In Matthew chapter nine, we see Jesus walking along. He has just healed a paralyzed man and he sees a man sitting in a booth, a tax collector, and he said, “Follow me.”
This man called Matthew did just that. He didn’t say, “Oh, I have to bring my money to the Roman magistrate,” or “Let me lock up the tax collection,” or “Just a minute, I have to finish.” No, the Gospel tells us he got up and followed Jesus.
It calls to mind the several different stories where Jesus called someone to follow him and they had an excuse. One man said, “Someone in my family had died, I have to go bury them.” Another said, “I have to go tell everyone goodbye.” And the rich man walked away because he was rich, and he couldn’t let go of his money. Jesus called, but they did not answer.
But there were many others who did. The disciples and then there was a larger group surrounding the disciples who were called, simply, Jesus’ followers. And they were all there because of the Jesus’ message. A message of hope... A message of inclusion… Hope that life could be better for everyone…
Jesus knew he alone did not have the strength or the energy to share that message with everyone he knew needed to hear it. So he asked his followers to go out and preach the word. He sent them all out, two by two, the twelve, the seventy-two. All who would take his message, he sent them out.
It was the message that went beyond the Law. We know Jesus did not believe his message did away with the law of his tribe. He insisted, all along, that he came to fulfill the law.
He couldn’t have made his message any clearer than the story of the wedding banquet in Matthew chapter 22. Those who were invited to the wedding were too busy to come. Now, Matthew uses some pretty graphic language to say what the king did to those guests who didn't show. Don't want to turn down his invitations! Now, what Matthew is saying here metaphorically, is that when we don't answer God's call, we are really hurting ourselves. However, we know, if we don't answer that call, God always gives us another opportunity to serve!
So, the king sent his servants out and invited everyone else, the marginalized, the sick, the lame, the lepers—everyone who was normally kept from the table by culture or the law or illness.
Now when Jesus lived, they could believe in this message. But after he died… it was hard to believe in the hope Jesus promised for the here and now.
Scholars tell us that after Jesus died, the Message was expanded. His followers began to see that they had to live in hope for now, but they also saw the message in the face of eternity.
They shared this message of hope with so many, that a new religion was born, right beside the old religions. And that message was so powerful, that it became one of the world’s great religions.
It went beyond the tribes of Israel to the Gentiles. They carried the message to Isle of Britain, throughout Europe, and as far East as it would go.
Scholars tell us, that in the first 400 years of that message it was a universal message—everyone could live in hope and everyone could die in hope.
There were small voices, very small voices, that said, wait, there might not be universal salvation in Jesus’ message, but they were not loud enough for most people to hear. It wasn’t until the late sixth century, in the time of Emperor Justinian I that the voices for eternal damnation began to speak up. They were so loud, in fact, that they were screaming eternal punishment throughout the darkest time of western civilization, the Middle Ages.
Finally, the voices of enlightenment and religious reformation began to be heard in the sixteenth century. Finally, questions were asked, Luther wrote his demands and nailed them to the front door of the Roman church.
As the reformation progressed, as the Bible was set to type, common people began to read the words written so long ago. Before long, there were as many different kinds of Christian churches as there were in those long ago days after Jesus died. And over time there came the Puritans, who traveled a long journey over the Atlantic Ocean to a place they named New England. They founded the Congregational churches and from those churches we have many other churches. The first ones though, who came out of the Congregational churches were the Baptists, the Unitarians, and the Universalists. True, all three were influenced by religious leaders who came from Europe, but our forbearers here, are the Congregationalists.
Jesus’ message of inclusion lived somehow, throughout the years of the dark Middle Ages, and found loud voices in these American colonies. By 1793, a group of people who called themselves Universalists, gathered in Oxford, Massachusetts. Here is how Rev. Charles Howe in his book The Larger Faith A Short History of American Universalism described that meeting.
They gathered “for a day of preaching, prayer, fellowship, mutual support, and organizational business. Those present called their meeting a ‘General Convention’ of the ‘Universal Churches and Societies in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and New York’ and although they could not have know it at the time, their meeting marked the beginning of a new denomination.”
It was around this time that John Murray the Father of American Universalism preached these words we have heard already this morning.
“Go out into the highways and byways 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. … preach the kindness and ever lasting love of God.”
You see, while the light of Universalism never went out, and even though there were many “reformed churches,” it was and is still hard for humankind to let go of eternal damnation in their Christian faith. During the reformation, it was preached most loudly by Calvin of the Presbyterians, and that is why it is called Calvinism.
But the free church of universalism led by John Murray preached just as loudly as the Calvinist. And at one time, there were a lot of Universalist churches on the east coast from Maine to the Carolinas, and over into the southern United States—all the way into Mississippi.
Scholars tell us that beginning in the early 1900s, many of the mainline churches like the Congregationalists, the Methodists, and the Episcopalians lowered their voices on eternal damnation, and because there were more of those churches than there were of Universalist churches, many who believed in Universalism joined there.
Universalism was declining when the Universalist Church of America merged with the American Unitarian Association in 1961.
Now, in those mainline churches today there are many members and yes, many ministers, who believe in Universal salvation; they just don’t preach it from the pulpit, yet.
There are other voices of Universalism in the United States today. There are even fundamental churches with fundamental preachers who still believe in a literal translation of the Bible who are preaching Universalism. If you were to search the web for Universalist organizations in the United States today, you would find more than you could research probably a year, I would think.
And because I am a Universalist minister, preaching Jesus’ message of inclusive kingdom, I was invited to join the board of Christian Universalist Association. I am proud to say that I am a part of an inclusive, ecumenical movement of Universalism.
What is Universalism for us here at UNMC? Our congregational theology is the Universalism we speak of in our Declaration of Faith, a belief in a final harmony of all souls with God.
But that is not the only Universalism in our church—hope for the hereafter. We live out Jesus’ message hope for the here and now. Everyone is invited to our table. We do not give lip service to our beliefs; we live them. We welcome each other and our guests each and every Sunday and in our church life. We really believe we are trying to create a loving community for worship and service in the spirit of Jesus Christ. We really do respect individual beliefs.
There is one group of our sisters and brothers that we cannot welcome as we want to, and that is because of our building. We are not handicapped accessible. We have the accommodation of a wheelchair lift, but our building and each floor in our building is not accessible. We are committed to accessibility; we have people in building and grounds that deeply care.
You ask, “Rev. Henley, is that what Jesus’ message about God’s Kingdom is?” An accessible church?
Yes. We have to keep in mind Jesus included everyone in his ministry—the sick, the lepers, and the marginalized. We have to keep in mind with whom Jesus had supper. “… tax collectors and ‘sinners’ came and ate with him and his disciples…” at Matthew’s house.
In the long-range architectural plan there is an elevator. There are drawings for an accessible entrance, an elevator, and a wheelchair lift into the sanctuary.
Every so often, I ask you the congregation to pray for more children in our church. And it works. Why just last week, the McNabb’s had a baby, Oliver Merritt. Who knows who will bring the next child into our lives?
Well, it is time we begin to pray about accessibility. We need to pray for God’s guidance in our building and grounds deliberation. We need to pray for God’s strength and energy to pursue this challenging goal. And we need to pray for the abundance of spirit and finances that we will need to make UNMC truly accessible.
What about John Murray’s eighteenth century words? Are they for us? Yes. We see Jesus’ call clearly in Murray’s words.
“Go out into the highways and byways … Give the people… something of your … vision. You may possess only a small light but uncover it, let it shine…”
And if we don’t answer the call because we think we are not good enough, strong enough, wise enough, smart enough, think about Matthew. He was a tax collector. How bad is that in the first century? I’m not referring to anyone here who may work for the IRS. And Jesus’ disciple Peter, he didn’t even understand what Jesus was all about, he was present at Gethsemane the night before Jesus was crucified and he didn’t get it, and then he denied knowing Jesus three times. Jesus calls us.
The spiritual the choir sang this morning, “This Little Light of Mind?” I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Put it under a bushel, “NO” I’m gonna let it shine
Hide it under a bed, “NO” I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine
Blessed be and amen.
The Readings
Matthew 9:9-12
The Calling of Matthew
9As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
12On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
Matthew 22:1-10
The Parable of the Wedding Banquet
1Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2"The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
4"Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.'
5"But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
8"Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not desire to come. 9Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' 10So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.