“Graceland”

Pastor Geoff Scott

Proper 24 C (20 Pent C) – October 17, 2004

Luke 18:1-8

Christ Lutheran Church

Menomonie, Wisconsin

Brothers and sisters in Christ, Grace and Peace to you from the Triune God: Father Son, and Holy Spirit.

Today’s parable of the woman and the unjust judge is about grace. Specifically, the grace of God – how it operates, its scope, power, and how you and I live within it. And what it means for you to have a God whose grace is illustrated by this parable. When we here these words of Jesus, we find ourselves in Graceland.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to try to claim that the judge wore a white-sequined jumpsuit with a cape and a jeweled belt buckle the size of a turkey platter. Elvis is not in the building for this story. But the God of grace most certainly is.

Now, you may be scratching your head and saying, “Well, wait a minute! What about verse 1? Doesn’t it say “Then Jesus told hem a parable about their need to pray always and not lose heart”?

Yes, indeed it does. And prayer is a key part of this parable. But I want to argue that, in this story, prayer is a supporting player as are justice and faith which also appear. Prayer, after all, is only possible if we have a God who chooses or even more radically, promises to listen to us. Prayer is our response

Likewise, faith and justice also have their origin in grace. This grace is not a thing but an act of God, and prayer, faith, justice are our responses to God’s acts of grace. Grace reveals God himself as one who gives himself to the deserving and undeserving alike gift. A gift that he surprisingly, irritatingly, lavishly, and freely gives to his creatures – you and me -- every day of our lives.

Yet the word “grace” never appears in the parable of the widow and the unjust judge. “Pray” is there. So are the words “justice” and “faith”. But I submit to you that prayer and justice and faith flow from Grace.

What is it like to live in Graceland, in an environment where all you need is provided for you when you need it, free and safe? Well, here’s one way to think about it.

This is a live fetus at 11 weeks. I’m sure many of you have seen pictures like this before. The womb is a pretty gracious place for a fetus. Mom takes care of everything (assuming Mom takes care of herself). It is a total system. The child had no say in getting there. Has no say in getting out. And for nine months only has to grow, over which the child also has no control. And yet, the child grows and matures moment by moment. You could say that for the unborn child this is a kind of Graceland. God so created human beings that our very lives originate in grace.

There’s one other thing. It only struck me again when I look at these pictures. We appear to spend our first months of life in a posture of prayer. I’m not going to say the children you see hear are praying. But when you see the bent knee, the inclined head, the raised hands, it does give one pause.

Yet what I think these photos do represent, regardless of what is happening with the fetus, is a metaphor for the Graceland with which God surrounds us after we leave the womb and exit the placenta and start crying so that everyone knows we are here.

What I like is that sense of grace as all enveloping, for the fetus it air, water, nourishment, blood. Graceland within. The same is true for us now.

Every breath you take, every move you make is, ultimately, a gift, an act of grace.

What makes Graceland Graceland is this: God is always for you. Always. And never more so than when you are most lost, most forsaken, a loser with a capital L on your forehead. Like widow in the parable.

She and we, often find ourselves, when our lives fall, apart feeling like we are a million miles from Graceland. We are scratching and clawing to find some connection, some sense that the world is just, that people care, that we are not yesterday’s garbage.

This parable tells of grace given for all the wrong reasons. It is bestowed by someone who doesn’t even know God to someone he doesn’t like. The receiver of this grace, here called justice, is an outcast, a stranger in her own community. A woman without standing because of the death of her husband. She really has not legal standing to even bring her case before the judge. She is a loser. An extremely persistent loser, but still a loser.

But here’s the twist, the woman doesn’t pray. She is just a pain in the neck to this judge who has no respect for her to begin with. Both of these people, if this were a rational, logical story and not a story of grace, would be outside of Graceland. The judge would sic the police on the woman and be done with her.

But Graceland is wherever God chooses it to be. And in this case grace is not given because of the what the woman did. God is given through a judge who disrespects people and doesn’t know God. Furthermore, in granting justice to the woman the judge puts his whole career and reputation at risk by granting the woman’s plea just to get her out of his court. It is a totally extraordinary act! Illogical. Irrational. Crazy, even. Welcome to Graceland.

And so, Jesus reminds us, if Graceland can encompass even these two people, how much more will we, who respond to God’s grace through prayer, by practicing justice and by living our faith, how much quicker will be granted justice, how much faster will we be graced.

Well, I can tell you how much quicker – in about 10 minutes when we come to the Lord’s table. As Christians we are aware that we live in Graceland. But that does not mean we can predict who God will grace.

God’s for-us-ness is based on his complete and utter freedom to give his grace for his good pleasure and for the good of the creature. So God does whatever, whenever to be God. He will even subject himself to birth, life, suffering and death so that he can transform it into – you guessed it! – grace for you. That God would do all that for you only makes sense in Graceland.

Paul Simon’s song “Graceland”, though cast in the framework of a bus trip to Memphis to see Elvis’ former, the lyrics capture a sense of the longing to be in Graceland. I think it’s what might have been driving the widow in her persistent pestering of the unjust judge and what, when we are lost and forsaken, call a Christian to their knees in prayer.

Simon writes:

In Graceland, Graceland

I’m going to Graceland

For reasons I cannot explain

There’s some part of me wants to see

Graceland

And I may be obliged to defend

Every love, every ending

Or maybe there’s no obligations now

Maybe I’ve a reason to believe

We all will be received

In Graceland.

I hope and pray that this gospel story of God’s outrageous and lavish grace will call you to believe, no matter what you situation in life, that God’s grace is for you.

Amen.

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