“What Do You Want”

A sermon preached by Reverend Paul Ransford, Jr.

Westminster Presbyterian Church

August 20,2006

Let’s get a prelude to our scripture lesson here so we can kind of set the stage-

I Kings 2: 1-3

I Kings 2:10—

Wouldn’t that be a nice way to have someone speak of your death? So, where’s your dad? Haven’t seen him around lately.

“O, he is sleeping with his ancestors.”

That’s a little more classy than, “O, he checked out last winter. Or, “O, he kicked the bucket a couple of months ago.” Isn’t it?

And sleeping with the ancestor’s roots us—not only in the ground—the whole ashes to ashes thing—but it roots us into the memories of our ancestors. As we gather with our clans and tribes for Thanksgiving or Christmas the memories and the stories are there. Have we kept faith with their dreams, their hopes?

When this great country was settled, a man, a woman and a plow would go clear a plot and begin a farm. It has a hard brutal life. Pretty soon a tiny graveyard would grow. A still born baby, a weak child, a mother lost to disease—a graveyard out under one of the trees—and the descendents would walk that plot and remember the dreams of their ancestors. They would go out there and sit under that tree and renew their promises and lift up anew the dreams of the ancestors. New prosperous farms and villages sometimes were named after those early pioneers. Their legacy lived on.

The Holderness Mission Center—yeah.

Vs. 3—“Solomon loved God and continued to live in the God honoring ways of David his Father.” Uh, Huh! Like Father, like Son. This is the “chip off the old block.” Here is one of the original stories.

  We don’t know much about that anymore because most of us have moved away from home and people don’t see the similarity between our parents and us. Except our spouses. They see it. “You are just like your mother.”  “Whenever you do that you remind me so much of your father.”

Funny how that doesn’t often include mother or father’s virtues.

So here is this young king Solomon who has yet to make his mark on the world and already we know that he is off to a good start because of his parents.

I’ve been saying goodbye to our high school seniors who are now entering freshman and I have been able to say to all of them with confidence, “You are going to be fine at the university. I know your momma and your daddy. I know the people at church who have had a hand in raising you. Remember who you are.”

Now the Scripture story gets good.

God appears to Solomon in a dream and says, ”What can I give you? Ask.”

What a dream!!!!!! I never had a dream like that! I don’t think I’ve ever slept that long to answer that question either with the long list I might present.”

Imagine God saying to you, “What do you want? Ask”

No scratch off the numbers to see if you have won. No call this 800 number and come and spend three days at our luxurious condo while we try to sell you three weeks during hurricane season, no e-mails from Nigeria promising half of the world’s wealth if you’ll just transfer several thousand dollars to an unregistered account.

What do you want?

While you’re thinking about your answer, let me fill in some more details.

Solomon begins his response by saying, ”Lord, you took real good care of my mother and father because they walked with you and tried to do the right thing. They lived faithfully in your presence, their relationships were just, and their hearts were right.”

And now, wow! You have made me king in place of my father David even though I don’t know doodley. (That’s sort of a rough translation of the Hebrew—Doodley)

   Solomon measures himself by the stature of his parent. How many of us do that? Somebody told me that after they turned sixty they were more surprised at finding themselves right about something than they were at twenty to find themselves wrong about anything

He measures himself by the great ones who have gone before—not by his peers.

If an athlete measures herself only by those on her current team and not by those whose trophies stand in the school hallway, if a world leader looks only to contemporary figures who cannot admit to error and not to the wise leaders of history who could admit to faulty vision, if a church stands on its past successes and does not look forward to new servant hood then we are headed towards crushing loss.

   Did you notice that Solomon does not accept any entitlement here for his position? He does not claim birthright, straight teeth, a pedigreed college diploma, or social standing in his community. What Solomon refers back to is the relationship that his ancestors have had with the Lord. When it comes time for him to answer the question, ”What do you want?” we do not get a shopping list. Instead we get a meditation on sacred memory.

  Listen to the explicit humility in this royal personage.

  “I am just a kid.”

This is the king speaking. Not the youngest king to ever take the throne.

” I don’t know how to come out or go in. Which fork do I use? Do they bow or do I bow? Shake hands or high five. Laugh out loud or snicker into my handkerchief. Iron fisted rule or open hand.

  And Lord, I am in the midst of the people you have chosen—so numerous that they can’t be counted.”

 Now, Solomon, there is something you don’t want to get wrong-- Ruling God’s own people.

   “Here’s what I want, ”Give your servant an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil:”

The other translation here for this phrase is “Give thy servant a receptive heart to judge thy people, understanding between good and evil.”

The word heart here in the Hebrew means more than the seat of the intellect—it stands for the inner core of a person’s being. So Solomon is asking that in his heart of hearts, his will, his emotions, his intellect be in tune with God’s mind and purpose. That is what Solomon wants for his life.

What do you want? From your heart of hearts? From the core of your being, how would you answer God’s question to you, ”What do you want?”

Solomon wants Wisdom.

Let’s get our lector to help us with this with some words from the prophet Isaiah.

Lector read Isaiah 11: 3b “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear;

There is more here than meets the eye. Or the ear.

Part of wisdom is discernment.

The text today really gives us an interpretation rather than a translation of this word.

When the ancient kings wanted to make a decision they would rely on custom and precedent. This is mishpat.

 Well, if there was not a precedent, the king would need to get a ruling and the ruling would often come from a priest.

A common way the priest got to the answer was to cut open a bird or beast and study the entrails in order to make a decision.

So, for example, if you couldn’t make up your mind which college you wanted to go to, you’d go to Food Lion and buy a chicken, bring it up to the church and plunk it down on the preacher’s desk and say, “I need a decision here. Check out this gizzard.”

Well, after that was done one time, there was a precedent, there was a custom and so there wasn’t a need to plop a chicken down on the preacher’s desk.

 Solomon, in his request for what he wanted from God asked for discernment to make the decision without sacrificing the chicken and without being a slave to custom.

   God was so impressed with Solomon’s answer that he blessed Solomon with great wealth, honor, and a long life.

    We live immersed in a world where our energies are all directed towards health, riches, promotions, entertainment, secure pensions, secure borders, more stuff and a pox on our enemies.

   The lesson of the morning is clear. These things in and of themselves cannot lead to fulfillment of what it means to be truly human unless they are grounded in the search for wisdom.

  Let our prayer be, “Lord, I know nothing. Grant me a measure of wisdom as you see fit and give us this day, our daily bread.” Amen.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.