Grace to you and peace, from God almighty and from our savior, who is Jesus the Christ. Amen.

 

Unity’s new Space Sharing Plan is beginning to gain some traction.  We’re meeting with our Space Sharing Partners, and we’re cleaning out and recovering rooms and spaces, here, there, and everywhere.  Just yesterday we were up in the balcony going through everything in the south and northwest tower rooms.  The old and moldy was discarded.  The treasures were archived.  We even took a little peak in the southwest attic, up the long narrow staircase to the little 9 x 9 room and 7 foot ceiling.  We could hear the rain drops falling on the trap door to the roof, above our heads.  Formerly the archive room, until it suffered an infestation of pigeons a few years ago, it was filthy with pigeon poop!  Putting a new bulb in the light socket dangling from the ceiling, we found a treasure among the few remaining damaged goods.  An old wooden-framed star that lights up, from who knows how long ago, which Amy offered to take home to clean.  What is it?  Maybe an old Christmas decoration?  Maybe the star that lights the way – for the reindeer sleigh, or the Wise Men looking for Jesus? 

 

In our Space Sharing Plan, we are being guided by our Core Values of Welcoming, Engaging, and Caring, the Core Values which answer the question: How can we be good stewards of our beautiful, but aging building?  Welcoming everyone, Engaging our neighbor, and being a Caring Community has ignited us to become better stewards of Sharing our space – this building which is a beautiful legacy of all the faithful who made up the gathering of Unity throughout the years, and of Mr. Viehe-Naess, the architect and a member of Unity, 90+ years ago.  It’s sparking us to Engage our neighbors, those we already have a relationship with: Boy Scouts, Unity Players, Chamber Choir, RefugeOne afterschool program, Oromo Fellowship, and Volleyball team, and also those we don’t even know yet, and those who tell us they are just waiting to start learning labs, piano and voice lessons, message therapy, and hold family celebrations.  We, who are the gathering of the faithful, are a Caring and Sharing Community, the disciples of Jesus, welcoming everyone, creating a safe space for people to gather and grow, worship, learn, discover their God given gifts, and celebrate. 

 

“Two people” in our Gospel today are going up to their place of worship to make an offering.  They are both going up to pray.  It’s literally up scores of stairs to the temple mount, like going up the many stairs to our balcony towers.  But, in the temple, they offer two very opposite prayers.  The Pharisee, the good guy in the story, does what you’re supposed to, fast twice a week and give his tithe, his offering there at the temple, and finally, in order to be a witness to the world, he doesn’t mix with others that are not God’s chosen ones, foreigners, or in this case, the tax-collector.  The tax collector is the bad guy.  Somewhere along the line they had been added to the list of sinners and outcasts.  Tax-collectors weren’t regulated in their ability to squeeze the people for extra fees, as much as they could get over the set tax, because that was their profit margin.  But as we know, in the end of the parable, Jesus declares the good guy “humbled,” and the bad guy, “exalted.” 

 

And just in the way Jesus tells it, you fell something is amiss from the very beginning of the Pharisee’s rather misplaced thanksgiving prayer.  Thanksgiving prayers always praised God for the good gifts God gave, they are the highest form of faithfulness.  But the Pharisee’s prayer was to himself, self-congratulatory, and in thanksgiving that he was “not like other people.”  Instead of opening himself up to God, he presumes he only needs himself, he is righteous and perfect, but his spirit is in decay. 

 

The tax-collector, pure and simple, acknowledges his sin before God, and he throws his life at God’s mercy, in humbleness.  But beware!  Here is the trap we love to fall into – knowing that we are supposed to be just like the humble one “who doesn’t even look up to heaven, but beats his breast and asks for mercy,” we start to get that self-satisfaction feeling, get all full of ourselves – in a humble kind of a way!  And we too can end up saying, thank goodness I’m not like that Pharisee, “I am not like other people!” 

 

‘So today I want to invite you to change the thanksgiving prayer, of boasting to the self, into true praise and thanksgiving to God.  Which is easily done, but virtually impossible to live!  We can begin to make the change, however, simply by rendering the opening line of the prayer to: "God, I thank you that I am just like other people, thieves, rogues, adulterers, just like the tax-collector, and Pharisee."’ [Robert Hamerton-Kelly]  Instead of comparing ourselves to others, and pretending we can make it on our own, we are most human, and most loved by God, when we claim our dependency on the ‘Holy Other One,’ and claim our commonality with our fellow human beings.  Unless, and until, we know the joy and freedom of the Thanksgiving prayer, we cannot even take the first baby step of living faithfully toward God. 

 

Today, we are sending up, and offering up, our stewardship gifts, lifting them up to God with a prayer of thanksgiving.  ‘We are just like other people,’ like those of our Unity gathering here, and like our neighbors, who, without distinction, all stand in need of God’s grace and forgiveness.  And so, asking for mercy, we are freed up to offer our Time and Talents, and sealed financial pledges.  It is a joyful offering of thanks, a humble return on what we have first been given.  No one can do it all by themselves, no one is without the need to call on help from God and neighbor, we all need to ask for mercy.  The church is the people, a church who offer back from what we have first been given, in grateful thanks and praise, and in outreach to the world.  “God, I thank you that I am like other people, a sinner.”  Have mercy on me, and accept my offering. 

 

With God’s blessing, we, like the tax-collector, go down to our homes justified.  Having been turned around, and repentant, God has freed us up and strengthened us for the journey.  We go down to work in the vineyards.  We go up in the balcony tower rooms, pigeon poop and all!  And what other treasures might we discover?  What stars will God send us to light our way?  How might our Welcoming, Engaging, and Caring Community further the work of Christ Jesus in our neighborhood? 

 

Because God is alive, we continue to pray and give thanks. 

Grace to you and peace, from God almighty and from our savior, who is Jesus the Christ. Amen.

 

I haven’t thought about Hilary Swank’s Oscar winning performance as a boxer in Million Dollar Baby, for some time.  But her determination and persistence in that role is unforgettable.  She not only was willing to take a beating for what she believed in, but she had to continually keep coming back to the crotchety old man Frankie – played by Clint Eastwood – to keep asking, pleading with him, to be her trainer.  “And for awhile he refused, but later he” finally relented.  What made it all the more remarkable, of course, was Hilary’s gender-bending role as a woman boxer.  She was knocking at a very imposing and un-friendly door, “continually coming” despite the odds against her. 

 

The widow in Jesus parable who comes to the unjust judge is persistent too.  She keeps returning, pleading her just cause.  The judge only gives in when, as he says, he is afraid she will “wear him out,” the way she keeps coming at him, which, curiously enough, is a boxing term, meaning literally, “to hit under the eye.”  I guess the unjust judge is feeling a little beat up by her persistence!  Not to mention that this metaphorical black eye is not good for his reputation, and this figurative shiner begins to make it obvious to the whole community that she really does have a case, that this prize fighter’s knock out blow has revealing publicly, the corrupt official he really is! 

 

It’s in the judges’ internal dialog with himself, that we hear this surprising news, and that he will grant her justice, which is the first reversal of expectation in the parable.  We might not have thought it possible for such a callous bureaucrat to grant mercy.  And he doesn’t do it out the goodness of his heart, but only to save face.  Yet suddenly we can rejoice for the little guy, the underdog has prevailed.  And Jesus tells us that, if the unjust judge can do the right thing, well then, how much more will “God grant justice to God’s chosen ones who cry out to God day and night?  Will God delay long in helping them?  I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them.” 

 

So on the one hand, it looks as if the unjust judge takes the role of God in the parable, and we are the widow.  This is not uncommon for Jesus’ parables.  The judge, the owner of the vineyard, the father who throws a lavish banquet, they’re all metaphors for God who grants mercy, who gives us the riches of the kingdom, who invites us to the feast in the realm of God!  But on the other hand the metaphor of the unjust judge has also begun to strain the mercy of God and introduce a rather warped relationship between us and our God, a compromised grace.  For, if we think it appropriate to see God as someone who we have to try and wake up, we know not when exactly, or how long and hard we have to work at it, before finally, like a giant slot machine, God will pay off, and we will win the jackpot we have bet on.  Then our faith and prayer life has been corrupted by this capricious and remote God. 

 

But on the other hand, what if the judge is not playing the role of God?  What if we let go of our stereotype of God as judge, and loose our gender expectations of, ‘provider male’ and ‘helper female’?  I am indebted to New Testament professor Audrey West who opened my eyes!  She says, if we remember the core characteristics of Luke’s gospel, it fits.  Luke is the gospel with the Christmas story we know so well, of a vulnerable little baby born in a manger, to save us.  And, at the end, it’s the good news of Easter, the world changing gift of an upside-down power, on the cross, that transforms us.  So maybe in the parable, it’s the other way around too, and the widow is the God-like character, while the unjust judge is us, and the corruption we deal with, “day and night.” 

 

The judge, “who neither feared God nor had respect for anyone,” is a complete failure by the very laws and promises in 2 Chronicles, who wrote to the Judges to: “let the fear of the LORD be upon you; take care of what you do, for there is no perversion of justice with the LORD our God, or partiality, or taking of bribes.”  So the hearers of this parable would have recognized this judge as totally corrupt, the very opposite of God “the impartial judge, who takes no bribe,” according to Deuteronomy 10, “[but] who executes justice for the orphan and the widow.” 

 

And widows, we know, were among the most vulnerable in society.   In the case of death or divorce, the dowry, and all property, went back to the husbands’ family.  And, a woman’s sphere of influence was mainly the home and not the public square.  But this widow takes her case public for all to see.  She knocks at the very imposing door of the status quo and does not accept injustice, but demands equal rights. 

 

The widow brings about a change, not by force, but through her persistence, her “continually coming,” and standing strong, being a witness to injustice, not backing down from the power that is all too happy to dominate and repress.  Who then is this widow like, if not Jesus, the incarnate God, the almighty, who is born into our world in the vulnerability of swaddling clothes, crying to the tune of the lowing cattle and bleating sheep?  Is she not like the one of whom Mary magnificently sang, this one will “bring down the powerful from their thrones and lift up the lowly?”  Is not the widow exactly like the Christ who does not ever force us to act, but continually comes to knock at the door of our hearts, and lift up the banner of peace, humility and love, this one who was declared righteous, and all powerful, on the cross? 

 

In our live for the moment, instant gratification society, is there a more long term goal that we can lift up from our belief system, our core values, that might be of use to the world?  Is there something in the way Jesus set his face to Jerusalem, his persistence and determination, not to die because he hated the world, but to die with a purpose, a love for the world, that we can share with others? 

 

How wonderful is this second reversal, this new way of seeing Jesus’ parable, which makes more sense, I think, than before.  It is the persistence of the widow that most reflects God’s grace to us.  And her vulnerability to the world, reveals her strength and determination to live a cleansed and new life.  Her willingness to inflict a metaphorical black eye, without violence or force, and to put herself out there, so that the example of Jesus can shine through, and hearts can be moved to change. 

 

 “Jesus told us this parable about our need to pray always, and not to lose heart.”  No matter how hard it seems, no matter how far from the goal, God is working ceaselessly through the vulnerable and the little ones, you and me, through our prayers and our determination that the realm of God, and the justice of God, will prevail.  

Grace to you and peace, from God almighty and from our savior, who is Jesus the Christ. Amen.

 

Where do you live?  What region are you from?  No, I don’t mean just your physical address.  Where does your heart live?  In what region does your faith reside?  “Jesus is going through the region between Samaria and Galilee,” our gospel says.  It makes no sense geographically, because there is no such region between Samaria and Galilee, but it makes perfect sense theologically, in our lives of faith.  Jesus lives in the boundary of every ethnic, social, religious, gender, sexual and political division there is, and invites us to take up residence with him.  Jesus is always going between these regions.  Here, is where faith lives, where it is tested, and where it experiences healing and salvation.

 

“It is indeed right, our duty and our joy, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks and praise to you, almighty and merciful God, thru our savior Jesus Christ…”  I love that one of the core values of Lutheranism is to live in the tension of these dependent polar opposites!  Yes, it’s both our duty, ugh!, and our joy, yea!, to give thanks to God!  Which is what the priest chants in the Eucharistic, thanksgiving prayer at the table, on behalf of all the assembled worshippers.  We worship in the boundary region of “duty and joy.”

 

Luther said, “the Christian is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; [and] a Christian is a dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.”  The perfect polarity!  So, at least we come by it honestly!  We live also, on the boundary of freedom and service.

 

Quite often, this is difficult to wrap our minds around, but as disciples, learning to live by faith in the region on the boundaries, is an invaluable tool, never more so perhaps, than today.  Here in this so called ‘civil society,’ living in the battle zone of the cultural wars that become more divisive by the Tweet, instill more resignation with every act of bullying, and invite increasing shallowness with every tasteless and unfulfilling sound bite, we are hungry for spiritual bread, and need faith-filled theological tools to heal us, and give us hope and vision. 

 

Nearly two years ago now, an African-American, for the first time, became president of the USA.  Some heralded it as the beginning of a post-racial society, the end of our historic divisions, and the breaking down of the color-barrier.  Leading up to the election, candidate Obama gave an impassioned speech about race relations, when on the campaign trail, he was ignorantly and hatefully linked with portrayals of his pastor as anti-American.  It was a speech that Obama’s senior aides had advised him against.  But he stuck with his gut feeling, and reached out across the divide in a compassionate way to all, a speech he largely wrote without his handlers, and which moved me to tears.  There seemed great hope that we were on the verge of something really new.  But a post-racial society cannot flower and bloom overnight, it cannot be wished into existence by 51% of the people, it cannot be created until everyone has come, voluntarily, to live in the boundary region of “duty and joy,” where prejudice and conceit, sin and revenge, are surrendered and overcome by a faith in the one who is able to create and save us. 

 

Jesus stands ready in the boundary region where a new realm is already dawning. Jesus stands ready to open the eyes of the next generation to a life of “duty and joy” beyond the rules of clean and unclean, insider and outsider.  It actually was the ritually pure thing to do, as Jesus commanded, to go to the temple priest and be declared clean, when you were healed, to get an official OK so you could come back “in”.  All ten lepers start off on this journey.  All ten are healed as they go.  ”But only one, when he saw that he was made clean, turned back,” which prompts Jesus to ask, “But the other nine, where are they?”  Well, of course, they went back home, back to their old lives, to resume what they were doing before.  They rejoin the old, clean-unclean, insider-outsider system, and realm of life, that we all are born into. 

 

But Jesus opened the eyes of the next generation through this foreigner, the double outsider, this Samaritan, a religious and ethnic enemy, deemed dangerous and suspect.  The Samaritan returns to the priest, Jesus, who has the power of God to make our broken lives whole.  He can’t go back and join the ‘insider’ realm of life in Jerusalem, even he wanted to.  So he comes to worship the new temple, in the person Jesus.  “He returns, worships God, and gives thanks.”  The Samaritan enters the realm of God, with gratitude, to live a life of “duty and joy,” “freedom and service.”  He has come to live in the boundary region of all our ethnic, social, religious, and political divisions, the realm of faith, a new residence that Jesus invites us to.  In faith, he lives with Jesus on the boundary, here, in the place where dependent polar opposites are revealed and ultimately resolved, where we are given the grace to embrace them by living lives of gratitude. 

 

The Samaritan did not have to return to give praise God, and thank Jesus.  None of us does.  It is only in grasping the tension of ‘duty and joy,’ ‘freedom and service,’ that we are turned around, and opened up to the way of living a life of gratitude.  Jesus tells us this, in the final exchange with the Samaritan, when he says to him, “get up and go on your way, your faith has healed and saved you.”  Jesus blesses his eyes of faith, his desire and courage to live in the boundary region.  Jesus recognizes his attitude of gratefulness.  The other nine return to their old life.  The Samaritan sees the light. 

 

On the boundary where faith lives, Jesus teaches us many things, and satisfies our longing for spiritual food.  The bible story of our Unity Vision Statement perhaps illustrates it best, the Feeding of the 5,000, where after Jesus’ long day of teaching by the Sea of Galilee, not far from Samaria, with only 5 loaves of bread and two fish, he gave thanks to God, broke the bread, and gave it away.  And, there in the boundary region of faith, all were filled, with an abundance of left overs.  And then in Jerusalem, on the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus gave thanks to God, broke the bread, and gave it away, as a sign of what he did with his life the next day, Good Friday. 

 

Lives of faith return no one evil for evil, and they live in the region of faith that teaches gratitude, the Eucharistic thanksgiving life, with freedom from the fear of death, and eager duty to worship the one who is our unending source of life and salvation.  Where do you live?  In what region does your faith reside? 

Grace to you and peace, from God almighty and from our savior, who is Jesus the Christ. Amen.
 
How was faith passed down to you?  Who shared their faith with you for the first time?  A parent, a brother or sister, a friend? 
 
“It’s like finding an old family letter in a long lost box of papers in the attic,” says Audrey West, NT professor.  “Only this letter from St Paul to Timothy is written also to us, to the wider Christian family.”  “Dear Timothy, my beloved child. I Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, write to you with a grateful heart, remembering you constantly in my prayers night and day.” 
 
Paul spoke of Timothy like a son, his “beloved child,” not only here, but also in his letter to the Romans, to the Corinthians, and to the Philippians.  Almost every time he writes about Timothy as a co-worker, he mentions this special parent-child relationship they have.  And in this letter, it also feels as if Paul is writing instructions, a last will and testament, to Timothy, and to all those who follow in the faith. 
 
Apparently, Timothy has been losing heart for the work of the gospel, not unlike the disciples, who’ve been trudging their way to Jerusalem in Luke’s story, and who ask Jesus to, “increase their faith!”  Not unlike each of us, from time to time.  Paul mentions no specific stumbling block for Timothy, but only that he wishes to “rekindle” Timothy’s faith, that it should be, set it on fire again, like when Paul first ‘laid on hands’ to bless Timothy’s ministry.  “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice,” he continues, “but rather a spirit of power and of love,” and a down to earth sense of doing what is right.  How much faith do we need, to accomplish all that God calls us to?  Even ‘faith as small as a mustard seed,’ is plenty enough, Jesus said.  Paul describes, not the size, but how the gift of faith is passed down to Timothy, first from his grandmother Lois, who passed it on down to Eunice, her daughter and Timothy’s mother, and now the same faith lives in him! 
 
Who passed the faith down to you?  Who sparked the spirit of power and love to set your faith ablaze?  Was it a family member, a friend, a teacher, a pastor, a certain experience you had, or something you  were given to read? 
 
I found out another piece of my story, when a couple of years ago my dad was cleaning out some of his boxes in the attic, and he ran across a letter that was passed down to him, and now, he wanted to give to me.  It’s written on the official stationary of the Wartburg Synod of the United Lutheran Church in America, at Oak Park, IL, on May 25, 1925.  The nature of the letter, however, is a mix of professional and personal, because he’s writing to family. 
 
It was in the spring of that year, 1925, when my grandparents on my dad’s side, 22 and 23 years old, decided to marry.  And so my grandmother asked her mother, my great great aunt Minnie, to ask her brother, The Reverend F. William Schneider, if he would do the honors, and, as my dad told me, “officiate at his parents wedding service.”  This letter that my dad had found in his box in the attic and gave me, is the response to that request.  So, Pastor Bill Schneider, my great, great uncle, after first teasing his sister that she didn’t include the proposed date of the wedding, wrote, “if you will let me know the date, I can make arrangements to place Helen” –that’s my grandmother– “under the yoke she wishes to donne, hoping for her lasting happiness.” He then turns his wit toward my grandmother: “Have you made a good choice Helen?” An attempt at humor, apparently, or perhaps anxious about meeting my grandpa?!  So he hastens to add, “Congratulations!” 
 
The second and final paragraph is all newsy stuff about what he’s been up to, mostly traveling on behalf of the synod.  He was the Historical and Statistical Secretary of the Wartburg Synod, and as he said, “[I’m] never sure where I may land the next week, till I get my orders from the Mission Board.”  Recently he’s been to Mine La Motte, MO, then off to Iron River, MI, both about 350 miles in opposite directions of Chicago.  And though his address on the stationary is Belmont, WI, he says he often stayed at the Oak Park home of a relative named Carl, here in Chicago.  No doubt, a much more convenient hub for all his traveling.  By coincidence, the Iron River, MI he mentions, is where Kim and I were pastors for 20 years.  Then he concludes, “hoping to see you all in the near future. I am as ever, with love to all, your brother and uncle, F.W. Schneider.” 
 
Exactly 4 weeks from the date of the letter, on June 22, 1925, he married my grandparents, Helen Betz and Dwight Kinsey in their home town of Grimes, IA, just outside Des Moines, in my grandmother’s Lutheran church.  My grandpa’s family was Methodist, but he “converted,” as they used to say, and the Kinsey’s have been Lutheran ever since.  My dad was born 13 months later, the first of three children.  And Pastor Bill, my great, great, uncle, presumably kept riding the train, marrying and burying, encouraging young churches and spreading the gospel.  But it was exciting to find that the only other pastor in the family, the pastor who married my dad’s parents, was actually living and working in some of the same communities I have been.  And the United Lutheran Church in America that he served, had its charter meeting right here at Unity in 1917, shortly after this building was dedicated. 
 
It’s a deepening experience to know a little more about the faith of my ancestors, and how it was passed down to me.  After my grandparents married, they moved off the farm.  My grandpa had a job lined up in Des Moines, and there they joined St. John’s Lutheran Church and were life long members.  As their faith grew, they served in many ways, and that’s where my dad was baptized and confirmed. 
 
Who passed the faith down to you?  Was it your parents or grandparents?  Or maybe you had no church upbringing, and a friend or teacher, a pastor or music director led you to the faith?  Maybe it was an experience at church camp, at college or at work?  What is it about the faith of that person, that you keep with you today?  What letter or message did they pass down to you?
*** Talk Time ***
 
Faith is not something we can create in ourselves.  Faith is a gift from God, through the laying on of hands.  Faith is passed down to us, and sparked, so often, by friends or family.  Paul was concerned that Timothy remember how, there is no difficulty, no testing of our faith, that can weaken it.  Even his imprisonment, Paul believed – an arrest because he was preaching the gospel – could not embarrass him.  Instead, Paul wore it as a badge of honor, not to play the martyr, but to boast about his faith, a gift from God he could not deny or give up. 
 
How often we are tested in these days!?  But we do not lose heart, but we proclaim what Jesus first handed down to us, that “on the night in which he was betrayed, he took the bread and wine, saying, for you, this is the heavenly banquet, now, for you, that will strengthen your faith as often as you eat it, and confirm the faith you received by the laying on of hands at your baptism, a baptism of belonging and new life.  
 
Like the heart-felt letter Paul wrote Timothy, we cherish the letters and encouragements to faith, passed down to us, messages that have created a strong spirit of power and love in us, for the sake of the world.        Amen.