A teenage boy, on his way home from school, came upon an old rusty
lamp by the side of the road. Intrigued,
he picked it up and rubbed it. POOF! A genie
appeared and immediately offered the boy three wishes.
The young man, of course, was delighted
and gave a great deal of thought to what he would wish for. After some consideration, he decided first to
ask for good health for himself and his family.
“I wish,” he said, “for a potion to
cure all sickness.”
“Granted!” proclaimed the genie. “When
you return home, your wish will be waiting for you.”
The boy got quite excited then and
imagined what he could do if he had great wealth as well. ‘”I wish for a
diamond so large that it can not be carried,” the boy stated.
“Granted,” replied the genie. “When you
return home, your second wish will be there as well.”
The boy could hardly contain himself
now. Health…wealth….what else might a
teenaged boy dream of? Ah, beautiful
women! “My final wish,” he pronounced
excitedly, “is a dinner date with a famous female movie star.”
“Granted,’ repeated the genie one last
time. “When you return home, you will find the answer to your final wish.”
POOF!
The genie disappeared. The boy
dropped the magic lamp and raced home. He bolted through the front door and
breathlessly asked his Mother if anything had been delivered for him today.
“Yes,’ she said, “In fact, it’s been
a very strange day. First, around the time school let out, a 55-gallon barrel of homemade chicken soup showed
up. A little while later, I received a call from a lawyer saying that a long
lost cousin of ours had died and left you an old and deserted minor league
baseball diamond. Then, just a few
minutes ago, some big wig from Universal Studios called to invite you for a
dinner date.....with Lassie.”
Wishes! We all have those secret dreams – even the
young King Solomon back in the earliest days of Judaism. That is part of what this passage is about –
Solomon’s most famous wish. However, if we look as well at the verses
surrounding these two snippets from 1 Kings that we read, the verses that are omitted
from the lectionary reading, we also find ourselves immersed in the very early
history of the fledgling nation of Israel and in the transition of power from
David to his son Solomon, both of whom were two of Israel’s most prestigious –
though certainly not perfect – kings.
Solomon ascended to the throne when his
father, David, died. However, Solomon
did not come to his coronation easily.
In fact, if we were to skim those verses that are not included in our
lectionary reading, we would discover that a number of people were eliminated
along the way, bodies littered about on Solomon’s pathway to the throne.
You see, Solomon was not King
David’s only son and rightful heir.
First, there had been Absalom who made a huge mistake in mounting an
ill-fated campaign for the kingship even before David had died. But there were others as well who stood in
the way of Solomon grasping the power he sought.
As Disciples of Christ pastor,
Mickey Anders writes, “Joab (who was David’s nephew) had to be killed. And
Shemei, who had once cursed David, was killed. And then there was Solomon's
brother, Adonijah who was his main rival for the throne. He had to be killed
too. And it took the helpful maneuverings of the prophet Nathan and (Solomon’s)
mother, Bathsheba, to make sure Solomon was the new king. So when we read our passage today,
let's not be lured into thinking that Solomon was an innocent young lad who
stepped in quietly after David's death. All of these stories are filled with
intrigue, plotting, and even violence.”
Though
we may like to think otherwise, Solomon was not a young man who sat around deep
in prayer and Bible study. No – Solomon was
engaged in a ruthless pursuit of power and control, taking vengeance on those
who had opposed the monarchy, and doing everything necessary to assure and
solidify his place as the ruler of a unified Israel.
As
Calvin Seminary professor Scott Hoezee writes, “I hate to say it, but this is
the Old Testament at its most brutal. Yes, we can carve out the verses
the Lectionary has chosen and focus on David’s peaceful death and Solomon’s
prudent selection of wisdom as the gift he most wants to receive from God but
all of that is nestled in the midst of some real-world violence and sin and
mayhem that is about as tough to swallow as it is finally to ignore.”
Though
we remember Solomon as the builder of the great temple in Jerusalem and as the
one who artfully solved the problem about which prostitute was really the
mother of the baby, Solomon was no angel, no innocent boy king. Solomon was as human – as flawed – as the
rest of us.
And
yet, in the midst of the intrigue and the violence of his ascension to power,
so reminiscent of that final scene in the movie, “The Godfather,” when Michael
Corleone is in church attending the baptism of his nephew even as the murders
he has orchestrated are being committed one by one, for Solomon, even in the
midst of all the malicious plotting, there is this Biblical nugget, this golden
moment when Solomon is sleeping and dreams of his conversation with Yahweh/God.
Luther
Seminary professor Karen Schifferdecker puts it this way: God “appears to Solomon in a dream
there and says, "Ask what I should give you." It is a remarkable
offer for this young king…. One can imagine what he might request: long life,
riches, power, and victory in battle.
(However),
Solomon asks for none of that. Instead, he praises God for God's faithfulness
to his father David, and he describes his own situation. He is a young man…He has to
govern a very numerous people; and not just any people, but a nation of God's
own choosing. Therefore, he asks of God a "listening heart" (or, as
many translations put it, "an understanding mind") in order to judge
God's people, and "to discern between good and evil."
A listening
heart, an understanding mind, and the ability to discern what is right and good
– Solomon asks God for wisdom, and in the end, this request is the key to all
the other blessings that Solomon enjoyed.
When
we set this passage in its true historical context, we have before us one brief
shining moment when we see Solomon for who he is – a mixture
of good and bad, of glory and malignancy.
Like each one of us, Solomon is both a saint and a sinner.
Even
as Solomon seeks revenge and hungers for power, when he confronts Yahweh/God, he
wishes not for personal gain, for material possessions, for diamonds. He wishes not even for good health – or women
(though heaven knows he had enough of them what with his 700 wives and 300
concubines). No - Solomon asks God for
wisdom – for the ability to listen, to understand, to discern justice in the
midst of conflicting reports of what is right and what is wrong.
Now,
if part of the reason we read the Bible is to prod ourselves into reflecting on
our own lives, then we need to ask a question this morning: How often is our first wish the same as
Solomon’s? How often do we ask for
wisdom – in ourselves and in our leaders?
Of
all the things we ask for God in all the ways we ask and we pray, how often is
a listening heart, an understanding mind, and the ability to discern
what is right and good at the top of our list?
How often do we pray that wisdom – and that the One who is Wisdom Incarnate
– will come to us and lead us home?
We
live in a nation today where surely all of us can agree that it is difficult to
see wisdom at work in our political processes. Our Congress is polarized, and TV pundits fuel
the separation, pushing us farther and farther apart. We are categorized as living in blue states or
red states. We talk with people we agree
with and demonize those who have a different perspective. We seldom if ever seek out – or demand that
our leaders seek out - common ground.
And
“if we are no longer encouraging our politicians to find common ground and are not
willing to live near people who think differently than we do, how do we ever
find different perspectives to find unique answers to increasing difficult and
complex challenges??” (Process and
Thought) Surely we need to ask for wisdom.
And
as United Church of Christ pastor Kate Huey reminds us: “We may argue vehemently about
putting the Ten Commandments on a courthouse wall as a mark of our faithfulness….Yet
so many of us fail to make sure that all of God's children have the basic goods
of life—(most particularly) those most vulnerable and in need. (Yet), wasn't this exactly what God expected
in both the Old and New Testaments? Aren't justice and compassion the
"gospel" values preached and embodied by Jesus, the one whose wisdom
we desire? Would Jesus have much to say about engraving Commandments in stone
and putting them on display in public places when the heart of God's law is
broken all around us?” Surely we need to
ask for wisdom.
In
so many ways, we are so like Solomon – flawed, broken, but with the same
potential for unbelievable glory.
Solomon knew enough to ask God for wisdom.
Solomon was humble enough to wish
for a listening heart, an understanding mind, and the ability to discern
what is right and good.
May
we who proclaim that we follow Jesus strive to be like Solomon in his golden
moment. May we too pray for wisdom – and
may we also live and demand that our leaders live as the Source of All Wisdom
showed us in his own life – constantly seeking justice, always loving kindness
and forever walking humbly with God.
No comments:
Post a Comment