"A Listening Heart" (May 31, 2026 Sermon)
/A Listening Heart
1 Kings 3:3–15
Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and offered incense at the high places. The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the principal high place; Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, “Ask what I should give you.” And 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. And 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. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant, therefore, an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil, for who can govern this great people of yours?”
It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. God 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, 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. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor all your life; no other king shall compare with you. If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life.”
Then Solomon awoke; it had been a dream. He came to Jerusalem, where he stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. He offered up burnt offerings and offerings of well-being and provided a feast for all his servants.
Setting the Stage
Today we begin a summer-long journey through the books of 1 and 2 Kings. We’ll spend five weeks on 1 Kings, take a three-week break, and then spend another six weeks on 2 Kings. I invite you to set aside time to read these two books. If you do, I promise you’ll find plenty of juicy stories to pique your interest. 1 and 2 Kings tell the “royal history” of Israel from the death of King David in 962 to the destruction of Jerusalem in 587. The chapters we’ll explore together have it all: palace intrigue, sexual politics, family drama, and, above all, a God who remains faithful throughout the Israelites’ ebbs and flows as they try to do the same.
Before we get to the meat of today’s passage, it’s important to remember where we are in the Biblical narrative. Just before the books of 1 and 2 Kings come the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, which tell the story of King Saul and King David. By the time we reach today’s passage, King David’s meteoric rise has been followed by his fall from grace after the Bathsheba/Uriah debacle. In fact, the very first verse of 1 Kings chapter 1 reminds us of his fragility in his later years: “King David was old and advanced in years; and although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm.” The once-mighty and invincible David, the very one who conquered Goliath with nothing more than a sling and a rock, now lies shivering in his bed, knocking on heaven’s door. His servants bring in a beautiful young girl named Abishag to “arouse” his vitality, so to speak, from its slumber, but it’s no use. David is old, feeble, and spent. And the vultures begin circling.
By this point, violence has already visited David’s household. One of his sons, Absalom, has already met a nasty end. Absalom never forgave his father for failing to punish his brother Amnon for sexually assaulting their sister Tamar, and he therefore led a rebellion against his father’s house, challenging his father for the throne. Absalom met a memorable, if tragic, end when his head became caught in the branches of an oak tree, and his mule kept on riding, leaving him dangling helplessly until he was eventually found by David’s army and slaughtered. David grieved his son’s death, and this was perhaps the beginning of the end of his reign.
Once it became clear that David’s days were near an end, another of his sons, Adonijah, began vying for the throne behind his father’s back. He launched a PR campaign to solidify support for his candidacy, but Bathsheba (remember her?) had other plans. Though she was stripped of agency in the previous story, where David forced himself upon her and had her husband, Uriah, killed, she now speaks up. She sees the writing on the wall and knows that if Adonijah is crowned king, she and her son with David, Solomon, will be seen as a threat to Adonijah’s legitimacy. Therefore, she conspires with the prophet Nathan to “remind” David that he had promised Solomon the crown. Nowhere in scripture is there a record of this “promise,” so we’re left to wonder whether it really happened or if Bathsheba is perhaps taking advantage of David’s feeble mind. And even if that’s the case, can anyone blame her? She and her husband, after all, were the collateral damage of David’s unsatiated sexual appetite, so perhaps she believes this is an appropriate time for the scales of justice to be rebalanced.
To make a long story short, Bathsheba’s play works. David anoints Solomon as his successor, with all the pomp and circumstance required to legitimize his claim. Not surprisingly, Adonijah’s time on earth was short. In a foolish move, he asks to be given Abishag in marriage, and Solomon interprets this as an attack on his legitimacy. So Solomon has his brother killed. At long last, Solomon has consolidated his power and now sits on the throne that belonged to his father, King David, and to his predecessor, King Saul, before him.
Now, if this is all sounding a bit like the plot of the classic movie The Godfather, you would be right! David is kind of like Don Corleone, who is far past his prime, and the circles of power around him, such as his family and the other families of the Italian mafia, are testing one another to see who will come out on top once he sleeps with the fishes. And after all of these ruthless “Game of Thrones” maneuvers, Solomon finally has a chance to rest his head on his bed and catch up on some sleep as he prepares for his reign to begin.
And that is where we find him in today’s story, or, more specifically, where God finds Solomon. As is often the case with many other characters in the Bible, God meets Solomon in a dream as he slumbers. Solomon had traveled to Gibeon, a so-called “high place” where the Israelites often made sacrifices to God to curry God’s favor. And after the bloodshed that brought Solomon to this point, he certainly could use all the divine favor he could get!
A Blank Check from God
God approaches Solomon in his dream and simply asks him, “Ask what I should give you?” What does one do when one is given a blank check by God Almighty?
If we’re governed by fear, we might ask:
“Keep me safe. Keep my family safe. Make sure nothing bad ever happens to us.”
“Give me certainty - about my health, my future, my children’s future.”
“Let me know how it all ends so I don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
If we’re governed by scarcity, we might ask:
“Give me enough money that I will never have to worry again.”
“Make sure my retirement is secure, my house is paid off, and my kids are taken care of.”
If we’re governed by violence, we might ask:
“Punish the people who hurt me.”
“Vindicate me - publicly, visibly. Humiliate my enemies.”
What questions would you add to that list? Perhaps some that come from a place of genuine good? That our church would grow? That the cancer would be defeated? That gas and groceries would become reasonably priced again?
Solomon could have asked for any of those things (though I don’t think the price of gasoline was high on his list of priorities…). But he asks for none of them. His response is simple: “Give me wisdom.” More specifically, he asks for an “understanding mind” to govern God’s people and discern between good and evil.
His restraint is remarkable. Especially because his recently deceased father, King David, was not known for restraint. But the phrase that is usually translated as “understanding mind” deserves further scrutiny because of its complexity.
The Listening Heart
The “understanding mind” that Solomon asks of God is a Hebrew phrase, לֵב שֹמֵעׇ (“lev shomea”), which literally means “a listening heart” or “a hearing heart.” You may recognize the word shema in the phrase lev shomea because it’s the same word that begins Israel’s central confession of faith: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone…” In his dream, Solomon does not ask to be heard; he asks instead “to hear.” We hear in Solomon’s request much of what inspired the Prayer of St. Francis so many centuries later: O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.
What I think is equally important about the Hebrew phrase לֵב שֹמֵעׇ (“lev shomea”) is that the verb shomea is in the participle form, a grammatical term that simply indicates continuous, ongoing action. Solomon’s request for a lev shomea isn’t a one-time download of information or enlightenment. Solomon doesn’t ask for a heart that has heard and is now done, but for a heart that is forever listening.
I find in this passage a quiet rebuke of so much of the power baked into our world today. Our current political atmosphere assumes that power means making yourself heard, imposing your will, and being the one everyone must listen to. Solomon, on the contrary, asks to be the one who listens. Would that all of our elected leaders, on both sides of the aisle, adopted such a posture! Would that all of us could find within ourselves the resolve to adopt such a posture in our families, in our schools, in our workplaces, in our churches and faith communities, and in our boardrooms!
I think Solomon’s prayer is a wise one for us in this modern age, given how much knowledge is out there. We live in an age where information is easily accessible at our literal fingertips. Now, whether that information is accurate, unbiased, or factual is another topic altogether! But such makes it even more important that you and I join Solomon in a continual posture of humility, asking for the lev shomea, the “listening heart” that God indeed grants Solomon.
Wisdom in the Age of the Sword—and the Algorithm
But such wisdom, even when granted by Divine Authority, can slip between our fingers if we’re not careful. I find the story that comes immediately after today’s story a telling one in this regard. What follows today’s story is the famous passage in which two women simultaneously claim to be the legitimate mother of a child after the other woman’s child dies in the middle of the night. The two women bring the child and claim to be the biological mother. Solomon famously asks for his sword and threatens to cut the baby in two to divide it equally between the two women. One of the two women quickly objects and begs for the child to be given to the other woman, and therefore Solomon surmises that the woman who objects is the biological mother. The passage is often lifted up as evidence of Solomon’s newly granted wisdom.
Now, I think two things can be true at the same time. First of all, this story is evidence of Solomon’s wisdom. After all, the story concludes with the following verse: “All Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to execute justice.”
But I think another thing can be true at the same time: that even with Solomon’s newfound wisdom, his first instinct is nevertheless to reach for the sword.
And I find that to be an important observation for us to make these days. You and I have unlimited potential at our fingertips, unlike any generation before us. The artificial intelligence boom that has happened just in the last three and a half years, since I’ve been your pastor, has completely changed the world around us, in ways we welcome and in others we may not. In just a few years, AI has gone from a rather abstract futuristic concept to something that feels truly unavoidable (I can’t even order a chocolate frosty at my local Wendy’s without using their AI ordering system!). AI may indeed be an incredible tool that can be used for much good; but it’s a tool nonetheless, and one that can also be used for great harm if not properly regulated, maintained, and made accessible to all, not just a wealthy few.
All this is to say that I think we need the lev shomea that Solomon sought now more than ever. We all need listening hearts attuned to humanity’s near-limitless capacity for both good and ill. We need listening hearts that resist Solomon’s instinct—and that of his father—to reach for the sword as the go-to response to conflict. We need listening hearts that can cut through the constant noise around us to hear the still, small voice of the Spirit, bestowed upon the Church last week on Pentecost. We need listening hearts that understand that wisdom is a precious gift, one that must be tended with the same intentionality a master gardener brings to his plants.
As we continue this five-week sermon series on 1 Kings, we’ll see both the successes and failures of Solomon’s reign, as well as the successes and failures of Israel’s attempts to live faithfully as the recipients of God’s liberation from Egypt. As we continue this journey, may we all seek the lev shomea, the “listening heart” of Solomon’s prayer. And may we understand that wisdom is never a gift to be taken for granted.
In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s children, say: Amen.