Understanding
I Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14
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Be careful what you wish for, the old saying goes, you just might get it. It’s one thing when someone asks for your order at a restaurant, or a friend inquires about what you might like for you birthday, or when you used to write a letter to Santa listing all the things you hoped he’d bring you for Christmas. But when it comes to God, it feels like we might be talking about something else altogether. To be sure it’s easy enough to treat God as nothing more than the projection of our own desires writ large. This is in some ways the Moralistic Therapeutic Deism named by Christian Smith and Melinda Denton in their assessment of the data gathered by the massive National Study of Youth and Religion conducted 15 years ago. Smith and Denton brand Moralistic Therapeutic Deism as Christianity’s “misbegotten stepcousin,” which, among other things, advances the notion that God doesn’t really have much to do with our day-to-day lives except when we have a problem that we need God to solve. At which point we are supposed name and claim whatever it is that we want from God, like placing an order online with next-day delivery. This practice is what passes for faith, and if things don’t go the way a person wants, or they fail to actualize what they have asked for, then it is concluded that they just don’t have enough faith- as though faith were some kind of bank account with insufficient funds for the transaction. All of which is complete rubbish. More often it is the case that when it comes to this sort of thing, we have plenty of ideas about what we might want from God, but find ourselves at a bit of a loss to name what it is that we need from God.
There are all kinds of things that Solomon must have wanted from God when he retreated to the shrine at Gibeon. He had just weathered the storm of succession that brought him to the throne, fending off the claim of his brother to become king of all Israel. He was newly married in an arrangement that may have had more to do with securing an alliance with Egypt than love for his bride. Maybe he wanted to know that his place upon throne was secure. Maybe he wanted something more for his marriage. Maybe he just wanted to prove that he belonged there; that as the son of David and Bathsheba, he had more to offer than the sordid story that had brought his parents together. Or maybe he just wanted what so many of us want- a long life with good health, plenty of money to do what we want, and to prevail over the people who oppose us. But when God came to Solomon in a dream, saying, “ask what I should give you,” Solomon didn’t ask for any of that. He didn’t ask for what he may, or may not have wanted. Instead, he asked for what he most definitely needed.
Asking for what we need can be far more difficult than asking for what we want. What we want is often just a matter of satisfying whatever our appetite of the moment may be, whatever it is that we feel like at the time. Asking for what we need means doing something that I notice not that many people are inclined to do these days. Asking for what we need means taking an honest assessment of who we are, the moment we’re in, and determining what it is that we don’t have in order to fully meet that moment. Which means that asking for what we need requires admitting that we are in some way deficient, lacking, or without. It means being brave enough to admit what we don’t know, what we can’t see, what we’re not sure we can do. A friend was talking about the rough time his brother went through, including a couple of years where he lived out of his car. “How does something like that happen,” I asked. “Couldn’t your family do anything?” “He fought help,” he answered, “he fought it hard.”
Solomon knew enough to know what he didn’t know. And that right there may be the whole battle. That right there may be the difference between true wisdom and folly- having the fortitude to face up to all that you know you do not know. Or as the apostle Paul puts it in an entirely different context, we know only in part. “For now, we see in a mirror dimly.” Solomon had seen enough to recognize that even a king as well-regarded as his father had been has his blind spots. And so when God put the question to him in his dream, when God said, “ask what I should give you,” Solomon knew that despite whatever he might have wanted, what he needed was what he did not have- an understanding mind.
And this is one of those instances where translation doesn’t entirely serve us well. And by us, I specifically mean people in the Presbyterian tradition. One of the things that we pride ourselves on is our scholarship. For us, faith is more than a feeling, or following a certain set of rules. For us, faith includes loving the Lord, our God, with all of our mind- as well as our heart, soul and strength. We are nothing if not a people who put serious stock in understanding and the value of education. The title of the theology textbook that we used in our first year of seminary comes from the 11th century Benedictine monk, Anselm of Canterbury, who described the pursuit of theology as “faith seeking understanding.” While churches across the spectrum of Christianity celebrate all the major holidays, Presbyterians in the Reformed tradition of Christianity might regard the start of the academic year as an additional feast day in the liturgical calendar. The black robes that our pastors wear in worship are not vestments, the kind of worship garments other traditions wear. They are academic robes, to signal that the Word we bring to the pulpit is the product of study. So, we see Solomon’s request for an understanding mind and figure he was just a Presbyterian before his time.
Only those words don’t adequately capture the sense of the Hebrew here, because a closer translation of what Solomon asks for is a “heart that listens.” And that isn’t quite the same thing. While and understanding mind my seek and value knowledge, a heart that listens is attended to something more than just facts. Don’t get me wrong, facts are important. Facts point the way to the truth, but they do not contain the whole of the truth. In order for any of us to get closer to the whole of the truth requires a heart that can listen.
A heart that listens isn’t waiting for its turn to talk. It isn’t formulating its reply before the person speaking finishes their thought. A heart that listens recognizes the need for silence and the time it gives us to truly take in what we are receiving from someone else. A heart that listens pays attention to everything that isn’t said, but can be communicated by someone’s face, tone of voice, and body language. And a heart that listens considers everything beyond the moment that contributes to what is going on; the influences of what has come before and the implications of what will come after. More than anything, a heart that listens is a heart that is fully present. Solomon recognizes from what he has already seen of what it means to be a king, that this is what he will need if he is to be the kind of leader his people need. One who isn’t simply out for himself and the wealth he can amass, or the adulation he receives, but one who will put their good and their good of the nation before his own interests and vendettas.
The truly remarkable thing is that when we look to God not just for understanding, but for a heart that listens, what we find is that many of the other things we may have wanted take care of themselves. The quality of our lives, the richness we experience, and the relationships we form all benefit from the attention of our hearts to what truly matters. Because ultimately a heart that listens is a heart that is continually attuned to the fact that God has everything to do with our day-to-day lives and the way we navigate our way through them. And more than anything else, that is what we need to know.