September 7, 2008 Sermon

Solomon's "Wisdom"
I Kings 3:1-15

Did you catch that the passage we just read is a dream scene? Yet it has much more reality, much greater force than the average movie dream scene. I Kings 3:5 tells us, “At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream.” God used (and uses) dreams to reach us. Not all dreams that we suspect might come from God actually do. Knowing when God is speaking to us—and when God is not—is a critically important skill. It is a sign of spiritual maturity. And it is exactly what Solomon requested when God, in this dream, told him to ask for anything.

Even people who have little Bible background know two things about Solomon: he solved the problem of two women claiming the same baby by ordering that it be cut in two and one half given to each woman (the real mother, of course, immediately backed down in order to spare her child), and Solomon was wise. This idea that Solomon was wise comes partly from our passage, but read it carefully. Solomon asked for a specific type of wisdom: the ability to discern between good and evil. He was, in other words, wise enough to ask for a certain kind of wisdom. We, too, need discernment. We, too, need to tell good from evil. Follow the example of Solomon: ask God for discernment.

Solomon has just become king. His father, the great King David, died only recently. He has consolidated power by killing several rivals and making alliances with foreign powers. Our chapter begins with him doing this very thing by marrying one of the Egyptian Pharaoh’s daughters. Next comes the dream. But look at how the writer of I Kings chooses to introduce this story. Solomon loves the Lord. Solomon obeys the Lord’s laws. Solomon follows the better parts of his father David’s ways. Solomon is getting off to a terrific start at this king business. Okay, so he offers sacrifices at the “high places”, but on the whole he seems bent on doing things according to the will of Yahweh. (The high places are altars on high mountain ridges the Israelites took over from the Canaanites when they conquered the land centuries before. Once used in pagan rituals to fertility gods, the Israelites have “converted” them into places of proper worship to the proper God. It’s just that these high places will always have a whiff of paganism about them.)

The text points out that Solomon’s dream comes when he has proven his intention to love and obey the Lord. The Lord speaks concisely: “Ask what I should give you.” The Lord implies no limit. But note how submissively Solomon replies. He begins by thanking God for how well God treated his father. He moves to thanking God for how well God has set him up as the new king. And he expresses it all in the most respectful language possible. He calls his father and himself God’s servants. He describes himself as a little child, meaning that though he is an adult physically he recognizes that he has much to learn about the great responsibilities now thrust upon him. He contrasts little old himself with the great number of people he must lead. In short, Solomon uses the same deferential language in approaching God that any petitioner would have to use when approaching Solomon at court. As an aside, let me just observe that some of the most effective prayers I experience happen when I consciously use formal, submissive language.

The key verse comes when Solomon gets to his point. He prays, “Give your servant an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil.” Solomon asks for the God-given vision to discern between good and evil. And he asks this in the context of his desire to govern the people. Asking for the power to discern between good and evil begs another question, one which I would have thought would have an obvious answer, but one that in our post-modern culture causes terrific controversy: is there even such a thing as good or as evil? The biblical answer is, YES! People who lived through World War II and saw the photographs American soldiers took when they liberated the concentration camps, haunting photos of mountains of shoes outside the ovens, of surviving Jews so thin their skin hangs loosely from their skeletons, would answer that evil exists. Why do we now have such difficulty in admitting it?

Perhaps our problem lies not with agreeing that good and evil exist, but rather with having to judge which is which. Much of the world mocked President Bush when he made his “Axis of Evil” speech, in which he labeled three nations (North Korea, Iran and Iraq) as the source of great evil in the present era. Comedian Will Farrell did a great routine in which he impersonated the President making this speech, and adding many countries, people and even animals to the axis list: France for being weenies, the guy next door who comes home late playing his car stereo at top volume and so on. It was a funny bit, but it carried a strong taste of mockery for the idea of an Axis of Evil. Why did so many people disagree with the President’s idea? Some disagreed simply because it was Mr. Bush who was speaking and they reflexively disagree with anything he believes. More extreme people on all sides of every issue handle their opponents this way. But others disagreed with his focus on just those three nations. How did he choose them? Is it wise to make such a public statement of what ought to be more secret policies? And what about us, are we pure as the driven snow?

We have reached the point where any attempt to define good and evil, let alone to label any behavior, any movement, any idea, any religion, any culture as evil has become controversial. In order to avoid arguing, and in order to avoid experiencing the same scorn heaped on President Bush, we tend not to discern good and evil. This is a grave mistake. What we need to do, instead, is pray to God continually for the ability to discern good and evil with God’s eyes. We need to do what Solomon did. We need to ask for the vision to see truth vs. falsehood. We need to ask for the vision to see right vs. wrong. We need to ask for the vision to see good vs. evil. And then we need to pray for the courage to build our lives upon God’s truth, God’s righteousness and God’s goodness.

The English philosopher Edmund Burke wrote, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” As Christians, we know that we are all sinners. Not one of us is purely good. Yet we have the Spirit of Christ within us. We can—and must—do good. But first we must discern good from evil. And that is not always easy. Pray for discernment. And then practice discernment. When unsure of the goodness of an idea or an action you are considering taking, ask a discerning Christian for his or her point of view. Seek God’s vision through the eyes of the church. Read your Bible. If you are unsure where to find help on a specific question, please ask me. I will try to help you find your answer. Together we can work toward discerning God’s will.

Evil saturates our times. And evil, by its very nature, can disguise itself as good. Work constantly to discern the one from the other. Use your prayer life and your association with wise Christians to help you accomplish this vital task. Once you believe you have discerned good from evil, stay humble. Avoid the sinful pitfall of making rash, public statements against the evil—unless you find a preponderance of wise Christians on the same side of that particular fence.

But do not shirk your responsibility to discern good from evil. Without discernment, how can we govern our own steps? How can we keep the church on the path of good? And if neither we Christians, nor the church we compose, can discern good from evil, what chance does the world have for redemption?