"A Wise Wish"

http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54977

August 19, 2012

Old Testament Reading: 1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14

¹⁰Then David slept with his ancestors, and was buried in the city of David. ¹¹The time that David reigned over Israel was forty years; he reigned seven years in Hebron, and thirty-three years in Jerusalem. ¹²So Solomon sat on the throne of his father David; and his kingdom was firmly established.

3:3Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David; only, he sacrificed and offered incense at the high places.

⁴The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the principal high place; Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. ⁵At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, "Ask what I should give you." ⁶And Solomon said, "You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you; and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne today. ⁷And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. ⁸And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted.

⁹Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?" ¹⁰It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. ¹¹God said to him, "Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, ¹²I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you.

¹³I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor all your life; no other king shall compare with you. ¹⁴If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life."

Sermon:  “A Wise Wish”

America is a great nation.  We have the distinction of having many peoples made into one, we care for each other with generosity and compassion...(and we have Sonic, Cookout and the Pik n Pig!).

But from time to time, we find ourselves a bit embarrassed by our leadership.  Wisdom can seem to be on short supply in the White House: let me give some examples.

Ronald Reagan once said, 'I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting'. 


Bill Clinton possibly regrets this statement: "I may not have been the greatest president, but I've had the most fun eight years."

George Bush’s gaffes include this one:

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Barack Obama may at times have the gift of gab, but while holding a press conference outside of Honolulu, he spoke of meeting with world leaders “in Europe or here in Asia.”

We long for wise leadership.

The people of Israel were no different.  After the headstrong but effective leader David, they hope to continue with a wise leader.  When we read this morning’s text, Solomon seems to be the man for the job. 

Solomon sat on the throne of his father David; and his kingdom was firmly established. (After killing off his rivals and marrying Pharaoh’s daughter to ensure his support, of course.)

Solomon loves the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David; and the LORD appeares to him in the middle of the night, sounding an awful lot like some kind of Cosmic Genie.  “Ask what I should give you” says that Genie God. 

Solomon may be a young 20-year-old, and new to the political arena, but he has the smooth tongue of a politician already:

"You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my father David…and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love (don’t stop now, God), and have given him a son to sit on his throne today (that’s ME!).

And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David (repeating himself just in case God forgets he was chosen), although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. (a little humility goes a long way) And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. (Way to stroke God’s ego a bit in building up such a great people.)

After being carefully nestled within flattery and claims divine favor, Solomon finally names his wish.  But this wish is where he differs greatly from the rhetoric of a politician.

Give your servant therefore a listening heart to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this, your great people?"

A listening heart.   I did not see that coming.  And I want to give Solomon the benefit of the doubt that here, in the beginning of his reign, he really did want God’s wisdom to guide him.  He felt the vulnerability and inadequacy of such a monumental task, and rather than fill that insecurity with wealth and worldly power, he sought to be filled with the wisdom of his Maker. 

If God carried around gold stars, Solomon would’ve received one that night.  Grateful that this young man has asked for what he really needed instead of what he simply wanted, God is happy to oblige, and threw in a few extra goodies for good measure.

Solomon would have his wisdom.  In the next scene of our story, that wisdom is put to the test when two women come to the new king over a dispute about a child.  These women are, well, prostitutes, and live in the same house.  Somehow, they both got pregnant, but one of their children died.  The remaining child was claimed to be the biological child of both of them.  Solomon took a dramatic approach to settle the debate:

“Bring me a sword!” he said.  “Let’s just cut this baby in half and give each woman her fair share.”  Watching their reactions carefully, he could tell that the woman who reacted most strongly was in fact the child’s mother.  And the renown of his wisdom grew throughout his kingdom because of this judgment.

Now, I may be wrong, but I’m not sure the President calling for a prostitute’s baby to be cut in half would do much to further his career today.  But it worked for Solomon.

With that wisdom came fame, with that fame came money, with that money came new offices, a sparkling-new Temple, and then...women.  Here’s where Solomon’s wisdom ran out.

You see, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.  His Dad David had issues with women, and Solomon inherited his womanizing ways.  He “acquired” 700 princesses as wives, and because, that’s just not enough, he also bought 300 concubines.  As you might expect, God was not pleased.  Now, polygamy was common in those days, but Solomon practiced it on a new scale, and married with foreign woman who worshipped other gods, something Yahweh (who was trying to preserve a Chosen People) frowned upon. 

Seeing that Solomon’s political capital was running out, his adversaries rose up against him, he eventually died and the kingdom fractured as it was led by worse and worse leaders.

Solomon made many mistakes in his life.  But, if we can’t learn something from a person who messes up, we’ll never learn anything from anyone.  Though he became enticed by the ways of this world, here in our text, we see a young man earnestly seeking the wisdom only God can bring. 

Asking to have God’s heart for God’s people is the heart of wisdom.  And though we understand wisdom to be something of the mind, the people of Israel, including Solomon, knew it was something of the heart. 

We do not often trust our hearts, but instead tame them with the rationality of our minds.  We read books on how to really connect with God instead of spending time in silence, opening ourselves to the Mystery beyond us.  We watch politicians entangle one another in arguments no one can really win, where the only feeling allowed in the room is anger.  We follow the rational steps that are supposed to lead to a happy life, rarely stopping long enough to reflect on what we’re building and whether it’s all for ourselves or for others.

Hearts are unpredictable, emotional, risky.  But without listening hearts, we will never feel what those around us are going through.  Without listening hearts, we will easily miss the Voice that calls to us beneath all the clutter of our days.  Without listening hearts, we will be so busy contributing to Us and Them that we will forget that we are all human beings, made and loved by our Creator. 

And so, when God awakes us in the middle of the night with heart-centered, irrational feelings of uncertainty, loss, worry, inadequacy or numbness, we do not respond by shutting down those feelings.  We respond with a prayer: “Give your servant a listening heart.”

God is not a Cosmic Genie.  But I whole-heartedy believe that when we pray in this way, when we make the wise wish of Solomon, God will open our hearts to hear God and our neighbor in a new way. 

If I told you I always knew exactly what God says all the time, I would sound like just another politician.  I cannot fully know God’s mind.  But what I do know of God’s voice is that it is always surprising, always opening our eyes to a bigger reality, always calling us to see this world and our lives differently.

Middle-of-the-night wisdom is not found in the response we get from our Creator.  Wisdom is found in a heart open enough to ask the question in the first place, to dare believe that God cares enough to help us, and not only us, but everyone.

I don’t know why Solomon stopped opening his heart to God’s wisdom.  But his story is a common one: we all of us have, at one time or another, strayed from the path of wisdom to follow the folly of self-serving lives.

But God will always call us back.    Because as lucrative as worldly success and a developed intellect can be, we were made for something greater: relationship.  And that, my friends, is a matter of the heart.

Thanks be to the God who speaks wisdom into our middle-of-the-night worries, who opens our hearts to listen and fills us with the capacity, not just to lead, but to love.  Amen.