St. John’s United Church

Seeking Wisdom

Solomon said: “Please make me wise and teach me the difference between right and wrong. Then, I will know how to rule your people. If you don’t, there is no way I could rule this great nation of yours.” 10-11 God said: Solomon, I’m pleased that you asked for this. You could have asked to live a long time or to be rich. Or you could have asked for your enemies to be destroyed. Instead, you asked for wisdom to make right decisions. 12 So I’ll make you wiser than anyone who has ever lived or ever will live. 13 I’ll also give you what you didn’t ask for. You’ll be rich and respected as long as you live, and you’ll be greater than any other king.” (1 Kings 3:9-13)

Imagine it is your birthday. With your family and friends, you have finished a special birthday dinner, and they bring in a birthday cake with the candles merrily burning. After singing “Happy Birthday,” the time comes to blow out the candles to see how many years you have yet to live. But before you take a deep breath to blow out all the candles in one blow, someone says to you, “First, make a wish!” You had not thought about a wish. But the candles are burning low and friends are waiting in silence. You have but a second to make up your mind what to wish. Oh, what shall you wish? What request shall you make? You have had that experience, haven’t you - maybe many times by now!

Probably the wish was related to an immediate need or situation. Under pressure to give an answer right away, your request may have reflected a temporary desire or need. At her birthday party, a woman who had been married only three months made the wish: “I wish for a long and happy marriage.” Or, it may be like a young man who was invited to a party. The host filled his pool with sharks. In the middle of the party, he called his guests to the pool and announced, “If any young man would jump into the pool and swim to the other side, he can have one of three things: my ranch, a million dollars, or my daughter in marriage.” At the other end of the pool, there was a commotion; a young man was in the pool and he frantically swam to the other side while fighting off the sharks. As he emerged from the pool, the rich host asked him which of the three offers he wanted. He replied, “I don’t want any of your offers. All I want is to know the guy who shoved me into the pool!”

In our text from 1 Kings, Solomon finds himself in this predicament. God comes to him shortly after Solomon has ascended to the throne of Israel and says, “Ask what I shall give you.” Now, Solomon might have asked for wealth, or for a long life, or to be free from opposition. But he doesn’t. Instead, he asks for wisdom - “Please make me wise and teach me the difference between right and wrong. Then, I will know how to rule your people.” God was pleased and granted his request. If God gave you but one request, would you ask for wisdom? Let’s be honest! Money maybe, or health, or success, or maybe even love. But wisdom? I wonder! Perhaps Solomon was already so wise that he asked for wisdom as his deepest need.

But what about us? When God says to us, “Ask what I shall give you,” our answer should be based on our greatest need rather than on our most intense desire, for, many times, what we desire is not necessarily what we need. I may desire a new Rolls Royce, costing over $300,000, but I really only need only a second-hand compact Chevy to provide transportation. Or, I may desire a mansion, with eight bedrooms and eight baths, overlooking the river, and with a pool and tennis courts, but all I truly need is a modest two-bedroom house. If this is the case, then you and I must figure out what is our deepest need. Do we agree with Solomon that wisdom is what we need most? Not everyone would agree on wisdom.

Karl Marx claimed that humanity’s deepest need is the possession of things, goods, and economic equality. Indeed, this is a need of humankind, for we must have bread to live. It is no fun to be unemployed and have little or no income to put bread on the table and make the mortgage payments. But Jesus pointed out that there is a deeper need, for he said, “Man does not live by bread alone.” What is wealth without wisdom? Remember the old myth about King Midas? His one request was that everything he should touch would turn to gold. At first it was great, but when he touched his food, it turned to gold. What would he eat? You can’t eat gold. Worst of all, he touched his lovely daughter, and she turned to gold. There was the story of the young ruler who had wealth, but he did not have the wisdom to obey Jesus’ command to sell all, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus. Then there is the man who worked hard all his life, built bigger barns to house his fortune, and retired. He did not have wisdom to acquire spiritual resources, so that very night he retired; he died. What a foolish man! What did his wealth get him?

Then, there was Alfred Adler who took the position that humanity’s most basic need is power. He claimed that human behavior is determined by the pursuit of power. It is what motivates many to seek positions of power in business and politics. Have you ever wondered why millionaires seek public office and take the hardships of a campaign and suffer the abuse of negative criticism after being elected? As a millionaire, the candidate could be living with the leisure class and enjoying the jet set. Is not the answer the desire and need to have power? Of course, power is a need for all of us. What good is helplessness and weakness? Yet power without wisdom can be deadly. Without wisdom, power can be used for destruction and death. The critical issue of today is the possible use of the world’s greatest power, nuclear weapons.

So what about you? What would you ask for when God says, “Ask what I shall give you?” Will you be like Marx or Midas or the rich young ruler who seeks things, Adler who seeks power, or Solomon who seeks wisdom in terms of understanding? You would not want to answer on the basis of an immediate or impulsive need or desire. To answer wisely, you would want to think about it, determine your scale of values, and ask for something that would continue to be a blessing to you.

What do we mean or understand as wisdom? Perhaps we can begin to answer the question by seeing what wisdom is not. Wisdom is not native intelligence. Each of us is born with a certain amount of grey matter. We call it our IQ. We may have a high or a low intelligence. There is nothing we can do about it. It is the way we were made. Of course, some say that an IQ can be increased by study, education, and cultural opportunities, but basically, our IQ is a natural endowment. You have it or you don’t have it.

Nor is wisdom knowledge or education. A person can be wise and yet not be a graduate of grade school. On the other hand, there are college graduates, even PhD’s, who may not have an ounce of wisdom in their heads even though they have diplomas on their walls. They may have knowledge about many subjects and in their particular field they may be well informed. But when it comes to common sense they do not have it.

So, if wisdom is not that, what is it? What are some of the component elements of wisdom? Wisdom is the ability to make good judgments and the right decisions. Some of us are reluctant to make decisions because we fear that the decision will not be the right one. Reinhold Niebuhr asked for wisdom in a little prayer that has become a classic and is used by Alcoholics Anonymous: “God grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Shortly after Solomon’s request, the gift of wisdom was needed when he was asked to settle a dispute between two prostitutes claiming the same child. Do you recall that each had a baby, and one mother in her sleep rolled on her baby and smothered it? Then, she took the other woman’s baby and claimed it as her own. The case came before Solomon. He resolved the case by ordering the child to be cut in two and a half given to each mother. But the real mother, out of love, cried out, “Please don’t kill the child. Let the other woman have it.” Thereupon, Solomon awarded the child to the woman who pleaded for the child’s life, for he had the wisdom to know that she was the real mother.

Wisdom as judgment was expressed in a story about a moneylender who was about to throw a debtor in prison for non-payment of his debts. The debtor had a beautiful daughter. The lender offered to cancel the debt if the man would give his daughter in marriage to him. The moneylender proposed a deal. He would put a black and a white pebble into an empty money bag. The girl was to pick out one of the pebbles. If it were black, she would be his wife and her father’s debt would be cancelled. If it were white, she would stay with her father and the debt would be cancelled. If she refused to pick, her father would go to jail and the girl would starve. The father and daughter reluctantly agreed to the test. When the moneylender stooped down to pick up the pebbles, the girl noticed that he picked up two black stones. When she reached in to pick one of the stones, she deliberately let it fall and cried, “Oh, how clumsy of me, but it doesn’t matter. If you look in the bag, you can tell which color I chose by the color of the one still there.” The stingy and crafty moneylender did not dare admit his dishonesty. Her wisdom won her and her father’s freedom.

Wisdom also means the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Solomon asked for understanding: “that I may discern between good and evil.” Why would Solomon have a problem in this area? Did he not have the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai? Do they not tell us what is right and wrong? Yes, the Decalogue tells us what is right and wrong in general terms. The problem comes when we apply the commandment to a specific situation. It takes a heap of wisdom to know what is right and wrong.

Moreover, wisdom is understanding. One of the things that plagued Jesus’ ministry was the lack of understanding on the part of the Disciples. At Caesarea Philippi, Peter did not understand the necessity of Jesus’ going to Jerusalem to suffer and die. Philip could not understand who Jesus was. Jesus had to ask, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip?” The Disciples on the way to Emmaus did not understand that Jesus would rise again. Jesus exclaimed, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” Notice their lack of wisdom - “O foolish men!”

Most of all, wisdom is a gift of God. In fact, wisdom is God. Just as God is love or truth, God is wisdom. Thus, only God can give wisdom as God gives himself to us. The Psalmist declares, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” If we would have wisdom, then, like Solomon, we must ask for it: “Give thy servant, therefore, an understanding mind to govern thy people …” Jesus put it this way, “Ask and you will receive.”

We can also get wisdom if we let Christ into our hearts and our minds. Paul admonishes, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus …” At another place, Paul refers to “Christ the wisdom of God.” Have in you the mind of Christ and wisdom will be yours. He is wisdom because he is the personification of truth and the very Son of God. To have truth is to have wisdom.

On Friday, The United Church of Canada, meeting in Thunder Bay, Ontario, elected the Rev. David Giuliano from Marathon, Ontario, as its 39th Moderator. Giuliano was one of five nominees for Moderator and he was elected on the fourth ballot. During an interview with General Council News following his election, Giuliano was asked to respond to the question posed by God in today’s lectionary reading - “What shall I give you?” “Truth,” replied Giuliano. “That would be the one thing I would want…the ability to speak truth compassionately with love to our community. It’s a risky thing to do,” he said. “I hope I have the capacity and the courage to see the truth and to articulate it in our community, and further.” Obviously, that is what Guiliano has discerned as his – and the church’s greatest need at this time.

Finally, we can also acquire wisdom by receiving the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is God who abides in us. Jesus taught that the Holy Spirit will guide us into truth. He is the one who will enlighten us so that we will have good judgment and common sense. Stupidity is being in the dark. Wisdom is being in the light of truth. Every person’s problem is stated in the proverb, “Too soon old, too late smart.” Who will not admit to that?! Before you and I get one day older, we can get smart, real wise, by asking God to meet our deepest need - the need for wisdom and understanding. Then we will be as wise as a Solomon! And for that we can say, “Thanks be to God! Amen.

Acknowledgements: John Brokhoff

A meditation preached by the Rev. Myra Garvin at St. John’s United Church, Brockville
Sunday August 20, 2006 – Pentecost 11B - Sacrament of Baptism