In 1968, I was two years out of college, working as a medical technologist in Arcadia, California – and very lonely. Someone told me that if you wanted to find friends (or a man) you should go to church. This advice sounded hypocritical to me. One went to church for religion not to find a partner or even friends. Churches were supposed to be places of faith and theology not dating services. Besides, I did not trust churches; they made me feel guilty because I could not believe what they taught, and those who did not believe were said to be sinners.

In high school and college I had made a systematic search for a religion I could believe in and still be true to myself, but I kept dropping lines out of the creeds until there was nothing left to say.

One day when it was slow in the lab. A new pathologist came out of his office to visit – our ususal, more distant, pathologist was on vacation and Dr. Wertlake was covering for him. We got to talking and I do not know how the subject came up but at some point he said, “You are a Unitarian and don’t know it. Look it up.” So I did. What I found was the Universalist Church in Pasadena, Throop Memorial, and the next week I visited.

At the door a Greeter warmly welcomed me with seemingly real pleasure. She made sure I found a seat and sat behind during the service. Dr. Gehr was talking about “Jesus as an Essene.” He was talking about a human Jesus, a teacher, a rabbi influenced by a small mystical Jewish sect. Jesus was the son of God, as we were all the sons and daughters of God. And his message was a message of Love and Acceptance. That was what I thought! He told the story of the Good Samaritan. He reminded us of the Golden Rule. We did not recite a creed. I’d found it!

After the service Barbara Donoho, the greeter, joined me and walked me to the fellowship hall. I told her how much I appreciated the sermon, and she said, “Well not every one agrees. We have differing opinions.” I couldn’t imagine what she was talking about. She introduced me to the Minister and a few other members, including a single guy who was also visiting. We sized each other up – it wasn’t going to work. I went back the next week, and the next; took and orientation class and joined the church just in time for the summer break. No church for two months? I’d never heard of such a thing. Dr. Gehr said (with a twinkle in his eye), That is because we believe everybody is saved and we don’t need to go to church in the summer.”

Throop Memorial was to become my home church, I checked out the Unitarian church in town, but it didn’t have quite the same feel. Throop Universalist became not only my home church but my home. I was accepted for who I was, just the way I was.

There is a saying that home is were they have to take you in. I don’t know if they had to, but they certainly did. And they stood by me during my marriage and my divorce. And when nine years later I applied to seminary they floated me a loan.

I call that radical hospitality. During the nine years I was a member of Throop they taught me about social justice, stewardship, how to be a leader, how to listen, how to speak out, how to care, how to be a Unitarian Universalist. And, I was no longer alone.

Because the first church I belonged to was Universalist in its roots, Universalism occupies a very special place in my heart, and I remember standing beside one of the long term members of that church washing dishes after an event and her telling me that when the Unitarians and the Universalist consolidated (in 1961) the Universalists loss their identity. Nobody even knew who they were anymore, nor bothered to mention their name. So recently when I had to choose a project of my Doctor of Ministry degree I decided to find out what it was that the Universalists in particular lost or gained by the formation of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

I have discovered, as is usual within our faith that not everybody agrees, but most of the Universalists I’ve interviewed do feel that they lost their identity, their schools, their cutting edge, but it is also whispered that the Universalist message is coming back, perhaps not by that name, but a renewed form of Universalism is being preached in some of our most successful pulpits. There is a hope growing in the hearts of those who remember, that it will be the Universalist message that will grow our faith in the 21st Century.

And what is that faith? What is that message?

It is a message of Hospitality and of Hope, grounded in an understanding that the human race is one whole and that all people are of one family, and that salvation is corporate (not individual). Our first principle, the one that states that “we covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person” comes directly from the Universalist’s profession of faith. It’s meaning has changed over the years; at one time it spoke to God’s love for all humanity. It was a statement that because God loved us we were/are each endowed with inherent worth and deserving of the dignity due to one beloved by God. With time it became a statement that in opposition to the doctrine of original sin, all people were born originally good. And, with still more time and experience it came to mean that each of us is born with a clean slate upon which we may write our lives. We are each capable of both good and evil and that it behooves us all to nurture the good. It also has come to mean that no matter what a person may choose, we are required to treat him or her with the dignity with which we would wish to be treated. It is a restatement of the golden rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love your neighbor as yourself and your enemy also.” To fail to nurture the good and to fail to treat even Saddam Hussein with dignity is to become no better than those we mistreat. Our principles teach that violence gives rise to violence, but love and hospitality give rise to respect and foster more love and graciousness in the world..

The Universalist message also tells us that salvation is corporate, not individual, and by that I mean that we are all living within the Interdependent Web of all Existence, and what we do or do not do has an effect on all who surround us, and all who surround them, and all who surround them, until the ripples are felt around the world and even into space, just as we feel the effects of the choices of all other parts of creation. The connectedness of our lives with all people and all creatures, great and small, and with the rocks and the air and the water and the very atoms, requires us to listen to others, to tread softly on the “Web,” and to work for justice and mercy not just for ourselves but for those we do not know and for the creatures we do not see and for the inanimate structures that support us without our knowing. This is the social gospel that goes beyond the building a just society to protecting all the earth, for it is our home. And, that is the meaning of salvation, making the broken whole, blessing and healing the world.

Such a message of universal responsibility would be not only impossible but unbearable just to think about except that none of us is expected to shoulder the whole burden. The prophet Micah told us that all that is required of us is to love mercy, do justice, and to walk humbly with your God. For you and me that means that we do the best we can to offer compassion and welcome to those we meet, and to seek justice in a troubled world one baby step at time.

Dennis quotes DeWitt Jones (a photographer and inspirational speaker) as saying, “If you can’t make a difference, you can still make a contribution.” And that is our message. With each of us making our contribution of welcome, of nurture, of compassion, of justice, of hospitality and hope we can become a movement which will change the world.

Rob Hardies (the Minister of All Souls in DC) told two stories in his John Murray Lecture at General Assembly last year which I would like to share with you.

He told the story of a man standing on Boston Common on a cold and wintry day; a man who had lost all faith in himself and his world. The man had hit bottom, he felt that he had no options left so he determined to descend into the subway station, buy a token for the T and then end his life by throwing himself on the third rail. His decision made, he trudged across the Common past the Church on the corner and was just five feet from the subway entrance when he heard a voice say, “Welcome!” He paused, “Welcome!”

An usher standing on the steps of the Unitarian Universalist Church, bundled against the cold stuck, out his hand and said “Welcome.” The man thought that perhaps going into a Church before he committed suicide might be a good idea, so he took the usher’s hand, entered the Sanctuary and seated himself in the corner furthest from the front. Rob says that he doesn’t know what the preacher said that day (and he wishes he did) but whatever it was touched the man just as the usher’s hand had touched him, and he stayed to become one of the most loyal staunch supporters of that church to this very day. This was a gesture of hospitality, says Reverend Hardies, that made a difference. And it made a difference that spread beyond the doors of that church, for that man has stretched out his hand and said welcome to many others over the years.

When I heard that story, I thought of the Greeter who welcomed me at the door of Throop Church in Pasadena so many years ago. I was not contemplating suicide, I was merely lonely, and I might say, looking for a life. Her act of hospitality gave me that new life, one that I never would have suspected. And, I hope that my hospitality has touched others, passing the ripples along the Interconnected Web, eventually making a difference.

Our religion has been in the past, perhaps, overly optimistic. Our Unitarian side declared that human progress would be “onward and upward forever.” And our Universalist side believed that we would create heaven on earth, but we are at least 300 years older and wiser now and instead of optimism we have hope. Our belief in an omnipotent God who would change everything to good has shifted to an immanent spark within each and every one of us, a capacity, luring us toward the good, calling us to fulfill our highest potential. And we have learned patience. Social change, like heaven, will take a long, long time and a lot of hard, coordinated work; and, it may not look like what we expect it to be when it gets here. But we have hope.

Hope is something that we do not give up. Hope calls us forth and unites us in our causes. Rob Hardies told another story in his lecture, this one about John Murray, himself.

When John Murray arrived on that sand bar in New Jersey, he was in despair. His wife and children had died, he had been thrown into debtors prison. He was escaping to a new life in America, where he vowed he would never preach again, and then his ship ran aground! Sheesh!

But, as he struggled ashore to find food and water for himself and his shipmates, he is met by Thomas Potter, who said, “Come my friend, I have longed to see you. I’ve been expecting you for a long time. Welcome.”

Rob says, “Potter’s faith met Murray’s despair.” “Universalism,” he says, “arises out of the intersection of hope and despair.”

When you think about it, we don’t really need hope when things are going well, but when we are in despair, hope may be all we have got, and Universalism has always had hope to spare. The hope offered by a loving God, hope apparent in the indomitable human spirit, hope residing in the capacity for good in every person, hope for a world made fair and all her people one by the sheer force of radical hospitality.

In Universalism everybody is welcome. It does not matter if you are rich or poor; you are welcome. It does not matter if you are Gay or straight; you are welcome. It does not matter if you are man or woman, adult or child; you are welcome. It does not matter where you are from or where you live now; you are welcome. It does not matter the color of your skin, or your education, or even your religion; you are welcome. The essence of Universalism from the beginning is that God loves everybody; we are all saved. It does not matter how you define that metaphor today, because our faith tells us everybody has worth, everybody has promise, everyone deserves respect, and everyone is welcome.

“Come my friend, I have longed to see you. I’ve been expecting you for a long time. Welcome.” That is the faith for the 21st Century.