COMING HOME

September 30, 2007

Rev. Arthur Lavoie

READING

Mark Mosher DeWolfe –

Know that the love which blooms inside you is stronger than fear, for people who love find strength they didn’t know they had.  Know that the love inside you is stronger than illness, for people who love hang in when physical health is gone.  And know that love is indeed stronger than death, for people who love are like stones tossed into a pool.  The circles of love radiate out and echo back long after the stone has come to rest on the bottom.  So remember your love as a source of strength; remember who you are: lovers tossed by these difficult times.

RESPONSIVE READING  #610

Where in our hearts is that burning of desire?

It is true that we are made of dust

And the world is also made of dust.

But the dust has motes rising.

Whence comes that drive in us?

We look to the starry sky

And love storms in our hearts.

Whence comes that storm?

The journey of love is a very long journey.

But sometimes with a sigh you can cross a vast desert.

Search and search again without loosing hope;

You may find sometime a treasure on your way.

My heart and my eyes are all devoted to the vision.

                                                                                    Mohammed Iqbal

SERMON

Thomas A. Dorsey was a successful pianist, blues singer and gospel songwriter, regarded by many today as the father of gospel music.  Much of his music reflected his spirituality and identified him as a man of faith.  Yet, when his wife died in childbirth and his infant son the following day, he was confronted with a crisis of faith.

He could have rejected his faith, railed against God for taking his wife and son, and questioned how he could have been given so much grief to carry.  And, he may have experienced this dark night in his soul.

But, what emerged out of his experience of pain and grief, what was birthed out of his sorrow and loss was the beautiful hymn which Michael sang for us earlier, Precious Lord, Take My Hand. 

Instead of rejecting his faith, he went deeper into it, crying out to his God for help and support.  “Take my hand,” he wrote, as if to say, “I can not bear this alone.”  “Hear my cry, hear my call, hold my hand lest I fall, take my hand, Precious Lord, lead me home.”

At the place of our deepest longing, in the midst of our most profound pain, the healing that we look for is something that he calls “home.”  There is that old saying, “home is where the heart is.”  I think we should probably have another saying which goes, “home is where the heart longs to be.”

In the midst of any personal tragedy, pain and loss, there is always the tendency to give up, to close our hearts and let our sorrow make us bitter.  And yet, hopefully, this quickly passes and in our heart of hearts we know we must go on.  We must choose to live our lives and to find new meaning in what has happened.  We must not let the grief, or pain, or fear overwhelm us. 

We must look to whatever foundation we stand upon in order to make the decisions that affect our lives.  What is the source of our vision?  From where do we draw our strength? our hope?  our courage?

For me, some of the answers come from our Universalist tradition and I’ll be doing a series of sermons this year that reflect on that tradition.  I begin this morning with the story of John Murray.

Now, in the eighteenth century, Calvinism had become the dominant theological position of the day.  Calvinism basically taught that God was judge and that human beings were totally depraved and unworthy.  According to this theology, most human beings are doomed to suffer eternal punishment and damnation because of their sinfulness. 

But God, in goodness and mercy would choose an elect few to be saved.  These lucky ones would feel the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives, which would manifest itself in the experience of ecstatic conversion.

John Murray was a Calvinist and a lay Methodist preacher in the 1750’s and he heard that some people were talking about this Universalist theology that claimed that all men and women, not just a few, are saved by God.  This was a truly radical position and John Murray took it upon himself to read the leading Universalist text of the day so that he could effectively preach against this new theology. 

Lo and behold, his reading led to his own conversion and he then felt called to preach about Universal salvation.  He took this incredible risk, this leap of faith, and then his whole life fell apart.  He could not convince his colleagues of his Universalist message and was excommunicated from the Methodist church.  His wife and child died in a plague or epidemic, and he subsequently spent time in debtors’ prison. 

Talk about a dark night of the soul.  He had risked everything for his new faith and was only met by loss, and pain, and tragedy.  “What kind of a loving God was this after all?” he must have thought.

So, after his release from prison, he decided that he would never preach again.  He set sail for the American colonies to start a new life.

The ship on which he was sailing ran aground at a place called Good Luck, New Jersey on Barnegat Bay.  While waiting for a strong wind to be able to sail again, Murray and some of the crew went ashore to purchase much needed supplies.

After coming ashore they spotted a little chapel out in the middle of a field.  Curious about it, they came across the farmer, Thomas Potter, who owned the field and they asked him about the chapel.  Thomas Potter said that he had heard of this new idea of universal salvation that a few people were talking about in nearby Philadelphia.  He had built this chapel so that itinerant Universalist preachers passing through the area would have a place to preach to him, his family, and his neighbors.  And by the way, he asked, “were there any Universalist preachers on board that ship?”

“Well,” John Murray replied, “I used to be a Universalist preacher but I’m not doing that anymore.”

“Oh,” Potter replied, “You must preach in my chapel, then.”

“No,” John said, “as soon as the wind comes up our ship is about to set sail.”

Potter thought for a minute.  “If there is no wind by Sunday morning, will you preach for us?”

John Murray reluctantly agreed, and assumed that by Sunday he would be long gone from this place.

By Sunday morning there had been barely a breeze.  And on Sunday, September 30, 1770, John Murray preached about Universal Salvation in the little church in Thomas Potter’s field in Good Luck, New Jersey.

Afterwards he was inspired to carry the Universalist message up and down the coast, eventually taking a parish in Gloucester Massachusetts, and later settling in Boston where he was the leading spokesperson for Universalism for many years. 

John Murray’s story is like any of the great epic legends.  Someone who is searching, or hurting, or struggling in some way takes a journey, searches for meaning.  The journey is more often an inward spiritual or psychological one rather than actual physical trip. 

On this journey, the traveler encounters obstacles; trials and tests, and then she or he finds enlightenment, or healing, or wholeness.  It is John Murray’s story.  It is Thomas Dorsey’s story.  It is all of our story.  And it is the journey home.

Home is the place where we can truly be ourselves.  It is the place that accepts us for who we are, nurtures us in our growth, challenges us to clarify our values, and then sends us forth to work in the world.

Home is that place which affirms our inner being, and holds us in our joy and grieving.  Home can have many forms and it is to this place, this state of being, that we return again and again.

It is in communities such as this one, First Parish Church in Dorchester that we find home.  It is here that many of you have found the spiritual sustenance for which you have searched.  It is here that we return for the hope and courage to continue on with our lives in the midst of both tragedy and joy. 

This state of feeling at home can have many characteristics.  But, love is the essence of home

The hallmark of our Universalist heritage is our insistence in the saving power of love.  Love is the ground that we stand upon; knowing, believing that all people, including ourselves, are born in goodness and love.  Our Universalist theology tells us that God is equated with love and that the healing and wholeness that love brings is available to all. 

I believe that love is ultimate reality, the goodness of an abundant and benevolent universe, which many call God.  Love is the home for which our hearts and souls yearn.  It is a powerful response from our deepest being and it encompasses the source from which all life flows.  To love is ultimately to reach beyond oneself into the larger community and the universal beyond.  Love is by its very nature relational, the place between, the place which connects us to each other and to the larger universe. 

Love is the force which calls us into deep relationship, a relationship that accepts and yet critically evaluates everything against the standard of goodness and worth which this love holds as its ideal.  Love lives most deeply at the center, the center of our own hearts, the center of our families, the center of this community, the center of any place we call home.

For John Murray, his new life in the colonies began two hundred and thirty-seven years ago, on this very day, September 30, 1770, when the wind did not change and, against his own better judgment, he preached a Universalist sermon in the little chapel in Thomas Potter’s field in Good Luck, New Jersey.

Two hundred and thirty-seven years ago, the power of Universal love and salvation healed his own aching heart and renewed his faith and his call.

Two hundred and thirty-seven years ago John Murray came home.  He found home in a place he had never been before.  Yet, in the depths of his being - he knew this place and was welcomed with open arms.

What is it that your hearts and souls long for?

What pain and sorrow do you carry within that prevents you from being your own authentic self? 

What fear and woundedness inhibits you from reaching out and accessing the deep pools of divine love and grace that are always abundantly available to you?

Elizabeth M. Strong writes:

Where the heart stirs,

            there moves Universalism.

The center holds us

            within its transformative power of love.

We know with a wholeness of spirit

            that God is love,

            that life is good,

            that people are created for goodness out of love,

            that in the final reckoning

                        all shall be one.

When we hurt, when we are broken, when we become separated:

            Let us seek the center which holds us.

            Let us remember the goodness for which we were created.

            Let us be open to the transformative power of love

                        that moves within the heart of life,

                                    and be whole once again.

Blessed Be

and Welcome Home

BENEDICTION

Our Benediction comes from the words of John Murray:

Go out into the highways and by-ways of America, your new country. 

Give the people, blanketed with a decaying and crumbling Calvinism, something of your new vision. 

You may 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. 

Do not push them deeper into their theological despair,

but preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.