Press, 1993
Revelation, Chalice Commentaries for Today Ronald L. Farmer Chalice Press, 2005
Romans John B. Cobb, Jr., and David Lull Chalice Press, 2006
Saving Paradise Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker Beacon Press, 2008
The Whispered Word, Marjorie Suchocki. Chalice Press, 1999.
World Without End Joseph A. Bracken, S.J William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005
The Secular Age - Charles Taylor - Belknop Harvard Press - 2007

Web sites
http://www.georgehermanson.com http://www.processandfaith.org http://www.ctr4process.org http://transformingtheology.org
http://www.emergentvillage.com http://www.dc-church.org

Why the Emerging Church Needs Process Theology.
Part 2 – Practicing Process

James Murray, www.dc-church.org

When I arrived at Dominion-Chalmers United Church in Ottawa two years ago, I was given a pile of books which the congregation had been using in their programming. One of the books was Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Church”. In his book, Warren talks about God’s authority and power over our lives, and he affirms the classical doctrines of omnipotence and omniscience. For that reason right there, most liberal churches do not touch Warren’s books. Personally, I find Warren’s books to be quite hilarious. He would start each chapter affirming some classical attribute of God that should in some way have a deterministic effect on our lives. Then in the rest of the chapter he goes on to argue around that absolute power to suggest we have agency in shaping our lives and our churches. Warren has sold over 30 million of these books, and no one seems to mind his theological tap-dancing around God’s sovereignty.

Rick Warren is considered by many to be the most influential preacher in America today. While he condemns same sex marriage, Warren does raise millions for AIDS in Africa each year. Warren is a Southern Baptist, and is typical of most evangelical conservatives. They want to affirm the power of God, and they know they should affirm the traditional theological categories, even if they don’t understand them, and even if they don’t really describe what it is they do actually believe. If the most influential evangelical conservative in America is sloppy with his theological categories, then the fact that we in Canada’s most liberal Protestant church are confused about our theology should come as no surprise.

In the June issue of the Observer former Moderator Lois Wilson said “We're so afraid of being tagged as ‘Christians’ (who are) trying to convert other people that we will not say ‘I'm a Christian and this is what it means.’” Wilson says “We're really good at social justice but really bad at our connection with Jesus."

The typical United Church member today wants the death and resurrection of Jesus to have some saving significance, but doesn’t know what to do with atonement. Most of our Bible Study groups would rather study Eckhart Tolle than the Apocalypse of John. We believe in free will, but we don’t know what that does to God’s power. The theological language most of us have to talk about our core business of helping people to experience God is sloppy at best, and at times it is completely inadequate.

A few years ago I met John Moore who is a well known media personality here in Toronto. John Moore hosts the morning drive show on CFRB, which is the top radio station in Toronto. Moore grew up in Montreal West United Church, where his parents still attend. Moore described to me that he had a typical United Church upbringing. By that he meant that by the time he was confirmed, he was a functional atheist. His Christian education upbringing had convinced him he didn’t need God, because God didn’t serve any meaningful purpose in his life. For many people like John Moore, Jesus and God are nothing more than archetypal intellectual concepts which are irrelevant to modern human existence. Greta Vosper’s book “With or Without God” reflects the failure of our traditional theologies to address the post modern context in a helpful way.

The congregation I serve in Ottawa is Dominion-Chalmers. During the late 1980’s and 1990’s it was one of the dominant conservative voices in the United Church. Allen Churchill was the senior minister at the time. As devoted Christians, the people of Dominion-Chalmers want to affirm the power of God as being central to their lives. Like Rick Warren, they are often theological sloppy. The one thing they have going for them is they have not let go of the personal relationship metaphor to describe their experience of God. They don’t tend to use politically correct phrases and inclusive language when they pray, but it is obvious they do feel the presence of God on a regular basis.

Our Sunday morning Bible study has about 16 people gather each week. That’s pretty good for a worshipping congregation of only 100 people. We begin the Bible study with a check-in question which asks ‘Where did you see the Holy Spirit at work in your life this week?” At first they weren’t sure how to answer this question, but after a few months they have learned to appreciate how active God is in their lives on a daily basis. They were used to thinking of God as being present only in big supernatural interventions. Now they are starting to see God as being present in the small moments as well. They are moving from classic deistic language, and are starting to include panentheistic images as well. They are learning how God interacts in our lives through God’s whispers and dreams, which can encourage and inspire them. One of the participants is suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Even though Booker can’t always remember exactly what happened during the past week, every week Booker says with great confidence “God is at work in my life every day.” It has become an affirmation and a source of assurance for him.

One of the biggest ministries I have at Dominion-Chalmers is the monthly healing service. When I arrived, the healing service only had two or three regular participants and it was viewed with suspicion by most in the congregation. It has become a forum for me to talk about the many different kinds of healing which God offers, which has expanded their vocabulary. People are encouraged to share their stories as part of the service. We still offer the laying on of hands, but the 25 or so participants also have the choice of being anointed with oil by me. The most controversial change I introduced was inviting people to light a votive candle on the altar as a way of offering a healing prayer for a loved one. After a few services we had to increase the number of candles to handle all their prayer requests.

Healing is probably one the hardest things for most mainline churches to handle. Most Liberal or progressives do not know how to describe The Holy Spirit let alone relate to it. Given the influence of Pentecostalism, even most evangelical conservatives feel their language for the Spirit is inadequate or suspect.

The Process theologian Bruce Epperly wrote in a blog recently that
“For many progressive Christians, spirituality is connected with other-worldliness and healing is connected with supernaturalism and the bombastic theatrics of televangelists. While there is much truth in these connections, a healthy faith does not live by what it denies about God, wholeness, and mysticism, but rather by what it can affirm about divine activity, personal transformation, and the relationship of spirituality and healing.”

Epperly notes that we are often more comfortable talking about the healing power of Reiki, Healing Pathways, Tai Chi and Yoga than we are about the Christian practices which promote healing of body, mind and spirit.

A recent Pew Center Report notes that 50% of persons who identify themselves as mainline Christians report having mystical experiences of self-transcendence. Sadly, the language we offer our people to talk about these experiences is often sloppy at best, and at times it is just completely inadequate. The fact we are embarrassed to talk about it in public makes things even worse.

A hundred years ago in his book Varieties of Religious Experience, William James proved that people are having mystic encounters with the Holy whether we believe in God or not. William James called for a more holistic and spirit-centered theology which has the capacity to take mysticism, spirituality, and healing seriously. Epperly says what often prevents this from happening is the fact “we have separated spirituality from social action and personal faith from social concern.

One of the ways I have been promoting a more process oriented approach to our faith has been during the season of Lent. Every year D-C has held a midweek service during Lent followed by a lunch. The service attracts a core of D-C people and a variety of people who work downtown. The first year I organized it I used Dorothy Bass’ work on Practicing our Faith. Dorothy Bass is the sister in law of Diana Butler Bass. Dorothy Bass identified twelve spiritual practices which help to shape our identity as Christians and which reflects God’s gifts of grace to us. Over the seven sessions, we addressed such topics as Sabbath keeping, hospitality, sharing our testimony, singing our faith, and forgiveness. I had guest speakers each week tell their story of faith, and how these practices had nourished their experience of God. The lunch conversations became quite animated as people were encouraged to share their own stories on these topics. By the end of the series we were getting fifty people out each week.

The second year was a more challenging one. I used Philip Clayton’s book “Transforming Theology”. Philip Clayton is one of the leading academic scholars on Process theology today. Clayton offers seven questions which he hopes will help the local church to explore and voice their own Christian beliefs in such a way that they can have a transforming impact on both church and society. A number of clergy and lay people had gathered at the Madawaska Institute the previous November to take a course from Clayton on his new book. I was able to invite many of those participants to be the theme speakers for the Lent series. They were asked to respond to Clayton’s questions which were things like: Who is God? Who is Jesus Christ? Who is the Holy Spirit? What is sin? What is salvation? What is the Christian hope?

It was an interesting experience. A young minister offered the thesis that the church no longer needs orthodoxy. Instead, he felt the post modern age required that we have ortho-paradox. He felt we needed to hold the tensions of humanity and divinity in tension, rather than have all our categories be neatly resolved by doctrine. His call to let go of orthodoxy and dogma was warmly received by my congregation, because the experience of the living God was going to be at the heart of the tension. The most controversial speaker addressed the issue of sin and salvation. He gave his testimony of his conversion experience and his dramatic call to ministry. His testimony followed the traditional evangelical pattern, and it was beautifully done. The classic signs of the Holy Spirit were present which affirmed the authenticity of his experience. What made it controversial was this minister was openly homosexual. The majority of my more conservative parishoners were deeply offended by this. A handful of our more moderate members were very moved and thankful that he had given us his witness. It revealed how sloppy a lot of our theological categories truly are. A call to abandon orthodoxy and dogma in favour of unresolved paradox was warmly embraced, while a conservative-style born again experience offered by a homosexual was not.

When I attended QTC in the late 1980’s we were encouraged to take an aggressive approach to ‘fixing’ congregations so they would follow the enlightened path of politically correct liberal theology. At the time I could never have imagined working in such a conservative environment as Dominion-Chalmers United Church. I have been greatly influenced by Marjorie Suchocki’s idea that “God works with the world as it is in order to lure it to where ought to be.” By working with my congregation as they are, I am becoming open to where God is inviting them to go with me as we learn to reach out in mission to the community. We are learning how the presence of God’s Holy Spirit has the power to bridge the theological labels which normally would divide us.

As the United Church seeks to adapt to this emerging age, it will need to leave behind its unhelpful categories and outdated theology. As much as we like to think we are a progressive and socially forward looking church, we are actually quite far behind the game, since we have lost our ability to talk about Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the power of personal spiritual experience.

The emerging church is not something theoretical which might happen sometime in the future. According to some of the brightest minds the Church has, the future has already begun. The question this post-modern world is asking of us today is “Can you offer us a meaningful experience of God’s presence which can transform our lives?” If we can’t offer them a way to make sense of the transcendent quality of life, they will go elsewhere. By using the tools of Process theology which focuses on the power of our experiences, we can find a new way to speak of spiritual things without being embarrassed. With our sense of God’s presence renewed, we believe a new sense of purpose will emerge which can help us navigate the uncharted waters of this post-modern world, a world which God continues to love so very much.

Questions for clarification

Bibliography & Resources

Bruce Epperly blog http://pastorbobcornwall.blogspot.com/2010/06/did-jesus-cure-anybody-bru...
Dorothy Bass, “Practicing Our Faith” Jossey-Bass, 1997 www.practicingourfaith.org
Philip Clayton, “Transforming Theology” Fortress 2010 www.transformingtheology.org
Bruce Epperly “Holy Adventure- 41 days of audacious living” Upper Room Books 2008
(A process-oriented alternative to Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life)
Phyllis Tickle “The Great Emergence” Jossey-Bass 2008
Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch “The Shaping of Things to Come” Hendrickson, 2003
Reggie McNeal “The Present Future- 6 tough questions for the church” Jossey Bass 2003
Graham Standish “Becoming a blessed Church” Alban Institute 2005
Marcus Borg “The Heart of Christianity” Harper Collins 2003
Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk “The Missional Leader” Jossey-Bass 2006
Brian McLaren “A new kind of Christianity” HarperOne 2010 www.brianmclaren.net

www.homebrewedchristianity.com
www.theooze.com
www.liberalevangelical.org
www.processandfaith.org

James Murray www.dc-church.org

Into A Far Country

2010-06-29T15:10:25-07:00

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.

Many have used this discontentment to manufacture satisfaction. Charlatan gurus and televangelists use this appetite for spirituality to offer trivial experience. There is a fundamental need in humanity for meaning, and deep experience, and if that is not met then we seek it in all the wrong places.

In business, and life, there are those who are called life coaches. They sit down with us and lay out what is necessary to build a life or a business. It is a expanding business.

The United Church had a big conference on June 20 weekend. Over 500 people gathered in some 100 plus groups. Most had to come to be inspired and to find ways to be a better church. So there is a desire to find our way into the future. So Churches seek out what will help them grow, as if there is a technique that provides a simple solution, a silver bullet to what ails us.

Our texts speak about a time of dislocation and switching loyalties. When we see the texts in that context, we are able to mine meaning for our times of dislocation and switching loyalties. Kings speaks about how to live in a far country. They are about healing, acceptance, hospitality and the common good. The vision of God preached in them restores the community’s well-being and overcomes those attitudes, practices and programs that drive a wedge between people.

Bruce Epperly has this to say: "The healing of Naaman asserts that healing can occur anywhere, by any practice, through any mediator, and at any pace."

Naaman finds a path to healing from an unexpected source, a Hebraic slave girl, who testifies to the power of her God. Naaman encounters an unexpected healer, Elisha, a Hebrew, who points the general to an unexpected action, a dip in nearby and rather undistinguished Jordan River.

Naaman is initially angry at the prophet for suggesting such a simple healing. But, once again, the general receives counsel from an unexpected source, his servants.

Surely, this healing encounter is a challenge to all who see healing as primarily dramatic in nature. God seeks healing in every circumstance and virtually any encounter can be a source of personal transformation, embracing body, mind, spirit, and relationships. God’s aim at healing is both intimate and universal.

When we say “yes” to Christ’s question, “do you want to be healed?” a lively and expanding world of healing possibilities opens up for us. Most of these are, like the Jordan River, right in front of us.

This deep seeking is a trust in a God who is experienced in human relationships Such seeking awakens us to new life and possibility for transformation. Opening ourselves to God through protest and pain as well as petition and praise enables God to be more directly present in our lives as we move from "disorientation" to "new orientation." (Brueggemann)

Luke’s gospel portrays Jesus’ followers going out into the world with no safety net. They are sent out into a far country without backup plans. What they do have are the symbols of holy hospitality. It is not about food handed out at the door. It is a recognition of the truth of we get by relaying on the kindness of strangers. (Blanche Dubois in a street car called desire.)

In our texts we get a wider sense of a world community - no us against them -we are all moving to a far country where those things that divide are broken down. Inclusion and restoration of the stranger, the enemy general into the protective custody of God, these are the values that matter. The alien belongs to God.

The public space is also personal space. in a shared reality. The symbolic and actual eating together evokes an attitude of hospitality. "Whenever you enter a house, eat the food offered." This is an act that heals - redefines hospitality. The old idea was one could only eat proper and sacred food. Now what counts is openness to the otherness of reality. The companions of Jesus are sent out into a far country with only one attitude - inclusion.

This is the attitude of seeking well-being for others and that seeking heals not only the other but oneself.

We feel this truth intuitively when we speak of giving good vibes or praying for others who are different and often at a distance. We know that envy and hatred beget broken relationships; we have felt that even in our families. We know what heals is care of the other, and that care also heals us.

George Hermanson
www.georgehermanson.com

Forgiveness

2010-06-11T10:07:48-07:00

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.

Simon, a man of wealth has offered Jesus a tainted invitation. Jesus is on display as this quaint rural rabbi, new on the scene. There is a disdaining attitude. They know he has been making a fuss in the area. He is known to be suggesting that the kingdom of God is opposed to the Roman Empire.

Into the room bursts a woman, whose reputation is known to all. They are scandalized by her presence. First because she is a woman and this is not her place. Moreover because of what they know about her. She should not be there. Simon is contemptuous of her, suggesting she is a prostitute. She should not be there.

The scandal is increased as she pours out fine ointment. She touches Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her tears, drying them with her hair. An act so intimate - personal. The most intimate act a woman could do to a man. Simeon responds with viciousness. In the protocol of the times Jesus should have responded with horror. And he doesn’t. Simon is affronted by Jesus’ response. As far as he concerned, he has been dishonoured.

Jesus recognizes the negativity around him. Jesus offers folk tale. He catches Simeon because Simeon knows the answer. He knows in a transactional world the greater the debt the greater is the forgiveness and the gratitude.

Luke wants us to identify with Simeon. He is rule bound. He knows what hospitality is. Yet he has not done what he ought to have done. He forgot the first rule of hosting. As well, he is repulsed by an act of Holy Hospitality. He is caught by his world view, what he thinks is proper religiously and socially. He has tried to domesticate Jesus.

Jesus welcomes the woman. He is not worried about her past. He is only concerned with her future. He responds in unexpected ways. This is the character of the God he worships. A God of holy hospitality where the boundaries are broken. A God whose first concern is Grace and forgiveness.

Jesus addresses the issue of need. What does this woman need? It is forgiveness and being thanked for her boldness. He reminds the listener that compassion and persuasion create an open future. This is a challenge to transactional values. Transactional values are where “ if you do this for me I will do that for you.” No. It is a Grace that is given with no strings attached.

This confronts our tidy world where we like the transactional values. Like Simon we are challenged by this view of unlimited grace. Old habits are called into question. Old ways of thinking about the world are called into question.

When we identify with the woman we begin to see the power of love that takes us as we are. Sees within us a potential to love unlimitedly.

This is the power of the narrative for it gives us many viewpoints, and people to identify with. We are all the actors in the story. We are called to shift our identity. By identifying with Simon we can see the limits of his world view. When we identify with the woman our identity is expanded. She knows what she needs. She comes searching for healing even if causes disturbance. She has a boldness for she knows what she is doing has crossed the boundaries. She crosses over, demands inclusion.

It is important to feel this for there are many in our society who demand inclusion. Like Simeon we resist and hope those voices will be quiet - we say quietly, “Why don’t they stay in the closet?”

This narrative reminds us that Jesus knew her background and it did not matter. This is a difficult thing for us to understand. We have been schooled in the past creates our identity. The past is not our identity for in the economy of God it is the present that counts.

True, there are things in all of our pasts that we wish were not there. All of us have done things of which we are not proud. However, that is the past and the past does not determine the present or the future. It only does when we run on habits of the mind and habits can be overcome. Sure it is not an easy task to break destructive habits but we are not determined by them. An insight from cognitive behavioural therapy is, we can bring to consciousness and make visible those shadow sides of our experience. When we do,they are de-powered.

Jesus addresses the woman’s need and she is freed. She no longer needs to live out of the past realities she has assumed and others have placed on her. Jesus says to her that her coming to consciousness has broken the bounds of the past and now go in peace.

Luke is maddening because here is another story that does not follow the woman to what she does with her life. It is enough for the moment of Grace to happen, the moment when we see the world in a new way. Now it is up to us to live in holy hospitality. And the good news is that redemptions continues in each moment.

When we feel deep down this persuasive love we can to risk leaving the past behind. We are not defined by our missteps but by our attention to the present. We can create a future for ourselves and for others.

We are not always comfortable with this view of reality. There are times we want others to pay for their wrong doing. We also like to feel guilty as a punishment for our failures. It is true that there are consequences for actions. We can see that in our ecological footprint on the world. We can learn from awareness of our actions and not be caught in old ways of behaving. We can create an identity of promise.

Beginning in redemption we can engage in constructive criticism. When it is applied to an art form, the artist gets better. It is a method of criticism which suggests what is done, is in one sense good enough and in what is done are the resources to make it better. A child gives a recital and the judge begins with the strength and moves to how it could be stronger. My friend who plays jazz has got better since he plays with someone who is has pushed him and pushed the boundaries. They push one another to excellence. Building on their strengths, and potential.

Redemption breaks those definitions that keep us in bondage. Being freed we offer the hand of freedom to others. That is now our identity - our passion - our vocation.

George Hermanson
www.georgehermanson.com

What's On Your Resume

2010-06-03T19:45:50-07:00

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.

Paul is telling us about his mystical experience, his encounter with God. Many of us in the United Church hold back on sharing such crucial faith formation events. We don’t talk about a mystical experience that is foundational. We see other brands of Christians who seem to go over board and we are just more private about our resume of faith.

A change, or maybe a recovery, is the willingness of progressive Christians to speak of their mystical experiences. The pressing issue for the emerging church is to speak of the presence of God in quiet or earth shattering ways. "This is where our world was expanded and we felt God in our bodies." This experience is shaping the church for the better. Shaping us for the better.

Of course, we don’t talk too much about these experiences because someone might look at us as strange. We have been well schooled in the temper of our times. We don’t expect enchantment for our world represses enchantment. The lights come on and that is not a miracle, so we have hard time feeling a story where bushes burn and are not consumed, where the dead are raised, and people are healed.

We are cursed by a rationalism that makes it hard to jump into the biblical narrative. It is hard for some of us to see our story in the biblical narrative and see it as basic for our resume. Sure, we come each week, seeking that experience, being open to its reality. We pray and sing, we eat bread and drink wine, and we are touched by the Spirit. However, we are careful in our enthusiasm.

Ecstatic experiences can be misused, to create people who are so otherworldly they never get their feet in the muck of life. Misused it can create suicide bombers. So we hold back.

Yet we feel some hint of God’s beauty that calls to us, and calls us into making this world more beautiful. We do have a sense of God in our experience. We not always sure how to tell about it.

Jesus breaks the taboos of his time and touches the coffin. The touching of the coffin is an unexpected action. In that act new life happens. Eyes are opened. God does awe inspiring things. Lives are changed.

When we read or hear a story we often ask what happened next? In this story, though, we never hear the outcome. What does the young man do with his life? The narrative is unconcerned with that question. The concern is can we see life as it is meant to be - full of beauty and compassion and justice. I was a fan of LOST and loved the ending. However, many did not. They wanted the questions raised in the story to be wrapped up in a nice answer. No. We got an ending that fits with Luke, the action calls us to be open to surprise and finish the story for ourselves.

Think of burning bushes and think of how many times Moses walked by it before he saw it. This is what worship is about - training our eyes and bodies to see the love of God in this world, working with this world as it is to lure it to what it could be.

Some times in ordinary experience we have a moment of, "Ah ha!" where the world is transformed. Miracles are not something against nature - they are the unexpected, unprepared moments in our life where nothing told us this would happen. We were in the midst of a conversation talking about how the world is inter-related, we live in a matrix, a web of shared experience. The phone rings. Suzanne answers it. It is her brother. He never phones. He asks "Is everything o.k. - I had a feeling about you." A reminder that even when we are unconscious we are in a deep way connected.

Our problem is we walk by those moments of enchantment. If we prepare ourselves then all of sudden it is there, filling us, touching us, and we are transformed. We now know again the world is our place to live with passion.

What is on our resume? We begin with the basic fact - we are God seekers. We are those who feel a call to be in the world making it a better place. Our resume says the most important thing about us is we seek to practice our faith.

In the process of doing so, we also know we are learners, we are seeking to grow in wisdom and understanding. Our resume says we are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, so return to the source of our identity each week, to be fed and after being fed we go out to share with others what we know to be true about life - that it is full of the experiences of God.

What worship does is to help us attend to those qualities that deepen awareness about the truth of reality - that it is full of enchantment. By that I mean we see life for what really is, a relational reality full of beauty. Because it is created by relationships we know that what we do adds value to life, we make a difference to what this world will be. Our resume tells us that every act of kindness has a cumulative effect. Every act of justice making makes this world a safer place.

We know we have touched the truth of life, that there is no place that is Godforsaken. We can touch the other’s face with love because we are loved. We know deep in our being this truth and it is our resume, who we are.

We go out to share that insight that the world is not Godforsaken but full of love and God’s presences. It is only a matter of opening our eyes and minds to that reality which flows through all things.

George Hermanson
www.georgehermanson.com