Considering King Solomon (from the Narrative Lectionary)

The Biblical story of King Solomon – succeeding his heroically flawed father, King David -is yet another picture of how God works through incomplete humans and the institutions we create.

We can read this story in 2D and take it at face value: Solomon was the greatest, wisest and wealthiest king of Israel.

Or we can read it in 2D and say: "Wait a minute! Scholars and archeologists are having trouble locating this guy in actual history. This stuff is all made up! I don't do fiction." 

The reality is, while the picture the Tradition has painted of Solomon shows a man exceedingly healthy, wealthy and wise, even the Biblical record is sketchy on all of these.

Burning question: Why would Tradition make-up a character or subscribe to someone attributes that they did not have? Answering that question takes us to more perspectives and deeper insights. Truth may be stranger than fiction - but it's rarely as fun!

The picture of Solomon seems to be a complete fulfillment of the warning God gave Samuel in 1 Samuel 8:

So Samuel told them, delivered God’s warning to the people who were asking him to give them a king. He said, “This is the way the kind of king you’re talking about operates. He’ll take your sons and make soldiers of them—chariotry, cavalry, infantry, regimented in battalions and squadrons. He’ll put some to forced labor on his farms, plowing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury. He’ll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks. He’ll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends. He’ll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy. Your prize workers and best animals he’ll take for his own use. He’ll lay a tax on your flocks and you’ll end up no better than slaves. The day will come when you will cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves. But don’t expect God to answer.”

- The Message

Solomon is another example of a king whose mother seems to have gotten him the job (behind every great monarch there is a stage mom!).

[ Actually there's some reality to this, as the list of fatherless leaders is longer than this URL where you can see it:  http://www.thelizlibrary.org/site-index/site-index-frame.html#soulhttp://www.thelizlibrary.org/fatherless/effects-of-fatherlessness.html]

Solomon immediately acts ruthlessly in relationship to his rival siblings and adversaries- but not uncommonly for his day.

Of his wisdom we actually have only one example – the story of the two mothers- and more examples that look very unwise- or at least examples we probably wouldn’t admire in a leader.

In order to make Solomon look wise the Tradition has attributed writings to him – Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and some Psalms – that scholars now agree were almost certainly not of his authorship.

Of course, the wisdom of anyone with 700 wives and 300 concubines would certainly be...

open to question.

This too is probably Tradition from an era when the virility of the king is seen as a reflection of the strength of a nation – and visa versa. To be a great king you either had to be like David and kill a bunch of people, or be like Solomon and… well, umm…rack up the numbers above.

Solomon builds the temple his father had wanted too. If it strikes you as highly ironic that this entailed the forced labor of Hebrew people- well than you’ve been paying attention during this stroll through the Bible.

Forced labor by Pharaoh is slavery; by Solomon it’s national service!

While national and personal identities were tied together in such an edifice, alas, even a grand temple can only accomplish so much. What David had struggled to do- unite the tribes- will become unraveled when Solomon’s son takes the thrown – as tribalism trumps nationalism once again.

WHAT IS THE VALUE OF A TEMPLE?

Isn’t grand architecture, well…GRAND!  Particularly the religious variety. Places like the Washington National Cathedral are beautiful, breath taking and inspiring. The stories portrayed on its walls and in its windows of our collective experience are very moving. This all has a powerful effect on any visitor. It's monument to memory- but also a place for continuing prayer.

Solomon’s prayer at the temple dedication expresses the ambivalence one can also feel in such a magnificent edifice:

Can it be that God will actually move into our neighborhood? Why, the cosmos itself isn’t large enough to give you breathing room, let alone this Temple I’ve built. Even so, I’m bold to ask: Pay attention to these my prayers, both intercessory and personal, O God, my God. Listen to my prayers, energetic and devout, that I’m setting before you right now. Keep your eyes open to this Temple night and day, this place of which you said, “My Name will be honored there,” and listen to the prayers that I pray at this place.

Listen from your home in heaven and when you hear, forgive.

When someone hurts a neighbor and promises to make things right, and then comes and repeats the promise before your Altar in this Temple, listen from heaven and act accordingly: Judge your servants, making the offender pay for his offense and setting the offended free of any charges….

And don’t forget the foreigner who is not a member of your people Israel but has come from a far country because of your reputation. People are going to be attracted here by your great reputation, your wonder-working power, who come to pray at this Temple.

Listen from your home in heaven.

Honor the prayers of the foreigner so that people all over the world will know who you are and what you’re like and will live in reverent obedience before you, just as your own people Israel do; so they’ll know that you personally make this Temple that I’ve built what it is.

The temple became for Judaism not only a ritual center and symbol but a central organizing principle – and even economy. The problem occured when the institution itself became the focus rather than its original reason for being-despite Solomon’s prayer. Both the prophets and Jesus would speak directly- and with dire consequences- to this effect.

By Jesus’ time the temple existed for its own sake and to support those whose power and wealth it supported. Apparently Jesus thought that the concern implicit in Solomon’s prayer had come to pass:

Going into the Temple he began to throw out everyone who had set up shop, selling everything and anything. He said, “It’s written in Scripture,

My house is a house of prayer;
You have turned it into a religious bazaar.”

Seems like a reoccurring theme in history, doesn’t it?

Wasn’t the precipitating event of the German Reformation Papal desire to build a grand temple- St Peters- and their willingness to manipulate and exploit poor people to do so? (Note: If you blinked you may have missed the connection to Reformation Sunday that snuck in there).

Diane Butler Bass in her recent book Christianity After Religion suggests that it is the over-reliance on a business model that has lead to the decline of both Mainline and Conservative church groups in the United States today. Jesus’ words today might be:

 My house is a house of prayer;
You have turned it into a religious enterprise.”

(But boy! Wasn’t it grand while it lasted -and the pension funds remain solvent!?)

What are we- mere humans, not-as-wise-as-Solomon - to do?

We can seek to be wise, also.
We can pray for grounded visions that build up people. 
We can seek to have hearts which are full of God. 
We can practice focusing through and beyond the material.

We can seek to live life in it's full dimensions.

 Psalm 90:14-17

Oh! Teach us to live well!
    Teach us to live wisely and well!
Come back, God—how long do we have to wait?—
    and treat your servants with kindness for a change.
Surprise us with love at daybreak;
    then we’ll skip and dance all the day long.
Make up for the bad times with some good times;
    we’ve seen enough evil to last a lifetime.
Let your servants see what you’re best at—
    the ways you rule and bless your children.
And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us,
    confirming the work that we do.
    Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!