The Wisdom to Listen with Our Heart: Sermon Pentecost 7 2014

Text: 1 Kings 3:5-12, Romans 8:26-39

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who gives us the wisdom to listen with our heart.

            Ok, tonight as you are sleeping you have a dream and in it God says to you, “What ever you ask for I will give you.”

            What do you ask for? Money, better job, long life, x-ray vision, ability to fly, a whole bunch of stuff.

            Now, this question is of course not asked of us, it’s asked to Solomon. The son of David and Bathsheba, not the child who died through their adultery, but the child born after they marry. Solomon becomes King after David dies because his Mother Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan convince David to favor him. However, Solomon is not the first born of David, in fact he’s not really towards the top of the birth order at all. The first two eldest sons have died already in wars of David’s and the next eldest Adonijah recently went through and large ordeal with Solomon, multiple times declaring himself king despite David’s favor to Solomon. The first time Solomon forgives him, Adonijah then tries to marry one of David’s wives to make his claim to the throne stronger, and Solomon deposes him and kills him as well. So, Solomon doesn’t really have any direct threats to his rule, but he didn’t really come into it neatly.

            And so intelligence would say, make sure you firm up your rule. Maybe ask for a guarantee of long life, or for wealth to control all around, or just deal with it at once and kill all of your enemies.

            I've been reading a lot of sad and heartbreaking stories in the news recently And based on them at the moment it certainly seems like most of the world has taken this route. The wishes of too many in the world are focused around themselves. Everywhere I look I see people answering God’s question seeking wealth at the expense of others, violence and power.

            I see people so wrapped up in consumerism that they walk by the homeless and hungry on the street. We pay our CEO’s, Athlete’s, and politicians millions while children go to sleep hungry. We choose methods of violence to attempt to settle our problems. I see people shooting down airliners in Ukraine. Rockets against Israel, Air-strikes, bombings and shootings of Palestinians and horrifically even the seeming targeting of children there as well. I see children sent uncared for into our country, and then see people thinking the solution is simply dumping them back over the border.

            The common understanding of wisdom is seen as how to best invest your finances, how to get the most out of your opponents while giving nothing in return, how to use media to convince the world that what you are doing is correct. How to get away with as much as you can while still technically obeying the rules. It seems like the world heard God’s question of Ask for what you want me to give you and went straight for Money, Long Life, and destruction of enemies.

            But, that’s not what Solomon asks for is it.

            Solomon looks at what’s going on in his life and realizes that there is something more important than long life, money or getting rid of enemies. That here he is, God has given him so much, he is king over the chosen people of God, so numerous that they cannot be counted, and he has no clue what to do.

            He says, 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.

            Solomon was probably around 20 or so when this happens, so he’s not really a child, but in terms of court life and being king, he is a child experience-wise. He was not groomed to become king, he doesn’t know how to come in or go out, referring to how people are supposed to approach the king and then take leave from his presence. He doesn’t know the basics of protocol for how to be king, and now he is, and not of some little hamlet, but the king of the Chosen people of God, too numerous to count.

            So, he asks “Give me an understanding mind to govern your people.”

            Now in Hebrew it’s a little different, the meaning is not understanding mind, it’s a hearing heart. God give me the heart to care for your people. That’s Solomon’s true wisdom. He understands that what’s important is hearing the people and having the heart to care for them.

            He understands who God created him to be. The very first command God gives to us in Genesis is to be Good Stewards of creation. Caring for and serving what God has created. What Solomon asks for is the wisdom to care for not what is his, but what is God’s. It’s God’s people, God’s kingdom, God’s world and he understands he’s only a servant.

            God wants us to listen with our hearts, to hear the cries of those who are suffering and hurting and to serve them, not our own self-centered wants.

            We will fail of course, even if we try as hard as we like, listen with our hearts as intently as we can, our own self interests will come about. But, there’s a promise in this is as well, because it’s God that gives the wisdom. And God that sends Christ.

            And no matter what happens, even in the midst of Children being killed and mistreated, planes being shot down, hungry being ignored, homeless being called illegal, nothing can separate us, or them, from the love of God.

            Paul’s words are to both us and others, because when we listen with our hearts, we are hearing God, in ourselves and in others. Wisdom comes in hearing God alive in this world, in the midst of pain and suffering and seeing that we are called to be people of shelter, protection, and peace. Wisdom comes in knowing that we are stewards, not the ones in control, that all of this world is God’s, and God loves the whole world.

May we act like that, may we have wisdom, and may we listen with our hearts. Amen.