Twenty fifth Sunday after Pentecost, November 15, 2015
1 Kings 3:4-14, Mark 12:41-44
Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran Church
Hope International Mission
By Young Kim
Grace and peace to you from Jesus Christ who joyfully receives your heart. Amen.
In today’s text, God appeared in King Solomon’s dream and asked “what shall I give you? Tell me whatever you want.” This almost sounds like a genie in the lamp. If God appeared in front of you and asked you what you wanted, how would you react to it or how would you respond to it? Let’s look at how Solomon responded to God and made his confession about the relationship between God and him.
Not long after Solomon became the king of Israel, Solomon decided to go to Gibeon to offer sacrifice to God. This was a significant event in the beginning of Solomon’s reign. The entire leadership of the nation went to Gibeon with Solomon. This meant that the entire governing board had stopped what they were doing and solely focused on worshiping God.
But it is interesting that where Solomon went to worship God was originally a dedicated place to worship idols. This place for idols was called ‘high place’, and Gibeon had the most important and largest high place. Solomon chose this place to sacrifice one thousand offerings to God. Some of us might question why Solomon went to a pagan high place to worship God. This is because, until the temple was finally built in Jerusalem later by Solomon, it was nothing strange to go to high places of pagan idols to worship God. And Solomon was just one of them.
Back in those days, it was difficult for the Israelites to clearly know who they were worshiping, since there were numerous pagan gods around them. Living in the midst of different cultures and traditions, many of the kings of Israel often had a vague and confused idea about their God. Out of such confusion, sometimes they allowed to build high places and worship pagan gods in them. This always made God very angry that God’s people were confused between their God of Israel and other pagan gods. This is why God gave the commandment to not serve other gods. So we can also see that God observed Solomon’s effort and heart and tested him whether the God in him was the God of Israel.
We cannot know for sure exactly how long it took to prepare and sacrifice 1000 burnt offerings, but we can know for sure that it required a lot of effort just by hearing the number 1000. The night when he completed sacrificing 1000 offering, God appeared in Solomon’s dream and asked him to say whatever he wanted from God. What a remarkable visitation from God! This also sounds like an amazing promise from God. For Solomon, this must have been a chance to confess that the God he was worshiping was truly the God of Israel.
Before we move on, let’s all read verses 6-9 together. Ready?
[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. 7 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. 8 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.9 Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?”]
Solomon didn’t simply ask for wisdom but asked God for understanding mind to govern the people of God. He didn’t ask anything for himself, such as power, rich, or reputation. But he asked for hearing mind. This response tells us that he only focused on how to understand God and how to govern God’s people. In other words, he wanted to be able to communicate with God, and moreover, communicate with the people of God.
Before he asked anything from God, Solomon remembered God’s faithfulness both to David and now to Solomon himself. He recognized that God is the King who reigns all things. He recognized the Israelites as God’s chosen people, and not his own people. He confessed that because of God’s faithfulness and steadfast love, he was able to sit on his throne; not by his own power nor knowledge. This is an amazing model of humbleness before God. We can see from the text that he continuously called himself as servant and even his father David as God’s servant. Furthermore, Solomon acknowledged himself that he is only a little child. He didn’t know how to steward God’s people and was in desperate need of help from God. This short text is enough to tell us that for Solomon, God of Israel was different from pagan gods whom people simply went to ask for the things that they needed. He knew how much God loved his father David and how much God cared about the people of Israel. He acted and spoke in a way that clearly distinguished the God of Israel from other gods, even though his sacrificial offerings were done in a high place.
I always thought that God complimented Solomon because he asked for the right thing which was wisdom. But actually, it was about how, not about what or where. God was looking at how Solomon lowered himself in front of God; but what Solomon asked for and where he gave his sacrifice did not matter.
There is another different but similar story in today’s Gospel reading. Jesus sat in the temple and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. While many rich people gave large sums of money, there was a poor widow who came in and put two copper coins which might be less than 1 dollar in today’s value. Then, Jesus said to his followers, “This poor widow gave only two small coins. But she really gave more than all those rich people. The rich have plenty; they gave only what they did not need. This woman is very poor. But she gave all she had. And she needed that money to help her live.”
These two stories have several differences such as Solomon was the king of Israel and rich, while the widow woman was very poor and we don’t even know what her name was. But there are also similarities such as they both gave their offerings to God as much as they could. I continued to question myself why Solomon sacrificed 1000 offering before God. Probably, it is because Solomon tried his best to worship God with all his heart and all his possession. And the widow gave all she had to God. She might not have had anything to eat after giving the offering. She might not have known how to maintain her life without any money. But the biggest similarity between them was that they both received great compliments from God.
During the sermon a couple months ago, I shared my story of when I met God personally. And I am going to tell you the next part of the story. After praying for several weeks at a retreat center and meeting God personally, I maintained my life with just praying & meditating, reading the Bible, attending daily worship at the retreat center and fasting time to time. And God revealed himself a little by little in my prayers and through reading the Bible which left me with pure joy and peace. I felt like I was the happiest person in the world, and this happiness was nothing like I had ever felt before I met God. I found God in every moment and place and gratefully rejoiced in God. When I walked along the street and saw flowers besides the road, I thought about God’s love for creating the flowers for me.
So I wanted to show God my thankfulness and I really wanted to know more and more about God. One day, I decided to give up everything that I had. I was not rich at that time and I am still not rich, but I used to collect Legos, Remote Control Racing Cars, Robot figures like Gundams and so many toys and they were my treasures. I distributed all of my collections to middle & high schoolers at my church who I knew would treat the toys with love and care. They were so surprised and happy that they kept asking me whether or not I will change my mind and take it back from them. But I never regretted it. And I withdrew all of my money from the bank account and gave it away to the members whom I knew were financially struggling. I also gave away my online game items and finally deleted my characters which I spent so much time to upgrade them. If you play any video or online game, you would understand that it meant a lot to me. I gave up my sort of treasures, because I wanted to be found in favor in God’s eyes. I tried my best to make room for God in my mind through giving up my possession and emptying myself before God.
You should know that I am not telling you to sell all of your properties and give away all that you have. I just did what I thought was the best I could do. I knew what were occupying my mind and what I loved other than God. God does not want or need any money from us. The reason why money is mentioned when we talk about giving, is because it is the result and outcome of our effort and time spent in our life. It is merely one of many other things that we can give to God. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you do as long as God is in the first place of everything in your life. God sees your soul. This is why God received the heart of Solomon even though he worshiped God in one of the high places.
Then what happened, after all, to Solomon and the woman? They were both complimented by God. Can there be a better moment than this to be complimented by God? Hearing that one phrase, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful”, isn’t that enough for a reason to give our life to God? We are all thirsty for compliments and appreciations, but can anything be better than having God tell us that our faith was well kept in God’s eyes?
This includes the time of worship here in the church. How much are you focused in the worship now at this place? How much effort did you put in to make this worship the best sacrifice to God? How much do you empty and give yourself to God to gain Jesus? As soon as we give our heart and mind to something else other than God, this place becomes a high place.
When Jesus said to give up and leave all that you have and follow him, the point of it was emptying. I thought over this carefully. Why should we empty ourselves in order to follow Jesus? What does it mean to give everything to Jesus? Then I came to a realization that we are too small, and our hearts and minds are too small to carry all of Jesus. So in order to let Jesus come inside of us and reside in us, just a portion of our heart is not enough for Jesus to stay and reveal his love. And Jesus is waiting for you now to pour himself to you. The bigger the jar, the more water it can carry. The more we empty ourselves, the more we will be filled with Jesus.
1 Kings 3:4-14, Mark 12:41-44
Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran Church
Hope International Mission
By Young Kim
Grace and peace to you from Jesus Christ who joyfully receives your heart. Amen.
In today’s text, God appeared in King Solomon’s dream and asked “what shall I give you? Tell me whatever you want.” This almost sounds like a genie in the lamp. If God appeared in front of you and asked you what you wanted, how would you react to it or how would you respond to it? Let’s look at how Solomon responded to God and made his confession about the relationship between God and him.
Not long after Solomon became the king of Israel, Solomon decided to go to Gibeon to offer sacrifice to God. This was a significant event in the beginning of Solomon’s reign. The entire leadership of the nation went to Gibeon with Solomon. This meant that the entire governing board had stopped what they were doing and solely focused on worshiping God.
But it is interesting that where Solomon went to worship God was originally a dedicated place to worship idols. This place for idols was called ‘high place’, and Gibeon had the most important and largest high place. Solomon chose this place to sacrifice one thousand offerings to God. Some of us might question why Solomon went to a pagan high place to worship God. This is because, until the temple was finally built in Jerusalem later by Solomon, it was nothing strange to go to high places of pagan idols to worship God. And Solomon was just one of them.
Back in those days, it was difficult for the Israelites to clearly know who they were worshiping, since there were numerous pagan gods around them. Living in the midst of different cultures and traditions, many of the kings of Israel often had a vague and confused idea about their God. Out of such confusion, sometimes they allowed to build high places and worship pagan gods in them. This always made God very angry that God’s people were confused between their God of Israel and other pagan gods. This is why God gave the commandment to not serve other gods. So we can also see that God observed Solomon’s effort and heart and tested him whether the God in him was the God of Israel.
We cannot know for sure exactly how long it took to prepare and sacrifice 1000 burnt offerings, but we can know for sure that it required a lot of effort just by hearing the number 1000. The night when he completed sacrificing 1000 offering, God appeared in Solomon’s dream and asked him to say whatever he wanted from God. What a remarkable visitation from God! This also sounds like an amazing promise from God. For Solomon, this must have been a chance to confess that the God he was worshiping was truly the God of Israel.
Before we move on, let’s all read verses 6-9 together. Ready?
[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. 7 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. 8 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.9 Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?”]
Solomon didn’t simply ask for wisdom but asked God for understanding mind to govern the people of God. He didn’t ask anything for himself, such as power, rich, or reputation. But he asked for hearing mind. This response tells us that he only focused on how to understand God and how to govern God’s people. In other words, he wanted to be able to communicate with God, and moreover, communicate with the people of God.
Before he asked anything from God, Solomon remembered God’s faithfulness both to David and now to Solomon himself. He recognized that God is the King who reigns all things. He recognized the Israelites as God’s chosen people, and not his own people. He confessed that because of God’s faithfulness and steadfast love, he was able to sit on his throne; not by his own power nor knowledge. This is an amazing model of humbleness before God. We can see from the text that he continuously called himself as servant and even his father David as God’s servant. Furthermore, Solomon acknowledged himself that he is only a little child. He didn’t know how to steward God’s people and was in desperate need of help from God. This short text is enough to tell us that for Solomon, God of Israel was different from pagan gods whom people simply went to ask for the things that they needed. He knew how much God loved his father David and how much God cared about the people of Israel. He acted and spoke in a way that clearly distinguished the God of Israel from other gods, even though his sacrificial offerings were done in a high place.
I always thought that God complimented Solomon because he asked for the right thing which was wisdom. But actually, it was about how, not about what or where. God was looking at how Solomon lowered himself in front of God; but what Solomon asked for and where he gave his sacrifice did not matter.
There is another different but similar story in today’s Gospel reading. Jesus sat in the temple and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. While many rich people gave large sums of money, there was a poor widow who came in and put two copper coins which might be less than 1 dollar in today’s value. Then, Jesus said to his followers, “This poor widow gave only two small coins. But she really gave more than all those rich people. The rich have plenty; they gave only what they did not need. This woman is very poor. But she gave all she had. And she needed that money to help her live.”
These two stories have several differences such as Solomon was the king of Israel and rich, while the widow woman was very poor and we don’t even know what her name was. But there are also similarities such as they both gave their offerings to God as much as they could. I continued to question myself why Solomon sacrificed 1000 offering before God. Probably, it is because Solomon tried his best to worship God with all his heart and all his possession. And the widow gave all she had to God. She might not have had anything to eat after giving the offering. She might not have known how to maintain her life without any money. But the biggest similarity between them was that they both received great compliments from God.
During the sermon a couple months ago, I shared my story of when I met God personally. And I am going to tell you the next part of the story. After praying for several weeks at a retreat center and meeting God personally, I maintained my life with just praying & meditating, reading the Bible, attending daily worship at the retreat center and fasting time to time. And God revealed himself a little by little in my prayers and through reading the Bible which left me with pure joy and peace. I felt like I was the happiest person in the world, and this happiness was nothing like I had ever felt before I met God. I found God in every moment and place and gratefully rejoiced in God. When I walked along the street and saw flowers besides the road, I thought about God’s love for creating the flowers for me.
So I wanted to show God my thankfulness and I really wanted to know more and more about God. One day, I decided to give up everything that I had. I was not rich at that time and I am still not rich, but I used to collect Legos, Remote Control Racing Cars, Robot figures like Gundams and so many toys and they were my treasures. I distributed all of my collections to middle & high schoolers at my church who I knew would treat the toys with love and care. They were so surprised and happy that they kept asking me whether or not I will change my mind and take it back from them. But I never regretted it. And I withdrew all of my money from the bank account and gave it away to the members whom I knew were financially struggling. I also gave away my online game items and finally deleted my characters which I spent so much time to upgrade them. If you play any video or online game, you would understand that it meant a lot to me. I gave up my sort of treasures, because I wanted to be found in favor in God’s eyes. I tried my best to make room for God in my mind through giving up my possession and emptying myself before God.
You should know that I am not telling you to sell all of your properties and give away all that you have. I just did what I thought was the best I could do. I knew what were occupying my mind and what I loved other than God. God does not want or need any money from us. The reason why money is mentioned when we talk about giving, is because it is the result and outcome of our effort and time spent in our life. It is merely one of many other things that we can give to God. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you do as long as God is in the first place of everything in your life. God sees your soul. This is why God received the heart of Solomon even though he worshiped God in one of the high places.
Then what happened, after all, to Solomon and the woman? They were both complimented by God. Can there be a better moment than this to be complimented by God? Hearing that one phrase, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful”, isn’t that enough for a reason to give our life to God? We are all thirsty for compliments and appreciations, but can anything be better than having God tell us that our faith was well kept in God’s eyes?
This includes the time of worship here in the church. How much are you focused in the worship now at this place? How much effort did you put in to make this worship the best sacrifice to God? How much do you empty and give yourself to God to gain Jesus? As soon as we give our heart and mind to something else other than God, this place becomes a high place.
When Jesus said to give up and leave all that you have and follow him, the point of it was emptying. I thought over this carefully. Why should we empty ourselves in order to follow Jesus? What does it mean to give everything to Jesus? Then I came to a realization that we are too small, and our hearts and minds are too small to carry all of Jesus. So in order to let Jesus come inside of us and reside in us, just a portion of our heart is not enough for Jesus to stay and reveal his love. And Jesus is waiting for you now to pour himself to you. The bigger the jar, the more water it can carry. The more we empty ourselves, the more we will be filled with Jesus.