9th Sunday After Pentecost

1Kings 3:5-12; Romans 8:26-39

Our season of discipleship is going to take a bit of a turn this week and instead of the Gospel we are going to take a look at our Old Testament Reading from the book of Kings today.  Now I always get a bit excited when I get to talk about this part of the bible because I actually wrote my Masters Thesis on the David Narratives so I have spent more concerted effort studying this part of the Bible than any other.  And well, the story of Saul, David and Solomon is also just a darn good story.  Though honestly a lot more complicated and frankly a heck of a lot racier than most of us would expect from the pages of a Holy Book.  Sure we all probably know a little bit already about David and Solomon.  That they were early kings of Israel and especially favored by God.  I bet everyone here knows the story of David and Goliath.  You might remember that David conquered Jerusalem and that Solomon built the temple.  Or you may think of David the humble shepherd who became king or as the great musician who wrote many of the Psalms.  Some may even remember the sorted little story of David and Bathsheba which is how Solomon came to into being.

Well, in our first lesson today, we join the story shortly after the elderly king David has died when Solomon, one of David’s younger sons comes fresh to the throne through some rather ‘creative’ maneuvering by his mother and is now faced with the task of running his father’s great kingdom.  It must have seemed like such an imposing task.  So Solomon sets out to rule and at first it looks like Israelites are in for a pretty rough ride.   He starts by eliminating any possible rivals, including some of his siblings, settling some scores for his father and taking a pagan Egyptian woman as his wife.  He then starts building his own palace before starting work on building the great temple for God that David had commanded him to build.  If Solomon had stayed on this course, Israel may well have been headed for disaster.  But then, Solomon goes and does one thing right, he sets aside his own selfish goals and he takes time to turn to God for help.  He leaves his palace and bustling city to travel to Gibeon, an isolated ancient cultic sight favored by Saul and David and turns his attention to worshiping God. 

And it is here that God seeks him out and offers to help.  And this moment marks a turning point in Solomon’s rule, an experience that changes the direction of Israel’s future.   God comes to Solomon in a dream and confronts him with a great question.  "Ask what I should give you."  Of all possible things what would you like to have from God?  What a question.  If faced with that same question, what would you say?  With the whole array of possibilities laid out before you, what would you ask for from God?  Long life and health?  Success and security?  Safety and protection for your children?  Power?  Riches?  Love and Happiness?  There is so much that we could ask from God.

Well Solomon asks for none of the temporal things that first come to mind when we picture a young king on the throne.  Instead, Solomon asks for wisdom, an understanding mind and the ability to discern between good and evil, to know the right course for his people.   It is an answer that both pleases God and starts Solomon on a path to become known throughout history as the wisest of all kings.  Solomon knows that his father’s great success was due to his ability to follow the will of God and essentially, he asks God for this same ability.  Rather than ask for things to help himself, long life, personal security, health or riches, Solomon asks for wisdom and the ability to rule his kingdom with justice and discernment.  Solomon asks not for himself but for the benefit of others.

And God willingly, even eagerly grants this wonderful gift to Solomon.  And it comes to Solomon as a pure gift from God.  For Solomon up until this point has done nothing to make him particularly deserving of this honor. In fact he has done quite the opposite.  He usurps his older brother to take the throne, he deals harshly and rather cruelly with his father’s old enemies, he breaks God’s law and marries a foreign woman for personal gain and even now he has to go to Gibeon, a high place associated with idols to worship because he has failed to prioritize building God’s temple in Jerusalem, and yet despite all this God is present and gracious and bestows on Solomon great gifts.

And it is the same for us.  Our worthiness is not a prerequisite for God answering our prayers.  In fact, Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans that we also heard today that quite the opposite is true.  For the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes for us with sighs to deep for words.  Like Solomon we come before God in prayer utterly unworthy of God’s gifts.  And God, like he did with Solomon grants us not only what we ask for but so much more.

It is often easy to start thinking that we need to do some kind of massive preparation to come before God in prayer.  That we need some complicated formula.  That we need to have prayer books and beautiful poetic language.  That we need to somehow first be worthy of help.  But all of this could not be further from the truth.  On the contrary, God is seeking us in prayer, asking each of us what is it that we need.  And the Holy Spirit is interceding for us, transforming our clumsy mutterings and desperate cries into the very mind God.

I doubt any of us are about to face the task of ruling an unruly kingdom of Israelites, but when we do inevitably face our own seemingly insurmountable tasks, it helps to remember that God is seeking to help us as well.  God’s wisdom is present all around us.  In prayer, in the bible, in the experience and guidance of other Christians, in the enduring presence of the Holy Spirit.  There is nothing in this world that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord and we never need face the trials of life without divine guidance.  Even the very least and clumsiest among us possesses the wisdom of Solomon in the gifts of faith that God bestows on our hearts.

Amen.