13 February 2014 - one love

13 February 2014 - one love

When Solomon was old his wives had turned his heart to strange gods,
and his heart was not entirely with the LORD, his God,
as the heart of his father David had been.

We might be tempted to be unsympathetic.  After all, polytheism isn't a living temptation for most of us (though perhaps someone overly involved in Yoga might still have to face it directly).  We wonder how someone as wise as Solomon can go from following the God who blesses him so richly to serving strange gods.  The passage tells us: "his wives had turned his heart".  We see just how very divided he is, adoring Astarte, Milcom, Chemosh, and even Molech, Molech who receives the sacrifice of living children.  He burns incense and sacrifices like this "for all his foreign wives".  He has no particular interest in these gods but we can easily imagine that he gives in once to the request of one wife and then he has to do it for all of his wives in order to be 'fair.'

Solomon's heart is "not entirely with the LORD".  His relationship with one wife is supposed to reflect this unity of purpose.  Indeed, it is supposed to draw on this unity of purpose as its source.  If the heart is not entirely with the LORD it will easily yield when pushed and pulled by the world.  Polygamy is reflective is a deeper disunity within the heart.  It is the extreme version of trying to give ourselves to the thousand things which are not God.  And just as Solomon realizes so to do we realize that these things make claims on us which only God should make.

We need to keep the personal unity and consistency that comes from loving the LORD our God with all our heart, with all our mind, and with all our strength.  We will thereby resist the temptation to mingle with the nations and take on the trendy sins of our times.

But they mingled with the nations
and learned their works.
They served their idols,
which became a snare for them.

No matter how insistent the world is that this or that sinful behavior is a right, that it isn't fair to exclude it, we won't be fooled.  We will continue to recognize the harm that such things bring and we will continue to "observe what is right" and "do always what is just."

The Syrophoenician woman emerges from the backdrop of a sinful world.  Jesus insists that the blessings of his kingdom are wasted if they are separated from the unity of purpose that comes from being God's people.  Dog's chase after this and that, eating what they find, but finding no more joy in a well-prepared feast than in dog food.

He said to her, “Let the children be fed first.
For it is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”

The woman must hear in this the door which Jesus leaves open.  He says that the children should be fed first, not that only they should be fed.  In leaving a door open he allows the woman to show that, in spite of her background, she has the necessary single-heartedness to receive God's blessings.  She displays this with her humble persistence.

“Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”

She does not change the terms of the LORD's analogy.  Instead she simply reaffirms that she too is hungry, that she too will benefit from this food, even if only a little, even if not the best of it. We often lack this humility, putting ourselves first and inevitably finding ourselves fragmented and divided.  Fortunately, even when we mess this up the promise of God remains. 

I will leave your son one tribe for the sake of my servant David
and of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.”

He is always there to welcome us back, to heal our hearts, and to make us whole again.