1 Kings 17:10-16
Mark 12:38-44

The Faith Mind
The faith mind is the mind that knows:
God is here, God was here in the past, God will be here in the future.
There are two points I want to make about the faith mind. First, the faith mind is the mind that understands and accepts our limitations. And second, it is the mind that accepts that all is well, that God is here, and that God will always be here. So, the faith mind is a mind of acceptance. Accepting our limitations. Accepting that all is well.
Winter and anxiety
It’s November, and we are getting ready for winter. This will be my 22nd winter in Maine, and, I don’t know about you, but around this time of year, I start to feel some anxiety about the cold, and the snow, and the ice. I enjoy our changing seasons here. But, at the same time, there is that anxiety. Am I ready for winter? When will the first snow fall? When will the first big freeze-up happen? And yet, every year, things seem to work out. Winter gradually settles in. The snow and ice come, glistening beautifully on the trees. And all is well.
Adonai Melech
Once many years ago, I was talking with my friend, Andy Gold. Andy was a spiritual teacher and the director of the Rose Mountain Retreat Center, high in New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo mountains. I was there for a meditation retreat. One day, during an afternoon break, I asked Andy if he had any advice about anxiety. “How can I deal with my anxiety?” I asked him. Andy told me that whenever he felt worried and anxious, he chanted a favorite Hebrew prayer. He taught me the prayer. It goes like this:
Adonai Melech, Adonai Malach, Adonai yimloch l’olam vaed.
Adonai Melech, Adonai Malach, Adonai yimloch l’olam vaed.
God reigns, God has reigned; God will reign forever and ever.
Whenever I sing this prayer, there is a feeling of timelessness. God is timeless. God is always present, and there is no way to be separate from God. This connection to God as ever-present offers comfort and reassurance in anxious times. This is the faith mind.
Let’s look at our scripture readings for today:
Mark 12
Devouring Houses and Worldly Concerns
In Mark 12, Christ gives us a powerful teaching in a very short story. He criticizes the scribes for “devouring widow’s houses.” In ancient Jerusalem, a widow had no rank or status. When her husband died, the scribes took over management of a widow’s property, supposedly to help her, but actually, the scribes exploited the vulnerable widows by selling their houses and pocketing the money. A widow had no recourse. She could only accept the situation. In this passage, Jesus strongly criticizes the scribe’s greedy exploitation of the poor and helpless.
There is a popular idea among what I would call, “the worldly culture,” that the goal of this life, the highest goal to which a person can aspire, is financial security and financial independence. Just stockpile enough money to be set for life, and then, everything will be great. Life will be good. No more worries. Having money is the priority. Spiritual concerns are merely trifles and passing fancies.
But over and over, spiritual teachings show this view to be inadequate. Rather than an afterthought or a passing fancy, developing our spiritual life is a very serious thing. It is not to be an afterthought, but it is to be the foundation upon which all else rests. The Gospel of Christ is filled with this message: Do not delay the development of your spiritual life. Make it your priority.
The greedy scribes missed this point. While they claimed to be religious leaders, they were fake. They did not really believe the truth of what they taught. They did not live a life based on faith. Rather, they lived according to the standards of “worldly culture.” Their actions, greedily stockpiling money gained from the poor, had nothing to do with faith, or living a life of faith. Theirs was the opposite of the faith mind.
Changes we don’t want.
This week, Shari and I were in Florida to visit George, Shari’s father. We were grateful to be able to make this trip. George recently had to move into an assisted living facility, and as you know, this can be a difficult transition. In general, as we get older, our world, and our life, tends to become smaller. In my travels, and in talking with many people, I see this is simply what happens. I’ve seen it happen in my own family, too. We have all seen this. It is the natural course of things. As we age, our world gets smaller.
Shari and I got to spend several days with George, and our overall message to him was, “It’s going to be ok. You are in good hands. You have a great deal of support. And even though your life is not going in the direction you planned, and even though things are happening that you could not have predicted and that you don’t like, you are going to be ok, and, in fact, you are ok right now.” We were encouraging George to have this outlook and attitude that I’m calling the “faith mind.”
Seeing a bigger picture.
In our scripture readings this morning, we have two examples of the faith mind in two stories about widows. The widow of Zarephath, visited by Elijah, in 1 Kings 17, and the widow who offers two copper coins in Mark 12. These stories are teachings on spiritual truths. They are meant to uplift the spiritual qualities of generosity, faith, humility, and protection of the vulnerable, and to caution against the sins of greed, hypocrisy, arrogance, and exploitation of the poor. These lessons are easily understood from the text.
The stories are presented in a way that emphasizes the faith mind. These are women of great faith. As we listen to the stories, we are encouraged to develop this mind of faith.
The Widow of Zarephath
In these two stories, we learn things about the two widows that they themselves don’t know. For example, we learn that the widow of Zarephath’s mysterious visitor is a major prophet, but she has no idea who he really is. He is, of course, Elijah, and he saves her from starvation. But she has no expectation, no idea what is going to happen. And so, we see that her faith is great. For her, Elijah is simply a wandering beggar. She is starving and preparing to die when she meets him. But even so, she prepares bread for him to eat. We can see the bigger picture, but she cannot. She doesn’t know what is going to happen. She is acting in faith. So, this is an example of the faith mind.
The Widow in the Temple
In the same way, in Mark 12, Christ observes the poor widow in the temple, offering her two copper coins, a huge proportion of her resources. The widow is simply being herself, expressing her devotion and generosity as best she can, unaware that Christ sees her, unaware that she is uplifted in his teaching as a virtuous example in comparison to the scribes. The widow cannot see the bigger picture. Her actions express her mind of faith. We, as the audience, have information the poor widow does not have. And so, we can see her faith, and yet, for her, it is nothing special.
So, this is the faith mind. We cannot always see the bigger picture, and yet, we know that everything is going to be ok. Even if we feel anxious, we act in faith, as best we can. We go forward, knowing that all is well, and all will be well. God is here, now.
Our Life’s Trajectory
The natural trajectory of a human life is this: we are born, we grow and live, we get sick sometimes, and, if we live long enough, there is aging, and then, there is death. The trajectory is a curve. Imagine shooting an arrow into the sky. An arrow will fly up and over, and then down, back down to the ground. The shape of that flight is its trajectory. Shoot an arrow into the sky, it will fly in an arcing curve up to a high point, and then fall back down to the ground.
The faith mind is the mind that knows, at every point along life’s trajectory, that everything is ok. We may not be able to see the bigger picture at the time. But later, looking back at the trajectory of our life, we can see how things worked out. We can see how we learned and grew through our adversity.
As the 14th century mystic, Julian of Norwich, expressed it, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Anywhere along the curving arc, all is well. We cannot see the future. We cannot know what will happen. We do not know the bigger picture. And yet, we can have faith that all is well. This is the faith mind, and we recognize this faith in the two widows from our readings.
Something happens, an illness, an accident, a death, and suddenly life as we know it changes completely. It may not feel like all is well. And yet, the faith mind knows that all is well, and all will be well. Living in faith allows us to take the next step. God is here, God was here in the past, God will be here in the future. Amen? Amen.