Sermons
Solomon, 'What do you want me to give you?'Pastor Ken Hilston |
At the end of his life, Solomon had to look at a very strange situation. He had been blessed beyond imagination from God, yet God's nation was disintegrating before his very eyes. Blessings turned to chaos. Today we will examine, how that disaster can happen in the faith, though it begins with a blessing.
A life of public wisdom is shown for private emptiness before God. Now, Solomon realized what his "prayerful hypocrisy" brought him, what he lost in life, while deluded into thinking God's blessings were but a blank check for his own imagination and power.
He had to face what his injustice and corruption brought him, avoiding the Lord God. He sees himself as king, yet like Adam, he is very naked before God. He is embarrassed at trying to deceive God by saying one thing, and doing another, by praying the right prayers, and walking his faith life in the opposite direction.
The outer greatness, of Solomon in all his glory, could not erase the hollow life lived with the large discrepancy between prayer and life. The more he was blessed by God, the more he felt his blessings, NOT GOD, ruled his life. All this only pointed out how far he was from the kingdom, and how close he was only to himself. This man who claimed to be wise, saw himself the fool, guided by anything and everything but God.
He must have thought back to God's initial, overture and key question from Kings today, "Solomon, what do you want me to give you?" He must have wondered, "What might this end of life have looked like, if I lived my life with the same faithful devotion, that I prayed? What could it have been if I had meant, what I prayed instead of playing to my audience?"
It's not really a trick question, but it is a loaded question, a most serious question. God lays this royal offer before Solomon. What an opportunity! God asks Solomon, "what do you want from me?" What more can anyone want? Yes, it is not a trick question, it is, "what do you pray for? How do you want God in your life? How much do you want God in your life?" It is not an easy question, but a question when answered carefully, can make all the difference in life.
Later, Jesus would ask Blind Bartimaeus the same question, "what do you want me to do for you?" Bartimaeus asked to be healed. An easy answer? No. Healed is only the start! Our blessings are only the start of the relationship.
Now Bartimaeus follows Jesus, the healer. *How really could your life be separated from the one who gave such a great gift? How could you ignore this connection? After receiving this new life, how could you live apart from the source of new life? This is not as easy as it looks. Their first stop: Jerusalem, on Palm Sunday. That's where prayer's answer leads Bartimaeus. He walks, with his new sight, with Jesus into Holy Week!
Solomon also would find, once you are closely connected to the Lord God in prayer, you will receive much, but it is never just personal, it is always as part of new life IN a community. Though King, Solomon, would not be King in this relationship, answerable to no one. *A major part of prayer, is joining with, closely, the one you pray to. It is not even as simple as Luther in the lightning storm when he prays out of spontaneous fear and vows to be a monk, if saved. That is only the beginning! *Once you pray, you acknowledge, you are handing over your life to the one you prayed to.
After all, if you pray to God, you acknowledge God as Lord of your life. It means, "I need your help, I need the help of someone mightier than I!" Why else would you pray to Him. You wouldn't pray to an inferior. Just like you go to a doctor because you need from someone what you cannot supply yourself.
Answers to prayers are only the first step in what will be a life long relationship, where you are no longer solely in control of your life. Along with answering your prayer, our Lord joins closely with you in all of life. Prayer is never a one shot deal. You can commit to one grocery store this week, and go to another the next week. But you cannot pray now, and easily just go someplace else, later. Never! *(It is also hard to shake the results of misguided and poor prayers, addressed to all the wrong sources that will linger in your life. If you let them in the door, you might find it a lot harder to get them out.)
Prayer invites our Lord into our life, fully, forever. It is but the start of a long term relationship. We can try to get out of the agreement, but our Lord never leaves our lives. If the next time we do not pray, He still answers and guides, even if we do not like the new direction.
Solomon thought he could use the Lord God to simply jump start his reign as king, and THEN walk in other directions. After all, he really has to pray. It would look bad politically if he didn't. He is in a bind, if he aspires to be King of GOD's people. Of course, being King, he knows he will be setting an example, so the prayer must be eloquent, humble, appropriately religious and high sounding.
Everyone is watching. After all, you wouldn't want to look greedy or opportunistic in public prayer. Supposedly the Lord God has backed the throne. Solomon knows the Lord God has promised the throne to the descendants of David. Therefore, all is set. For Solomon, prayer just shows everyone the Lord God and I, at least on the surface, belong together.
He cares what the people think, but not what God knows! He fears the people, and takes God for granted!
However, after all the political maneuvering and trickery to gain the throne, abusing the death bed of David and making his brother the eldest son look bad, then killing him. There is no way with clear conscience, Solomon could make such a prayer, knowing it will be merely NICE words devoid of DEVOUT actions.
The prayer sounds good, but it is only a part of his political game to enhance and secure his power. He knows he owes much to God, but he is quite negligent when it comes to living in a way that reflects God's guidance. Seduced by the wisdom, gifts and power God bestowed upon him, Solomon thinks he can do anything he wants with God's gifts. "You gave them to me! Thanks! See you later!"
The important part of the relationship only begins, when the gifts are received. Not the case for Solomon. After the gifts are received, Solomon wants to sever his relationship to God. "Now that I have these, I really don't need you all that much!" *These blessings, used without prayer, bring chaos to his life and the life of God's people.
With the blessings received, as with Bartimaeus, God will not turn his back on him and leave him alone, just because Solomon tries to void the agreement and forget who he is praying to. Parts of Israel will receive the benefit of God's promise to the Davidic kingship.
However, the Lord God will not just shower blessings, but send His mighty word of guidance to Solomon, whether he asks for it or not. He will receive both, because one does not thrive without the other. *Blessings sour, when used without God's guidance and prayer.
There will never be a time when Solomon does not have God's word of justice and righteousness placed before him, so much, it even shows in Solomon's prayers. Solomon knows what it means to be a child of God, he just does not feel he has to live that way.
Focusing on the gifts, Solomon ignored life lived with God, close by. With such large gifts, came the great sadness of knowing what truly could have been done with God so close, yet ignored. *He totally forgot that living with God, gifts or not, is always the key to any prayer, and when we listen to the prayers, we will see that yes, Solomon, knew, at least in his head, what this is all about. He, and none of us are all that ignorant of how and what to pray for.
All of Solomon's prayers, if he would have listened to them, held the key to life lived in God's kingdom, words that could have guided him in all his decisions. *Most of our prayers are like this. We wouldn't think of being crass and mean spirited, because it sounds bad before God, yet we do seem to have trouble acting that way. Some time I wonder if we all think God hears well, but is blind to what we DO.
Solomon's problem was his prayers had very little influence on how he made decisions. He knew what he should do to lift up God in life. What he couldn't do was live with God as close to his life, as God was in his prayer-life. He knew what to pray for, he just did not know how to use those gifts, as God intended them.
Listening to his prayers, he sounded like an Abraham. Looking at his life, people would see a model Pharaoh. Obviously, we are to follow what he said, and not what he did.
Solomon's prayer begins not with either himself or his needs. He begins by remembering the deeds of the One he belongs to: God's steadfast love to David that results in putting his son, Solomon, on the throne. This is what God did because David at times walked with God in faithfulness, reliability, and truth toward God. David is God's servant. Solomon is to be God's servant, an obedient child before God.
Obviously, in this kind of condition, Solomon would need to look to God, not self as Pharaoh, for guidance. As King, at least in prayer, Solomon also recognizes, he rules over God's people, not his people, God's chosen multitude, beyond Solomon's numbering capability.
Setting this context of his life in God's midst, Solomon prays: "since I am your servant, I need an understanding heart (the whole inner person, mind, will, heart and understanding) to govern your people! I need to discern between good and evil. How else can I carry out your will?" In great humility, Solomon concludes, "for how else could your great people be governed?"
In this marvelous description of God's centrality in his life, Solomon gives us the verbal example of a life lived in the faith. Three times in the passage, once describing David, once Solomon admitting to, and once God exhorting, the key word is to WALK with God and His ways.
What else could you ask for but a life, lived, walking with God? Temptations then would be easy to face, knowing you are not alone in the choices. Without prayer, Solomon was controlled by his blessings and power. It is hard to turn one's back on gaining more and more power. *There is never, outside the faith, enough to satisfy us totally. When Solomon had the choice of another princess, another kingdom, another dose of respect from the masses, how could he refuse, with God hidden away from him. And, with God hidden away from his actions, he oppressed the people.
Solomon walked with his blessings, not God, as his guide, while the Lord God was kept locked up in the Temple, so he thought. As the blessings and power controlled him, Solomon knew the blessings without God were phony and dangerous, the prosperity deceptively tenuous, and the wisdom haunting him as a joke, overwhelming Israel.
The first part, without the second part, devours us. Praying to God, without walking with God ends up in disaster. He only knew HOW to pray. Too bad he didn't truly listen to those prayers to help him walk with God!
Micah 6:8
8 "He has showed you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?" RSV
Amen.