As you probably know, my title today is the title of a
movie about baseball, taken from a book by W.P.Kinsella. In the
book, and the movie, a man is inspired by a dream to build a baseball
diamond to which, his dream promises him, some of his long-gone
heroes, led by the great "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, will
come to play ball. "If you build it, they will come,"
goes the promise. And "If you build it, he will come"
is the theme of the story of the beginnings of Universalism in
North America. It's the story of Thomas Potter, a resident of
Cranberry Inlet, near Good Luck, on the south shore of New Jersey,
and his encounter with the young immigrant from England, John
Murray, in 1770, two and a quarter centuries ago.
Thomas Potter is usually not the featured player in the story,
anymore than the man who builds the baseball diamond, even though
the stories couldn't have happened without them. It's Shoeless
Joe whose name is remembered, and it's John Murray whose name
is remembered. But Thomas Potter must have been a quite remarkable
man. For one thing, he seems to have been exceptionally generous.
For another, he was fanatically devoted to a religious idea he'd
formed by studying the Bible, the idea that salvation was for
everyone, the idea that was already being spoken of elsewhere
as Universalism.
And the third remarkable thing about Thomas Potter was his faith
that the time had come for this idea to take hold, his faith that
someone was going to come to preach the full strength of the Universalist
gospel to him and his neighbours and his nation. So strong was
that faith that Thomas Potter, in other ways quite an ordinary
farmer and fisherman, had built on his farm property a tiny white
wooden church. He called it a Meeting House, which suggests to
me that he'd had some contact with the Society of Friends, or
Quakers, because that's what they call their buildings -- but
then, I think maybe the Congregationalists of that time used the
name, too. Thomas Potter's Meeting House was sitting there waiting
to be used.
What on earth had convinced this man that it was worth building
a church when there was no-one to preach in it and no congregation
to meet in it? His own explanation was something like this:
"I have been reading the Holy Scriptures all my life. More
and more it has come to me that the gift of life that we are given
could not have been from the hands of an angry god as the Reverend
Mr. Jonathan Edwards insists. It has come to me that God must
be a loving kind of God -- a father of all creatures. His essence
is not anger and hate. It is love. And so I decided that there
should be a place in this New World for such a message of hope
to be preached. So you see the Meeting House that I have built."
What a dream! What an idea! "If you build it, he will come"!
I'll bet his family and friends thought he was as crazy as Noah
building the Ark. But crazy or not, he'd gone ahead and built
his little Meeting House, and now it sat there in the field, just
above Cranberry Inlet near Good Luck, New Jersey, waiting for
a preacher to come with the gospel of Universalism burning a hole
in his throat. And there sat Thomas Potter on the porch of his
farmhouse on a September evening in 1770, a large, elderly, bewhiskered
man, who had believed that "if I build it, he will come"
and who now was waiting for his faith to be fulfilled.
Potter had seen a ship sail into the little bay below his farm
-- well, drift in, really. He found out later that the ship had
originally been bound for New York City, but it was a British
ship and in 1770 landing in New York was a risky business for
Brits. Another ship had passed them and advised the captain to
try for Philadelphia instead. Then, the wind had turned against
them and without aiming for it they found themselves becalmed
in Cranberry Inlet, New Jersey.
A group of passengers were delegated to go ashore for supplies
to meet their needs until the wind changed and the ship could
be on its way to a more suitable landing-place, a real port.
One of the group was a 29-year old man, John Murray, who was born
on December 10, 1741, 258 years ago. Murray had decided to emigrate
to America to start a new life, because his old life had been
a mess almost all the way through. He came ashore and was directed
by a passing young woman towards Thomas Potter's farm. Potter
watched him coming.
Murray approached the farmhouse, and Potter watched with his heart
in his mouth. This man, he was sure, was going to be the fulfillment
of his dream. Murray came up to the house and saw a great pile
of fish in front of it. He asked if he could buy some.
"No, sir," said Potter. "I won't sell you a fish."
"What?" asked Murray. "So many fish and you refuse
to part with one?"
"I didn't say that," replied Potter. "I won't
sell you a fish -- I have them here for people to take, and you
can take them like anyone else. But I don't sell fish!"
Maybe you can see why I said Thomas Potter was a remarkably
generous man! Before long, Murray's companions found him and
Potter gave them all ample provisions for the ship's company.
But Potter also insisted that Murray return to stay with him
for the night, where he would be more comfortable than on the
boat or in a tavern. And when Murray came back after taking
the fish to the boat, here was the story Thomas Potter told him,
according to Murray's later recollection. First he explained
that he'd built the meeting-house himself, then he said:
"God will send me a preacher, and a very different stamp
from those who have heretofore preached in my house. The preachers
we have heard are perpetually contradicting themselves; but that
God, who has put it into [me to build my meeting] house, will
send one who shall deliver unto me his own truth; who shall speak
of Jesus Christ, and his salvation ..... My friends often ask,
`Where is the preacher, of whom you spake?'
And my constant reply has been,
`He will by and by make his appearance.'
The moment I beheld your vessel on shore, it seemed as if a voice
had audibly sounded in my ears;
`There, Potter, in that vessel, .... is the preacher you have
been so long expecting."
Not surprisingly, Murray asked what might have given Potter
the impression that he was a preacher. To which Potter replied,
"It is not what I saw, or see, but what I feel, which produces
in my mind a full conviction."
"But my dear sir," said Murray, "You are deceived
indeed you are deceived. I never shall preach in this place,
nor anywhere else."
Potter, of course, was not to be put off like that.
"Have you never preached?" he asked. "Can
you say that you have never preached?"
"I cannot," confessed Murray, who actually had had a
very chequered and largely unhappy career as a Methodist minister.
"But I never intend to preach again."
"Has not God lifted up the light of his countenance upon
you?" Potter persisted.
"Has he not shown you his truth?"
"I trust he has," said Murray.
"Then how can you hide this truth? ..... If God has shown
his [loving] salvation, why should you not show it to your fellow
men?"
Potter, you see, was quite sure that this man from the Old
World was a Universalist, sent by God to bring the gospel of universal
salvation to the New World. And, what do you know, he was right!
John Murray was a Universalist, one who'd listened to the teachings
of James Relly and been converted to the Universalist cause, which
disgraced him in the eyes of his own rather new denomination,
the Methodists. They excommunicated him. Fortunately, Murray
had strong family support -- his wife was attracted to Relly's
teachings as well. But soon after his excommunication, the Murrays'
only child had died before his first birthday, and Murray's wife
became ill also.
She suffered a long and painful illness, and by the time she died
Murray was emotionally and financially bankrupt. He was thrown
into debtors' prison (not for the first time, incidentally) where
he lost all will to live and contemplated suicide. But he had
eventually decided that his death must be God's decision, not
his. In the end, Murray's brother found him in prison and bailed
him out, but by this point he had no hope left for a decent life
in Britain and with his brother's money he set sail for America
in 1770, hoping to disappear into oblivion there.
Maybe Cranberry Inlet and the little community of Good Luck, New
Jersey, were close to the kind of oblivion that Murray had in
mind, but he hadn't reckoned on Thomas Potter and his vision.
In that first long conversation, Murray put up a good show of
resistance to Potter, refusing to see himself as the answer to
Potter's prayers, but Potter continued to insist that he was.
After staying overnight with him, Murray thanked his host for
his hospitality and set off back to the boat, and Potter is said
to have told him,
"The wind will never change, sir, until you have delivered
to us, in that meeting house, a message from God."
And so the two men left it at that. Murray was to leave
as soon as the wind changed. Potter accepted this, because he
was certain that the wind would never change until Murray had
preached to the people in his little chapel. Murray was undoubtedly
hoping and praying that the wind would change and he could get
away from this crazy man Potter, and from his own past life as
a preacher, but he was out of luck (despite being in Good Luck!).
It seemed that fate, or the will of God, was on Potter's side.
You can imagine that there would have been considerable pressure
on Murray to help the weather along a bit by doing as Potter wanted.
And so he took the pulpit that Sunday morning and preached to
the congregation gathered from the area of Good Luck, New Jersey.
This is now considered to have been the first Universalist sermon
preached in the New World.
As soon as that first service concluded, so the story goes, the
wind turned fair and Murray sailed on to New York. But he didn't
stay there long; when his necessary business was finished, he
returned to live with Thomas Potter and to preach regularly in
his hand-built meeting house. If you visit the place, now called
Murray Grove, in southern New Jersey, you will find a memorial
boulder that was set up and dedicated in 1902, there in Good Luck.
The inscription on
it reads:
"Near this spot first met Thomas Potter the Prophet and John
Murray the Apostle of Universalism. The following Sunday, September
30, 1770, in Potter's Meeting House, Murray first preached in
America. The wilderness and the solitary place were glad for
them."
Murray eventually moved beyond Good Luck, doing itinerant
preaching (circuit riding) wherever people would listen. Word
went out all across New England of this young man with a new message
of love and hope. Several families in Gloucester, Massachusetts,
had been meeting to discuss the ideas contained in a book from
England written by that same Reverend James Relly who had converted
John Murray to Universalism. When they heard that there was a
"Rellyan" within reach they brought him to Gloucester
to speak, and for 20 years Gloucester was John Murray's home.
He held his first meeting at the house of Mr. Winthrop Sargent,
and there he met Mr. Sargent's widowed daughter, who eventually
became Judith Sargent Murray, a partner to John Murray's work
for the rest of his life and an important influence on feminism
and liberal religion.
If, later in his life, John Murray had been asked what had happened
in his meeting with Thomas Potter, it seems likely that he would
have pointed to Providence in operation. A theme which he reiterated
over and over again in both his words and his actions was that
God is in control of our lives. But he didn't give in easily
to that control. If Providence was at work, it was certainly
acting through, and relying on, Thomas Potter, who from our standpoint
seems to deserve a lot of the credit for launching Murray's Universalist
ministry in North America. A history of Murray's life, written
in 1920, describes Potter this way, and it doesn't seem at all
far-fetched to me:
Thomas Potter was a mystic. He could see the unseen, he could
know the unknown. In John Murray, who to his early associates
was but a weak sentimentalist, unstable in all his ways .....
Thomas Potter saw the great religious leader who was to rank with
Martin Luther as the emancipator of human souls from the thraldom
of a cruel and impotent theology, and he held up this man, fleeing
from responsibility and duty, and challenged him to service [though]
Murray struggled to escape! ..... Potter would not let him go
until he had delivered the message for which the church had been
built.
"If you build it, he will come." And it was not that
Murray was looking for the place -- rather, he was like the rebellious
or depressed Jonah in the story which was our reading. The idea
that it's through the depths of despair, the belly of the whale,
that we come to gain our strength, was precious to Murray. His
own life was a classic story of misfortune and near-death before
he could finally come to terms with his destiny, total despair
before he could become strong enough in himself to preach hope
and love to others.
It was in his deepest depression that Murray left home and sailed
to America, and during that voyage the ship in which he was travelling
is said to have struck a whale in the mid-Atlantic. The ship was
able to continue, but Murray had come close to being swallowed
by the depths. He was never angry with his God, like Jonah in
the Bible story, but he certainly seems to have been like Jonah
in trying to escape the task which was in store for him. And
if it hadn't been for Thomas Potter, he might have managed that
escape! Instead, from the moment he entered Potter's pulpit till
his death, he saw it as his job to speak the truth and to strike
down ignorance and unbelief, which he did, uncompromisingly.
I wonder how much literal and historical truth there is in the
story of Potter and Murray as I've told it to you. I haven't
consciously distorted any facts, but probably the writer of Jonah's
story didn't consciously distort it, either. Nevertheless, he
and I had a point to make, and historical accuracy takes second
place to making that point. Maybe Jonah, if there was such a
person, was just bitten by a big fish and the pain brought him
to his senses. Maybe Thomas Potter accosted everyone who came
near his farm, insisting that they were supposed to fulfill his
dream, until finally John Murray came along and actually did what
he wanted. Who knows?
The point, for me at least, is that Jonah did eventually give
up his resistance and go to Nineveh to call the people there to
repentance, and that John Murray did eventually give up his feelings
of despair and worthlessness and take on the work of spreading
religious hope on this continent. But it needed Thomas Potter
and his field of dreams. It needed the faith that "if you
prepare, the teacher will come." May we prepare, in this
season traditionally called Advent, or coming, for whatever teacher
and teaching may come to us; may we be ready.
So may it be.