"New and Old Wisdom" Pentecost 8A

1 Kings 3:5-12

Saint Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

On election night 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt went to his New York townhouse. The incumbent, Herbert Hoover, had just conceded defeat.  His son James helped into bed and kissed him good night. His father looked up and said, “You know, Jimmy, all my life I have been afraid of one thing – fire. Tonight, I think I’m afraid of something else.” 

James asked him what he was afraid of. 

“I’m just afraid that I may not have the strength to do this job.” 

As Jimmy left the room, his father said to him, “After you leave me tonight, Jimmy, I’m going to pray. I’m going to pray that God will help me, that He will give me the strength and the guidance to do this job and do it right. I hope you will pray for me too, Jimmy.1

I find this quiet, personal, moment to be such a contrast to the usual way we think of President Roosevelt.  We remember those pictures of him in motorcades with a broad smile on his face and a cigarette held at a jaunty angle.  We think of his powerful words in his addresses to congress and his personal approach to his listeners during his fireside chats.  

There is even a great image in Jon Meacham’s book, Franklin and Winston, of him sitting at a specially made bar to accommodate his disability, mixing drinks and entertaining  friends making sure that everyone’s glass was full and that a good time was being had by all.

This is the Roosevelt we think of not the man doubting that he is going to be up to the task of being President and asking for prayer. 

In this day we might wonder if that isn’t the best place, the only place, for someone who wished to govern a great nation to start.  Maybe we would be a lot better off with leaders who were so acutely aware of their shortcomings that they knew they needed to turn to a higher power other than their own.

That is where King Solomon began and he became legendary for his wisdom.

I  love that Solomon starts with a little humility.  He knows that his father, David, was a dearly beloved king despite his shortcomings.  When he left office David had, what we would call, a very high approval rating.

Like Roosevelt,  Solomon may have been afraid that he would not measure up and that his leadership abilities might fall short. 

So, when the LORD comes to him and asks what is the deepest desire of his heart he doesn’t ask to be immortalized with his face on the side of a mountain; he doesn’t ask for a statue; he doesn’t ask for a bronze bust in a prominent place in the state house; he doesn’t even ask for a Post Office to be named after him.  He asks for wisdom.

Here is what he replied to the LORD who is acting like a genie from a bottle and offering to grant him his best wish.

“Now, 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.”2

What would we do if a candidate said that?  The spin-doctors would be apoplectic. The opponents would have a field day while their supporters might be trying to explain away the “little child” part and emphasize that their candidate didn’t need an understanding heart to know what was right and wrong. They would tell us that he or she had, without a doubt, the most understanding heart in the world and that they already knew what was right and wrong.

Solomon was having none of that!  He knew what he needed and he knew where to get it.  If he was going to be able to lead his people, he would need one thing: an understanding heart that came from his relationship with the LORD.

Biblical Scholar, Jana Childers noted: “An ideal king – and by extension an ideal nation – would be one that operates with a certain levelness or steadiness of focus and a certain humility.”3

Focus, humility and wisdom may be the grace that breaks into our might-makes-right and our loudest voices win systems.  President Eisenhower may have said it best for our age: “Anger cannot win. It cannot even think clearly.”4

Solomon seemed to know that it was the little things like humility and a kind heart that would make him a good king.  

Jesus is talking today about little things as well.

Here he is teaching us “that the kingdom of heaven is qualitatively different from our kingdoms.  Our kingdoms have great, impressive palaces, fortresses, big parades, grand victory celebrations, impressive architecture and impressive human achievements.”5  God’s kingdom is so small it creeps up on you.

Preachers always get drawn to the mustard seed and it is a great example but you’ve heard it a thousand times.  I’m intrigued instead by the woman with the yeast making bread.  For there is wisdom in her efforts.

Today we have countless ways to make bread.  There are bread making machines that do almost everything for you and your bread but butter it.  We can buy packets of yeast at the grocery story for next to nothing.  Bread and yeast are something we take for granted.  

In Jesus’ day the people of that time and place were seldom privileged to have pure yeast.  Instead, they had to remember, be wise enough, to keep a lump of leavened dough from the last batch to leaven the next batch.  Think of it as the starter for sourdough bread.  It required tending.  My preaching professor used to claim that he and his wife hired babysitters for their sourdough bread starters.  

If cared for wisely there is a  lasting quality to bread as well. 

According to the British Museum.  “In AD 79, a baker put a loaf of bread into the oven, just like any other day in the town of Herculaneum. Nearly 2,000 years later it was discovered carbonised, still inside the oven, during excavations at the archaeological site in 1930.”6

They tested the bread and had a London baker recreate the recipe. It turned out tasting a lot like, every day, modern, bread. 

There was also a tradition among bakers back then that they would stamp, or brand their bread, it could be their initials or the first century equivalent of a logo but it identified who made the bread because they were proud of their work.

That’s the church’s job to be proud of our work as the leaven in the loaf of society.  We are no longer the place to be, with the biggest building in town packing people in our pews.  We no longer have lines down the block waiting to get in every time we open our doors.  In these days of a pandemic we even have to limit our numbers but I think the church has never been better suited to remind people of what is important.  We have been entrusted with words of wisdom that, even though they have lasted through the ages, are new every day. 

If this crisis has taught us anything it is that we need leaders with the wisdom of Solomon.  Men and women who know their limitations but who can also bring out the best in us, helping us to rise above our current circumstances and work for a better tomorrow.

We need the teachings of Jesus to remind us that everything is not always as it appears to be at first glance. 

We need to be the levin in societies loaf living out the words of the recently passed representative John Lewis who reminded us:

"Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopefule optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."5

Be humble, as was wise King Solomon.  Look for leaders who, like Roosevelt, were not too proud to pray.  Remember that anger can never think clearly. And finally, get in some good, necessary trouble. 

And out of that, Jesus final words for today tell us wisdom’s treasure will bring  both something old and something new.

May God help us as we try to make this so,

____________

1      John Dickerson, “Pray for Me” in The Hardest Job in the World: the American Presidency (New York: Random House, 2020), p. ix-x.

2, I Kings 3:7-9 (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]

3. Jana Childers, “Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the World,” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Teaching 3 (2020): pp. 175-177.

4. S. E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier and President (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 65.

5 William H. Willimon, “Small Is Beautiful,” Pulpit Resource 42, no. 3 (2014): pp. 17-20.

6. “Making 2,000-Year-Old Roman Bread,” Making 2,000-Year-Old Roman Bread (blog) (The British Museum, July 23, 2020), https://blog.britishmuseum.org/making-2000-year-old-roman-bread/.

7. Joshua Bote, “'Get in Good Trouble, Necessary Trouble': Rep. John Lewis in His Own Words,” USA Today, July 18, 2020, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/18/rep-john-lewis-most-memorable-quotes-get-good-trouble/5464148002/.