Ask Me - Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
August 18, 2024
If you’ve been following along these past few weeks in
the gospel, Jesus has been talking about being the bread of life. Today, I’m
going to give you something different to chew on-that’s a really bad pun.
Imagine right now, today God shows up in flesh and blood
at the altar in the flesh and said to you what God said to Solomon: “Ask me
for what I should give you.” One thing.
Raise your hand if you know what you would ask for. Raise
your hand if you have no idea what you would ask for.
How many of you thought of your beloveds? Right? Now, what
if we had to think about all the people, all of God’s beloveds. How do we truly
try to pray for, much less participate in what the world needs today and then
make it to be one thing? So often we don’t know who to trust in the world. And
in a world of AI and instant “news” it is even harder. Heck, if someone tells
us of a need, we wonder “I don’t know, is this real?” Or if we know that it is,
we wonder if it’s achievable.
Solomon is going to be the king now that his father David
has died. He was young to be the leader of all the people. We are not tasked to
be kings or queens even though sometimes, maybe we think we are. And yet, in
the same vein, we are tasked with caring for creation, one another and all that
God has made. What can we learn from Solomon and God?
1. We need help with the gift of discernment, or wisdom. We can say that God is the center of our lives, but it is something more to discern how this is lived out. Tapping into God’s wisdom, requires us to cultivate trust, and love, and faith, and hope and courage. In baptism we receive “the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in God’s presence.”[1] But we cannot see the Spirit in flesh and blood right here in front of us. That’s a challenge- because there are lots of other things we can see right in front of us. When we cannot see what lies ahead with perfect clarity, so accepting and daring to put our trust in God’s possibility is a matter of faith.[2]
For Solomon, discernment starts with
recognizing his own very small identity, relinquishing it to
someone beyond his own understanding. Richard Rohr says there are two moments in
life that matter: the first is when we realize our one and only life is
absolutely valuable and alive. The other is when we recognize, at some point, that
our life at some point as lived can be empty. The first gives us energy and joy
by connecting us to our ultimate Source and Ground in God. The second gives us
limits and boundaries and a proper humility, so we keep seeking our ultimate
Source and Ground in God and not just seeking our own small self.[3]
When we let go of our self, wisdom helps us let go of
judging both ourselves and others too harshly and quickly, so we experience the
alignment of our will with God’s. That’s why we pray every Sunday in the Lord’s
Prayer- “thy will be done.” When we pray that today maybe come back to this in
your mind. We can begin to want what God wants. More patience as we listen to
those who are struggling. A deep inner peace that replaces our inner dialogues
of blame and shame. This is the work of the Spirit of discernment that knits us
together in love. What Solomon asked for even if he didn’t quite grasp it.
2. Discernment also brings order out of chaos. In Solomon’s day people seemed to gravitate towards chaos. Luckily, we’ve solved that right? Both unintentionally and
intentionally we perpetuate that chaos. Seeing others with wisdom
means that the same grace we crave for our flaws and our mistakes applies to us
all. Wisdom reminds us that from the dawn of time our Creator brings order out
of chaos. All the way back to Genesis. God indeed may feel like a mystery, and
yet wisdom show us God is the One to whom all of us are beloved.
3. God came to Solomon that day in love. God also loved his answer when God says, “ask for something” and Solomon says, “I want to know your will.”
Contrary to those who loudly and quickly claim to know God’s
will in the world, it has nothing to do with cultivating passive submission to power
imposed upon us. It has everything to do with actively waiting upon a God who
waits for us, to help us discover new ups and downs in faithfulness and new
things about ourselves and the world around us and God. Even when we’re out
there trying to look like we are nailing it, when we know on the inside, we’re
not, that’s our confession each week that receives God’s forgiveness. That's
grace.
4. Wisdom comes in many ways, including knowing the world of wisdom is not the world of the quick reaction fix. But here is the catch- As messy and scary as life looks, it may seem even messier and scarier to let God’s Spirit of wisdom show up and move in. Because I might know that I have no idea what I am doing, but “don’t you start moving the furniture.” “Don’t you make me have to look at something I was hoping nobody noticed, God.” Growing in wisdom sometimes includes growing pains and difficult choices. Discernment sometimes reveals new priorities or new possibilities. Sometimes we’ll find out that something we thought was important for our lives might lose its power. Our desire to be great, well liked, influential, or even our desire to be right, will become less important as we come closer to God’s heart. As we pray more often whether that’s alone and together, “Thy will be done.” We are praying that God’s concrete ways of loving us and our world are made known to us and made known through us as we are empowered to live into it.
Of all the people I have asked this past week, especially
among our elders, the wisdom of discernment led them to give me one answer to
my “what would you ask God for” question, more than any other. Anyone want to
guess what the answer was?
Peace.
I’ll bet Solomon prayed for peace every time he had to
make a hard decision. And I know Jesus greeted his disciples with peace after
he was resurrected and appeared to them. It’s the first thing he says, not once
but twice in the gospels. Peace be with you. Well, that’s easy. Now we know it,
right?
Well, Henri Nouwen wrote that after many years of
practicing discernment, “I still struggle with the same problems.
Notwithstanding my many prayers, advice from friends and time with others, it
seems very little, if anything, has changed. I am still the restless, nervous,
distracted and impulse-driven person I was when I set out on this spiritual
journey. I am still searching for inner peace and a resolution to many
conflicts. (But) I am aware of my tendency to divide people into good ones and
evil ones, as if I could see into people’s hearts and know for sure why they
act the way they do. And I (have come to) understand we are all touched by
limitation and all need mercy and grace. Knowing that all people and situations
have multiple motives and choices, it is necessary keep learning how to discern
(with God). It is not about judging other people’s motives. It is about
distinguishing good guidance from harmful messages, and this is for our
protection.[4]
This is a gift we share as Christian community. This is the
space for this discernment. We can be gradually lifted up into God’s dwelling
place and come to see ourselves, our neighbors and our world in a new light. This
kind of “seeing” does not require intellectual knowledge, articulate insight or
a even concrete opinion. There is deeper wisdom in sharing God’s heart and a
new way of living and loving. Receiving wisdom is allowing to God to speak to
us, to guide us, to hold us and renew us deep within. To say “yes” to God
forming us into lights in the darkness, and a source of hope for the world.
That’s the good news. You see, resisting the forces of
evil is possible only when we are fully in touch with the forces of goodness
and life. And so, my prayer for all of us here in the room and present through
the Spirit’s work of technology is for us to receive God’s wisdom not only
through the Word, and prayer, but through being surrounded by a network of
prayerful support.
I invite you to take a look around here today. Take a
moment and meet your spiritual network. We are here for you. We belong to a
spiritual family lifting each other up to God. It may not always seem visible,
but we don’t have to just worry that tasks seem impossible to fulfill. Wisdom
may prove them possible. Deep struggles that seem insurmountable might just be temporary
distractions.
God is here, and coming to us just like God came to Solomon,
to give us wisdom in times of confusion or even suffering, just as much as in
joy and celebration, so we can continue to walk and live with each other in
this world in peace. Amen.
[1] Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, Minneapolis, MN, (2006). P.227, “Holy Baptism.”
[2] Discernment,Reading the Signs of Daily Life, Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust with Michael J.Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird, Harper One, (2013), p. xxvi.
[3] Breathing Under Water, Richard Rohr, Franciscan Media, 2011, 2021, p. xiv.
[4] Ibid, p 23.
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2024 All rights
reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
Sermon text: 1 Kings 3:5-12
5At Gibeon the Lord appeared
to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask what I should give you.” 6And
Solomon said, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my
father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness,
and in uprightness of heart toward you; and you have kept for him this great
and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne today. 7And
now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father
David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come
in. 8And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have
chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. 9Give
your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to
discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?”
10It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked
this. 11God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not
asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but
have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, 12I
now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no
one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you.
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