Why Is Solomon Important?

Posed with the invitation, “Ask whatever you want of me,” we would expect this very human Solomon to demand what most people demand when confronted in stories by a genie in a lamp or a fairy godmother: long life, lots of wealth, a beautiful spouse, victory over his enemies. He could have asked for any of those things which might make him autonomous, independent, successful at life all on his own. But he doesn’t. Perhaps because Solomon is human, and is young, and has just had a crown thrust upon his head and has married one of the greatest Empires in the world and knows the political mire that awaits him in Jerusalem, Solomon is at his wits end. He ready to admit he’s completely out of his depth.
“I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties” translates the NIV.
“I don’t know how to go out or come in” is how the NRSV puts it.
And my
Tell me something, anything, that will help.” And we sit, and we listen…and sometimes we don’t hear anything. There’s just a silence. A most deafening silence. We don’t like silence. We don’t like mystery, waiting, dependence, the unknown. And so we turn to the wisdom of the world, found in self-help blogs, and books, and pinterest pages, and diets, and financial strategies, and even beard oil. We’ll do it on our own. We are all we need. Solomon reminds us we’re not all we need. No matter how hard we try…we’re all just young and inexperienced. But the God who grants us wisdom when we ask – maybe not immediately, maybe not in an audible whisper, maybe not as we’d expect – this God knows everything. He holds the world in his hands. He speaks to the whales and places the stars in the sky and delights in the leap of the tree frog. He commands the rainstorm where it should go. He knows the hairs on your head. And he grants wisdom to those who, like a child staring up at a parent on Christmas morning, holds out her hands to receive that wisdom. Wisdom is a