July 26, 2020
At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask what I should give you.” And 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. And 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. 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. Give 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?”
It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. God 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, I 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.
An epidemiologist, an ICU doctor and first responder walk into a bar… Oh wait, no they don’t, they know better. I read that joke this week and laughed. I share it to help make the point about how we tell a story and how the stories we tell fit into a paradigm we already know. From an early age, our identity as Americans has been shaped by culture, economics, history, and religion. The story we tell ourselves about who we are as Americans might go something like this.
America is a world leader, an economic powerhouse, a strong democracy, with the premiere health organization, the CDC.
America is a melting pot, fights for freedom around the world, is a Christian nation.
We live by the Constitution, checks and balances and a fair legal system.
We are individualists, capitalists and we believe in the American Dream.
But right now, we are writing a different story of America. We are the only developed nation that has failed to flatten the curve on this pandemic. We are more guided by politics than by science. We are protesting for racial justice revealing the truth about our melting pot. We are silencing the CDC and weakening our institutions.
Our claim as a world leader, Christian nation and provider of the American Dream is in peril.
Lest we think this is the first time this has happened, take heart. The people of Israel were writing a new story too. They were changing leaders, from King David who fought to unite Israel and Judah, the northern and Southern kingdoms, to King Solomon who was David and Bathsheba’s son. But even Solomon’s ascension was difficult because he was not the first-born son. Instead Solomon killed his older brother after David placed Solomon on the throne. Yet this story is written while the people of Israel are in Babylonian exile. Meaning that they are seeking to tell the story of their king in a way that shapes who they are even as a defeated people. One commentator writes, “Imagine a community on the edge of survival. Its religious, economic, and cultural centers are in ruins… Now in exile, the community of YHWH faces the humiliation of being erased by the cultural power of an empire with powerful and alien gods…what can those who remember Zion do? Sing songs. Tell stories. Compose a history of kings” (Feasting on the Word, A3, p.267).
This is the setting of how we learn of Solomon’s wisdom.
If I ask you, “What do you know about Solomon?” You might say he was wise and/or he built the first temple in Jerusalem. Both are true. Yet we can see Solomon’s wisdom as more than a personal trait. It was what he needed for the task to which God appointed him.
Much like Moses needed a staff to lead the people out of Egypt, and David needed a sling shot in his quest to become a great warrior,
Solomon needed wisdom to be the king to rule over the two united kingdoms. So when asked, what does it take to govern a great people, which is at the heart of God asking Solomon, “Ask what I should give you,” the answer is wisdom. Leaders with wisdom know how to govern, how to lead, how to make difficult decisions. Solomon’s first task after his dream is to decide the fate of two mothers both claiming a child belongs to them. Solomon discerns that the mother who would relinquish her rights to her child, to protect the child, is the one who is truly its mother. Wisdom personified.
What would it mean for us to have wisdom? Wisdom is more than knowledge, more than getting what we want out of life. Deepest wisdom is not reason, but revelation.
Wisdom comes when our souls are in alignment with God. Consider how it is when your car is out of alignment and always pulls to one side. Think of the effort it takes just to keep driving in a straight line, until you get your tires re-aligned. So many things can pull us out of alignment, we use substances and behaviors to try to fill the void created when we are out of alignment with God. Some call that sin, other see that as part of being human. But the solution is the same- trusting in God to align us with God’s wisdom.
Solomon does that. After affirming God’s relationship with his father David, Solomon asks for an understanding mind to govern God’s people, and the ability to discern between good and evil; skills needed to govern well, ways to be in alignment with God. Now he could have asked for riches or long life, but the task before Solomon is to govern God’s people, and wisdom is what is needed and granted.
Yet let’s not make this only about Solomon’s wisdom. What this story is truly about is a God who keeps promises.
Our God, YHWH, who grants Solomon an understanding mind, and discerning heart.
Our God who even when we feel lost and out of control, when we wonder when will this pandemic ever end, we still rest in the eternal wisdom and care of our Lord.
Today we search for God’s wisdom, God’s realignment of us and our nation in this time of peril. Because this time of crisis is also a time of opportunity when we will be writing our history. How will we tell our current story? How will our identity as a country be changed?
What kind of nation will we become?
What kind of people is God calling us to be? One commentator writes, “Biblical stories engage our community stories and the interaction shapes identity on an individual and communal level. When an individual or a community perceives its structural integrity to be collapsing under the weight of external threat or inner disintegration, an urgent search for a sustainable narrative begins” (Feasting on the Word, A3, p.269).
Who will we be as Americans?
People with free speech or people afraid to be kidnapped on the streets of Portland?
People who believe in the American dream or people who say that dream is only for some.
People who trust in science and work together to get out of this mess or people who don’t.
The paradigm of who America is, is being redefined, realigned. Maybe that is a good thing.
We are seeing how the American dream has been a nightmare for some.
We are becoming humble as to our standing in the world and we will have to work hard to reemerge.
I pray we trust in the wisdom of God to see us through and to open our eyes to who we really are.
Clear understanding is the heart of true wisdom.
However we tell our story, the American story, it will always be woven with God’s story. So I leave you with this quote from Heather Murry Elkins,
“To be human is above all to have a story.
To be holy is to be part of God’s story. Our sense of self and community and world is relational and storied.
This story of a dreaming king gathers up the history of a people of God past and present. It is a way for them and for us to remember into the future” (Feasting on the Word, A3, p. 271). Amen.
