Flirting with Wisdom Wisdom of Solomon 6:12-16 William F. Schnell November 12, 2017 An angel appears at a faculty meeting and tells the dean that in return for his unselfish and exemplary behavior, the Lord will reward him with his choice of infinite wealth, wisdom, or beauty. Without hesitating, the dean selects infinite wisdom. "Done!" says the angel, and disappears in a cloud of smoke and a bolt of lightning. Now, all heads turn toward the dean, who sits surrounded by a faint halo of light. One of his colleagues whispers, "Say something." The dean sighs and says, "I should have taken the money." That s pretty funny. But the corollary is kind of sad, which is when those who choose to take the money come to wish they had opted for wisdom instead. Maybe we would prefer to choose both, but each makes different claims upon us and then we really have to choose which wins our devotion. King Solomon provides an excellent case in point. He was both the region s richest man and its wisest at least for a while. He received both wisdom and wealth. But he forsook one of them and came to have cause for great regret. Solomon s experience and thoughts are well-recorded in several books of the Bible attributed to him--proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs at least according to Protestants. The Roman Catholics include in the Bible several books that Protestants do not--7 additional ones to be precise. They were added in the mid-1500s primarily in response to the Protestant Reformation because they included several practices such as praying for the dead, giving alms for the dead, petitioning saints, worshiping angels and so forth.
One of these additional books (collectively known as Apocryphal or Deuterocanonical books) is entitled the Wisdom of Solomon. Since the Revised Common Lectionary selects texts for each Sunday for both Catholic and Protestant Churches, every now and again an Apocryphal text is one of the choices. And about once every 5 years I preach from that choice of texts as an ecumenical nod to our Catholic brothers and sisters down the road and around the world. This Sunday is one of those occasions. So I have dusted off my Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha where we read one of the assigned texts for today from the Wisdom of Solomon. Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her (Verse 12). The title of our message is Flirting with Wisdom, and we can see why in these opening words. Wisdom is personified as a she, and as a radiant she at that. Solomon regularly personified wisdom as a woman. The apocryphal books were written in the Greek language, where wisdom is rendered as Sophia, which has become a common woman s name in many cultures (including our own). Solomon not only personifies wisdom as a woman, he personifies her as FINE woman a fine woman worth desiring. By the by, Solomon describes a fine woman worth pursuing in his Song of Solomon, which is in the Protestant Bible. You doubt it? Just check out the opening words from the Song of Solomon in your pew Bibles. Let me save you the time and I will read those opening words for you. The song of songs, which is Solomon s. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for your love is better than wine (Song of Solomon 1:1-3). It gets more graphic from there, believe me. Just to be ornery, I ve often thought of sticking Kevin with a reading from this book for our Old Testament lesson. I ve got a text in mind that would make him blush for sure. From this book we get all those romantic similes such as: Your teeth are like stars, they come out at night. Maybe not that one, but you get my drift. Some people think that this is an allusion to human sexuality. Others think it alludes to the intimacy God desires in his relationship with us. I tend to think of it as the kind of desirous relationship we are to have with Sophia with wisdom, only because Solomon speaks of wisdom as a lover in many places. Our Call to Worship is from the book of Proverbs, also attributed to 2
Solomon. There wisdom is identified by name and we are encouraged to love her, esteem her and embrace her (Proverbs 4:6&8). Why? Because Sophia/wisdom is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her. Solomon speaks from the voice of experience. When he came to the throne as a young lad, he had no illusions about his youthful inexperience as compared with the magnitude of the call he had received to be the king of God s people. His response to this conundrum was to pray to God for wisdom. That prayer happens to be recorded for us in scripture. "Now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?" (1 Kings 3:7-9). The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, "Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for--both riches and honor--so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings (I Kings 3:7-13). Young Solomon grew into a very wise fellow. His administration built a magnificent palace and an unparalleled temple, among many other public works. His wisdom in adjudicating cases was legendary; he spoke 3,000 proverbs, described plant life and taught about animals. He also became the richest man around. People from the surrounding nations came to have an audience with him. And among them were some fine women like Queen of Sheba. Now the one thing God had warned Solomon about was foreign women whose influence would lead him astray to serve other gods, among other foolish things unbefitting a fellow of his wise stature. Did he listen? Not this time. He decided he could bend the rules with Pharaoh s daughter 3
from Egypt, and it just sort of went downhill from there. King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter-- Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray (1 Kings 11:1-3). What was he thinking? What a fool. What happened to all that wisdom? Have you ever known someone who was so discerning when it came to others, but who had a real blind spot when it came to their own lives? That was Solomon. And boy did the guy pay a price for his foolish ways. Just read his book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. That is where an older Solomon looks back over his life and tells us how bad he messed up his life. Let s put it this way, the book begins with this quote from Solomon, aka The Teacher. "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless (Ecclesiastes 1:2). And it just sort of goes downhill from there, including this not-so-flattering quote about the fairer gender. "Look," says the Teacher, "this is what I have discovered: "Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things-- while I was still searching but not finding-- I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all (Ecclesiastes 7:27-28). Solomon came to regret those 700 wives and 300 concubines. He came to regret all the worldly allures that led him astray from God, the source of all wisdom. If only he had desired wisdom more than he desired women. If only he had flirted with Sophia instead of all those other gals because Sophia desires those who desire her. As Solomon testifies in our text: She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her. He who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty, for he will find her sitting at his gates (Verses 13-14). You don t have to be cognitively gifted and talented to gain wisdom. You don t need advanced degrees. You don t need a photographic memory that stores knowledge like a hard drive. Neither do you need fame, fortune and an over-privileged upbringing. Indeed, King Solomon s example shows that such things can actually be an ego enticement to make very unwise 4
choices. All you need to gain wisdom is to seek her above all others, and to cleave to her faithfully. And just as Solomon began desiring wisdom, and was later led astray into some very foolish ways, so those who have made very foolish choices in the past can be led to wisdom and better choices leading to a life well-lived. It is never too late to flirt with wisdom. Again, as it is written in our text she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her. May God give us eyes to discern her as we rise singing, Be Thou My Vision. 5