1 Kings 3:3-15 "What You Ask For"

As I’ve mentioned before, right before we came here in August of 2003 Lisa and I spent a week in the Pacific Northwest sailing with her sister and her husband. In preparation for the trip my brother-in-law, Mark made himself flashcards with nautical terms on them as he re-acquainted himself with what he felt he needed for the trip. Occasionally, I would receive an email from Mark asking me for clarification on whether the waters we would be sailing in were governed by Col Regs or not. I would frantically look up on my computer what in the world a Col Reg was, find it, and email him back in a non-chalant way, “Of course, the inland rules don’t apply in the islands” as if I knew exactly what he was talking about. I actually had known the Col Regs, my dad had gone over them with me as I sailed with him as a child, but I had never known what they were called.

On our vacation I discovered this was true about a number of things. Mark knew the terminology, he was book-smart in the ways of sailing, but I was the one who had spent over a week on the water almost every year of my childhood. There is a wisdom that comes with experience.

My dad skippered for a living. He has been and continues to be an expert when it comes to safety and navigation on the water. And I learned a lot sailing with him as a child. I have experience on a boat. Nothing you can learn in a class will prepare you for actually being out in the water. And, since Lisa and I made it out here okay at the end of that August, it seems my experience paid off, after all, we both survived, we didn’t sink the boat, and neither of us went overboard.

But what happens when someone is put into a position where they have no experience? What happens when someone is given a job, given a responsibility that they are not ready for? Do we put forward a brave face and pretend we know what we’re doing or, like Solomon, do we turn to God and ask for wisdom? Nothing is a substitute for experience, but even experience is not a substitute for the wisdom that is from God.

I. Beginning a Tough Reign

In today’s reading we see Solomon at the beginning of his career. Let me help set it up for you: his father, David, has given him the kingship and he has put down an uprising by his half-brother, Adonijah. Solomon began his reign in desperation, having to fight for it. Solomon began as king having to grasp at the kingship, it was anything but a smooth transition. Here we have the first hereditary transition from father to son in Israel’s history, and those around Solomon don’t want it to go smoothly, and they wonder whether he has what it takes, and they work to sabotage him. Not a great beginning.

Then he receives a genie with not three wishes, but one. God appears to Solomon and asks what it is that Solomon would like to receive. Solomon could ask that his power be centralized; he could ask that God make sure he lives his whole life as king. He could ask that he live and rule for a long time. And it even seems that God is expecting the answer to be one of these.

But Solomon surprises us (and God?) by thinking beyond himself and asking for… and you know the story here… he asks for wisdom. Well, not exactly. Let’s look at what it is that Solomon does ask for.

Solomon first reminds God what it is that he has done for David. He acknowledges that it is God who put him on the throne, and then asks God for an understanding mind to rule God’s people. He asks to be able to discern between good and evil.

Basically, what Solomon is asking for are the skills he needs to be a good king. He is not asking for generic wisdom nor is he asking to be a philosopher. I’ve heard the difference between being smart and being wise described as follows: Being smart is knowing the truth about something. Being wise is applying that so that it affects the way you live. Solomon was asking for knowledge. The knowledge he was asking for was knowledge between good and evil. But it is not enough just to know what is right and what is wrong. To truly live in wisdom, this needs to change the way he lives. But again, it’s more than this that he is asking for.

Let’s look at the way he asks for it… and this is my irreverent paraphrase, “God, you made my dad king and now you’ve decided I should be king. I don’t know what in the world I’m doing here, so if you want me to be king you’d better zap me with something to give me the skills I need to be a good king.”

Now, often I hear of Solomon’s humility. I hear about Solomon being wise beyond his years just in his choice for a request from God. I personally believe that it is something more basic than this that is happening here. I believe that Solomon realizes the responsibility he has before him and he is afraid that he is not up to it.

I kind of know how Solomon feels. It is odd being one of the youngest adults in the church and being the pastor of that same church. Experience, which is so important on the sea, is something that most everyone here has spades more of than me. Now I’m not trying to get down on myself in any way, but rather am trying to acknowledge doubts that sometimes cross my mind. The honest truth is that we all have these moments of doubt where we wonder if we are truly prepared for the things that God has set before us. These questions arise and we have multiple options.

II. Superman and the Cowardly Lion

One option would be to ignore them completely and imagine that we are well able to handle anything this world has to throw at us. I would like to call this the Superman approach. Now I know, much to your loss, most of you don’t read comics, but we all know a little about Superman: He’s strong, he’s fast, he can fly, and every time he encounters an opponent or a crisis, he powers his way through. Superman knows what his strengths are and he uses them… again and again.

Now, unfortunately, this approach doesn’t work as well for us as it does for Superman. First, we can’t outrun a speeding bullet or leap over a tall building. Second, when someone just uses their strengths again and again, they never grow, and they don’t discover new strengths and gifts. Mostly, going it alone makes one cocky and will lead in the end to failure.

A second option in the face of doubt about our abilities would be the option of not trying the new thing at all. This I would like to refer to as the Cowardly Lion approach. This is simply the point where you let your fears and anxieties rule you. In The Wizard of Oz the Cowardly Lion automatically responded in fear to everything. If something happened to him, his default response was to be scared of it. He let his fears define him. This is not healthy. Living by your fears keeps you in the same job for years when you long for something different. Living by your fears keeps you from discovering new skills that you didn’t know you had. Living by your fears means that you make decisions based on what could go wrong instead of trusting God to work in your life. In the end, when you let your anxieties dictate to you what you are not willing to do, you will not grow, you will not experience God or life to the fullest, you will spend your life longing for something more and wondering why you are never truly happy.

So, you can try to be Superman and do it yourself, saving the day again and again until you are finally beaten by the foe that is too great for you. Or you can be the Cowardly Lion and live a life that is defined by your fears. As you can imagine, neither of these options appeals to me so I say go with option three, do what Solomon did: Acknowledge your anxieties and fears, there probably is some reason for them, but then lay them before God and ask God in his power to give you the gifts you need as you step forward in faith.

Solomon was aware of his shortcomings. He knew about the learning curve ahead of him. He did not ignore these, nor did he allow them to stop him in his tracks.

Instead he gave these up to God and asked for help. And God answered.

Solomon asked to be a good ruler and God offered him good judgment and wisdom. God also gave Solomon all the things he could have asked for but didn’t. God not only promised wisdom that was adequate for Solomon, he offered deep wisdom for Solomon.

III. Genie in the Bottle

Now earlier, I referred to Solomon’s genie, and sometimes I fear that that is how we like to think of God. We pray for a good parking spot at Walmart so we don’t have to walk too far or we pray to win the lottery. You turn on the television and see people preaching that if you follow God you will never have a problem or trial in your life. You will live comfortably and never have to work or want for anything. It can sound good, but when you really think about it you know that God doesn’t call for us to be lazy and expect to have everything handed to us.

In the beginning of this passage God asks, “What should I give you?” God is in no way offering to cater to Solomon’s every whim. God didn’t even promise that he would grant Solomon what he asked. When you read the old legends about genies, not only do they offer whatever you ask, but it always goes wrong. The genies are mischievous and find a loophole in what you ask that keeps you from really enjoying it. They stick to the letter of your request and don’t offer anything more.

God, on the other hand, wanted to hear Solomon’s request before promising to fulfill it. He specifically states in verses 11 and 12 that it is because of what Solomon requested that he will honor it. “Because you asked for this and not worldly things, I will grant it to you,” he says. And then God does something that no genie has ever been known to do. He gives Solomon more than he asked for.

Now Solomon, like the rest of us, finds a way to mess it all up later in life and the kingdom is split when his son takes over. This is the way we are, even the wisest of us can mess up and I wouldn’t be surprised if Solomon began to think that he deserved the gifts that he had received from God. I know he got to the point where he felt that he didn’t need God anymore. As Solomon got more experience later in life, he forgot where it all came from. I do know that he relied on treaties with countries that he had sealed with marriages to keep him out of trouble instead of relying on God.

On that same sailing trip with Lisa, her sister and her husband, I spent the first couple days getting my crew and myself comfortable with my leadership. After a couple days I had made some really good decisions that were proven to be wise and then I pulled off an incredibly perfect docking against a difficult current at Friday Harbor. Things were going well and I got cocky. I laughed at the boat that came in next to us, on the other side of the dock, because they missed their first approach and had to try again. They should be more careful, like me. As we were preparing to leave Friday Harbor the next morning I watched a power boat that didn’t really know what he was doing. He pulled out and almost hit the boat behind him. People came to the dock and helped push him out so he could get going. No damage was done, but I laughed at the fact that this guy didn’t really know what he was doing. You’ve got to understand, sailor’s automatically look down on power boaters. We tend to think they try to power their way through everything without really paying attention to the surroundings. I rolled my eyes, thinking “power boaters” and figured I’d show everyone how it’s really done.

Well, you can imagine what came next: my majestic departure! Well at least I can say that I didn’t do anything that would cost any damage to my crew, my boat or others, but my departure was completely sloppy and the only thing that got us out was, you got it, people pushing our bow out for us. I had gotten cocky and thankfully, the only thing it cost us was our pride.

The rest of the trip, you found me being much more careful and taking things much more seriously, and it showed. When we forget ourselves and start to believe that the gifts are rights; that we’ve earned all we’ve been given, there is when we fail.

As a young man, Solomon asked God to help him and to guide him because he knew he couldn’t do it himself. Later in life, when he had more experience, he began to get cocky and think that he had earned all the wisdom he had. This, unfortunately, is a mistake we all tend to make.

Maybe this is part of what Jesus meant when he told us we are all to respond to him with a faith and faithfulness like children. As children we are willing to trust in someone else. As children, we haven’t deceived ourselves into thinking we can handle everything on our own yet. As children, we are willing to ask for help when we need it.

Are we ready to ask for God to make us the best we can be at what we are doing? Are we ready to allow God to bestow those gifts in a way that does not puff us up? Are we ready to turn to God for wisdom instead of the world?

It’s not just about us as individuals. We need to come to God as a church, as a congregation. As Solomon prayed and asked God to make him the best king he could be, we need to come before God and ask God to make us the best church we can be: a church that can make a difference to those around it; a church that will welcome those who don’t know God and teach them about him; a church that is a light in the darkness. A church where people are growing in their faith and a church that reaches out to bring people into new faith in Christ.

Let us pray for God to make us these things. He just may surprise us and answer the unspoken prayers as well. There are churches that pray to be big and they are. There are churches that pray to have money, and they do. But it’s the church that prays for God to make it a good, wise and faithful church that God wants… and God will answer this prayer for us. Amen.