6/4/23 Sermon

Today, we’re starting our look at the books of 1&2 Kings.  The goal here is to cover a part of Hebrew Scripture that most of us are at least vaguely familiar with but don’t know much about. And it’s important because some major things happen in these books that not only shape Jewish faith but also our Christian faith.  I’m going to try to minimize that this is going to feel a little like drinking water from a firehose as best I can, but we have a lot of background information to cover in order to really understand this crazy story we’re about to go through all summer… and We’re a little short on time this morning, so I’m just going to dive in…

The date to remember is 586 BCE.  586 BCE.  The Israelites were held captives by Babylon in a time period called the Babylonian captivity. Bet you didn’t see that coming. It lasted about 70 years. Most of the Jewish people had been taken out of Israel and only a few were left in the county. The temple had been destroyed.  And people were basically losing the knowledge of their faith which means they were losing their identity as a people and a nation because the two were closely linked together.  So the religious scholars of the time, realizing this was happening and understanding what a threat this was to both their Jewish and national identity, they sat down to essentially compile in writing the history of their people as it relates to God.  They wanted a book of sacred scripture that would tell the story of their people.  So they collected stories that were written down, oral traditions, folklore and basically just about anything they could find to write this cohesive history.  

And they essentially broke this history into two parts.  They called the first part Torah or The Law - dealing with how their religious practices came to be and what those practices were. This covers the first five books of the Hebrew Bible which are the first five books of our Old Testament. And the second part they called the Prophets - which basically covered their journey with God through history.  Wisdom literature like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and the Psalms were all added later after the time of Jesus and the destruction of the second temple in 70 ce.  So all of Jewish scripture broke into two parts called the law and the prophets - which is important to remember later on when we get to Jesus and he says things like the two greatest commandments are to love God and love your neighbor as yourself because all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.  He’s saying all of scripture, all that we know of God and ourselves, the entire witness of God hangs on these two commandments.  

Now, people always love to know when these things were written, but it’s kind of hard to say.  If I had to give a date of when they appeared in final form, close to how we have them now, I’d say 586 BCE when they were compiled in final form, but these stories and legends existed for quite some time.  1&2 Kings are a part of a larger narrative strand that’s called the Deuteronomic history that starts with the book of Deuteronomy and finishes here in 2nd Kings.  Scholars believe this was written and compiled by the same authors, essentially.  And we call it history but it’s different than how we understand history today and it wouldn’t hold up to academic historical analysis or the modern definition of “history” for a few reasons.  For one, the authors try to find and tell us the moral of the story or what it means which is something that serious academic historians try to never do these days. But the main reason is that this history isn’t interested in factual history; they’re interested in truthful history.  They aren’t interested in the facts.  They’re interested in the truth.  

Now, what do I mean by that?  What does it mean for something to not necessarily be factual but still be true?  It’s an important distinction for us to make when we read scripture.  The best explanation I’ve heard to explain the difference between a history interested in fact verses a history interested in truth goes like this:  

Archaeology can tell us whether or not it’s a fact that the Israelites destroyed a certain city. We can prove whether or not it’s a fact.  Archaeology cannot prove one way or another whether destroying that city was God’s will or not. That’s the truth part.  

The authors of the Deuteronomic history and of 1&2 Kings aren’t interested so much in the facts of what happened; they’re interested in the truth.  It’s a people struggling to find and understand God through their shared history in the hopes that they won’t lose sight of where God is in their current situation and in the hopes they won’t lose their faith and identity.  That’s kind of what makes this important to us now.  It’s modeling for us and showing us a way of looking at the world and where we come from and seeing God in it.  

Now, the book of Kings is the story of most of the kings of Israel. Not all of them, but most of them.  David makes a small appearance and dies in today’s reading and Saul, the first king, isn’t mentioned at all.  Their stories are in the books of Samuel right before this.  But basically what happens is the Israelites beg God for a king so they can be like other nations, God says it’s a bad idea because they have God and don’t need a king, but they don’t care. So, God gives them a terrible king named Saul who basically goes crazy.  

David ends up replacing Saul and if I had to sum up David in one sentence for the sake of time this morning, I’d say good king, bad father and husband.  His home life is a mess and a giant soap opera. Most of his kids are disasters who kill each other or get killed trying to rebel against David, but he had one who surprisingly turns out pretty decent - all things considered - and that’s the son he has with Bathsheba - the lady from the whole bathing on the roof incident and David basically had her husband killed so he could marry her.  And this son was a guy by the name of Solomon.  And Solomon was smart, well liked, well respected and a pretty good guy. So David promises that Solomon will become king.  HOWEVER… 

One of David’s other sons didn’t like this at all and thought he should be king. His name is Adonijah.  So, while David is on his deathbed about to die, Adonijah decides he’s just going to go ahead and throw a party to announce he’s king.  That’s how the book of Kings opens.  David finds out about this because Bathsheba told him knowing that if Adonijah becomes king, she and Solomon will be exiled.  David basically calls foul on this and gets out of bed one last time to make Solomon king, and Solomon becomes king.  Now, obviously this scares the crap out of Adonijah because now the guy he tried to steal the throne from is king and that usually doesn’t end well. I mean, this is like an ancient Game of Thrones!  But Solomon being just and wise decides not to kill his brother and spares him as long as he basically shuts up and does what he’s told.  

But Adonijah can’t leave well enough alone and eventually comes to Solomon through Solomon’s Mom Bathsheba and Adonijah asks to marry this really pretty young wife of David’s.  And Solomon basically has Adonijah killed immediately.  Which seems weird but basically Adonijah was asking to share power with Solomon showing Solomon that he won’t be happy until he has some type of power.  And then Solomon goes about wiping out everyone who helped Adonijah try to steal the throne.  This is just chapter one and 2.  It’s going to be a wild ride.  Like I said, It’s like an ancient game of thrones!

NOW, we move into the second part of today’s reading of Solomon asking God for a favor. And I want us to contrast this against what Adonijah was asking for… So just keep in mind that Adonijah was asking King Solomon to share in power and ended up dead as we read 1 Kings chapter 3: 3-14 

Now Solomon loved the Lord by walking in the laws of his father David, with the exception that he also sacrificed and burned incense at the shrines.

The king went to the great shrine at Gibeon in order to sacrifice there. He used to offer a thousand entirely burned offerings on that altar. The Lord appeared to Solomon at Gibeon in a dream at night. God said, “Ask whatever you wish, and I’ll give it to you.”

Solomon responded, “You showed so much kindness to your servant my father David when he walked before you in truth, righteousness, and with a heart true to you. You’ve kept this great loyalty and kindness for him and have now given him a son to sit on his throne. And now, Lord my God, you have made me, your servant, king in my father David’s place. But I’m young and inexperienced. I know next to nothing. But I’m here, your servant, in the middle of the people you have chosen, a large population that can’t be numbered or counted due to its vast size. Please give your servant a discerning mind in order to govern your people and to distinguish good from evil, because no one is able to govern this important people of yours without your help.”

It pleased the Lord that Solomon had made this request.  God said to him, “Because you have asked for this instead of requesting long life, wealth, or victory over your enemies—asking for discernment so as to acquire good judgment—  I will now do just what you said. Look, I hereby give you a wise and understanding mind. There has been no one like you before now, nor will there be anyone like you afterward.  I now also give you what you didn’t ask for: wealth and fame. There won’t be a king like you as long as you live.  And if you walk in my ways and obey my laws and commands, just as your father David did, then I will give you a very long life.”

WORD OF LORD

Adonijah petitions a king for worldly power and loses his life.  Solomon petitions God to be a wise and discerning ruler and given more than he asked for in return.  I think both the ancient Israelites living in the Babylonian captivity and us today can hear a very similar moral to the story there. And I know there’s a lot to unpack here that we aren’t getting to but we will in the coming weeks, so stay tuned because we’re scheduled to revisit this section again.  

But in the meantime, if you like homework, read 1 kings 1-3 by next week - it isn’t very long.  If you’re like me, you get a little lost as to who’s who, but next week I’m setting up a “for further Reading” display on the table in the Narthex to give you some resources if you want to read more in depth with me, and we’ll try to figure out together.  But try reading 1 Kings 1-3 and for a devotional if you like, meditate on the difference between Adonijah and his request vs. Solomon and his request and think about how that applies to our lives today.