Discern
1 Kings 2: 10-12, 3:3-14

August 20, 2006


Solomon is so well known for his wisdom that a book was named after his legendary attribute. The Wisdom of Solomon is one of those Old Testament books collectively dubbed the Apocrypha or deutero-canonical books. These apocryphal books were written originally in Alexandria in Greek, not in Hebrew, but were not included in the traditional Jewish canon, nor did Protestants include books like The Wisdom of Solomon in our Old Testament simply because they were not originally written in Hebrew. Canada is not the only country caught up in language politics.

But since the central character of the day is Solomon, let’s be clear that the Wisdom of Solomon has little to do with Solomon. It is just that the book was considered so full of wisdom that it must be Solomonic by nature. Written in the first person, but otherwise anonymous, the ancients all assumed such ideas had to come from the very mouth of Solomon. We might as well dispense with the great story about the two harlots who come to Solomon disputing motherhood of an infant. Do I need to retell it? Perhaps you’ll remember a more modern version.

Two women came before wise King Solomon, dragging between them a young man in a three-piece suit. “This young lawyer agreed to marry my daughter,” said one. “No! He agreed to marry MY daughter,” said the other.

And so they haggled before the King until he called for silence. “Bring me my biggest sword,” said Solomon, “and I shall hew the young attorney in half. Each of you shall receive a half.”

“Sounds good to me,” said the first lady. But the other woman said, “Oh Sire, do not spill innocent blood. Let the other woman's daughter marry him.” The wise king did not hesitate a moment. He proclaimed, “The attorney must marry the first lady’s daughter.”

“But she was willing to cut him in two!” exclaimed the king’s court. “Indeed,” said wise King Solomon. “That shows she is the TRUE mother-in-law!”

It does not matter really whether Solomon was historically a wise person or not. It matters ultimately whether you and I can become as wise as the son of David was purported to be, as wise as any person desiring to be faithful to God would like to be and should be. Solomon’s own story ironically teeters precariously on the edge of being the antithesis of wisdom.

Solomon was the son of the infamous union of David and Bathsheba, the second child, but the first one that lived. He had become a favourite son, and I remind you of last week’s episode with Absalom, David really had too many sons by too many wives to keep all the family politics in order.

Absalom had openly revolted and now the next son in line, Adonijah, decided that it was time for him to become king when his father David was getting too old and feeble to notice. David may have missed it, but an odd couple came to him almost at once to tell him what was going on. Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan, who had told the withering parable against David and Bathsheba’s illicit affair and arranged murder of Uriah the Hittite, were now on the same page. David still had enough in him to make sure that Solomon was anointed king on the spot, which immediately squelched Adonijah’s pretensions to the throne. Solomon at first seemed to forgive his older brother, but after David died, Solomon found an excuse to have Adonijah and his advisers eliminated. It is not a pretty story (1 Kings 2), but after all, this is the Bible.

Solomon, now undisputed king of Israel, is about 20 years old, but already has carried out a few of his father’s vendettas against old enemies and those who attempted to supplant David’s kingdom. Solomon is definitely no innocent soul.

He was well acquainted with the politics of marriage when he made an alliance with the Pharaoh of Egypt, marrying his daughter. Solomon didn’t seem to have much problem with marriage in general, for the tradition goes that he had 700 wives, and as we would say in Saskatchewan, 300 combines. His greater problem, according to the narrator of 1 Kings, seemed to be his predilection to worshiping at the “high places” - the traditional locations of pagan Canaanite worship and system.

When you don’t have a temple in Jerusalem, you have to worship elsewhere, so Solomon heads out for the principal high place Gibeon to offer the major sacrifices and to worship properly. This wasn’t a one hour service, but an overnight venture. You have to sleep, so Solomon’s dream was the venue for God to pose the deeper questions to the young king, “What do you really want and what do you need?”

Solomon asks for the right thing with all the correct humility which naturally pleases God. “Give your servant an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil.” Yet there is something awkward and untoward about Solomon’s desire. Sure, wisdom is what is needed, no argument there. But the narrator of this long epic tale is telling us something, for he knows how all of this ends, and it doesn’t end well. Solomon builds his Temple all right, one of the marvels of the ancient world, but at the cost of virtually enslaving the population and taxing them dry. Even his great act of wisdom, discerning who is the real mother, is dominated by the brandishing of a sword, a gesture of violence and power in anybody’s book. We’re still waiting for Solomon’s wisdom.

Now very often in the Old and New Testaments revealing something important happened in a dream, but usually the dreamer doesn’t get into a conversation with God. Who tells us anyway about a dream except the dreamer? In a way this is Solomon’s pipe dream; he wants to be considered wise and generations of people who didn’t live with him bought his suggestion. Who cares about Solomon? It’s you and I who have to be wise and understanding and discerning.

Being wise is nothing less than being able to discern the difference between equal situations. It could be as idyllic as Robert Frost’s fork in the road, the road less traveled. Discerning between good and evil is never as obvious as you would think. Evil disguises itself well, and the test of true discernment is recognizing not what is good for you, but what is true, which is always good and always good for other people besides yourself. Whether Solomon really performed the discernment of the two mothers or not, what one has to look for is where selfless love is willing to give away its dearest possession.

When you are being discerning, being wise, you’ve got to look first for one more thing.

A time-management expert was giving a seminar to a group of business students. He began his presentation by saying, “Here’s a question for you.” He took out a one-gallon wide-mouthed jar and set it on the table. Then he took a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them in the jar. When no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?” Everyone said, “Yes.”

Reaching under the table, he pulled out a bucket of pea gravel and dumped it into the jar, shaking it down. Then he said, “Is the jar full?” This time some of them, starting to catch on, said, “Probably not.” “Good,” he said, as he took a bucket of sand from under the table. He dumped sand in, shaking it to get it between the rocks and gravel. Again he asked, “Is the jar full?” “No!” the group shouted. The man took a pitcher of water and poured water up to the very brim.

Finally, he said, “The question is, what was the point of this illustration?” One bright student said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you really try hard, you can always fit some more things into it!” The speaker replied, “No! That’s not the point. The point is: if you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”

The first step in discernment in being wise like Solomon is knowing where to begin. The big rocks go in first, the fundamentals of love, of living for the sake of another person, knowing what is good and true to start with. You are able to discern which are the big rocks, not because you are smart and intelligent and clever, but because the Spirit is alive and working in your understanding mind.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan