Who would you think of if you were asked to name the wisest person in history? Would Solomon be up there as #1 or close to it? Solomon has a reputation for being a wise and caring ruler. “The wisdom of Solomon” is a phrase that’s probably familiar to most of us.
But Solomon wasn’t perfect. Not by a long shot! Here’s a little of his history:
Absalom rebelled against his father and made himself king, until he was executed by Joab. Adonijah took a more political route, getting the support of David’s general, Joab, and the priest, Abiathar. Solomon supplanted Adonijah and became king through the “Jacob strategy” (misleading an aging father into blessing the younger son with what belongs to the elder son). Nathan conspired with Bathsheba to lie to David, saying he had promised to place Solomon on the throne, and David was easily led to agree.
Solomon banished the priest Abiathar and shortly thereafter ordered the execution of Adonijah for requesting the young and beautiful Abishag the Shunammite as his wife. She was David’s wife late in life, brought in to keep him warm. Women were just property then, so upon David’s death, she belonged to Solomon, his heir and successor.
The next thing Solomon did was to have Joab killed. Though Shimei had not supported Adonijah, Solomon put him under house arrest, and when he left Jerusalem to retrieve some runaway slaves, Solomon had him executed. The scripture says, “So the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.”
And so it was—with three executions and a banishment! Truly, Solomon walked in the ways of his father David.
So, what made Solomon’s reign different?
Strategic alliances with powerful neighbors permitted a generation of peace. Solomon married the daughter of a Pharaoh, and established a trade agreement with King Hiram of Tyre, cementing relationships to the south and to the north. Even if the tradition somewhat exaggerates (1 Kings 11 claims 700 princesses among Solomon’s foreign wives), Solomon clearly understood the usefulness of turning your neighbors into in-laws.
In addition, Solomon extracted great wealth from his subjects, enabling the construction of the glorious temple, and many other works. He introduced forced labor on a massive scale, with thousands of subjects working a third of the year for the king. He also adopted the horse and chariot, instead of riding a donkey like his father. This gave him greater speed and permitted swift and terrible punishment of anyone who dared to rebel against the king.
In spite of all that, Jesus sees Solomon as the epitome of human wisdom and glory, but probably no greater than the least child of God in the Kingdom. Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus said: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”[i] Jesus also said, “The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here!”[ii]
But, even though Solomon wasn’t all that different from political leaders of our day, he did have some wisdom when confronted by God in today’s passage from 1 Kings. His prayer was very different from what most people would probably ask for—he asked for wisdom and an understanding mind.
Solomon told God he was only a boy, which is said to mean he was probably about 20. At that point in his life he seems to already have enough wisdom to ask for the attributes that would make him a good king instead of asking for wealth and power. Later in life, however, Solomon gave up following God and doing all the things God really wanted the kings of Israel to do. It turned out he was very human after all.
What kind of wisdom do we need? This week while I was on study leave, I read a book called The Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation. The missing generation is the 20 to 40 year olds. The author contends that we older generations need to understand that life is TOTALLY different for adults under 40 than it was for us when we were that age. She tells a number of things she feels congregations need to do to welcome these young adults and make them feel comfortable in our mainline churches.
We might pray for the wisdom to drop our preconceived notions, expectations and generalizations, remembering that life today is nothing like it was in the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s or ‘80s. Technology is a necessity for young adults today, as are other things that older folks might consider frivolous if there’s not enough money to make ends meet. Just because something was good enough for us “way back when” doesn’t mean it’s good enough—or sometimes even appropriate—for younger generations today.
There is so much to understanding and caring for others whose experience may be vastly different from ours. Today we live in a society that, unlike ancient Israel, claims to be built upon the separation of church and state but often brings religious beliefs and claims of authority into the political arena, if not our shared public life. We’ve all seen people argue vehemently about putting the Ten Commandments on a courthouse wall as a mark of our faithfulness or expect political candidates to speak fervently of their faith life. Yet so many of us—and our politicians—fail to make sure that all of God's children have the basic goods of life.
While we worry about the pledge of allegiance, prayer in public schools, putting the Ten Commandments on public walls or how we might find a way to force everyone to be heterosexual, we neglect “the widow, the poor, and the foreigner in our midst”—those most vulnerable and in need. 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 when the heart of God’s law is broken all around us?[iii]
I think generational differences and an unwillingness to listen to or make room for the new ideas of younger generations is one of our biggest problems in the world. But small, intimate, intergenerational churches have a fabulous opportunity to show everyone else how it’s done! Sometimes it’s hard to let go of traditions and so we say “no, we can’t do that because we’ve never done it that way before,” but new ideas and experiments can be great fun and they can even establish new traditions!
Solomon is famous for building the greatest worship center in ancient times (in our tradition), but his heart strayed to false gods. He did seek wisdom and he started out praising God like his father, David had done.
There is much for us to learn from Solomon’s wisdom and from his story. If we set our minds and hearts to praising God, perhaps we’ll remain on the path of following in the footsteps of Jesus and loving and living as God has called us to do.
Ego can get in the way. Sometimes we think we know best because we’re supposedly older and wiser. But each of God’s people has gifts to share with all the others. And for those gifts we can all “praise God and give thanks to God with our whole heart.”[iv] AMEN.
[i] Luke 12:27, NRSV.
[ii] Matt. 12:42 and Luke 11:31, NRSV.
[iii] The Rev. Kate Huey, http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/august-16-2009-eighteenth-sunday-1-1.html
[iv] Psalm 111:1, NRSV.
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