“The Wisdom of Solomon”

I Kings 3:16-28

August 16, 2009 + Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ

400 Glenwood Drive

Chattanooga, Tennessee 37404

You all know my wife Barbara, but you may not know something special about her: she forgets my jokes after I tell them to her. That means I can tell them again and again and she always laughs.

This morning I hope that all of you may have that same forgetfulness. If I have told you this story before, please don’t stop me. Just humor me and laugh at it!

A fellow was walking along a beach in California when he found a strange bottle on the sand. He pulled the cork out of the bottle and suddenly a genie emerged. The genie was so grateful at having been freed from the bottle he told the man that he would grant him a wish. He could have whatever he wanted. After pondering for a moment, the man said, “I have always loved Hawaii but it’s such an expensive trip by plane. I wish that you would build a highway across the ocean so I can travel there by car whenever I want to go.” The genie shook his head and said, “That sounds very hard to do. Is there anything else you’d like to have?” After a moment, the man said, “I wish there could be permanent peace in the Middle East.” The genie replied, “Would you like that highway two or four lanes?”

This silly story does suggest a serious question. If you and I could have one wish fulfilled, what would it be? Would it be incredible wealth, power to make other people do what we want them to do, eternal youth or perfect health? Those are what many people seem to want these days. But in the first part of chapter three of First Kings (which we did not read this morning), King Solomon asked for something very different.

The writer of First Kings says that Solomon went to Gibeon, one of the most sacred places in Israel. After worship Solomon fell asleep and God appeared to him in a dream. “Ask what I should give you,” says God. And Solomon asks God for an understanding mind so that he might rule the people with justice and wisdom. God is so pleased by this answer – according to the story – that Solomon is also promised that he will have riches and honor as well.

This story written many years after Solomon is meant to confirm the tradition that Solomon was one of the wisest men who ever lived. It was also believed that Solomon was a great author who wrote the books of Song of Songs, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. There is no truth to that tradition but it did give rise to a sort of biblical joke. The story goes that when Solomon was a lusty young fellow living a Hugh Hefner life in the palace with all his wives and concubines, he wrote the Song of Songs, a collection of highly erotic love poems. When he reached middle age and grew jaded with this playboy existence and gained a measure of human wisdom, Solomon wrote the Book of Proverbs. Later, in old age, after having experienced the best and worst life has to offer, he wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes, a book with more than its share of cynicism, depression, and despair.

As I said, there is no truth to these legendary traditions. But living in Babylonian Exile, the writer of Kings wanted to establish that Solomon was a great and wise king. Because of that the editor of Kings borrowed an ancient Near Eastern story told about many rulers and attributed it to Solomon.

You remember how the story goes. It is one of the most familiar stories in all the Bible. One day a pair of prostitutes came to see the King of Israel demanding justice. Their story seems like a particularly tasteless episode on Dr. Phil. Both women had been carrying on their most ancient of professions from the same house. Both women gave birth to sons at the same time. Three days later in the middle of the night one woman rolled over on her son and killed him. Realizing what had happened, she took the other woman’s live son and substituted her dead son on the other woman’s breast. When she awoke the mother of the live son quickly realized what had happened. This conforms to something I heard once that if you took one hundred babies and put them on the floor in a gymnasium and then let their mothers in, the mothers would find their own babies in less than five minutes. No wonder the woman demanded justice. She knew the other woman had her son.

Unable to decide the merits of one claim against the other in those days before DNA testing, Solomon says to one of his court officials: “Bring me a sword. I’ll simply cut the baby in half and send each mother home with half.” I suppose I shouldn’t introduce a personal recollection at this pivotal point, but I still remember a spirited discussion we had in a childhood Sunday School class. We had quite an argument over whether Solomon was planning to divide the child from top to bottom or from side to side! Just the sort of thing you would expect from boys, right?! But, of course, Solomon doesn’t have to divide the child at all because the real mother offers to give her son to the other woman. Solomon the wise king knows that only a love that is genuine would inspire such an act of sacrifice. So the real mother as well as the best mother gets the baby. And everybody – well, almost everybody – goes home happy.

Usually this story is told either to demonstrate Solomonic wisdom or motherly love. But today I want us to consider it from another point of view, that of the child. Both the mothers and Solomon seem to be treating the child as an object, as a possession, something to be fought over or even destroyed. Do you really think Solomon’s courtroom trick identified the true mother? I don’t know, but I do know this: today thousands, even millions of children are being divided in mind, body and spirit because of adult decisions.

Let’s begin with divorce. From my own experience I know that not all marriages can or should be saved. I do believe we all ought to try harder to keep our marriages together before running off to divorce lawyers, but whether we are justified or not, the children always suffer. They are always divided. They love both their parents and feel torn apart by what has happened. I don’t want to seem judgmental but I believe that all divorced parents should do everything possible to ease the pain their children feel. We should be more concerned about their hurt than ours.

Here is another way children are suffering today: millions of American children lack health care because their parents have no health insurance. While there needs to be a rational and civil discussion in our nation about health costs and care, I hear almost no one speaking for the children. In all this nonsense about “Obama lies, Grandma dies,” why isn’t someone shouting: “We Need To Give So Children Live?” We are the richest nation on the earth. Don’t tell me we can’t find a way to provide a decent healthy life for all children.

But let’s leave our national concerns for a moment and think about the children of the world. Let’s do more than sing a song about them. As we sit here this morning at least a thousand children in the world are dying from starvation and disease. Others are the victims of wars, some of which we have caused because of our never-ending militarism. The world is a very dangerous place for children these days. Does anyone care, really care, about what is happening to them?

But enough of this Jeremiad. A message centering on children should end on a positive, not a negative, note. Children bring such joy into our lives. I am constantly amazed by their ability not just to survive but to thrive in even the most awful circumstances. As proof I offer you the inspiring story of Jeannette Walls in her best-selling autobiography “The Glass Castle”. I don’t think I have ever read such a realistic story about the incredible hardships she, her two sisters and brother went through. Her family puts a capital “D” in the word dysfunctional. Her father was a ne’er do-well alcoholic and her mother was, to put it charitably, a loony tune but both parents loved their children deeply, and in their own wacky way believed in them and inspired them. Somehow, through all the misadventures of their childhood, Jeannette, and her sisters and brother grew up to be wonderfully gifted and talented people. Jeannette is now a regular contributor to MSNBC. And despite what I may have suggested the story she tells is filled with incredible humor. Read it. You’ll be glad you did.

Somehow, in spite of our best efforts and our worst failures as adults, children grow up and do remarkable things. Their resiliency is a source of never-ending inspiration for all of us. And maybe, just maybe, the grace of God has something to do with it. And maybe God can give all of us the grace to help all children – not just our own – to a better and brighter future. Wouldn’t that be something.