1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14 Commentary

Sermon Illustration:

This might work well in the space of a children’s sermon because (speaking from personal experience) kids spend more time dreaming of what they would do with magical wishes in a way that adults — with home repairs, deadlines at work, kids dental work to save for — have moved past.  If a genie came to offer you three wishes, what is one thing you would ask for?  After requests for ponies and swimming pool full of chocolate and a trip to Europe have been exhausted, someone will almost certainly suggest, “Can I use a wish to ask for 100 more wishes?”  And if no one in your congregation wants to game the system, you might suggest the option yourself, along with the sermon teaser, “this morning’s Bible text suggests someone else who used their wish for a gift that would keep on giving too…”

Commentary:

Not as Simple as it Seems

The lectionary text selection suggests a warm home going for David and a peaceful transfer of power.  David has gone to his ancestors and 2:10-12 offer an uncomplicated eulogy: a 40 year tenure as king with the title passing to his son, Solomon.  “And his rule was firmly established.”

However, even a cursory read of the extended text reveals brothers grappling with brothers over the line of succession. Prince Adonijah sees his father’s failing health and takes the opportunity to declare himself king.  Bathsheba and Nathan aren’t having it and they endorse Prince Solomon’s bid for the throne. They go to King David and make their case. Given what we know about the role these two have played in David’s life and reign, one imagines they made a compelling case and Solomon is coronated while Adonijah is busy partying with his friends.  Once Adonijah hears about his brother’s ascendency, he runs to the altar to plead for mercy, which Solomon grants, at least at first.

But you don’t get any of that from the chosen lectionary texts. Just a peaceful transfer of power and Solomon’s request for wisdom. However, hidden one verse up, in 2:9, we hear David’s last request of his son: “bring his gray head down to the grave in blood.”  Of this, Robert Altar suggests, ““David has had noble moments as well as affectingly human ones, but it is a remarkable token of the writer’s gritty realism about men in the vindictive currents of violent politics that (these are) the very last words he assigns to David.” Then, despite his original mercy toward his brother Adonijah, another slight leads him to an extrajudicial killing first of his brother Adonijah, then he summarily fires the priest Abiathar, then hunts down Joab to have him killed, then after honoring his father’s nemesis Shemei, is ultimately slighted by him as well and finally fulfills his father’s last command to have him killed.

Perhaps all of this is important in shaping what comes next.  God offers to Solomon, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”  And Solomon asks for wisdom.  The remainder of the retelling of Solomon’s reign is marked by wise judgment and administration, a growing reputation for wisdom and splendor, building and prayerfully dedicating the Temple and his own palace. The whole of Solomon’s reign proves distinctly less bloody than its pre-wisdom establishment, though not without its own problematic elements (forced labor and foreign wives leading to idolatry).

Wisdom

The whole of Scripture is filled with talk of wisdom. In Hebrew Scripture we see it from the first sin of Adam and Eve being a desire for wisdom on their own terms apart from God. The first chapter of Proverbs offers a summary of its teaching: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (1:7) and the last chapter, commonly called “The Wife of Noble Character” can also be interpreted as an anthropomorphic illustration of wisdom (which takes a feminine form in both Hebrew [chokmah] and Greek [Sophia]).  These verses offer a cascade of images of wisdom in action.

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul redefines wisdom, taking it out of the esteemed ivory towers of Greek philosophy and places it on the old wooden cross of a Savior humbled by a death reserved for common criminals. “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (1:22-25). And, in the Epistle most akin to Hebrew wisdom literature, the book of James, this promise made specifically and uniquely to Solomon is offered to us in another way: “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” (James 1:5)

Wishing for 100 More Wishes

There are several unique components to this story of Solomon and God’s interaction. The first is that God does not show up on the regular, like a genie, offering to grant us wishes. We might wish it were so but, according to scholar Johanna W. H. Van Wijk-Bos, “In the Historical Books, Solomon is the only person to whom God is said to appear—in Hebrew, literally ‘to be seen.’”

Solomon’s request for wisdom almost seems like a grown-up version of using one of the genies’ three wishes to wish for 100 more wishes. Because, indeed, wisdom is a gift that keeps on giving. When Solomon makes his wish, he asks, specifically, for “a listening heart” to discern and make wise judgments.

God is obviously pleased with this request and grants it and “Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for — both wealth and honor — so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And, if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you long life.”

And, this gift of God comes back around in chapter 9 when God follows up with Solomon, especially on that last proviso, that tricky “If you walk in obedience…” bit. If, after all, Solomon has this unique opportunity to meet with God and to receive blessings from God, the stakes for Solomon’s righteousness are only that much higher for it. What is true for Spiderman is also true for Solomon: “With great power comes great responsibility.”