Click To Print 

Click To Hear

A man walking along a California beach stumbled across an old lamp. He picked it up, rubbed it, and out popped a genie. The genie said, "Ok, Ok. You released me from the lamp, blah, blah, blah. This is the fourth time this month! I'm getting a little sick of three wishes, so you can forget about it. You only get one wish!" The man thought, and said, "I've always wanted to go to Hawaii, but I'm scared to fly and I get seasick. Could you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive there?" The genie said, "That's impossible. Think of the logistics! How would the supports reach the sea floor? Think of how much concrete and steel! No, think of another wish." The man said "Okay." and thought hard. Finally, he said, "Relationships are always so difficult for me. All my dates say I don't care and that I'm insensitive. So I wish that I could understand women." The genie said, "You want that bridge two lanes or four?"

Today, I want to use the title “Three Wishes” to delve into the story in 1 Kings about Solomon, and I want us to see how we can relate to that story in living and working and believing today.

At the start of this story of “Three Wishes”, we discover that Solomon does not have it all together. He has married an Egyptian princess. Is he hoping to make an alliance to protect his nation? He is running around the fleshpots of the Middle East having a good time, enjoying the fast life when he should have been building a House for God. He is in Las Vegas when he should have been building a Habitat House on the Gulf Coast. He is drinking expensive champagne when he should have been sharing grape juice around the Lord’s Table. He is pigging out on fine food when he should have been thinking about the prodigals among his own people who were reduced to looking after swine. He was wide-eyed over the pyramids and the mystical majestic mind-blowing marvels of the Kingdom on the Nile rather than taking care of business for the people who viewed him as God’s choice to be their King. He was driving the biggest and largest and most inefficient SUV based on the latest design in war machines when he needed to be driving a hybrid car avoiding pollution and lessening dependence on foreign oil, or driving the van picking up this month’s Angel Food orders. He was complacent in his luxurious All-Inclusive Palace. He had not yet learned that many of his people had a $5.15 per hour minimum wage. He was happy to befriend the foreign-born sports superstars, musicians and artists but ready to expel the transient farm workers, except those needed for his fields and his Palace!

Whether as cause or effect, this complete lack of integrity in Solomon, this disconnect between what he believed about God and how he was living, his failure to grasp what God needs from him and his utter disregard for the Law of the People is seen in his passion for worshipping at the local shrines; the shrines of other gods, the temples of other gods, the altars of not Jehovah. And he worships there not occasionally and sparingly, just to keep himself in with his wife or his Canaanite neighbors… No! He worships at the local shrines…. extravagantly with thousandss of sacrifices. But no matter how often, it was all to no avail. At these “local shrines” he found no wisdom, no guidance, no consolation; just piles of dead meat and silence!

Wish Number 1: Solomon’s wish is found in verses 7-9.
“HELP!” God, you have made me king over all these people and I haven’t a clue what to do. I’m too young. I went to a good school. I lived in the Palace a long time but “HELP!” I have no idea what it means to be king. Oh Lord, it’s “good to be king”, but I don’t have the foggiest notion what it will take to be a good king for the whole nation, for all the people - like my father. I thought I just needed to see a bit of the world and make myself popular, but I am busted. So God grant me my wish: “a God-listening heart”. I need - I really need - your help. I need a “a God-listening heart”. Then I will be able to rule and lead your people. Only when I can know right from wrong can I lead your people.

Wish Number 2: God’s wish for Solomon is recorded in verses 10-13.
Hearing that Solomon will not join Jabez in praying for the extension of his territory, hearing Solomon ask for God’s wisdom to fulfill his duties as King, hearing Solomon admit his limitations, hearing Solomon’s desire to have a “God-listening heart”, God grants him his wish and gives him a wise and mature heart, and the clarity to know right and wrong. And though Solomon did not ask for worldly trappings, God throws some in as a bonus, just so those misguided people who look for the trappings of power will give Solomon their attention. Moreover God promises Solomon a long and fruitful life as he uses and cherishes the gift of “a God-listening heart”, enabling him to follow God’s map and plan for living.

Wish Number 3: The wish God has for us…
For what are we wishing today?  What are you wishing for in your life right now? A new job, a fresh challenge, a beginning again? Help in understanding your spouse, or your children, or your parents?  Better health, less stress, lower blood pressure, less pain, better balance in life, less dependence on drugs or alcohol? More fun, a quiet life, less fuss, less mess, less debt, more money, more happiness, more miles per gallon, new friends, double ovens, acceptance, a soul mate? A smaller waist size, a lower dress size, higher grades, bigger bank balance?

In the mix of who we are as people, none of us has yet achieved the integrity in life that God wants from us. Or to put it  another way, we are busted! As Presbyterians we may at times deserve our title “frozen chosen”, but we are also the “broken chosen”! In response to this reality, God wishes for each and all of us, exactly what it was Solomon came to see he needed above all else: “a God-listening heart”.

We need such a “God-listening heart” because we find it very difficult, almost impossible to hear God with any clarity amidst all the “bubble and trouble” of our lives and the life of the world. We can recall times when somehow our faith came more naturally to us, when believing and trusting God was not something that existed [Jim points away to the distance] “way out there”, BUT, [Jim points at his heart] was something right in here.

My friends, it doesn’t matter whether we are the least or the worst of sinners. It doesn’t matter if we are harder on others than we are on ourselves. It doesn’t matter if we have been stuck in our spiritual journey for five minutes or five weeks or five months or five years or five decades. God longs to hear you ask for and so receive “a God-listening heart”. Yes, it will be great. With a “God-listening heart” we will more aware of God’s presence in our lives. There will joy and forgiveness and hope. We will be able to tune out the deadly decibels of the world and to tune into the life-giving lines of God. We will be closer to God and to God’s people. At the same time if we truly listen, we will also hear the challenge from God to live changed lives. To live in a new and faithful way. To embrace and welcome new people. To give and share and sacrifice, for God’s sake and for the sake of all our neighbors. To love without ever counting the cost. To live not for ourselves, but expressing the love and joy and peace of God’s Kingdom.

On this Kick Off weekend for our church family, we rightly celebrate who we are as a church and we take pride in our programs and activities, our missions and outreach. Can you see it? Is it clear to you? Our church exists to encourage all of us, and all who will be drawn here to have “God-listening hearts” in order that we can be clear over who God needs us to be and so we can “walk the talk” as we live, as we plan, as we adopt priorities, as we give and spend our money, as we dedicate our time, as we devote our talents in the service of God and all God’s hurting people.

Serving God and living faithfully, individually and corporately, begins with our “God-listening heart”. Each and all of us: members, elders, deacons, staff, pastors, adults, youth and children, have our own unique and necessary role to play in helping our whole church have a “God-listening heart”. And each of us have our own unique and necessary role as we express our shared experience of God focused in all that Jesus Christ, the Living Bread, is and all Jesus has done and is doing for the world and us.

So that faith can better take root in our common life, we, like Solomon, will have to recognize where we had gone astray.  Like Solomon, we need to return to our roots, to return to our Jerusalem; there to worship and recommit ourselves to our Lord. Like Solomon, who provided a feast for all his servants, we need to reconnect to each other, allowing God to lead us forward.

As we move forward in this way, all of us will likely face specific challenges. For example, my challenges will be to stop worrying about the budget, to do a better job in delegating to others, to stop concerning myself over people who don’t like something I say or do, to best support all our staff so they can do their work, such that I can cultivate a “God-listening heart” in order to better live out my calling in this church: to preach and teach and pastor among you.

My two excellent pastor colleagues, Susan and Brent, and our excellent Program Staff, Carolyn and Charlie, also face their own challenges as they seek to minister as God called them and God needs them. And since they know or can come to know these challenges for themselves, they will be happy and you will be happy to know that I am not about list their challenges here. Likewise, you will be glad to know that I don’t plan to list your challenges either, at least not specifically. But isn’t it true that most, if not all of us already know where it is that we find it difficult to live: expressing our trust in God; at work, at home, in our family circle and among our friends. We know that God should influence how we spend our time or our money, the things God needs us to do and not do. We know the priorities that we should set, even while we fail to do so. In facing such challenges, your staff, your officers, every leader and every member needs to be surrounded by the warm love and active support of the entire congregation.

I love the phrase in the story, “Solomon woke up - what a dream!” I believe that the wishes shared between Solomon and God are worthy to be our wishes. God will easily grant our wish for a “God-listening heart” if that really is our wish. Helped by such a wish, we will be much better able to follow God’s will in our lives and God’s will for our congregation. Solomon had a dream as he slept; we have a dream wide awake as we are: a dream to be fruitful and faithful in living out our calling as a Presbyterian congregation as described in the great ends of the church:
 
▪ Proclaiming the gospel for the salvation of humankind; Thanks be to God for sermons you have heard that inspired and challenged and how you sought to let them become flesh in your life!
 
▪ Sheltering, nurturing, and offering spiritual fellowship to the children of God; Thanks be to God for those who make possible Way Cool SS, Nursery, Worship and Wonder, Youth Group, Safe Havens, BUZZ.
 
▪ Maintaining divine worship; Thanks be to God for those who prepare for communion, who usher, who make music, who respond enthusiastically.
 
▪ Preserving the truth about God and God’s justice; Thanks be to God for those who question misplaced priorities in public policy, who speak up for immigrants and aliens, who support the Food Pantry, who deliver Angel Food.
 
▪ Promoting social righteousness; Thanks be to God for those who welcome strangers, who value another person’s humanity, who comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
 
▪ And exhibiting the Kingdom of Heaven to the world; Thanks be to God for all the faithful who went before us and with us, whose example we cherish, without whom we are lost and with whom we can do so much for God.

“Solomon woke up - what a dream!” Northminster woke up – what a dream!  Amen.