Solomon’s Hearing Heart
August 16, 2009
1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:1-15 and Ephesians 5:15-20
The sermon today is the first of two which attempt to understand the reign of Solomon over the young nation of Ancient Israel. As we heard in our passage today, Solomon succeeds his father David as king of Israel and like any succession of major political power, there is contention. The first few months of Solomon’s reign deal specifically with his consolidation of power—he eliminates his rivals to the throne one-by-one, banishing one to a distant land, putting another under permanent house arrest, and then marrying the daughter of Egypt’s Pharaoh to establish regional harmony. With his power fully realized, Solomon goes to Gibeon and offers sacrifices to the Lord. There God appears to Solomon and we have the memorable text for today.
This story has always reminded me a bit of the genie-in-the-bottle stories that we all heard as children. It should be no surprise that this type of story appears in the Bible, as the Bible was written down in the same region of the world where the stories of Arabian Nights, caravans, magic and mystical dreams originated. And in our story today we have a strong flavor of that same mysticism as Solomon is confronted by God in a dream with the smoke of offerings rising above the ancient sacred place of Gibeon, just as the smoky apparition of a genie might escape when one polishes off a dusty golden lamp.
But in the dream of Solomon, the fanciful, mystical story has real-life applications. Solomon is king of the Israelites and what he requests of God affects not only him but the thousands of people under his rule. When God asks Solomon what his deepest wish, his most fervent desire is, the novice king wisely and humbly asks for an understanding mind, not solely for his own benefit but so that he may govern the Israelites well.
There is much in Solomon’s request that deserves our attention. First off, though our Bibles translate Solomon’s answer as “an understanding mind” the literal Hebrew translation reads “a hearing heart.” For the Ancient Israelites the heart, not the mind, was the center of discernment, thought and will. Solomon was asking for a “hearing heart” so that he could be a proper judge of the Israelites67.
Today, we commonly call this wisdom. The word wisdom has Germanic and Greek roots that combine “seeing” or “vision” with “way” or “manner.” So to have wisdom, or to be wise, is to be able to see the way, to have vision for the proper course of action. In Hebrew, wisdom is called hmk.x' (“hokmah”), and Solomon is indeed described with this very word.
But how exactly do we use wisdom? I came across a sports article this week in which a story was told about the golfer Tiger Woods who pulled aside one of his friends before he teed off for a round of golf and casually asked him “What do you call a black man who flies an airplane?” Rather stunned at the question, the man could only stutter an “I don’t know.” “A pilot, of course” Woods responded.
In a way this is the type of wisdom for which Solomon asks; the ability to discern what is proper in times of confusion and difficulty; to see past the traps of life and find our way forward to the truth. And humor is an elegant way of describing wisdom. The biblical writers thought so as well, as the Bible is filled with humorous tales which hint at deeper truths.
In fact, if we were to keep reading our text this morning from the point where our passage left off we would immediately hear a rather amusing, though horrific story about Solomon’s wisdom. In the episode, two women are fighting each other over who is the true mother of young boy. No one can resolve the argument so it is brought before the young king. The story goes both women gave birth three days apart and one night one of the women rolled over on top of her child while sleeping and her son died. Realizing what had happened she got out of bed and switched her dead son with the living son of the other mother.
Hearing their complaints, Solomon asked for his servants to bring a sword, saying that since the women can’t resolve who is mother of the boy, the young child should be sliced into two equal pieces with each mother receiving a half—there is humor intended in this grotesquery.
The woman whose son was dead quickly agreed to this arrangement. The woman whose child was due to be halved, on the other hand, said, “Please, my Lord, give her the living boy; certainly do not kill him.” From these words Solomon knew that the woman who wanted to preserve the life of the boy was the true mother and he promptly handed the boy back to her.
This is wisdom: seeing the proper way of action, and listening with a hearing heart.
But wisdom is not an individual possession. It is a gift that is intended to be nurtured and used for the benefit of others. Solomon specifically asks that his wisdom be granted on the condition that it is practically used to rule with justice and truth in the lives of other people. Wisdom is not locked internally within us but is to be externally focused on improving and positively shaping the world that we live in.
Furthermore, though our story suggests that Solomon’s wisdom was greater than anyone else’s in the known world at the time, he was not the only one who possessed wisdom. If you remember in our passage today Solomon asks for the ability “to discern between good and evil.” These words should sound familiar to us. They are the same words used to describe the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden.
After Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge they gained perspective of both good and evil. In a sense they became wise. Rather than living simply like the animals of the world with no sense of morality or right and wrong, their minds expanded and they gained greater perspective on the world around them. In the story from Genesis, God even says that with this knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve became like God, with the only thing separating them being their mortality. People die, but God does not. Yet both people and God know right from wrong and good from evil.
Of course the other grand departure of people from God is that unlike God, people do not always choose good over evil. Furthermore, the choice for us humans between good and evil is not always an easy one. We are not blessed with omniscience; we can’t clearly see the future outcome of our actions even though we try to live with a hearing heart and a discerning mind. Though we all have wisdom, wisdom does not always clear the fog from our fuzzy situations and ambiguous realities.
But we must remember that though our wisdom does not lead us to perfection, we still are blessed with wisdom. Like Solomon, we have “hearing hearts.” This phrase is a dazzling one, isn’t it? Hearing hearts. Though in the Hebrew sense of the word the heart refers to intelligent action, the power of thought and will, we can combine this meaning with our modern western notion of the heart as the seat of empathy and emotion. So hearing hearts can mean intelligence and wisdom combined with love and compassion.
And perhaps this is the true wisdom we should seek. Intelligence to know right from wrong and compassion to understand how our actions and decisions influence those around us. Without either one of these aspects, wisdom is not fully formed. If we think only with our heads we risk harming other people and the world around us by forgetting the beauty and sanctity of life. If we think only with our hearts it is difficult to grasp the elegance of logic, foresight and structure.
This debate between the wisdom of the heart and mind was perhaps best visualized, if you don’t mind the analogy, in the original Star Trek television series. The Starship Enterprise’s two top commanders were James T. Kirk, whose passion was unsurpassed, and Spock, whose logic always brought levity to emotional situations.
Passion and logic. Heart and mind. In the combination of these two is the wisdom that we seek. Solomon used his heart in accepting the difficult problem of determining who was the proper mother of the young boy; and Solomon’s mind was vital in discovering a unique way of resolving the problem.
Hearing with our hearts. The phrase reminds me of a story told to me by a good friend. This particular person walked to work, passing the same liquor store on his daily commute. The same homeless, frequently inebriated man sat on the sidewalk with his back leaning against the liquor store almost every day. They would exchange glances, rarely saying a word to each other, but each knowing the other one was there.
One day, when my friend was going through a particularly rough patch in life, he glanced over at the man without a home, who stared back at him straight in the eyes. My friend lowered his head, and continued to walk. Suddenly he heard a voice calling to him. He turned around and saw the homeless man beckoning him. He walked over, not knowing quite what to expect, and heard this simple question: “Are you okay?”
The man then explained that he had watched my friend walk by the past few days and noticed that he was somehow different. He wondered if my friend was having a hard time and they had only a brief conversation. But afterwards, there was a sudden change in my friend’s disposition. He was livelier, warmer and the sadness in his life seemed to slowly dissipate. All because of the hearing heart of a simple stranger.
Wisdom is not pure intelligence. Wisdom is not solely emotion. It is using our hearts to understand the problems of the world and of the people within it and then using our minds see the way forward.
Wisdom invites us to be emotionally connected to those around us. Wisdom encourages us be thinking people uncovering the places of good and evil and world, while also working through the foggy places of morality. Wisdom is not easy. Wisdom is not a simple tool or possession. It is something that is continually sharpened and strengthened, discovered and developed by learning from our own experiences, by learning from the lives of others and by staying connected to world around us. So may you today seek to develop your own wisdom. May you think with your mind. May you stay attuned to your emotions. And may you hear with your heart. Amen.
Richard Nelson, First and Second King, in Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, John Knox Press: Louisville, KY, 1987, 33.
Douglas Harper, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=w&p=8, referenced on August 15, 2009.
