Loving God, you reveal your faithfulness through the Scriptures and teach us to live by faith. Help us this day to trust in your promises by the power of your Spirit, and lead us into eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I have always felt a particular kinship to Elijah when it comes to biblical figures - not because of the miracles he performs or the miraculous end to his life, but because of the episodes that show his faith and his lack of faith, his power and his weakness. Elijah goes through periods in his life where he quite literally lives by faith. We hear about one of those periods in our first reading today. At the same time, he goes through periods of complete exhaustion and burnout (or at least one period that we know about). In fact, he was so sick of everything that he asked God to take away his life, and then he lay down under a broom tree to sleep (1 Ki. 19). Of course, God did not comply, and instead renewed Elijah both physically and spiritually, and sent him out once again to serve as God's prophet.

Isn't this so typical of the life of faith for so many people? There are times of strength and times of weakness, times of faith and times of despair. Today, however, let us focus on some of the times of faith.

First of all, I invite you to use your imagination for a moment and to imagine that you are Elijah. You have been sent to King Ahab, who has abandoned the worship of God. You have been sent to proclaim a time of drought - God's punishment for Ahab's and Israel's unfaithfulness. Having proclaimed this, you are then sent to hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith. Now, a wadi is a stream bed that only has water in it during the rainy season. So, for a while, you are able to drink the water there. At the same time, you have been promised by God that the ravens there will feed you. How comfortable are you going to be with this arrangement? Could you really see yourself going and living beside a stream bed - drinking the water from the stream and relying on the ravens to bring you food?

Continue to imagine that you are Elijah. You go and do as God has directed, and you drink the water from the wadi, and the ravens bring you bread and meat every morning and every evening (1 Ki. 17:4-6). And then the wadi dries up, because of course there hasn't been any rain in the land. So then you are told that you need to go to Zarephath and that God has commanded a widow there to feed you. How confident are you going to be in this command? How eager are you going to be to travel close to 125 km on foot in order to go and stay with some unknown widow in Zarephath?

However, Elijah does this. Now, continue to imagine that you are Elijah. You get to Zarephath and meet a widow who is out gathering sticks. She is about to use up the last of her food in order to make one final meal for her and her son. Yet, you ask her to get you some water and to bring you some bread, too. Can you imagine having the audacity to do this? Can you imagine showing up and asking a poor widow to give you her last meal? The only way to explain Elijah's actions is his very strong faith. He believes that this is the widow whom God has commanded to feed him. He believes the word of the Lord that promises that the jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail (1 Ki. 17:14). He believes that God will continue to take care of both himself and the widow and her son.

Elijah believes the promises of God because he has already seen God at work. As improbable as it seems, God did feed Elijah by sending ravens to him every day with food. And now, God also keeps his promise to Elijah and to this widow, and the jar of meal continues to have meal in it, and the jug of oil continues to have oil in it.

Now, I invite you to shift gears for a moment and imagine that you are the widow living at Zarephath with your son. You are down to your last bit of oil and meal, the main ingredients in order to make cakes or bread. The king is wicked and out for himself, so he has failed to provide for you. The religious community is not worshiping God, but is worshiping the baals, and so they have failed to provide for you. As a widow, the only other means available to you are begging or scavenging. In the midst of a drought, others are not inclined to give to you, and even to make a cooking fire you must go out and gather up what sticks you can find.

Imagine that you are the widow, in the midst of this desperate situation, and a strange looking man dressed as a prophet shows up. (In those days that usually meant a hair shirt or something!) He has obviously been spending his time outdoors, and he is dirty and unkempt. He comes up to you and asks you to bring him some water to drink. This, you figure you can do, and so you turn to go and get it for him. Then he calls after you and asks you to bring him some bread with it. You patiently explain to him that you only have enough for yourself and your son and that you are just about to prepare your last meal. However, the man persists and tells you that God has promised to continue to provide you with oil and meal for many days.

What are you going to do? Do you refuse the man and go home to make your last meal for you and for your son? Do you bring out your last meal and give it to this stranger? Do you believe that God will look after you as the man has said? It is fairly obvious to us who are looking back on these events that this widow has a lot of faith. Otherwise, it is unlikely that God would have sent Elijah to her. Yet, what an act of faith she is asked to perform! She is to give up what seems to be her last meal in the faith that God will provide. And when she does it, God does, indeed, provide.

Two people - both living by faith in their own ways. But what about the other widow - the widow who is in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus? Imagine that you are this widow, and you have two pennies left to your name. What do you do with them? Do you hang onto them in the hopes that you will get more to go with them? Do you go and see if you can get any food for 2 cents? Or, do you go and put them in the temple treasury, where they will be lost among the large sums that other people are giving?

Each of us would have to answer this for ourselves, but for this widow, she picked offering them to God in the temple treasury. Whatever we might think of her decision, it seems likely that this is an act of great faith. As a widow with no means of support, she had come to know what it means to rely on God. Her last hope was in God and in the people who were supposed to be obedient to God's Law and provide for orphans and widows. This was her only hope, and so she gives all that she has to God.

Of course, with this widow, we are not told what happens to her. We simply have the promises of the Scriptures which proclaim that God answers the cries of widows and serves as their protector (Ex. 22:22-24; Deut. 10:18; Ps. 68:5). With so many other promises in the Scriptures which God does not fail to keep, our faith tells us that this widow was cared for as well.

Now, although few of us, if any, are in the same position as widows were during biblical times, we are still called upon through today's readings to act in faith according to the promises of God. We see in today's readings how God's promises were fulfilled both to Elijah and to the widow at Zarephath. At the same time, we are given an explicit promise in the reading from Hebrews regarding Christ appearing a second time in order "to save those who are eagerly waiting for him" (Heb. 9:28). The Bible itself is a record of how God's promises have been fulfilled over time. As we come to know the God of the Scriptures, we also come to know that God is faithful.

One of the things that we learn through Jesus is that the poor are blessed (Lk. 6:20). They are blessed because they find it easy to rely on God for all that they need. However, God does not bless only the poor, but also those who are unattached and who are generous. One more promise, from Luke chapter 6:

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back (Lk. 6:38).

God is not only faithful, but generous! Let us then live as people who belong to Christ - people who have received God's gracious gift of salvation and are powered by the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Proper 27 (B) 1 Kings 17:8-16
November 12, 2006 Mark 12:38-44
St. Luke's Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison Moore
? 2006 Lynne Hutchison Moore All Rights Reserved