This is my final sermon as a pastor: my “Swan Song,” and the final in a three week series closing out my ministry. In the first of the three sermons I I explored the bigness of God and why we must not shrink from what I call the “heretical imperative”—that is, the freedom to break the dead chains of orthodoxy when they hold us captive to lesser views and experiences of God. In the second sermon, I meditated on the truth of our common and sacred humanity, its relation to the tradition of the Incarnation, and how, in the immortal words of Victor Hugo (Les Miserables), “to love another person is to see the face of God.”

In this final and capstone sermon is based on the Gospel of John 11.32-44 and imagines what religion and religious communities need to become in the future if they are to be relevant. If they fail to live into a vision like this, not only will religion become increasingly irrelevant and harmful to humanity, but the human race will be bereft of the perennial wisdom humanity needs to be a benevolent presence on the Earth rather than an malevolent one. The video of the sermon can be found here.

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Today’s sermon is my last sermon. It may not be my last sermon ever, but it’s my last sermon as a pastor and my last sermon as your pastor.

Someone asked me this last week if I thought I’d ever pastor another congregation. I said, “Where would I go? This congregation is a crown jewel. This time with you has been the pinnacle of a career that’s spanned over thirty years. There is no other congregation I would want to serve—no other congregation I think I could serve after having been your pastor. So, no. I’d like this to be my last church. I want to remember this experience with all the fondness and wonder and sense of accomplishment that I now feel. I am immensely grateful to have been your pastor.”

Today, then, is probably my last sermon as a pastor. . . .

This is my second to last sermon as a pastor. Last week I explored the bigness of God and why we must not shrink from what I call the “heretical imperative”—that is, the freedom to break the dead chains of orthodoxy when they hold us captive to lesser views and experiences of God. Next week, July 31, 2022, I’ll preach my final sermon and explore the future of Christianity.

In this current sermon, preached at Davis Community Church on July 24, 2022, I meditate on the truth of our common and sacred humanity, its relation to the tradition of the Incarnation, and how, in the immortal words of Victor Hugo (Les Miserables), “to love another person is to see the face of God.”

The sermon is based on 1 John 4.7-12 and was preached on July 24, 2022. The video of the sermon can be found here.

Last week, I spoke with you about what I was looking for when I came among you in March 2015. This week, I want to spend some time reflecting on the key lessons I’ve learned among you. Next week, for my final sermon among you, I’ll explore what I sense we must become if we are to survive as a species and try to thrive. I’ll explore what it means to allow religious faith and spirituality to shape a way of being human that helps us live benevolently and cooperatively on the earth.

After next Sunday, I will no longer serve as a pastor, but I still believe that religion—the stories, rituals, symbols, and practices of religion—are immensely relevant. If religious ways of life can be re-imagined for the centuries ahead . . .

July 31, 2022 will be my final sermon as pastor of Davis Community Church. Below is the first of three sermons that will close my ministry as a pastor. On September 6, 2022, I’ll begin a new expression of ministry as the manager for the Center for Loss and Hope at YoloCares (formerly Yolo Hospice) At the Center for Loss and Hope, I will devote myself to the kind of work that has always given me the greatest sense of meaning and accomplishment: to work interpersonally at the intersection of life and death, loss and hope, and help people find meaning there. Here is where my gifts and experience, my interests and my passions meet the deepest human need.

In this first of three final sermons I explore the question that forms the first words Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John. The sermon is based on John 1.35-42 and was preached on July 17, 2022. The video of the sermon can be found here.

In my final three sermons I want to tell a larger story in three smaller parts. In telling this story over the next three Sundays, I want to celebrate the journey we’ve walked together, and invite each of us to continue on the journey, even though we’ll be walking separate paths.

Today is about what I was looking for as I came to you in the winter of 2015. Next Sunday will be about what I’ve found among you. And on July 31st, my last sermon, I’ll explore what I see going forward.

One larger story about us all, told in three parts.

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The story of my coming to DCC begins with a question spoken to me almost ten years ago. . . .

In this sermon, Chris Erdman, interprets Easter not as a supernatural event baffling to the rational mind, but as a potent symbol and metaphor (sympathetic to the creative mind) for natural realities that cannot be denied. When embraced these realties and truths are a source of immense hope and creativity.

Preached at the Davis Community Church, Davis, California, Easter 2022.

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I want to speak this Easter about the beauty of hope. I want to speak to those of us who may be prone these days to negativity, pessimism, and cynicism because there’s plenty to be negative, pessimistic, and cynical about. It’s not hard to be swallowed up by the ugliness, brokenness, and apparent hopelessness that flows toward us, endlessly, through the news cycle. Sometimes, the news cycle isn’t just out there; sometimes there’s news inside us that rattles around in our own brains, reported to us by those parts of us made fearful or anxious by the challenges many of us face on a personal level. It’s not hard to let these stories of woe wind their dreadful fingers around our minds, bodies, and souls. When we do, it can be hard to stay optimistic, able to see signs of life’s goodness, of hope, of beauty. . . .

Some have said that truth is the first casualty of war. No so. Truth perishes long before the first shots are fired. And lies are needed to sustain every war. Despots count on our docility, our complicity. There are signs today that tyrants and despots and strongmen have met their match in a global citizenry that are saying, “We don’t believe your lies anymore. We are tired of hatred. Something new is stirring among us.”

“Loving Truth When Falsehood Reigns” is a religious interpretation of the forces rising to stop aggression, speak truth to power, and confront falsehood. I’m not naive. People of every age have found themselves again intoxicated by the lure of mis-information, propaganda, and lies. But there can always be an awakening. And when the people awaken, they can end authoritarianism. This sermon is based on Ephesians 4.14-16 and a reading from bel hooks’ book, All About Love: New Visions. It was preached on the First Sunday of Lent, March 6, 2022.

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When my children were growing up, there were a few key messages I tried to reinforce over and over. . .