Wisdom
8-16-15 (Proper 15/Ordinary 20 B Semi-Continuous)
1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14; Ephesians 5:15-20
What would you do if you had a magic genie who granted you three wishes? What if you did something extraordinary for the President or someone else immensely important, and they offered you any one thing you wanted as their way of saying thanks? Or, perhaps a more repeated and debated question: if you won the Powerball tomorrow, what would you do with it? We like to use our imaginations and dream about fantastic circumstances occurring to us and we rehearse our responses to those events as if they were just around the corner. Personally, I have a numbered list of what I’d do with my Powerball winnings - just in case.
So imagine what it must have been like for Solomon in this moment as, after a time of worship and sacrifice, God comes to him in a dream and says “What do you want? Name it - anything!” Solomon has just won the divine Powerball - He had the whole world available to him, free for the asking. I can’t even begin to imagine the wide variety of options that Solomon may have seen whizzing through his mind of what he might ask of God.
Solomon makes a somewhat strange, and incredibly humble, request of God, but unfortunately, the passage the lectionary lays out for us doesn’t quite give us the whole context that we really need to understand just how strange and surprising Solomon’s request ends up being. At the beginning of the passage, we’re given the historical setting: David has gone to “sleep with his ancestors” and has been buried in his city. But before David dies, this convoluted and brutal royal drama transpires in the palace - our "Game of Thrones" from last week continues on. David’s royal family was a complex web of nearly twenty children born to at least eight different wives, which made the question of who would take up the mantle of King after David died a very complicated matter. As it becomes clear that David is dying, one of his other sons - Adonijah - sets himself up and claims the throne for himself. This sets the stage for a bitter internal family feud as Nathan and Bathsheba convince David to name Solomon as his choice to assume the throne after him. As Solomon is anointed as king, the political maneuvering begins. In this wide open, empty space left by the lectionary, Solomon goes through the process of managing his opposition, silencing some of the significant dissenters, and taking care of a few of David’s loose ends that could have caused problems for Solomon’s kingdom. After all this maneuvering, all the cloak and dagger politics, the text tells us that Solomon’s kingdom is finally “firmly established.”
So now, at the tail end of this royal soap opera, it’s even easier to understand how grateful Solomon is for his position - he’s not just walking in his father’s footsteps; he’s giving his gratitude to the God who has placed him on the throne! At the same time, we can imagine that Solomon is probably still spending at least part of his days glancing over his shoulder, making sure that there’s not someone coming after him to make his reign a short one. So when God appears to Solomon in a dream and offers him anything he wants, we might expect him to give a much different answer than the one he provides.
Imagine for a moment that our own elections were more like this - instead of primaries, we’d have battle royale fights to the death. Candidates wouldn’t engage one another in debates or pay millions of dollars for attack ads and smear campaigns - they’d simply put out a contract or maneuver for their opponent to lead a hopeless battle, guaranteeing their death. Let’s say you decided to put your name on the ballot and survived to the point where your election was finally “firmly established” and God appeared to you, asking you what you wanted? What would you ask for? A congress that was willing to work with you? People who would let you pass all the laws that you wanted to go through? A successful presidency with record-setting and consistent approval ratings? How about a Nobel Peace prize, a ground-breaking, history-making foreign policy that makes leaps and bounds toward world peace, or a feather in your cap for negotiating peace in the Middle East? I’m sure most, if not even all of these wishes to God would be acceptable - even admirable. But Solomon’s request is nothing like any of these options. Solomon approaches God humbly - he says, “I am but a little child,” though historians suggest that at somewhere around 20, he was just blooming into the prime of his adulthood. He confesses his weak state - as being not only a little child, but one who does not know “how to go out or to come in” - and then he asks God for just one, simple thing: an understanding and discerning mind to govern God’s people and the wisdom to judge between good and evil. He asks God for the wisdom to guide God’s people as God would have them governed, rather than as he would want to govern them. Solomon takes his winning lottery ticket, his heavenly jackpot, and places it firmly in the hands of the greatest investor and planner of all. This humility, this desire to follow God’s guidance and to let God rule through Solomon is admirable - so admirable, in fact, that God not only grants Solomon’s request for wisdom, but also gives him the things he didn’t request, promising him riches and honor all his life. God recognizes the wisdom that Solomon already possesses in knowing his own limitations, and blesses that wisdom to make it flourish.
We worship a generous God, a God who surrounds his beloved children with innumerable blessings. At the same time, we would be foolish if we took God’s blessings for granted. Even as God praises Solomon’s humility and promises him further riches and glory, God makes his expectations of Solomon perfectly clear - “If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life.” The God we see here in 1 Kings is far from some cosmic genie, divine lottery, or heavenly Santa Claus. This God of blessing expects that we use the gifts he bestows upon us responsibly. Throughout the entirety of the Old Testament, in the saga of David, in the story of Abraham, the entire history of Israel, the underlying theme that we consistently hear is “You have been blessed in order to be a blessing.” God does not bless us just because “God loves us and wants us to be happy;” God blesses us and gifts us for a purpose, so that we can use those gifts to bring glory to God and to ultimately be a witness to others of God’s amazing goodness.
This is what is at the heart of this passage from Paul to the church in Ephesus as he enjoins them to live as wise people, making the most of their time. Paul encourages the church to seek the will of God in the same way that we see Solomon did - with worshipping and humble hearts, giving thanks to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here, in our worshipping community, we have the blessing to be able to look to God in Jesus Christ and discover together what God would have us do with the gifts that God has given us. As we gather together to worship God and to listen to God’s word to us each week, we seek God’s help and guidance, which God is more than willing to give. In our worship, let us echo the request of Solomon - “Give us an understanding mind,” so that as we are sent back out into the world, we can celebrate the blessings which we have received and in turn, pass those same blessings on to others. To God be all glory, Amen.
1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14; Ephesians 5:15-20
Wisdom
What would you do if you had a magic genie who granted you three wishes? What if you did something extraordinary for the President or someone else immensely important, and they offered you any one thing you wanted as their way of saying thanks? Or, perhaps a more repeated and debated question: if you won the Powerball tomorrow, what would you do with it? We like to use our imaginations and dream about fantastic circumstances occurring to us and we rehearse our responses to those events as if they were just around the corner. Personally, I have a numbered list of what I’d do with my Powerball winnings - just in case.
So imagine what it must have been like for Solomon in this moment as, after a time of worship and sacrifice, God comes to him in a dream and says “What do you want? Name it - anything!” Solomon has just won the divine Powerball - He had the whole world available to him, free for the asking. I can’t even begin to imagine the wide variety of options that Solomon may have seen whizzing through his mind of what he might ask of God.
Solomon makes a somewhat strange, and incredibly humble, request of God, but unfortunately, the passage the lectionary lays out for us doesn’t quite give us the whole context that we really need to understand just how strange and surprising Solomon’s request ends up being. At the beginning of the passage, we’re given the historical setting: David has gone to “sleep with his ancestors” and has been buried in his city. But before David dies, this convoluted and brutal royal drama transpires in the palace - our "Game of Thrones" from last week continues on. David’s royal family was a complex web of nearly twenty children born to at least eight different wives, which made the question of who would take up the mantle of King after David died a very complicated matter. As it becomes clear that David is dying, one of his other sons - Adonijah - sets himself up and claims the throne for himself. This sets the stage for a bitter internal family feud as Nathan and Bathsheba convince David to name Solomon as his choice to assume the throne after him. As Solomon is anointed as king, the political maneuvering begins. In this wide open, empty space left by the lectionary, Solomon goes through the process of managing his opposition, silencing some of the significant dissenters, and taking care of a few of David’s loose ends that could have caused problems for Solomon’s kingdom. After all this maneuvering, all the cloak and dagger politics, the text tells us that Solomon’s kingdom is finally “firmly established.”
So now, at the tail end of this royal soap opera, it’s even easier to understand how grateful Solomon is for his position - he’s not just walking in his father’s footsteps; he’s giving his gratitude to the God who has placed him on the throne! At the same time, we can imagine that Solomon is probably still spending at least part of his days glancing over his shoulder, making sure that there’s not someone coming after him to make his reign a short one. So when God appears to Solomon in a dream and offers him anything he wants, we might expect him to give a much different answer than the one he provides.
Imagine for a moment that our own elections were more like this - instead of primaries, we’d have battle royale fights to the death. Candidates wouldn’t engage one another in debates or pay millions of dollars for attack ads and smear campaigns - they’d simply put out a contract or maneuver for their opponent to lead a hopeless battle, guaranteeing their death. Let’s say you decided to put your name on the ballot and survived to the point where your election was finally “firmly established” and God appeared to you, asking you what you wanted? What would you ask for? A congress that was willing to work with you? People who would let you pass all the laws that you wanted to go through? A successful presidency with record-setting and consistent approval ratings? How about a Nobel Peace prize, a ground-breaking, history-making foreign policy that makes leaps and bounds toward world peace, or a feather in your cap for negotiating peace in the Middle East? I’m sure most, if not even all of these wishes to God would be acceptable - even admirable. But Solomon’s request is nothing like any of these options. Solomon approaches God humbly - he says, “I am but a little child,” though historians suggest that at somewhere around 20, he was just blooming into the prime of his adulthood. He confesses his weak state - as being not only a little child, but one who does not know “how to go out or to come in” - and then he asks God for just one, simple thing: an understanding and discerning mind to govern God’s people and the wisdom to judge between good and evil. He asks God for the wisdom to guide God’s people as God would have them governed, rather than as he would want to govern them. Solomon takes his winning lottery ticket, his heavenly jackpot, and places it firmly in the hands of the greatest investor and planner of all. This humility, this desire to follow God’s guidance and to let God rule through Solomon is admirable - so admirable, in fact, that God not only grants Solomon’s request for wisdom, but also gives him the things he didn’t request, promising him riches and honor all his life. God recognizes the wisdom that Solomon already possesses in knowing his own limitations, and blesses that wisdom to make it flourish.
We worship a generous God, a God who surrounds his beloved children with innumerable blessings. At the same time, we would be foolish if we took God’s blessings for granted. Even as God praises Solomon’s humility and promises him further riches and glory, God makes his expectations of Solomon perfectly clear - “If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life.” The God we see here in 1 Kings is far from some cosmic genie, divine lottery, or heavenly Santa Claus. This God of blessing expects that we use the gifts he bestows upon us responsibly. Throughout the entirety of the Old Testament, in the saga of David, in the story of Abraham, the entire history of Israel, the underlying theme that we consistently hear is “You have been blessed in order to be a blessing.” God does not bless us just because “God loves us and wants us to be happy;” God blesses us and gifts us for a purpose, so that we can use those gifts to bring glory to God and to ultimately be a witness to others of God’s amazing goodness.
This is what is at the heart of this passage from Paul to the church in Ephesus as he enjoins them to live as wise people, making the most of their time. Paul encourages the church to seek the will of God in the same way that we see Solomon did - with worshipping and humble hearts, giving thanks to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here, in our worshipping community, we have the blessing to be able to look to God in Jesus Christ and discover together what God would have us do with the gifts that God has given us. As we gather together to worship God and to listen to God’s word to us each week, we seek God’s help and guidance, which God is more than willing to give. In our worship, let us echo the request of Solomon - “Give us an understanding mind,” so that as we are sent back out into the world, we can celebrate the blessings which we have received and in turn, pass those same blessings on to others. To God be all glory, Amen.
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