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The Doulos podcast explores servant leadership in an Orthodox Christian context.
Hollie Benton 0:04
You're listening to Doulos, a podcast of the Ephesus School Network. Doulos offers a scriptural daily bread for God's household and explores servant leadership as an Orthodox Christian. I'm Hollie Benton, your host and executive director for the Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative. Fr. Timothy Lowe is co-host. He is a retired priest and former rector of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem. So greetings, Fr. Timothy.
Fr. Timothy Lowe 0:30
Greetings, Hollie, nice to be with you again.
Hollie Benton 0:32
Yes, well, let's remind our listeners where we are in the search for a leader, biblically speaking, even though we know that it is part of the human condition to be ever searching, ever hopeful for a leader. One who might fight our battles, take care of our needs, adjudicate our differences. The biblical writers understand this deep desire for a leader. And so we follow the story arc of the people's rebellion against God, the one and only righteous leader, and the people's desire for an earthly king. Careful what you wish for - the Lord first anoints Saul who turns out to be a self serving tyrant. Then comes a more complex King David who at times serves in faithfulness and obedience to the Lord, and at other times fails miserably. He awakens to his sin, he repents, and finally on his deathbed, admonishes his son, Solomon, the heir to the throne, to walk in the ways of the Lord. Yet, in his very last breath, he slips in his final vendetta against those who had personally wronged him, and asked Solomon to take revenge. So you've asked us to keep in mind, Fr. Timothy, that no one is good, but God alone. And this phrase is becoming increasingly clear as we follow this storyline of those whom the Lord anoints as King. So let's see if Solomon does any better than his predecessors. I think most people may remember Solomon as the wise king. Maybe the third time is the charm. Did King Solomon enact the revenge that King David called for, naming all the people to be struck down? What else should we keep in mind before today's reading about King Solomon, Fr. Timothy?
Fr. Timothy Lowe 2:18
Yes, he did. He did take his vengeance. He listened to his father David. So the story arc, this is so important that I want to re emphasize it again for our hearers. They, we, us, we have to know the whole biblical story. Okay, we can't know bits and pieces. You hear bits and pieces in church, and they're so disparate and so separated and over a long period of time that you will not get the story arc in church, you have to do it on your own. So with this in mind, the story begins in Genesis. And for us Christians, we have a double curse, because we have the New Testament. So we have to read all the way to Revelation. And that's just too much for the normal reader, let alone to remember it. But the stories are designed like the parables for people to hear, and then to remember. That's why storytelling is magnificent art, I think underappreciated. The name of Solomon, people don't hear it in English, but his name in Hebrew is Shlomo. So they're familiar with the word shalom, everybody, yes, it's a standard greeting in modern Hebrew. It means peace. It comes from the root that means wholeness, something that is complete, or something that is done in recompense. So the same word can mean to pay someone. So I mean, it has this varied meaning more than just the simplistic idea of peace. We have to ask ourselves, Solomon has this beautiful name like his father, David, a beautiful name, the beloved one. King Saul, whom you mentioned is the one who was asked for, requested, it emphasizes the fact that the people came and asked for this king. And now we're living out the arc of this request, it's full spectrum of erratic, crazy behavior. Faithful behavior, as you noted, just above, with King David. And we'll see that this hot and cold will continue. Now remember, I said in previous ones, it's not how we begin. It's how we end, how we end. So how do these characters in the Bible end their lives? And there is a consistent ending, which is usually bad news, but we don't want to give away the whole thing with King Salman, we're going to follow the first section today. He has been anointed king, and it will begin. So as we continue to look at him, keep in mind every detail of the story. In other words, read closely. You cannot hear and be on your iPad or scrolling on your phone at the same time. It doesn't work. The biblical text, the biblical story demands our full attention. So let us see if Solomon will be the great king of peace. Will he be a beloved one like his father? Let's just look at his beginnings. How does he start?
Hollie Benton 5:06
So the reading for today comes from First Kings chapter three, beginning at verse three. "Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father, only he sacrificed and burnt incense at the high places. And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon used to offer 1000 different offerings upon that altar. At Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night. And God said, Ask what I shall give you. And Solomon said, Thou has shown great and steadfast love to thy servant David, my father, because he walked before thee in faithfulness and righteousness and an uprightness of heart toward thee. And thou has kept for him this great and steadfast love, and has given him a son to sit on his throne this day. And now, O Lord, my God, thou has made thy servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child, and I do not know how to go out or come in. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people whom thou has chosen, a great people that cannot be numbered or counted for multitude. Give thy servant, therefore, an understanding mind to govern the people that I may discern between good and evil, for who was able to govern this thy great people. It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. And God said to him, because you have asked this and have not asked for yourself, long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding, to discern what is right, Behold, I now do according to your word, Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you, and none like you shall rise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you all your days." So if you don't mind, Fr. Timothy, I'd like to ask briefly about the preceding verses before this passage. We learn in verse one, that Solomon made an alliance by marrying the daughter of the Pharaoh king of Egypt. We must remember all the trouble Moses had in Egypt under the pharaoh's rule, so I'm wondering if this sounds like a little bit of trouble?
Fr. Timothy Lowe 7:19
Well, you did mention the story arc. And now you mentioned the intro to Solomon as king, and of all the things you could do as an intro, it's oh, by the way, and it is like an aside, you know, oh, by the way, he married the daughter of Pharaoh to make a strategic alliance. This is bad news, okay, and this is a detail, and I'm glad you brought it up. And I wanted our listeners to understand, notice it slips in there, you can completely ignore it, because we're gonna get excited about his vision. But no, this is bad news. Anything related to Egypt is bad news, because he's already acting kingly, which is all about strategic alliances, compromise. And you have to understand that the whole story of the Exodus is based upon the slavery, abandoning all that so that the Lord God will be your king, your protector, your provider, and so on. And so again, even though there's going to be nice words that you just read here, about wisdom and whatnot, it is problematic. I'm glad you mentioned it, it's there. It's a counterweight to all the nice things that have just been said. So let's not make the ambiguity, the hot and cold nature of these characters, be a scandal to us. And that's why this introduction is complicated. And it's a setup, right? Because there is no temple, Solomon is functioning as the high priest. He's offering sacrifices, burning incense and all that's fine, okay. But see, he is functioning as king and high priest, that is problematic. Now, he has a dream, God said, Ask what I shall give you. This is the test, and see how Solomon passes with flying colors. The problem is, when you are correct at the beginning, there's only one place to go, Hollie, and that is down. If you're the MVP of some football, Super Bowl, or basketball or whatever, and so on, there's only one way, and that's down. You can't go up. And this is the test, and Solomon passes it with glowing colors. He asks for this beautiful Hebrew phrase, it's called, lev shome a heart that hears, okay, it doesn't say wisdom, and our translations use understanding but it's literally a heart that hears. That's what he's asking for. So he can discern between good and evil, good and bad, so that he can practice, what at times David failed in, which was justice, righteousness. Think of the story of Uriah as the quintessential failure, and then not giving justice to Absalom's sister Tamar, because his heir, his first heir, was involved. And so David was prejudicial to the firstborn, as is any royal dynasty. I'm sorry, Prince Harry, you're the spare, move on, you're free now, you don't have to be the king. But the point is, is that in the choice even of Solomon, Solomon is not in the dynastic line. He has six other brothers from David's previous wives. But David chooses Solomon, or does the Lord choose? Whatever it is, the point is, Solomon, technically, will be equipped to do his job. That's the point. He is given by God a discerning heart that hears and understands. And then He glorifies his father David, notice in verse six, that it is Solomon speaking, not David. Solomon said, You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father because he walked before you in faithfulness, uprightness of heart toward you and you kept for him all his great and steadfast love bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. And now you've set his son on the throne this day. See, when you glorify the father, now you are the father's heir, you share in the glory, you see. It's all hyperbolic, exaggerated setup for the rest of the story. And notice verse seven, which should remind us of David, and now Oh, Lord, my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father. So he's proclaiming himself as legitimate heir. Although I am but a little child, a little child or youth, you know, a teenager, he's confessing that he's a teenager. That's what the Hebrew actually says in modern lingo. So he's liking himself that he came from the bottom like David, he had seven brothers before him, and he was chosen, he was the eighth, you start at the bottom, and now he's sitting on the throne. It's not like the long story of David of his ascent to kingship, no, Solomon, everything is given, everything that he needs. Now, God is so overwhelmed that Solomon has chosen perfectly, he says, I'm gonna give you all the other things that a normal human being wants, which is fame, and glory, and honor and long life, and so on and so forth. But then comes the punch line, which I believe you're going to read right now.
Hollie Benton 12:22
It's verse 14, "And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days."
Fr. Timothy Lowe 12:31
If. This is the condition. If you walk in my ways, keeping my statues, my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days. You and I always live under the conditional if, and this is something we need to ingrain in our mind. Therefore, it'll keep us from arrogance, from assumptions about ourselves, from cocky assuredness. No, we live in hope, we live in hope. And so it's enough to have this nice intro, this nice beginning, the baptism, the chrismation, the coming in, you know, into the life of the church. And the idea that St. Paul says, okay, if you have been baptized, you are a new creation, your life no longer belongs to you, but it belongs to God. That's the nice sort of context. But there is this problem of living and walking. And you and I, we say it on almost every podcast that we do together, there's always this doing and the walking without which it's all silliness. It's all silliness. My point is, Solomon is there, he's given everything from the outset, but with the conditional warning, which just comes straight out of Deuteronomy. If people want to read Deuteronomy, go ahead, you see, if you want to stay in the land, you must do A, B, C, and D. Otherwise, God is going to bring it to an end and cast you out. Christ does the same thing in the Gospel of Matthew, oh, I can raise up children to Abraham, from these very stones. you scribes and Pharisees, do not claim that you have Abraham, as your father. Do not proclaim as Solomon just did, David is my father, and I am sitting now on his throne, and therefore, everything's going to be rosy. No, no. We have to read the whole story, and we have to see how it ends, just as we did with David, just as we did with Saul. We could pick even Elijah the prophet and see how he ends his life in a biblical text to the end in faithfulness and obedience and humility. Will he remain and confess I'm just a child, or will he become full of himself, full of his riches, his glory, and what not. In other words, will he be seduced? All of us human beings are always seduced about glory and power and honor and prestige and the human ego that remains unchecked. So the biblical God will always have the conditional IF, and that if is part of our mental framework, however long we live, if, if, if. I cannot send you a nice, warm, fuzzy letter that saying, My now deceased parents are living happily in the kingdom of heaven, I don't know. But we want to believe that they are because, you know, we play God. We do not play God. We do not pronounce judgments. It's to God alone. Everyone has to live their life, and therefore live with the uncertainty. But with hope. So we're in the middle of Lent, a small Lenten journey. 40 days, you know, it's a liturgical journey. It's a seasonal journey. It's nothing more than that, that the church imposes on us just to have us become serious in case we're just wandering away. So we call it a time of renewal, a time of repentance. But at the end, it's like the beginning of a new year. It repeats itself and we start again. Why? Because we know no matter how we start, we trip, we fall, we wander, we go astray, we commit the same sins, we come back and confess the same things. And finally, how long do we expect God to put up with us before he removes us and starts again with someone else? That's the biblical story. He removed Saul, starts again with David. David turns out to be a failure. No, we're gonna try with Solomon. Now, let it be known to all of our listeners, Hollie, that the house of David will know no peace. I already took everybody to the end of the story. They will know no peace, no matter who replaces whom replaces whom, it will cycle on, and it will not move. But of course, that's the human story, which is quite in fact depressing. Which means basically, Hollie, I'm going to confess my sin, and your sin together, it's our story. We are continually doing the same things over and over and over again, until there is One who appears, who will be obedient, who will consign himself to accepting the will of God wholeheartedly completely in totality. One who will be the sacrificial lamb, who will be offered, okay, we wait, we wait. We wait for the leader. And when he gets crucified, let us not have a crisis. And let us not even theologize it away. It is the solution to the human problem. Yes, Christ says we must become like the little children. Yes, Solomon says, I am but a little child. Does he believe it? Whatever it is, it's the right words. We will see how he will get full of himself. But other people can read it for themselves, read I Kings. So there we are, Hollie, in the middle of the endless cycle of leadership, failed leadership, again, starting all over again failed. Why? Because in the end, I am not the Messiah. It took me 40 years to learn the simple lesson. I am not the Messiah, you are not the Messiah. I do not save. I am the humble, in a good sense, servant who does the will, who harkens to the voice with the hearing heart, with the hearing heart, not with the theological mind. I have a great theological mind, I was at the top of my class with another good friend of mine, it means nothing. It means I was good at theology and could write good papers, but it has nothing to do with the listening heart, and the request to do and understand what is right and upright, and then to call myself and you and everybody else to this way of living. And this is the only thing.
Hollie Benton 18:22
Thank you, Father, Timothy. This is an impressive story. It's the kind of thing I'd want to read to my own children to inspire their motivations and desires. Don't ask for long life, for riches, for victory over your enemies. But seek discernment, seek a listening heart. This is more valuable. And this passage reminds me of Matthew's Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount, Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you. Solomon is told that if he walks in the way of the Lord, then the Lord will lengthen his days. So it really sounds like a bonus blessing, wisdom and long life, right?
Fr. Timothy Lowe 18:57
Absolutely. Well said, Hollie. Well said. The truth is, we know that this is what we're to seek, the kingdom of God, which is in the teaching, which is in the behavior. So to ask for wisdom, discernment, and an understanding heart, a listening heart, means also then to both know and to do because otherwise, why bother? Why bother? And then have our life be a shining example of what the kingdom of heaven should be. So yes, tell the story to your children. God willing when you have grandchildren, tell your daughters I announced it on the podcast, to them as well because by then your children stop listening but your grandchildren still have ears to hear. So let's hear it for grandparents.
Hollie Benton 19:47
Thank you, Father Timothy.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai