You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!
A man once
asked God, "What does a billion dollars mean to you, O God, you who are
all powerful?" Tell me, what does a
billion dollars mean to you?
"A
billion dollars? It means hardly a penny
to me," God responded.
The man thought
for a moment and then asked a second question. "And what are a thousand
centuries to you?"
God promptly answered him. "Hardly a second!!"
The man
secretly smiled because he figured he had backed God into a corner. He said, "Well, if that is the case, O
Holy One, then give me a penny!!"
Without
missing a beat, God replied, "Sure - in just a minute."
There
are human smarts – street smarts, taking care of oneself first smarts. And there is holy wisdom.
There
may have been a lot of those human smarts in ancient Israel during the time of
the monarchy, that is, the time when kings ruled God’s chosen people. However, there was not a lot of holy
wisdom. That was a given, and King David
probably knew it. And surely Solomon
did.
After
forty years of ruling the kingdom he himself had united, David lay on his
deathbed – his mind awash in memories – Bathsheba in the bathtub, dancing the
ark of the covenant into Jerusalem, his prematurely departed son, Absalom, who
had desired the throne but wanted it before his father died.
Absalom
had mounted a military campaign against the king and gotten himself killed. Such a tragedy:
“O my
son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you.”
Yes,
in spite of the good times – the dancing, the beauty of his wife – David had
known so much grief. Would it ever end?
Because now there was so much necessary revenge in order to simply hold
together the pieces of this monarchy that seemed so frayed around the edges.
And
so, in his final hours, David called his son, Solomon, to his bedside and
instructed him on just how to settle all the loose ends of the family
business. David’s directions were not
unlike the scenes in the movie “The Godfather” when Marlon Brando deals with his
Mafia enemies by making them offers that they cannot refuse.
Joab,
who had murdered Absalom, had to be snuffed out as did Shemei, who had once
cursed King David. Solomon’s brother Adonijah was a strong competitor
for the throne and therefore needed to be eliminated if Solomon’s power was to
be consolidated and the monarchy restored.
All
in all, it was a brutal time that is recorded in our Bible. It was a time of palace intrigue, betrayals,
deceptions, and assassinations. This
transition of power from David to Solomon was anything but smooth and
easy. The end result, however, was that
Solomon became king, and his authority was well established.
Now
King Solomon loved God/Yahweh as his father had – like father, like son –
though Solomon did have a bad habit of offering sacrifices and burnt offerings
on a variety of hilltop altars, none of which honored the God of the
Israelites. On one of those occasions,
as the incense burned low and its fragrance mixed with the odor of a
slaughtered ram and rose to please some nameless god, Solomon slept peacefully
on the mountain’s summit.
That
was the moment that God/Yahweh chose to come to Solomon – in all his
brokenness, with his history of vengefulness and his propensity to turn to
whatever god seemed most efficacious at the time. That was the moment that God/Yaheh chose to
come to Solomon in a dream and ask the young king something that the Holy One
had never asked before and never would again in all of Holy Scripture.
God
asked Solomon: “What would you like me
to give you? No strings attached, you
understand. What do you – in your heart
of hearts – really want?”
What
would Solomon say? Wealth? Honor?
Good health? Excellent wine? A beautiful wife? Sons and grandsons galore? Military victories? Living to a ripe old age?
Though
such wishes may have crossed his mind, Solomon said none of these things. In an infrequent moment of clarity and
right-mindedness, Solomon answered God/Yahweh:
“How about giving me - your servant - a discerning heart to govern your
people and to distinguish between right and wrong. Give me a listening heart, an understanding
heart, a heart that can recognize and dispense justice. Give me wisdom, O Holy One.”
Well,
that was the correct answer, all right.
Solomon hit a home run with that response. In fact, God was so impressed that Solomon
had not come back with a plea for money, old age, or the ability to
snuff out all his enemies that God gave the king not only wisdom,
but also the other stuff he had not outright
asked for: riches and honor and, should he walk in God’s path, a long life to
boot.
Now
understand that God’s gift to Solomon was not a game changer. Solomon was not all-of-a-sudden the perfect
monarch. Far from it!
With
his newfound wealth, he embarked on a massive building campaign, renewing the
City of Jerusalem and constructing the temple – a suitable home finally for the
arc of the covenant where the Israelites believed that God/Yahweh resided. The temple was an astounding structure. It was enormous and dripping with gold – a
fitting home for the God of Israel.
Solomon
became obsessed with his wealth and achievements and lived an extravagant
life. Of course, along with having an
endless supply of riches comes a deep-seated fear of losing it all. Consequently, Solomon put together a personal bodyguard consisting of twelve
thousand horsemen, and certainly their upkeep was not cheap.
In addition, the cost of all this magnificent
construction coupled with his dependence on a strong military drained his
treasury, forcing him to tax his people heavily.
Being poor already, their quality of
life degraded substantially. It was the best of times. It was the worst of time. And it was not rocket science to see that the
monarchy was crumbling and, in time, would break apart and end, yet again, in
chaos and misery for the Jewish populace.
Solomon did,
of course, have his shining moments of wisdom.
Perhaps that is why it is said that he authored the Biblical books of
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon.
His most
famous nugget of wisdom was when, as Disciples of Christ pastor Mickey Anders
writes, “two women came to Solomon, both claiming the same child as their own.
They both were prostitutes, lived together and had babies about the same time.
One of the mothers rolled over on her child in the night, suffocating it. So
she surreptitiously replaced her dead child for the other mother's living
child. When that mother awoke, she was shocked to see a dead baby. But on
closer examination she knew this was not her child.
So
both mothers come to Solomon asking for him to rule between them. Solomon asks
for a sword and commands that the baby be cut in two so that each one could
have a half.
One
of the women said, ‘Yes, that is fine. That way neither of us will have him.’
But
the real mother, of course, protested and insisted that the child remain alive
even if it was given to the wrong mother. Thus Solomon wisely knew who the real
mother was.”
All
in all, however, in spite of such unforgettable moments of brilliance, Solomon
messed up a lot and was really quite a tragic figure – and, in that sense, a
very human figure – not unlike us who also are given great gifts which we
manage to squander in one way or another.
In the end, as
Reformed Church pastor Scott Hoezee writes, “David and Solomon represent the
apex of Israelite history. It would be all downhill after these two as
the kingdom splits, good and godly kings become about as rare as a $3 bill, and
the whole project of Israel as God’s Chosen Nation runs pretty well off the
rails thanks to the faithlessness of the one generation after the next.”
Hoezee goes on
to say, “But God was faithful and so brought to this earth not a king like
Solomon who now and then managed to display some pretty profound wisdom but
rather Wisdom incarnate,
a living and talking and walking and breathing (example) of
all that is right about life in this world as God set it up in the
beginning.
It may be a
little tough (Hoezee writes) to spy the Gospel in a text as saturated with bad
news and violence as the early chapters of 1 Kings are, but it’s surely not too
tough to spy the need for a Gospel of Good News and Grace in these chapters
and, given the prominence of wisdom in these same chapters, it’s also not too
tough to spot that just probably Wisdom incarnate is going to be exactly what
this tired and violent old world will need in the end.”
That is
certainly something to take hold of from this ancient story of the transition
of power from David to Solomon: That we might notice glimmers of wisdom just as
we might experience infrequent times when justice is accomplished and random
acts of compassion occur. We might even
be the initiators of those occasions.
However, if we really want to see what wisdom is and what justice is
like and how compassion transforms lives, we will not look too long at one
another but rather look to, as Hoezee says, “Wisdom Incarnate”, the Gospel
message, Jesus himself.
Now - that is
a pretty heady takeaway from this passage, and I am tempted to stop right
here. However, in addition, we really must
ponder that question that weaves itself in and around this passage.
It is the
question that God asked Solomon: “What
would you like me to give you? No
strings attached, you understand. What
do you – in your heart of hearts – really want?”
What DO you –
in your heart of hearts – really want?
What do YOU really want? That is a question for all of us as individuals
but even more so a question for all of us together as a faith community. What do WE really want?
As your
pastor, what I – in my heart of hearts – really want is for us as a church to
figure out who we are and, more importantly, who we want to be – and, most
importantly, what strategies we are willing to put into place to get there.
Are we a
church who, above all, simply wants to minimize expenses and get the bills
paid, so that the building stands firm, a landmark on Main Street as it has
always been? And what are we willing to
do to make that happen?
Are we a
church who, above all, wants to extend an extravagant welcome to anyone who
walks through our doors – regardless of age, sexual orientation, ethnic
background, mental and physical limitations?
And what are we willing to do to make that happen?
Are we a
church who, above all, wants to engage in hands-on outreach and service – not
just once or twice a year - but daily, weekly, monthly? And what are we willing to do to make that
happen?
Are we a
church who, above all, wants to tell the ancient stories of our faith and their
meaning for us today in worship that is engaging and enriching – not by
employing the same old, same old but by using contemporary visuals and songs
and new ways of praising God? And what
are we willing to do to make that happen?
Or are we a
church with a dream or vision that I have not even mentioned?
All these
notions are valid and could be who we are – though I would submit that choosing
to be a church that simply wants to get the bills paid and has no clear
direction beyond that is tantamount to signing a warrant for a not-so-slow but
certainly painful death.
I would also submit that not to intentionally decide who
we are is de facto opting to be that kind of church.
Who are we as
a church? And what are we willing to do
to be the kind of church that the Spirit encourages us to be? Surely it takes
wisdom to discern our answer. It takes
wisdom because wisdom is recognizing the hard questions, having the courage to
ask them, the perseverance to answer them, and the trust that God will be there
as we seek to act on them.
King Solomon
asked for wisdom – and was granted so much more. May we also ask for wisdom, and may God grant
us wisdom – and courage – as we face this hour of discerning who we are as a
church community.
by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine
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