In high school, I had a friend named
Brett. He didn’t start out as my friend,
but he did sit next to me in Mr. Sullivan’s chemistry class, and we worked on
one or two group projects together.
Even so, I resisted being friends with
him. He was, after all, a star on the
varsity football team, and was very popular, and that was two strikes against
him as far as I was concerned.
Maybe it was the westerns my dad like to
watch, where the good guys always wore white hats and the bad guys always wore
black, but I had this idea that people were either good or they were bad. There was no middle ground. And stars on the football team, and kids that
were popular, were – in my mind – arrogant. Stuck up. Full of themselves. And therefore they went around wearing black
hats, even if I was the only one who could see it.
But then, as I got to know Brett, something very
strange happened: I realized that he was
actually a nice guy. And then one day he
invited me to attend his Eagle Scout court of honor. He was a scout, just like me! And then I couldn’t decide whether the hat he
wore was black or white; I couldn’t decide whether he was a good guy or a bad
guy.
In college, I took a class called “Images of
Native Americans,” in which we explored and discussed how Native Americans have
been portrayed in popular media. The
instructor for the course was Paul Apodaca, a new professor at Chapman
University, curator at the Bowers Museum, and a Native American whose hair went
halfway down his back.
In one of the first sessions, he said to us,
“there is no such thing as a “good Indian” or a “bad Indian.” I wasn’t sure
what he meant at first, until he talked about how, in movies, certain Indian
tribes were always good, while others were portrayed as ruthless savages.
Which, of course, is exactly what I and my
classmates had always thought. Again,
those western movies were at least partly to blame. Some Indian tribes were good and friendly and
peace-loving, while others were bad and hostile and bent on making war.
At least, that’s the image that we all had
been raised on.
Professor Apodaca spent much of the semester
correcting this stereotype with which we had been raised: there are good and bad in every tribe, just
like in every other culture, he said; you can’t just label an entire group as
good or bad. And even within an
individual there can be both good and bad.
This is a lesson that has stuck with me ever
since.
And so it was with great interest that I read
a lengthy article recently by biblical scholar Daniel Hays discussing King
Solomon, and whether or not he was a good guy or a bad guy.
The story of King Solomon is told in the
first eleven chapters of 1 Kings; however, the strange thing about this story
is that, for ten chapters, the author of that book presents Solomon as a good
man and a great king, but then in chapter 11 seems to turn against Solomon and
describe him as corrupt, idolatrous, and bad.
If you’ve read 1 Kings, then you know what
I’m talking about. Solomon is anointed
king. Solomon asks for – and receives
from God – wisdom. Solomon demonstrates
his wisdom when deciding a case between two prostitutes who each claim that a
certain baby is theirs.
For ten chapters, Solomon is praised, with
his growing wealth appearing as a sign of God’s favor. And then, in chapter 11: BAM! Someone switches the white hat for a black
one. Solomon does evil, God gets angry,
the kingdom is taken away from him, and he dies.
That’s the impression most people get from 1
Kings, but Daniel Hayes says, “not so fast.”
He says that, in the first ten chapters, the narrator of 1 Kings “may be
openly and overtly praising Solomon on the surface, but he does not tell the
story with a straight face, and if we look closely, we see him winking at us.”
It’s like the narrator is giving us a tour,
and he has the official biography, the official script of what he is supposed
to say, but his own feelings are quite different, and – very subtly – he drops
hints as to what he believes is the true story of King Solomon.
Chapter 3 begins with a mention of Solomon
making an alliance with Pharaoh by marrying Pharaoh’s daughter. This is just a straightforward piece of
information, given without commentary.
But, ever since the days of Moses, “Pharaoh”
was a symbol of oppression. Back in the
days when 1 Kings was written, this would not have been overlooked. To align oneself with Pharaoh would be to
align oneself with the oppressor.
In chapter 5, Solomon builds the temple. If you grew up going to Sunday School as I
did, you probably heard about how great Solomon’s temple was, and how great he
was for building such a magnificent building to honor God.
However, in the days of Solomon’s father,
King David, God had said that God didn’t need a temple, and especially one made
of expensive cedar. So it’s ironic that
Solomon refers back to David’s conversation with God as justification for
building the temple.
Again, this irony would not have been
overlooked by ancient Jews.
In exchange for materials with which to build
the temple, Solomon gives away food wealth to other nations. Then Solomon forces labor upon thousands for
the temple’s construction, in effect oppressing and enslaving people in order
to carry out this grand project. The
alliance with Pharaoh the oppressor foreshadowed this.
In Jesus’ time, it was Herod who took it upon
himself to rebuild the temple on the site where Solomon’s temple once
stood. This was an even grander, more
elaborate project than Solomon’s. Many
Jews were in awe of the temple that was under construction.
Except Jesus.
He went to the temple, but he didn’t seem particularly awed by it. He actually spoke of its destruction, which
got some people upset, and some of his least reverent moments took place in and
around the temple.
Why did Herod build the temple? Why did Solomon build his temple? To bring God
glory? I think that both Jesus and the
Old Testament prophets would agree that God would be more glorified if the vast
resources used for temple construction were instead used to care for the
poor.
In chapter 3 of 1 Kings, God appears to
Solomon; Solomon asks for wisdom, for integrity of heart, and God grants it to
him. After Solomon builds the temple, in
chapter 9, God appears to Solomon a second time. Does God say, “Thanks, Solomon, for the
temple. It’s really great. Now I have a place to live…?”
No.
Instead, God reminds Solomon to walk with integrity of heart. God reminds Solomon to use the wisdom which
God had gifted to him. It’s almost as if
God said, “You’ve built me a temple.
Fine. I hope you’ve got that out
of your system. Now, let’s get back to
acting with wisdom. Let’s get back to
walking with integrity of heart.”
After Solomon asks for and receives wisdom,
back in chapter 3, the narrator shares a story of Solomon’s
wisdom-in-action. Or so it seems. When those two prostitutes come to Solomon,
arguing over whose baby it is, Solomon asks for a sword to be brought in, and
then he commands that the sword be used to divide the baby in half, with the
two prostitutes each receiving one half of the child.
Well, one of the prostitutes, filled with a
mother’s compassion, begs Solomon to not harm the child, and to give him to the
other woman. This, of course, exposes
her as the true mother, and Solomon then hands the baby over to her.
That’s the official story, the one in the
script, and it shows that Solomon was indeed blessed by God with wisdom. But the original readers and hearers of this
story would have wondered: why didn’t
Solomon say anything about the women’s prostitution? The teachings of Moses, recorded in
Deuteronomy, clearly forbid prostitution.
Why did the good and wise king not say anything about this violation of
the law?
And what is the narrator really trying to say
with a story about two prostitutes whom the king fails to chastise? In the Old Testament, the term prostitute is
more often used figuratively, symbolizing Israel’s tendency to chase after
foreign gods. Solomon had already
aligned himself with Pharaoh, marrying Pharaoh’s daughter, and would soon marry
many other foreign women who would in turn lead Solomon to chase after foreign
gods.
In chapter ten, the narrator appears to
praise Solomon and show that God had blessed him greatly by giving him wealth
in the form of horses and silver and numerous wives. And yet, again, back in Deuteronomy, God’s
rules for a king are presented, and those rules prohibit accumulating too many
horses, or wealth, or wives.
According to Daniel Hayes, it’s as if the
author of 1 Kings is holding a copy of Deuteronomy as he writes, and he’s very
sly about presenting Solomon’s reign as directly contradicting the rules
Deuteronomy presents. He doesn’t
directly say that Solomon was violating God’s laws – at least not until chapter
11 – but anyone familiar with Deuteronomy would know what he was talking about.
“Look how great Solomon was! Look how much God blessed him!” Wink, wink.
He was so great, that he had no need for God and God’s laws.
Now, I don’t know about you, but all this
makes it very hard for me to decide whether or not Solomon is wearing a white
hat or a black hat, whether he’s a good guy or a bad guy. I mean, there is still much to commend, but
at the same time it doesn’t all seem to be so, well, black and white.
If only Solomon could have been more like his
father, King David, who was a good man and a great king … well, except for when
he wasn’t. I guess David is also a
complex character.
Well, at least we have Jesus, right? Open up to the very beginning of the New
Testament, to the book of Matthew, and start reading, and right away you know
that Jesus is a good man. The first
thing you read is Jesus’ genealogy, his family tree, and in that genealogy we
discover that Jesus is descended from, well, David. And Solomon.
And one or two prostitutes. And
some who couldn’t even be properly considered Jews.
You know, many of the religious elite in
Jesus’ time tried to classify people into good guys and bad guys, but Jesus
wanted nothing to do with that. Like my
college professor, Jesus understood that such distinctions were more a
construct of our minds than they were a reality. Just like the image on the
screen, which is a well-known optical illusion.
The square at the top (marked ‘A’), and the square in the middle (marked
‘B’), are actually the exact same shade of grey, even though to our eyes one
appears much darker than the other.
Too often we see people the same way. Where
others saw a sinner, a prostitute, a tax collector – someone with a hat that
definitely appeared darker than all the others – Jesus saw a person with a
painful past, a person with numerous regrets, a person who longed for healing
and wholeness.
On the pages of scripture are numerous
characters, people who we tend to classify as either good or bad, people we
should try to be more like and people we should try not to be like. But really,
the people in scripture, they ARE
us. We ARE Solomon. We ARE David.
We have the same propensity to choose good or bad, to use our wisdom or
ignore it, as they did. And sometimes,
we even make the same mistakes as they did.
Like them, we are a mixture. The hats we wear are not white or black, but
a shade of gray.
And, like them, we find ourselves in need of
healing and wholeness…
…the healing and wholeness that only God can
provide, and which God does provide,
freely, to all.
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