The Limits of Human Wisdom

Sermon by Jamie Howison on 1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14

“Then David slept with his ancestors, and was buried in the city of David.” We first met David as a shepherd boy way back on June 13, and Sunday by Sunday we have been tracking his story, in all of its complexities. When we left off last Sunday David was in a state of grief, lamenting the death of his rebel son Absalom. From there, David does pick himself up to reclaim the city of Jerusalem which had been lost during the civil war led by Absalom. The remainder of Second Samuel recounts a series of other skirmishes and one more internal rebellion against David, as well as David’s long hymn of praise—a psalm, really—as he looks back over his life as king.

For all of the confident gratitude of that long hymn of praise, things are hardly settled, and as the books of Samuel transition to the books of Kings we see David pictured as follows: He was “old and advanced in years; although they covered him with clothes he could not get himself warm.” His servants’ strategic response to this is to seek out a beautiful young woman to accompany David in his bed to keep him warm. They find a young woman named Abishag, who according to the text, “became the king’s attendant and served him, but the king did not know her sexually.” There is no record as to how Abishag felt about this less than voluntary assignment, nor is it indicated whether or not David couldn’t be sexual with her on account of infirmity, or whether maybe in his age and vulnerability he’d finally begun to learn something about respect for this woman who cared for him. I’d like to think that the latter is the case, but regardless, what this little vignette shows is a greatly diminished David, anticipating the reality of his approaching death.

Yet even then he has not ended his political maneuvering, as yet another son—this time Adonijah—tries to mount a popular movement that will lead him toward the throne as his father’s successor, all the while David being intent on it being Solomon who will succeed him. That is in fact what happened, which is where we picked up this evening.

“Then David slept with his ancestors, and was buried in the city of David [and] Solomon sat on the throne of his father; and his kingdom was firmly established.”

Solomon, of course, is remembered for his building of the temple and for his great wisdom. His name is connected directly with the book of Proverbs, and often with Ecclesiastes as well, though that book does not explicitly name Solomon, but rather is credited to “the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem,” which may well be a later attribution, given the book’s literary style. Similarly, the apocrypha includes a book called The Wisdom of Solomon which was written in Greek in a style typical of the 1st Century BCE. This is not, by the way, a matter of fraud, but instead a respectful and celebratory gesture that nods to Solomon’s great reputation as the source of Israel’s wisdom tradition. We think very differently about copyright and author credit in our world!

The story we read tonight is something of a classic one when it comes to marking Solomon’s legendary wisdom, and it is actually one that I remember being taught in Sunday School. Our teacher stood at the blackboard and wrote three things—long life, great wealth, and wisdom—asking us to vote on which we would wish for if we could. I don’t remember how the polling turned out, but she then turned and told the story of God coming to Solomon in a dream and saying to him, “Ask what I should give you.” In his reply Solomon ends by saying, “Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this, your great people?” Well, this so delights God that Solomon is given that understanding mind—wisdom—but not only that.

I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honour all your life; no other king shall compare with you. If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life.

The point of that Sunday School lesson was to show us how right Solomon had been to choose wisdom over all else, because in doing so he got all else as well… score!

Or is it such a score? Yes, Solomon does gain fabulous wealth, and yes, he does reign for forty years. His reputation for wisdom is celebrated, both in First Kings and in the biblical books associated with his name, but there are troubling textures to his reign. Indeed the whole of the eleventh chapter of First Kings is given over to his failings, including his idolatrous devotion to the Sidonian goddess Astarte and the Ammonite god Milcom.

What’s more, as Peter Leithart points out in his commentary on First and Second Kings, “Royal wisdom, touted so heavily at the opening of the book, fails to deliver, showing that Israel’s hope for restoration, blessing, and life does not lie in human wisdom, no matter what heights it attains.”

Leithart’s perspective is key to getting our minds around why we need to pay deep attention to these ancient stories; around why I would have spent the past two months preaching on these texts.

In the introduction to his commentary Leithart observes that while these books are typically categorized as “historical” in Christian bibles, in the Jewish tradition the books of Samuel and Kings are included as part of the “The Books of the Prophets”— Nevi’im—right there along with Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the various minor prophets. This is partly because prophets play such a major role in these books: first Samuel himself and Nathan in the two books of Samuel, and then in the books of Kings Nathan continues his role, followed by Shemaiah, Ahijah, Jehu, Elijah, Micaiah, Elisha, Jonah, Isaiah, and—notably—the woman prophet Huldah who counsels King Josiah; the rare king who actually seems to respond to the claims placed upon him by God and God’s prophets.

But there is more than that, Leithart contends, for there is a powerfully prophetic message that courses all the way through the stories, from the moment near the beginning when Samuel advises the people that their desire to have a king like all the other nations is wrong-headed, even dangerous. Let me cite Leithart at some length:

The message of the prophets is not, “Israel has sinned; therefore, Israel needs to get its act together or it will die.” The message is, “Israel has sinned; therefore Israel must die, and its only hope is to entrust itself to a God who will give it new life on the far side of death.” Or even, “Israel has sinned; Israel is already dead. Cling to the God who raises the dead.” This is precisely the prophetic message of 1-2 Kings, which systematically dismantles Israel’s confidence in everything but the omnipotent mercy and patience of God.

Human wisdom even from someone so revered as Solomon is not enough, nor is royal power exercised by someone so beloved as King David. There is no way for Israel to behave, moralize, strategize, improve, innovate, repair, or rebuild its way back to life; only by clinging to the God who raises the dead will they again have life, which is the lesson they began to learn in the Babylonian exile and which then positively explodes into life in the four gospels and—in a very particular way—in the epistles of Paul.

You see, confronting the human inability to redeem and restore our own selves is not bad news, but rather the prelude to the good news, about which Robert Farrar Capon has famously taught, insisting that Christ did not come to fix the fixable or improve the improvable, but rather he came to save the last, the least, and the lost, and to raise the dead. Which is every single one of us, if we’re honest about it. Oh, and also David and Solomon, Absalom and Tamar, Bathsheba and Uriah, Samuel and Nathan, and the whole host of others who have populated these stories over the past two months too. We’re all of us lost sheep, and it is in Christ we can be found. We will be found. We have been found.