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Why I am a Universalist

Sermon by Peter Terpenning
April 10, 2005
I Peter, I Corinthians 13, Psalm 116

            I think I have always been a Universalist. When I look back I can’t remember a time when I truly accepted the idea that only the Christians were going to heaven. I know I never entertained the idea that only certain Christians were going to heaven. I have been telling a joke a long time about the man touring heaven with St. Peter and they come to a door where beautiful music is flowing out, and the man starts to peer inside when St. Peter quickly shuts the door in his face and puts his finger to his lips. The man asks; "Who are those people making such beautiful music and praising God?" St. Peter leads them away from the door saying, "those are the Apostolic Baptists (you fill the blank) and they think they are the only ones up here." As a child the question never occurred to me, that God would exclude anyone on the basis of sin or religion. But soon I was exposed to the debate: "If everyone is going to heaven, what about Hitler?", "What about the Buddhists and others who are not followers of Jesus?", "Is Gandhi burning in hell?". "If everyone is going, why bother believing anything?", "Why are there so many good people who aren’t Christian who will burn in hell, and so many bad people who happen to be Christian who will go to heaven when they repent?". As I read Psalm 116 and its debate about a man delivered from death I found myself wondering again if anyone is left out or if all are delivered.
            You may know, for I’ve said it before, that Universalism was originally a Christian movement. From the earliest days of the church there have been people who argued that Jesus came to save all people; no exceptions. St. Jerome, the Biblical translator wrote: "In the end and consummation of the Universe all are to be restored into their original harmonious state, and we all shall be made one body and be united once more into a perfect human, and the prayer of our Savior shall be fulfilled that all may be one." Origen was declared a heretic for his Universalist views. Universalism made a big comeback during the Reformation with a Universalist church; Christians who based their denomination around the belief that all would be saved. Eventually this denomination merged with the Unitarians to become the UU denomination.
            So I got to thinking I should talk about why I am a Universalist. I guess it started with my Dad. For most of my life with him he was an Agnostic, he believed there was a God, but didn’t profess to know anything about God. He thought Jesus had the best teachings available, but was will to listen to other teachers too. My sister went through a "born again" stage when she decided his soul was in jeopardy and he was headed for eternal damnation. But the problem with this was that he was one of the better people I knew. He was scrupulously honest and honorable. One time there was a house being built down the street, and they stopped work. It sat there for about five years or more in a law suit or something and no one went near it. They had a huge pile of gravel in the back that the kids played on. Well, Dad needed a wheelbarrow of stone for some project and my Mom, being practical, suggested he just get one load from that pile. ?Who cares, one load, they owe us after we had to look at that mess all these years?. So Dad got the wheelbarrow and went down there. My Mom liked to tell how he got halfway home, broke out in a sweat got so upset, he took the stone back and went to the garden center. That was the tip of the iceberg. He was a good man. For as long as I could think about questions of salvation, I had to come back to Dad. If he isn’t in heaven, who is?
            In Seminary at Duke an Islamic student lived a couple doors down from me, and he and I got acquainted and on at least one occasion talked theology. I was amazed, for when it came to our basic faith in God, belief about prayer and love, we were almost identical; so much for the uniqueness of Christianity. I think my questions about salvation for all was one thing that led me to study other faiths in college and seminary. As I have studied the devout faith of people who are non-Christian and the similarities to Christian ethics and belief, I simply can’t believe God would condemn them to hell. I also began to have further doubts when I learned in Seminary that ideas of heaven and hell only entered Christianity after Jesus, from the Greek Mystery Religions. When Jesus spoke about hell, the word he used was Sheol, which was not a bad place; it was simply a place of the dead.
            But the main thing that finally led me to reject the Orthodox beliefs about the last Judgment comes from my studying the Bible over the years and coming to terms with the nature of God. The Bible contradicts itself on this, of course. The God of the Bible has Joshua wiping out towns in the promised land in the name of God – but it also has I Corinthians 13 saying that "God is love". It tells us to turn the other cheek and has Israelite soldiers killing Philistine babies. As my seminary professor, Dr. Efird used to say, "You pay your money and you take your choice." We have to choose. And it doesn’t make sense to me that God damn anyone. Clarence Jordan, the Georgian social activist and Baptist preacher said we know God loved everyone because of the three stories in Luke. Jesus tells of the woman who lost a coin and searched her house until she found it, the shepherd who left 99 sheep to find one that was lost and the loving father who welcomed home is prodigal, lost son. This loving father is our image of God, who searched out every person.
            I believe that Jesus wouldn’t leave anyone in hell for eternity. If anyone were to be in hell, what I know of Jesus leads me to believe Jesus would be down there with them until he could figure a way to get them out. This is the nature of the God Jesus preached; I believe it has a lot to do with our view of God. Is God a strict Father or a nurturing parent? Philip Gulley and James Mulholland, in their book, If Grace is True, say that many people hang on to the strict, unforgiving Father image of God because that was the way their family worked. They can’t imagine the kind of Grace that would ultimately forgive each person because they themselves are angry at many people and full of wrath.
            In that book Gulley and Mulholland tell of a man named Benny who landed in the hospital after robbers broke into his house, beat him up and took his pension check and other items. What made it particularly sad was that Benny was a developmentally disabled adult and whoever did it knew Benny well enough to know the day on which he received his pension check. This poor, confused and badly beaten man sat in the emergency room as his pastor helped him sort out what had happened. The pastor, Rev. Gulley, I think, offered to pray with Benny, and Benny said, "Don’t forget to pray for the men who did this." The pastor concluded that if Benny has this compassion, how can we think that God has less? If we who are human know how to give good things to our children, how much more must God know. Clarence Jordan said, "When God has found the last, rebellious soul and hell is closed down, death will swallowed up in victory." That’s why Jesus came, to teach of God’s love and guarantee salvation for all.