The Wisdom of God

So this morning, we peer into the life of Israel once again.  The bloody, broken and blessed and beloved kingdom of Israel. At this time, after some ugly family disputes and violence, Solomon has become King.  Solomon was the son of David and Bathsehba…and he followed his father in becoming the third and the last king of Israel, reigning for 40 years. And this morning, we meet Solomon at the beginning of his reign…as Solomon has a dream.  In his dream, God asks him… “If you could have one thing, Solomon, what would it be? “ And young Solomon says “wisdom”. He doesn’t ask for riches, or health, or military might…but he desires God’s wisdom to rule God’s people justly. He wants to be a good king.  A good man. And in Solomon’s dream, God grants him wisdom… as well as riches and honor and fame.

And it seems, people believed that indeed, God had given Solomon great wisdom.  There is a reason Solomon’s wisdom was remembered by the Jewish people throughout history…and is remembered still.   Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon …books we still carry in our own Scriptures, are handed down traditionally as being part of Solomon’s vast writings imparting God’s wisdom. And the story we read today, is meant to illustrate how that wisdom of God works. In it, we see Solomon rendering justice for two mothers who both lay claim to a child as their own.  However, the interesting part about this story…is that they are both prostitutes. IT seems that God’s wisdom is meant to bring justice, goodness, fairness for ALL people… not just for the wealthy and religious folks…but also for prostitutes…for people with no legal status… people who nobody usually cares about whether they get justice or not. That’s not the way the system works in most nations…but that’s how it works when Solomon follows God’s wisdom.  

That kind of fairness was meant to be the foundation of Solomon’s kingdom.  

And at times…it was.  But not always. Sadly, during much of Solomon’s 40 year reign, his actions are not rooted in God’s wisdom…but his own pride and ambition …his own wisdom…

Human wisdom that seeks pleasure, success and security at all costs.

During Solomon’s reign, he amassed 1,000 wives and mistresses…both from Israel and from foreign lands.  It seems Solomon’s lust was insatiable, and he felt that every woman was his property to own. And Solomon also amassed wealth through high taxes and slave labor…so he could live in luxury, while the people in the outer provinces struggled to survive.  And to that end, he also amassed armies to harass and intimidate people in various provinces to enforce his rule, creating dissent and distrust throughout the land. So by the end of Solomon’s reign, the kingdom is weak and divided, and it splits in two. And after that, Israel falls under the powers of one empire after another — the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek, the Roman, the Ottoman, the British. In fact, after Solomon, it  was not a single nation again for thousands of years until 1948, after the holocaust in Europe, when the simmering anti-semitism of nations who did not want the “Jewish problem” in their own countries prompted them to “give” the British occupied land of Israel back to Jews.

The wisdom of Solomon is all well and good to consider…but if we want to make a hero out of him, we would be deeply mistaken.  Because Solomon is also the exemplar of everything that is wrong with nations and their leaders. Everything that tears us apart.

But, perhaps that’s why Solomon is a good story for us to tell on this Reformation Sunday.  As we remember our own history…and Martin Luther, for whom our Lutheran church takes its name.

The story of the Reformation takes place when the church had completely lost its way. In many ways, it was following the path of Solomon’s excess.  It was also amassing wealth by abusing and threatening the people under its care. It cared little for love of God and neighbor, and only for power and influence.  It bought and sold salvation like a commodity, and prevented people from ever knowing Jesus who loved them….and who forgave them freely.

And Martin Luther had wisdom to see the injustice that was perverting the work of the church in his time. He had wisdom and insight that recognized that the love of God for all people…not just the “religious” or the titled…but also the beggars and the laborers and the illiterate and the prostitutes.  He had the wisdom of Solomon…the wisdom of God.

And he spoke up and challenged the church.  Questioned it. Called it to reflect. He refused to be bullied by people consumed with greed and power…and boldly refused to back down. Perhaps his most famous quote came at his trial in Worms…when they asked him to recant — to say that everything he had written was not true, and he famously said, “Since your majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by scripture and plain reason–I do not accept the authority of popes and councils for they have contradicted each other–my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me. Amen.”

Luther chose to rely on the wisdom of God…rather than the authority of religious leaders.  Luther chose to rely on the wisdom of God, that is foolishness by human standards…human standards that judge success in measures of wealth and pleasure and power.   Luther chose to rely on the wisdom of God, that judges not according to political gain, but according to the word of God revealed in the love of Christ…Love revealed in his death and resurrection…Love that finds us when  we are dead, and brings us back to life again.

Luther, like Solomon…understood God’s wisdom deeply.  At times. But Luther, like Solomon and all the leaders of the church before and after him…all people of faith before and after him…was both a saint and a sinner.  Luther spoke in a way that was deeply divisive. And during his lifetime, many of his words were used by both peasants and kings to justify unspeakable violence. He also had many ugly anti-semitic writings that were used to justify all manner of persecution towards the Jews for centuries…culminating in  the Holocaust. And even today, his writings are used by nationalist Christians…to justify their hatred of Jews and others who do not fit their white, “christian” ideal. Yes, there is no doubt Luther was fully sinner and fully saint. But that was one of the things he understood and reminded us all. Reformation Sunday is not a Sunday we remember St. Luther and the wonderful change he made long ago.  It is not a Sunday to put Luther on a pedestal and pretend he was perfect. No, Reformation Sunday is the Sunday we remember that the church will ALWAYS need reforming. The church will always need to called back to itself…to the wisdom of God, because it will lose its way again and again. Because the church, will always be comprised of those who, like Luther himself…like King Solomon ..are fully saint and fully sinner.  

Luther talked often about how all of us are fully saint and fully sinner…simultaneously…both at the same time.  What Luther was naming was that deep truth that each of us has and enormous capacity for destruction — for hurting ourselves and others — sometimes willfully, sometimes inadvertently.  But every one of us also has an enormous capacity kindness, self sacrifice and goodness. And these things are both completely true about each one of us. In each of us, there is beauty and ugliness… there is both growth and decay. There is this deep mystery about being human that encompasses both.

And this is just as true about the church. This church we belong to has an enormous capacity to love others — to do good.  To seek justice and equity. The church throughout the centuries has been the impetus for hospitals and schools…it has fed the hungry and welcomed refugees.  It has comforted the grieving and provided shelter for the homeless. It has dug wells and marched against slavery and injustice. It has loved the unlovely, again and again.

But this same church we belong to has burned people at the stake and destroyed nations. It has confused Christianity with race and nationality.  It has taken children away from their parents because they were “heathen”. It has justified domestic violence and child abuse. It has excused slavery and lauded lynchings. It has shamed people and judged people and failed to show grace.

The church, even after Luther’s reformation, will never perfectly represent God’s presence to the world.  Any more than Israel, under Solomon did. But what we can pray for this day…is for God’s Wisdom. Wisdom that will keep reforming us now.  Wisdom that will keep dragging us up from death into life. Wisdom that will keep reminding us that God’s love and justice are for ALL, not for some.   Today we will pray for the church — bloody, broken and blessed and beloved — that we might somehow, in spite of ourselves, bear God’s foolish wisdom of amazing grace to a world in need.  Amen.