What Do You Desire? August 16, 2009

I Samuel 2:10-12, 3: 1-14
John 6:446-66
What is your greatest wish and desire? A long and happy life?
That your child will be born healthy, that they will graduate from HS and College with a full life?
That you will have a loving home, 2.3 kids, a dog and cat, a fuel-efficient car? A career?
Peace on Earth? Understanding? Acceptance?
You have one wish for all of life, one dedication for your life. What would that be? What would satisfy.

Recently, I discovered a classic old movie from 1954 with William Holden: “Executive Suite”. The climax of which is a fight in the Board Room, over which you would rather take pride in: Creating for the Stock Holders a greater Dividend, or making a product that you and those who work beside you are honored to have been part of? On your tombstone, do you want written, “A 17% RETURN ON INVESTMENT” or “TOOK PRIDE IN WHAT WE CREATED TOGETHER”.

There are complex issues before the world today... The Economy, AIDs, Terrorism, War, Prejudice...
If you were President, or General Secretary of UN, if you were Brad Pitt or Bill Gates, what would be your greatest desire? Wealth, Power, Information, the ability to rebuild New Orleans, or the Ability to control the Weather so hurricanes like Katrina never happen again, or taking your own children to the Grand Canyon?

We know from Literature about The Wisdom Of Solomon, his Judgement between two Mothers to divide the Baby and his giving everything to the Mother who protected the child by giving him up.
But to describe THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON we need to hear and understand the nuance as well.
For the WISDOM OF SOLOMON is both what was described as “Hokma” and “Hesed”, what is Conditional and Unconditional.

Hokma is the word for wisdom, not only the specific knowledge of how to be King, but also understanding from Sailing, Fishing, Trapping, Knitting and Games. Hokma is what is taught in MBA Classes as “Games Theory”. Anticipating when one needs to approach an adversary as in a game of Chess sacrificing Pawns, protecting the Queen, so as to ultimately save and protect the King; and when by contrast one needs to think in terms of the team sport of Lacrosse or Wrestling, that an individual win or loss is not as important as that of the Team; and when one needs to follow a pattern of Knit 14 Purl 4 Knit 14, slip one, purl over, knit 2 together; and when one needs a Whisker-pole to be able to go Wing and Wing instead of using the more colorful spinnaker, because sometimes more is not better.

Solomon had learned well from David, how to be King, how to consolidate power and how to rule. In the intervening verses this morning, as soon as David died, young King Solomon sets out to eliminate each of David's and Saul's own Generals, as well as his own brother, and to marry the daughter of the Egyptian Pharaoh, amassing the power and wealth of nations, with no one who could challenge him.

Solomon has become King, has a foreign Princess for a Bride, he has built for himself a great palace at Jerusalem before ever considering to begin to build the Temple for God, and Solomon worships at an Altar on the top of Mt. Gibeon rather than at the Holy City of Jerusalem. Each of these are symbols of Solomon's personal desires, his wishes for himself and his authority as Ruler, and according to the Book of Deuteronomy, according to the Law of Moses, All of these are SINS.

If this were simply the story of the Youngest Son of David, the would-be future King going up a mountain, where he was asked what he wished for, and rather than Health, Riches or the Death of Enemies, he wished for KNOWLEDGE, this would seem a banal fairy-tale of no greater import than the story of Aladin and the Lamp. But instead, this is a story of the love of God, because while Solomon had been doing all these things that were wrong, that each violated the Laws of Moses, still though having sinned, when asked what he most desired, Solomon named that David had had a COVENANT of EVERLASTING TRUST, THANKSGIVING TO GOD, what in Hebrew is called Hesed, an unconditional faith that all things come from God and all things are a blessing for God. This, HESED, rather than the ability to outwit or assassinate one's enemies, rather than the concept of marrying the daughters of one's rivals so as to amass power and allegiances, HESED is what made SOLOMON WISE. Solomon trusted God, and even as one who had murdered and stolen, married for power instead of love, still because he loved God and God loved Solomon.

Solomon had both the UNCONDITIONAL LOVE of Hesed being Thankful to God and the CONDITIONAL POWER of Hokma, Wisdom gleaned from all the pursuits of life, this was the true wisdom of Solomon.
There is a constant tension for us in reading and interpreting the Bible, because we know how the story turns out. We know Jesus is the Messiah; the Son of God, who died on the Cross and rose again for us. So as Jesus describes that HE is BREAD from Heaven, our point of reference is different from that of the Crowd, who saw Jesus as Mary's Boy, the Carpenter's Son, the Man they knew and trusted. AND the truth is He is both. But the moment we lose sight of his humanity, when Jesus becomes for us the Savior who died once for all, Son of God, begotten Not Made, One in Substance with the Father, our faith becomes only religion. We need that tension that comes from the wisdom of being assured of God's UNCONDITIONAL LOVE to die once for all, AND the CONDITIONAL HUMAN LIFE that was a person just like us.

The simplicity of Communion in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, are that Jesus creates the Sacrament as the Last Supper, and BREAD represents his suffering and brokenness Suffering fro all humanity on the Cross, the Cup represents “hesed” that everlasting covenant of trust and love. But John's Gospel allows us the tension that Jesus in all of life is the INCARNATION of God with us. So we cannot isolate one event and claim that this is when he died for us, because every parable is an identification of God's Love for us, and the Crucifixion and Resurrection themselves become a Parable for us.

A few years ago, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was here in Skaneateles. She told this powerful metaphor of having visited the Vatican, and in the Catacombs beneath, where the bones of the people who had suffered Persecution lay, there were drawings from the early Church. Rather than a picture of the Roman Galleon, the Slave ships that dominated the sea with slaves rowing, there were instead pictures of sailing, Boats with the power of the wind filling the sails. However, after her presentation, someone asked “Is the problem with the church today, that we are caught in irons, buffeted by winds from the right and from the left, and rather than trying to to sail across the wind we choose neither and we have been headed directly into the wind, blown backwards?” And the Church leader confessed that they had never been on a sailboat and really did not understand what was being described. Over dinner, the Moderator tried to recoup by suggesting that if we could all “Claim to be saved in the name of Jesus, we could be one”. But the problem is that Jesus was and is a human man. We need to identify with a very human one like us, with all our foibles and competing responsibilities, who points us to faith in God, whose spirit continues to trouble and challenge us today; who is also the Incarnate Messiah, the Son of God, the love of God for us, who dies on the cross and even death cannot kill.

Yesterday, was the 28th Wedding Anniversary for my wife and I, as well as the Wedding Day for Bill Rutan and His Bride. In celebration, we cancelled all the other possible things we could have done, and spent the afternoon and evening together, remembering the weekend of our wedding, and all that has come after. In truth, Marriage is not about that wedding day. Oh we had 500 guests, Trumpet Voluntaire and Paccabel, both of our families and our friends, A four tier cake with three layers in each, Sonya Roses and Helium Balloons; but that was only the day, and there have also been years together.

When asked what you most desire, it is to love God with an understanding heart, but also to be able to act inspired by that love, with wisdom to care for others.