At this 9:00 service, we’ve been singing “All are Welcome” as our gathering song each Sunday this fall. As it’s becoming more familiar to us, a few of you have remarked to me that you find yourself humming it during the week. “All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.” And you’ve said that you realize that those words do—or should—describe what our life together is all about. All ARE welcome in this place.

“This place” is our sanctuary, dedicated to the glory and the worship of God fifty years ago next month. And this theme, “All are welcome,”echoes the prophet Isaiah’s vision of God’s temple, our sanctuary, as a house of prayer for all people.

The prophet spoke of the salvation God was about to reveal. He prophesied that all who do what is right would come to the house of the Lord. All who had formerly been excluded by religious law and convention, all would come and be joyful in the house of prayer. “I will give them, in my house and in my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. [All] who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath and do not profane it, all who hold fast my covenant—for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord God.”

In the Gospel of Mark, when Jesus cleanses the Temple, he asks: “Is it not written, ‘my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?”

If we take this to heart, we might be astonished at the implications. On this World Communion Sunday, we pause to be mindful of the fact that each Sunday as we worship; we join with 9 million United Methodists all around this globe in worshiping God. We join with 2 billion Christians world wide—in Europe, North America, Africa, Latin America and Asia. That very fact makes each Christian sanctuary, ours included, a house of prayer for all people, for all the nations. It reminds us that our holy house is indeed a very large house, a house of prayer for all the nations, and that the family who lives in this house is a very, very large family, indeed. This is a house where all are welcome!

Like more and more families we know, our church family is a multi-cultural family, a multi-lingual family, a multi-racial family, and a multi-faith family. Through the church, we are each part of something big and beautiful. Through our baptism we become brother and sister with two billion others whose names we will never know but whose well-being and prosperity are part and parcel of our own.

And the place we find our unity, the place we find our common identity, the place we learn a common language is in the house of the Lord, a house of prayer for all people. How beautifully and profoundly present is this truth in our midst this morning, as we baptize Collin Robert Xiao Pang, our newest baby brother in Christ. This is indeed a house of prayer for all people. Thanks be to God!

This notion should not be unfamiliar to us United Methodists. After all, we are very fond of quoting John Wesley’s famous assertion: “The world is my parish.” In March of 1739, he wrote in one of his many letters: “…I look upon the world as my parish; …that is whatever part of it I am in, I judge it meet, right and my bounden duty to declare, unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation. This is the work which I know God has called me to….”

It is interesting to note that contemporary Methodist scholars are casting a new light on this claim. Remember that at the time, the Anglican Church in England was organized into parishes with set geographical boundaries. The local vicar was responsible for every Anglican within that parish and even those who did not specify a religion were deemed to be Anglican. Mr. Wesley, however, was quite audacious, however, and claimed that anyone who would listen had a right to hear the Gospel from him. When he announced: “the world is my parish,” he meant that he would preach to whomsoever would hear him. He traveled over 225,000 miles, crossing parish boundaries right and left, falling foul of the church bureaucrats of his day who were quite concerned with boundaries.

Mr. Wesley may have been our founder, but he was not a saint. It’s only fair to say that a certain measure of his zeal was grounded in plain human arrogance, as revealed in his journals and letters. History repeatedly reminds us that leaders in every field—business and politics as well as religion—are susceptible to hubris and the grandeur of empire.

But something else motivated Wesley as well, and that is also instructive for us. Wesley’s journals are full of his honest and genuine concern for God’s people and this motivation is worthy of our emulation in this, the 300th anniversary of his birth. His first sermon of the day was typically delivered at 5 a.m., not because it was convenient for him, but because that was when he could reach people on their way to work in the factories or the coal mines.

In this regard, John Wesley’s disdain for boundaries opened up the church of his day to those who had been excluded by rank and class—and gender. Wesley elevated women to serve as class leaders and lay preachers, unheard of in the Anglican Church of the time. Women, children, the poor, working people, people of considerable means—Wesley insisted that ALL were entitled to hear the word of God and serve God. In claiming the world as his parish, you see, he wasn’t just making a territorial claim, he was asserting that the care one would offer to the members of one’s own parish should be extended to all.

When a member of our parish is in need, the church responds with love, with calls and cards, with food, with visits, with a prayer quilt--with offers of whatever kind of help and support is needed. I often think that those outside the church family don’t know what they’re missing.

But that’s the point. As Mr. Wesley’s Methodists, we should know that no one is really outside our family. The world is our parish. Those in need in any place, those who suffer, those in distress, those hungry for the love of God and neighbor—these are our brothers and sisters as well, our world-wide parish family. We reach out to them through our mission, our giving, our prayer and our love.

On this World Communion Sunday, let us open our minds and our hearts to include in our brothers and sisters of every place. Let us expand our prayer to embrace them all, so that we become a house of prayer for all people. Let us remove from our hearts and our practice boundaries that serve to keep any on the outside. Through our giving and our mission, let us minister to “the least” in every place. As we come to the Lord’s Table this morning, let us remember that there is one loaf, one cup, for the whole world, our one global parish, given, broken and shared with all, for all, uniting us through Christ our Lord.

Amen.