The Great Universalist Miracle

September 24, 2006
Westminster Unitatian Church
Rev. Barbara Fast


OPENING WORDS
This poem was given to me by a 4th generation UU who recalled to me how she would stand beside her beloved grandma at Sunday Services, and what a powerful Religious Education she received because her grandmother steadfastly refused to sing the word “God” in any of the hymns yet she knew her grandmother to be a deeply spiritual, ethical and religious human being.

EPIPHANY BY PAM KREMER

Lyn Schmidt says
She saw you once as prairie grass
Nebraska Prairie grass.
She climbed out of her car on a hot highway
Leaned her butt on the nose of her car
Looked out over one great flowing field
Stretching beyond her sight until the horizon came
Vastness she says
Responsive to the slightest shift of the wind
Full of infinite change
All One.
She says when she cannot pray
She calls up Prairie Grass.
 
SERMON: The Great Universalist Miracle
This sermon was prompted by a question one of you asked during candidating week. I was asked what Unitarian Universalist figures inform my ministry. In seeking my answer I realized that the UU ministers that we read about in history books were those with ministries beyond the parish. Most parish ministers do not make the history books. Having said that,  I bring you two stories of UNIVERSALIST lives that call us to proclaim our faith to the world, to carry the flames of peace and love, that are inherent in our hearts out into this world. 

These lives light my path, guide my voyage, and called me forth into ministry, into the world. Without them I would not be here with you in this pulpit.
The operative date is September 30, 1770.  We begin with ships, sand bars, new life and liberty. The day of the Great Universalist Miracle.  Who said we don’t have holidays?

FIRST: A brief refresher:  We know too well in this new century, as in centuries past, that how human beings imagine god’s nature or believe god to be, creates our reality. I am certain that each of you has a god or two that you do not believe in.

For better, or for worse, human images of god can bring light or darkness. These days there is an incendiary nature to religion.

But, This is my Universalist Sermon. If you have heard it before, do not let that get in your way. The good stories are worth retelling because we are never the same. 

Early Christians reflected and reasoned about the nature of God and some chose a God that loves Universally over a God that damns human beings to Hell for eternity.

Universalism was an early Christian belief in the ultimate salvation of all – Universal Salvation. As things got organized, this was challenged within the Church Structures in the 3rd century and declared a heresy in the 5th. Thus this idea was driven underground until the 16 century. You did not preach it. You did not teach it. You did not speak it.

Universal Salvation means Love trumps power.  Love Trumps fear.  Which brings me to John Murray.

Have you ever wanted to quit the world? Have there been times in your life when despair filled your soul, divided you from your capacity to care, cut you off from hope.

Have you ever endured your own personal Hell:  That dark place, where you deny yourself light, help. Where you are separated from what you love, overcome by grief, or, perhaps sick from shame. Adrift. 

In 1770 that is where John Murray found himself. He wrote  “[I was] sick of the world and all which it could bestow” and short of suicide, he wanted to “quit the world”  and  ‘bury himself’ – The closest he could come was to bury himself in America.  (M.10) In London, he boarded a ship bound for America.

Murray grew up in England with creature comforts.  His father, like all parents, was his first teacher, of religious education.  John was taught the logic of the Calvinism of his day.

This is my oversimplified but useful version because it gives us an insight into the Puritans that founded America. Start  with the idea that God is all knowing and all powerful.  If God “knows” all, God knows, before you are born, before you are conceived, whether you are saved or damned and there is nothing you can do about it. 

Then they developed this scarcity model of Salvation.  Few are saved. Heaven has limited seating. They reasoned, since this world is an imperfect mirror of heaven if you are financially well off, if you are successful in this life, economic indicators reflect the possibility that you are among the ‘elect” those who are saved. Such good luck, in this life, reflects God Grace.  Then as now, few are wealthy. Thus, few are Saved. If you were poor, were not among the elect. You lacked God’s grace and there was nothing to be done, but grieve and repent, your eternal misery.  John Murray’s father constantly warned him of the  “endless misery” of the damned.  As if life weren’t hard enough without that.

Amazingly enough, John still had a religious bent.  By  age 27, he was happily married, and a new father. He preached occasionally and came in contact with those investigating a ‘new” strain of Christianity, Universalism.  He studied their arguments and could not find a flaw in their reasoning. However, back then preaching Universalism was not a great way to earn a living.

 At 28, trouble came. His baby son died.  His wife died. Then his brother died, then three of his sisters died.  Then he was sentenced to an indefinite term in debtor’s prison.  He served some time. Finally a family member got him out. 

He set out to ‘bury himself’ in America.  He set sail for NY Harbor.  Alone. And Good Luck found him.  Good luck is just another name for Grace.  

His ship ran aground a sand bar, off of Good Luck Point in NJ.   Murray went in search for enough food to last until the wind changed.  That is how John Murray met Old Thomas Potter. Potter was a farmer of Quaker roots and with a Universalist in bent.    

Year's before Potter had built a chapel. Potter was certain, he had strong faith, he was persistently hopeful, despite neighborly ridicule, that God would grace him. God would send him preacher who would bring the message of Universal salvation.  Universal Grace.

Remember Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese? “You do not have to be good. You only have to let ….[ yourself]  love...” Potter was not going to let this Godsend sail away silent.  Potter insisted that Murray stay and preach on Sunday.

Murray resisted.  Then he relented on one condition. It was up to the wind. If the wind did not change, it was Providence. If the ship could not sail, Murray would preach.

John Murray remembered it this way in his journal: 

"Mr. Potter was positive the wind would not change ... Most ardently did I desire to escape. ... The idea of a crowd, of making a public exhibition of myself, was, to my desolate, woe worn mind, intolerable; and the suspense in which I was held was perfectly agonizing.

One moment ... the path ... seemed to brighten upon me; but the next, the difficulties, from within and without, obscured the prospect. ... resolved] to shelter myself, in solitude, from the hopes and fears and the various contentions of men."

Then the night before the sermon, the night of the 29th of September, the wind still had not changed. Murray writes,   
“I had no rest through the night. What should I say? How address the people?”
( Let me tell you, I have been there some Saturdays.)    

Then Sunday morning Murray goes into the chapel and sees Potter.   
" ...surely, no man upon this side of Heaven, was ever more completely happy. [Potter] looked up to the pulpit with eyes sparkling with pleasure; it appeared to him as the fulfillment of a promise long deferred; and he reflected, with abundant consolation; on the strong faith, which he had cherished.”  It was Sunday morning, September 30, 1770.

The sermon was called: Universal Grace.

Its doctrine: There is nothing we can do on this earth that would cause a loving God, to punish us with eternal damnation.  We are all reconciled in the end. We all find our way to our one true original and eternal home.  Murray preached. Then the wind changed.

Potter’s faith restored Murray's. Called Murray out of his own despair and self- involvement, called him into his true divine self.  Congregations, congregants, congregational life does that. For ministers. For congregants.  "Good congregations & good ministers create one another." Rev. Jack Mendelson

Murray sailed on, to NY, into his reborn calling. The one he had resisted, the one he had lost faith in. Grace never loses faith with us.
All was not well. All is never all well. There are no happily ever afters. Life is hard. It just is. John Murray’s life was not an easy one.  The doctrine of Universal Love inspired hate in others… Boston papers accused Murray of “preaching damnable doctrines”.

Murray had a healthy sense of irony. When he took to a pulpit in Boston, and stones were thrown through a window near the pulpit he is said,  "this argument is solid and weighty, but it is neither rational nor convincing.”"

On another such occasion he said “not all the stones in Boston , except they stop my breath, shall shut my mouth or arrest my testimony”

He recounts a time as a minister when, as he walked 9 miles to preach to his congregation, he was accompanied by another minister, walking to his congregation. 

Murray writes of their conversation. I begin with Murray’s question.
"I asked him how many his congregation contained?
About a hundred.
How many of this hundred do you suppose are elected to everlasting life?
I cannot tell.
Do you believe 50 are elected?
Oh no, nor twenty.
Ten perhaps?
There may be ten.
Do you think the non elect can take any step to extricate themselves from the tremendous situation, in which the decrees of heaven have placed them?
Oh no. They might as well attempt to pull the stars from the firmament of heaven.
And do you think your preaching can assist them?
Certainly not: every sermon they hear will sink them deeper and deeper in damnation!
And so you walk nine miles every Saturday to sink 90 persons out of a hundred deeper and deeper into never ending misery!”

(No wonder they had to attend church. Who would come to hear that voluntarily!)

Most Americans believe in Hell. A US News and World report indicates that   64% of people the US believe in Hell, 23% do not and  9% are unsure.   

I went to the Web. There are  31, 497, 085 sites for HEAVEN to 34 593 012 for HELL.  Some for Heaven are as follows: “Welcome to Heaven- Palm Springs” and "Looking for Heaven? Find exactly what you want today on E bay.”  As for Hell, there is a Hell, Michigan. Which says, Welcome to the only Hell in the USA. But I am not so sure about that. And Hell also has its auction site: From Hell- hot auction site.

Some things don’t change. You have to be carefully taught, to fear. As you can tell, Unitarian Universalism is not a fear based religion.  
Murray persisted courageously preaching Universal salvation and the everlasting love of God into the 1800’s even though he barely escaped being lynched several times.

He not only persisted, he gave thanks. He gave thanks for the “religious liberty of the country of my adoption.”  He gave thanks for the “religious liberty” he found in America. He gave thanks for his freedoms.

Liberty is part of our Universalist Heritage.  From the call for the abolition of slavery in 1790 to the Marriage Equality movement, Universal Grace has moved the cause of freedom. It is the foundation for our 1st Principle, The inherent worth and dignity of every person.  Universalists were the first national denomination to ordain a woman, Olympia Brown in 1863.  She was still marching for suffrage at age 80.

There may have been a miracle September 30 1770 but there are other miracles awaiting us.  If they were here, they would say to you that Universalism is a faith for the 21st Century.  It is a faith for when we are ready to quit this world or when we feel lost at sea.  If you feel wretched and sick at heart look to it. Look to this faith. Its light shines with in you. That is Your inherent worth and dignity. Its foundation, Universal Grace. 

What is the great Universalist Miracle today?  The Great Universalist Miracle is that we are alive. You and I have been graced with life. And when that epiphany hits When we get it – when that light turns on within us- like a light bulb..the question becomes, what do we do with it? How will we grace the world. What will you do?

The definition of epiphany is a “sudden perception of the essential nature of something: an illuminating discovery.” An epiphany is when the light bulb lights up! In our heart.  John Newton , who wrote lyrics to Amazing grace ( 1725-1807)

Newton captained a ship that carried free African people into slavery and during a  fearful storm he prayed, he called up Grace, and made a promise. If they did not perish, he would turn his life around. And when the storm abated and he did not die- he kept his promise- he gave up his living. He gave up trading in slaves.  Amazing!

We live in this world. We are graced, so we must grace this world.

I said there were two Universalist lives in my sermon. Can you guess who is at the heart of this sermon? You are!  Can you see?  The Grace within you?  Your inherent worth. Your fundamental dignity. Let it shine. For God sake let it shine! For your sake and mine, let it shine. For those not yet here. For those who are lost, but long to be found.

Let the flame of your spirit shine. No matter the times in the world or in your heart, no matter the tide of public opinion, or fearful tide swelling in your breast. 

 The miracle is that life offers us opportunities every day to speak out for, stand up for, march for, pray for and, yes, even vote for, our Universalist values.  The miracle is that we still called to participate in the promise of Universalism, with John Murray and Olympia Brown.  When we know in our bones we are loved, we cannot help but love.  Stand by this faith. Work for it. Sacrifice for it. It will comfort you in time of sorrow, strengthen you for noble duty & make the world beautiful.    

Shall we?  Carry the flame?  The flame of our values and our faith. Shall we? Give people something of our vision?  We have all the good luck a body could want.  Shall we?

CLOSING WORDS OF JOHN MURRAY

Go out into the highways and byways of America…give people something of your new vision…You possess only a small light but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men[and women] give them not hell but hope and courage .
Rev. John Murray


Works quoted: Cassara, Robinson, &


Copyright Barbara Fast 2006
May be used with attribution.


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