August 18, 2024: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.
One phrase we often hear, particularly in political punditry or business consulting, is that of “splitting the baby.” Have you’all heard that? Now, why on earth would anyone talk about doing such a gruesome thing? Well, glad you asked… because it was something that marked the early part of the reign of a long ago king. The very one we heard about in today’s reading from, appropriately, Kings. Specifically 1 Kings 2 & 3.
This was a moment of transition. King David was dying, and Solomon, one of his sons, was made the next King. Sounds simple enough – if you just take the verses we get today. However, as I have often said, notice when there are gaps in the verses. Well, we get a boatload of them today.
The short version of what is missing is how it was that Solomon came to be named the next King rather than his older brother Adonijah. It’s an interesting story of a bit of intrigue, deception, and murder. Not to mention Solomon marries the daughter of the Egyptian Pharoah and sacrifices at altars around town. It is then that we get to what we heard today – God appears in a dream to Solomon (according to Solomon anyway) and like some blue Genie out of Disney’s Aladdin, asks “What can I give to you – just ask?”
Now, how many of you would love that to happen?
And if it did, what would you ask for – money (for the church, right? – of course), or perhaps you might be thinking on a more selfless plane, and ask for world peace? I think I would want to be able to know all the languages of the world, including the language of music and animals. But the new King Solomon did not ask for any of that, but instead replies that, being a young new monarch, he wanted God to grant him wisdom to be able to serve well.
As you might guess, God was very pleased with this, and grants it (even though in the asking, Solomon is showing he has what he has asked for already). Then God throws in a whole lot more – riches, long life, the whole nine yards. Geez! Solomon sort of got the trifecta (just to mix our sports metaphors)!
If only earthly leaders of governments would follow Solomon’s lead and seek to have wisdom that they might serve their people well. In fairness, some have been very wise, and here is a short little story about one of them – President Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, he once got caught up in a situation where he wanted to please a politician, so he issued a command to transfer certain regiments. When the secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, received the order, he refused to carry it out. He said that the President was a fool. Lincoln was told what Stanton had said, and he replied, “If Stanton said I’m a fool, then I must be, for he is nearly always right. I’ll see for myself.” Lincoln then met with Stanton, and as the two men talked, the President quickly realized that his decision was a serious mistake, and without hesitation he withdrew it.”
Now, I don’t know if this story about Lincoln is true, though it does fit with the overall way of our 16th President. The thing about what President Lincoln did was not about the change in his decision itself. No, the thing was that he was willing to listen to others to discern what was the right course of action – he didn’t think he knew everything.
This fall, we will elect our 47th President along with others to serve in roles from Senator to Board of Education member. We certainly hope that those who win will be like Solomon – to know their need for God’s grace and guidance, and seek first to be wise and good leaders in service to their people. We know too that sadly, there will be those who are the opposite of all of these characteristics, and many will pay the price on account of their arrogance, selfishness, and ignorance.
Solomon, for his part, was a bit of both – the wise and the unwise. Oh, don’t get me wrong – he started out really well. In fact, that’s when we get that whole baby splitting bit, right after he receives this gift of God. The story goes that two women came to him arguing over who was the true mother of a baby. Both had given birth at the same time and in the same house. One baby died during the night, and that mother swapped her dead baby for the other one. The two women argue back and forth before King Solomon, who then sends a servant to fetch his sword that he might split the baby into two halves, to be given to the women. Just then, one of the women says “No! Do not harm him. Give him to her and let him live.” The other woman, for her part, said “If I can’t have him, neither should she, so go ahead and split him.” Solomon gave the child – the whole child mind you – to the one who was willing to give the baby up for the sake of its life, saying that it was she who was the true mother.
This little story is the nugget we are all told about in the church as proof of Solomon’s wisdom. It’s a great story too. I remember the artwork in my family’s bible that depicted the scene. Did any of you have one of those? 
Solomon, like his father David before him, wanted to do what was right by God, but sadly, also like his dad, he was deeply flawed and it showed in some of what he did during his reign – like using forced labor for his numerous building projects, over taxing his people, and building up extravagant wealth.
The thing is though, it is the lack of perfection in these larger than life figures of our faith that can make them accessible to us, that can make their lives instructive to us today. And one of those lessons is that Solomon, as flawed as he was, initially had the insight to know that he needed help – that he was young and in over his head in this new role.
In psychological circles, they say the first step toward health is recognizing you need help, right? Well…apparently Solomon knew it. However, he didn’t understand this wasn’t a one and done type of thing. He lost sight of what it was that made him make that request in the first place. He stopped using the first gift God gave him. And to be clear, it wasn’t really wisdom.
You see, the Hebrew is a little more subtle than that – it says that he asked God to “Give your servant therefore an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to judge this your great people?’” Solomon asked for an understanding heart, that he might have the ability to discern what was right as a servant of God’s people.
Think about that – he wanted an understanding heart, the ability to discern what was right, and all to be a good servant to others. Now that is true wisdom.
For wisdom isn’t about knowing facts or having a high IQ. Wisdom is really the recognition that we do not yet understand all things, and the desire to learn – not for ourselves alone, but that we might better serve others. And what is foundational to it, what is needed to be truly wise, is humility.
As I have said before, humility isn’t about beating oneself up – that’s just crazy, not humble. Humility isn’t about letting someone else beat up on you either – that’s just abuse and it is wrong. No. Humility is rooted in truth – the desire to understand, to recognize that we do not know everything, to seek knowledge, to learn from all of God’s creation, to ask for forgiveness when we fail, as we inevitiably will do from time to time – and all that we might be better stewards of those we serve.
This is an important attribute often lacking in today’s political leaders to be sure, but it is not meant only for them. While they, like King Solomon, are earthly appointed leaders that are meant to serve their constituents, we are divinely annointed leaders called to serve all of God’s creation. We, the body of Christ, annointed and sealed at baptism, are called to serve God’s people.
And if we are to be successful, and Lordy, this is a time when we need to be successful, we have to have a little dream interaction with God ourselves – just like Solomon. Now, we may not actually have a dream like that, but that’s okay – God is waiting to listen in all sorts of ways if only we paid attention, if only we will have the humility to ask – to ask for discerning hearts.
And once we ask, once we listen, we need to do it over and over again. This isn’t some magic formula like that genie from Alladin: Poof! Where God says “Okey doke – go forth and be your wise self there girl…you got this.” And off we go riding into the proverbial sunset, doing everything right all the time. That certainly didn’t happen for Solomon, and it ain’t likely to happen to you or me either just because we asked for it.
Our lives in service to God’s people, as followers of Jesus, guided by the Holy Spirit, is a never ending cycle of listening, responding, and listening again. We do get better at it with age, if we practice this cycle of discernent, and not because we clocked in a certain number of years.
Which reminds me of something journalist and humorist H.L. Mencken once said, “The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”
Ain’t, that the truth. While age does provide experience which can build wisdom, there are a lot of wise young folks like Solomon out there as much as there are older people who haven’t a clue. And it is very much the case that those experiences that teach us the most are the ones that are the most difficult. It is wisdom born of graduating from what my grandpa called the school of hard knocks.
Yet we all know people who have come out on the other side of those difficulties with hard hearts, rather than discerning ones. Lest we judge them, we need to remember that judgement comes not from humility, but from arrogance. The discerning heart will seek to understand, to forgive, to listen, to love.
So, no – this openness to asking God to help us, this desire to have discerning hearts not hard ones, to listen more than to speak, to understand more than to be understood – it isn’t a thing of age, or a one and done act of grace in a moment of prayer. This is a continual cycle for those who seek to serve God – really of those who seek to have a life of any sort of meaning.
Solomon forgot that. He started off well, but eventually he got off track. As the Hebrew scholar, Walter Brueggemann once wrote: “The wisdom that Solomon does not learn is attentiveness to those for whom God has special attentiveness. There are all kinds of dreams — of power and money and prestige and control. But the dream of justice for widows, orphans, and immigrants is the deep wisdom of Torah obedience.” Solomon left that dream of God behind, and began to dream of other things – large temples, luxurious banquets, and riches, rather than just and understanding service to those most in need.
We can learn a lot from King Solomon – from all of who he was, not just the things that we like to hear. He wasn’t perfect. He wanted to do the right thing, and sometimes he succeeded, and sometimes he failed. He loved God, and sometimes failed the very God he loved. And most of all – that all through his life, no matter what he did or did not do – one thing never changed – God loved him.[1]
And the good news today?
God is hoping you will be open to meeting in your own dream – asking for what you need. God is hoping that what we will ask will come from a place of humility and a desire to do what is good and right in service to others, not for ourselves. God hopes this because God has dreams too. God dreams always for a just and good world for all people and for all of creation, and desires so very much to partner with us in bringing about this dream.
And even though we will inevitably stumble, even though we will sometimes forget God’s dream and substitute our own, we are no less to God than King Solomon and no more than the lowliest of God’s creatures. God’s love is infinite, unconditional, and for you – yes you!
That is the power of God’s great love!
Let it send us to our knees in thanksgiving, and out from these doors in humble service.
Amen.
For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
August 18, 2024
Pentecost 13 – Year B – Track 1 – Proper 15
1st Reading – 1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
Psalm – Psalm 111
2nd Reading – Ephesians 5:15-20
Gospel – John 6:51-58
[1] Grateful for the work of Debi Thomas on this text: https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/324-a-king-s-tale
