SunAug162009
Text:1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
In a Sentence: What we value most in life reveals a lot about who we are as persons, and perhaps even more significantly, shapes and influences the persons we become in life.
1 Kings 2:10-12 Then David died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. David had reigned over Israel for forty years, seven of them in Hebron and thirty-three in Jerusalem. Solomon became king and sat on the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was firmly established....
3:3-14 Solomon loved the LORD and followed all the decrees of his father, David, except that Solomon, too, offered sacrifices and burned incense at the local places of worship. The most important of these places of worship was at Gibeon, so the king went there and sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings. That night the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream, and God said, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!”
Solomon replied, “You showed faithful love to your servant my father, David, because he was honest and true and faithful to you. And you have continued your faithful love to him today by giving him a son to sit on his throne.
“Now, O LORD my God, you have made me king instead of my father, David, but I am like a little child who doesn’t know his way around. And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted! Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?”
The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom. So God replied, “Because you have asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies—I will give you what you asked for! I will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have! And I will also give you what you did not ask for—riches and fame! No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life! And if you follow me and obey my decrees and my commands as your father, David, did, I will give you a long life.”
THREE WISHES. Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the man walking along the beach one day, who comes across an old lamp, covered with salt and barnacles. He meticulously cleans it and finishes by giving it a good buffing. As he does so, a genie appears. Happy to be freed from the lamp, the genie tells the man that he has three wishes.
The man thinks for a moment and says, "I wish to be a dollar richer than the richest person in the world." The genie isn’t exactly sure who the richest person in the world is, so he checks and finds out that Bill Gates is worth 40 billion dollars. He comes back to the man and says, "Done! You are now worth $40 billion and 1 dollars. What is your second wish."
The man replies, "I wish I had a fire engine red, Porsche 911 GT2. It has 530 hp, goes from 0-60 in 3.6 seconds and tops out at 204 mph.."
"Not a problem,” says the genie. He waves his hand and poof! A fire engine red, Porsche 911 GT2 pops out of the lamp. The genie then asks the man for his third wish.
The man thinks about various possibilities. An attractive female companion -- nah, with billions of dollars and a flashy red sports car he could certainly attract women. World peace? That just wasn’t what he was interested in. The man can’t decide how he wants to use his final wish, so he says to the Genie,"I can't think of anything at the moment. May I save the third wish for later."
"This is a most unusual request,” the genie responds, “but you are in control. I can't escape from this lamp until you make a third wish. Call me when you're ready," and whoosh, he disappears into the lamp.
The man carefully picks up the lamp and places it in the passenger seat beside him, as he climbs into his new little red sports car. He turns the radio on and spends several minutes programming in his favorite stations and adjusting the balance and volume of the expensive audio system.
He then pulls the car onto the coast highway and heads south. Soon he is up to 60, then 70 and 80 miles per hour. The car is a dream to drive. The man can hardly believe his good fortune. He is so happy that, without thinking what he’s doing, he begins to sing along as a classic old commercial comes on the radio.
"Oh, I wish I were an Oscar-Mayer Wiener ....” and poof!
The moral of the story? Be careful what you wish for.
Key Point from the Story: Our biblical story this morning begins after the death of David, the second king of Israel. David dies following a long 40-year reign and his son Solomon is elevated to the throne. He inherits a nation that is much stronger and more stable than when David became king. In many ways it is a humbling experience for the young man. The early days of his reign are marked by a depth of spiritual devotion and openness to God. His spirit and attitude impress the people around him and apparently impress God, for God appears to Solomon in a dream and says, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!”
If I were to drive up to your home this afternoon and knock on your door, checkbook in hand, and say to you, “Ask what you want and I will give it to you,” it wouldn’t be all that significant. My resources are quite limited. But suppose Warren Buffett, head of the Bershire Hathaway mutual fund and one of the richest people in the world, were to sit down in your living room and make that offer. The sky would be the limit.
For the young king Solomon the offer comes from God. He could have asked for anything – wealth, power, prestige, long life. Instead he asks for wisdom, more specifically the wisdom to govern his people well and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. We see something of the greatness of Solomon in his request, not for something that will benefit him, but for something that will benefit the citizens of his country.
In response to the story of King Solomon I want to say three things this morning about the issue of values: First I would like to suggest that what we value most in life reveals a lot about who we are as persons. Second, and perhaps even more significantly, I would like to propose that what we value most in life shapes and influences the persons we become. The final point I would like to draw from this story is that what we value most in life affects the lives of other people, especially those close to us.
1. First, what we value most in life reveals a lot about who we are.
Dwight L. Moody was a well known evangelist who lived and worked in Chicago during the mid-1800's. Abraham Lincoln was rumored to have occasionally visited the large church he established there. Moody was talking about this issue of values, when he once said, “tell me what people spend their money on and I’ll tell you what kind of people they are.”
If I were to bring my checkbook down to Fellowship Hall after the service today and invite you to thumb through it, there would be some telling revelations about what the DeWeeses value in life. For a number of years I have used Quicken. It is a personal financial management software program on my computer. One of its nifty little features is its reporting function, which allows me to see exactly how much and where I have spent my money during any given period of time.
When I run that report, I see that having a roof over my head is pretty important to me; and having decent transportation is something I value; and I have this thing about food–I like it! My checkbook tells a lot about what I value in life.
If you were to thumb through my checkbook, I’m afraid you might discover that I am afflicted with the illness that has been dubbed “affluenza,” defined as “the desire of the affluent for things.”
In talking about that temptation which so easily besets us, one person put it this way: “We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.” A look in my closets and basement and garage witnesses to the truth of at least a part of that statement for me. Affluenza. I wish there was a flu shot for it.
While I was on sabbatical, I spent three weeks in the northwest. I stayed part of that time with my 91-year-old mom. While I was there, we discovered she had been hit with several late charges on a credit card account she has had for many years. In looking into the situation, we found that, though always meticulous about paying her bills on time, she was mailing her payment too close to the due date for the bank to receive it in time, and thus getting stuck with a hefty late payment fee.
In the process of helping resolve that matter and making sure there were not others like it, I had occasion to go through my mom’s checkbook. Though there were no real surprises, the exercise told me a lot about her values in life. The revelations of Mom’s checkbook: God and the little church she’s been a part of for almost 65 years are important to her; family and friends are important to her; she has a soft spot in her heart for needy people. Oh yes, and one other thing, though I didn’t need to see her checkbook to know this. She liked George Bush.
What we value most in life reveals a lot about who we are.
2. The second point I want to make this morning is that, not only does what we value most in life reveal a lot about who we are, it also determines to a great extent who we become.
The Presbyterian minister Lloyd Ogilvie was U.S. Senate chaplain from 1995 to 2003. A number of years ago he wrote an article in which he said, down the road a bit you are going to meet an old person. The old person to whom he was referring was yourself. The kind of person you encounter in that meeting, wrote Ogilvie, will be directly related to the values you hold and the decisions you make today.
Though I could not put my finger on the author of the quote, I believe it was C.S. Lewis who said ‘it is by our likings we are saved and by our likings we are lost.” I think Ogilvie would have agreed with that.
Goethe, the German writer and philosopher, who lived in the late 18th and early 19th Century, makes the same point, when he writes, "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love."
3. The final thing I want to say this morning is that what we value most in life affects the lives of other people.
The tale of King Midas (Lisa gave us a contemporary version this morning) is very different from the story of Solomon. Midas is also granted a wish, anything he wants, and what he wants most is gold; or more specifically that anything he touches might turn into gold. Initially it seems like a splendid choice to him, but it isn’t long before he begins to see the folly of his ways. Unfortunately, when his little daughter comes to console him, he touches her and she turns into a cold, dead, statue.
Jesuit priest and author John Powell was getting at the same point the author of the King Midas tale was making, when he wrote: “God created things for us to use and people for us to love. It is our most common temptation to turn that around, so that we love things and use people.”
Simone Weil, the French/Jewish/Catholic mystic writes in one of her essays about depersonalizing people, making them into things. She says it is never more vividly seen than when one quite literally does that by killing another person. There are numerous reasons: envy or jealousy or hatred or greed or fear.
You don’t have to read far in the Plain Dealer or view the local television newscast long to find examples. A Cleveland teenager is shot and killed for a desirable coat or pair of tennis shoes. A suburban woman is stabbed by her estranged husband in a jealous rage. A convenience store clerk is gunned down by a robber, who gets a few hundred dollars from the cash register.
But the tendency to depersonalize, to love things and use people, can also have consequences in less severe, non-violent ways. In 1974 Harry Chapin wrote the song, “The Cat’s in the Cradle.” It is the story of a father, who is so busy (there were planes to catch and bills to pay) that he didn’t have time for his son. Oh, he bought him things. When the boy turned ten, the father bought him a ball. The boy says to his dad, “Come on, let’s play. Can you teach me to throw?” But the father says, “Not today. I got a lot to do.”
The boy grows up and goes off to college. Now the father wants to spend more time with him, but you know how busy the social life of a college student can be and all the son wants to do is “borrow the car keys.”
After college the son gets married and moves away. He has a job and family. The father, now retired, wants to spend more time with his son. He calls and tells the boy, but the son responds, "I'd love to dad if I could find the time/You see my new job's a hassle and the kids have the flu/But it's sure nice talking to you, dad.” As he hangs up the phone, the father realizes that his son has grown up to be just like him.
I suspect that a number of us, if we could go back and redo our parenting days, would readjust our values and resort our priorities. What we value most in life affects the lives of other people.
There is another version of the genie story. In this one three men are stranded on a desert island, when a bottle washes up on the shore. When they uncork the bottle, a genie appears and offers three wishes, one for each man. The first wishes to be taken to Paris. The genie snaps his fingers, and the man suddenly finds himself standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. The second man wishes that he were in Hollywood, and with a snap of the genie's fingers, he finds himself on a Tinseltown movie set. The third man, now alone on the island, looks around and says, "I wish my friends were back."
Be careful what you wish for. It will impact the lives of others, especially those close to you.
Our passage from 1 Kings paints the picture of a young, newly established king, who loves God and whose life has been deeply influenced by the God-honoring ways of his father, David. Solomon had learned the lesson, which Jesus taught several hundred years later in the Sermon on the Mount, to “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness....” Or as Peterson puts it in the Message, “Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.” (Mt 6:33, The Msg)
Dutch Christian Corrie Ten Boom was involved with her family in sheltering Jewish individuals in their home during the Nazi occupation of her country in WWII. It eventually cost her family their home and freedom. It cost her father and sister their lives. Years later Corrie writes of some of the lessons she learned as she endeavored to seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness: “I’ve learned,” she says, “not to hold onto anything too tightly because it hurts too much to have God pry back my fingers to get to it. So I’ve learned to live my life with an open hand so that God can put in and he can take out whatever he wants, and that way I never miss the blessing.”
What do you want most in life? Be careful what you wish for. It reveals who you are as a person. It will significantly impact your life, molding and shaping the person you are becoming. And finally, it will impact the lives of others, especially those close to you.