Solomon Speaks

Scripture:   Wisdom of Solomon 12:13, 16-19 (NRSV)

13 For neither is there any god besides you, whose care is for all people, 

16 For your strength is the source of righteousness, and your sovereignty over all causes you to spare all.  17 For you show your strength when people doubt the completeness of your power, and you rebuke any insolence among those who know it.

18 Although you are sovereign in strength, you judge with mildness, and with great forbearance you govern us; for you have power to act whenever you choose.

19 Through such works you have taught your people that the righteous must be kind, and you have filled your children with good hope, because you give repentance for sins.

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Message Solomon Speaks

Good morning on this 7th Sunday after Pentecost.  For those of you who care about these things, the color associated with this particular season in the church is green.  Hence the green stole, and the greenish flowers -  y’know, it is surprisingly difficult to find green floral decorations.  Even on Amazon, which has pretty much everything.

Please note - no real flowers are used in the decoration of my little recording studio space.   Cats tend to eat real flowers, and that is not good for them.

For those of you reading along in your Bibles at home, unless you have a study bible or a Catholic bible, you will not find the Wisdom of Solomon.  It is part of the Apocrypha or  deuterocanonical books, which are found between the Old and New Testaments.  In around the year 367 church leaders decided and declared that there were 66 books generally believed to have been divinely inspired, and those books make up the canon,  the total of the Old and New Testament books.  The books known to us as the Apocrypha are considered more informational than authoritative.  For example - the Wisdom of Solomon.  While we tend to accept Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon as having been written by Solomon, this was probably not, as it didn’t appear until about 50 years before the birth of Christ.   Because its authorship is questionable, it was left out of the canon.  Nevertheless, there is much to gain from reading these books so I preach from them now and again.

Solomon was known for his wisdom, a particular gift granted to him by God.   In 1 Kings chapter 3, God came to Solomon and told him to ask for whatever he most wanted to have.  Solomon said, “9 Give your servant .. . an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil”. . . 10 It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. 11 God said to him, “Because you have asked this, 2 I 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.”   As this book, the Wisdom of Solomon, is mostly an exhortation to be wise, it makes sense that whoever wrote it attributed it to Solomon.  This was actually a fairly common practice.  Several of the letters we attribute to Paul were written by other people, with the knowledge that if they said Paul wrote them, the letters would have more authority.  Again, a fairly unremarkable practice for that time and place.  

The first thing we read here is “there is no god besides you who cares for all people.”  We believe there is One God, and that all of the other gods mentioned in the Bible are false gods - non-existent.  In Solomon’s time, however, they firmly believed that there were many gods, but this God was the only one who had chosen Israel.  The others might be the god of some city or a particular river, or fertility or lightning, or some other specific thing.  All of those other gods only really cared about the thing or place that was their particular focus, and were quick to punish severely if they weren’t pleased with their worshippers, or if they were just having a bad day.  But this God, Israel’s God, cared for all people, and all places.  This God had come with them, not bound to any one place, but caring for them where ever they were.  This God said, “take care of the strangers, the aliens among you, the poor, the widows and orphans.  Be good to your slaves.  Love me and love your neighbor.”  This God cared for all people, not just Israel.  This God did not rule through fear of punishment, rather through kindness born of righteousness,  “. . .your strength is the source of righteousness, and your sovereignty over all causes you to spare all. . .  you judge with mildness and with great forbearance you govern us.”

OK, this is the part where I point out that the God I grew up with was a lot more like all those other gods than the one described here.  These attributes - kindness, righteousness, mildness, forbearance, forgiveness - just weren’t part of the God I learned to fear and dislike as I grew up.  I rejected that God and the church that taught me about that God, and stayed separated from both for decades.  I am deeply grateful that I eventually learned that what I had been taught was wrong.  Sure, God would punish the unrepentant - the evil queen Jezebel getting eaten by dogs comes to mind - but only after she had been given opportunities to change and still chose the dark side.  Or as said here, “You show your strength when people doubt the completeness of your power, and you rebuke any insolence among those who know it.”  Insolence in the face of God’s great power pretty much defines Jezebel’s attitude even after Elijah proved without question that the God of Israel was far more powerful than Baal, the god she worshipped.  Her response to that was to order the prophet Elijah killed.  Had she repented God would have forgiven, even as the city of Ninevah was forgiven when they turned back to God.  

“Your strength is in your righteousness”. . . .”you have taught your people that the righteous must be kind, and you have filled your children with good hope, because you give repentance for sins.”  

The righteous must be kind.  Righteous means being morally right, acting rightly.  The righteous are the people who do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do, not because there is any particular reward connected. The righteous don’t go pointing fingers and speaking down to the people they disapprove of or disagree with, but show their kindness in their restrained use of language.  Our strength, like God’s, is in our righteousness - and righteousness is kind.  I look at posts on Facebook and Twitter from clergy colleagues and other friends whose anger at various situations causes them to speak intemperately, repeating unfounded rumors, rushing to judgment based on those rumors, and falling back on name calling and accusations.  Now, most of my clergy colleagues went to college, maybe also seminary.  They have words available to them, whole dictionaries full of words, that are not ugly.  That can make their disagreement clear without being unkind.  It is absolutely right to speak out against injustice or against a position, behavior, or statement you firmly believe is incorrect.  It is not necessary to be ugly about it.  Take masks, for example.  Whether I believe wearing a mask is the right thing to do or not, I do not get to attack a person who thinks the opposite - physically or verbally.  I do get to politely express my opinion and my reasoning, and they get to tell me their opinion and reasoning - also politely.  If the other person is not kind, that does not excuse me to do as they do.  The righteous must be kind.  That is our strength.

One of the reasons that so many people stay away from church and church folk is that we have forgotten that the righteous must be kind.  Or maybe we never knew it, although I kind of think that “love one another” sort of implies being kind.  We hear people say “Christians hate the LGBTQIA people,” and “Christians are racist,” and “Christians are hypocrites.” And we want to say “Not me!  I’m not that kind of Christian!”  But one reason so many believe these things is that way too many Christians have forgotten to be kind.  And no, telling someone “You are a nice person, but you are an abomination because you are a woman preacher” is in no way being kind. (Yes, I have been told that - more than once.  It comes with the territory, I’m afraid.)

God has the power to do as God likes yet chooses to judge with mildness and govern us with great forbearance, offering grace and forgiveness to the repentant in place of punishment.  And because of this, we who are God’s people have hope.  We have no doubt of God’s power, God’s righteousness, and God’s love for us.  

And here’s the thing - all people are God’s people.  

God loves all people, 

cares for all people, 

behaves with righteousness towards all people, 

offers forgiveness to all people.

Asks only that we love him, and love our neighbors,

And that we be kind

To all people.