As your remember for the past several weeks our Old Testament lessons have covered the reign of David. Today we shift our attention to David’s son, Solomon. Solomon was not David’s oldest son, but he was the son of marriage between David and Bathsheba.

Our story picks up near the end of David’s rein when he was not only growing older but more feeble. Several of his other sons had aspirations to become the next king. They were waiting for their father, King David, to die. Bathsheba being aware of this arranged to have Solomon anointed  as the new king before David die.  Solomon then arranged to have any further opposition from within the family eliminated.  One big happy family? That brings us to our text for this morning.

Part of what we read was Solomon’s prayer where he asks for a understanding mind  to govern your people, able  to discern between good and evil.[a]

Because he did not ask for a long life, or riches, or the lives of his enemies,   God is pleased with what he requests. So God  says that he will also give Solomon a wise and   discerning mind.

Discerning  (comes from Latin) meaning to separate, to distinguish between, hence to discriminate right from wrong – to show insight,

The writer or writers of Kings then go on to illustrated just how wise Solomon is. The story of the two women each claiming the baby is theirs. Lacking DNA testing Solomon ordered that the baby be cut in half, with each mother receiving a half. Sounds gross, but it worked, as Solomon in his wisdom knew that it would, with the mother saying no, don’t do that let the other woman have the baby. Solomon then order that the baby he given to the woman who protested as only the true mother would save the life of the child.

Later we are also told that the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon. Some claim that Sheba  is where present Yemen is located while others maintain that to the west where present Ethiopia is. Any way she was impressed with Solomon, and his ability to solve riddles. There is much romantic fold-lore in Jewish, Moslem as well as Christian writings regarding Solomon. Some suggest that their relationship was platonic yet the Emperor of Ethiopia bears the official title ‘The Lion of Judah’ and the national emblem is a six-pointed star, corresponding to the Shield of David. In Solomon’s day Israel’s influenced  expended far and wide. He indeed was wise in what has been called his ‘harem statecraft’.

We may not be able to separate fact from folk-lore. Never-the-less, Solomon was Israel’s greatest sage, renowned for his judicial insight, learning and literary skill, so that it could be said that ‘he was wiser than all other men.’[b]  It is not surprising that he came to be regarded as the father of Hebrew wisdom literature. Neither should we forget the building of the temple under his reign. Yes, he was a wise person and seemly had a discerning mind.

Who among us would not like and appreciate a discerning mind. Maybe we feel we have one. Maybe we feel that we generally do the right thing.  That we know right from wrong.. We teach our children that they should do what is right. That we recognize truth when it is before us.

Or do we? Are we really any more discerning than when in 1787 someone in New Jersey found an enormous thighbone sticking out of a stream bank. The bone clearly didn’t belong to any species of creature still alive, certainly not in New Jersey.

The bone was sent to Dr. Caspar Wistar, the nation’s leading anatomist, who described it as a meeting of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia that fall. Unfortunately, Wistar failed completely to recognize that bone’s significance and merely made a few cautious and uninspired remarks to the effect that it was indeed a whopper.  He thus missed the chance to be the discoverer of dinosaurs. Indeed, the bone excited so little interest that it was put in a storeroom and eventually disappeared altogether. So the first dinosaur bone ever found was also the first to be lost.[c] Not very wise. Would a more discerning mind been more interested in this find?

Maybe a discerning mind is more complex than we first thought. Maybe there is more to it than just a gut feeling that this is right. Maybe if I were a famous TV preacher I would offer you a booklet of how to have a discerning mind is seven easy steps. But I can’t offer that to you. And even if I  did offer you several steps and make you think that if you just followed these suggestions you would achieve and desired results.

Look again at this passage in Kings. What does it really say. Is Solomon given a 7 step program into order to acquire a discerning mind from God?[d]  No! We don’t enroll in Discerning Mind 101 and in four years graduate with a BDM –Bachelor of Discerning Mind  Rather, according to this passage,  a discerning mind is a gift from God.

On the other hand, what we do will have either a positive or negative effect upon us. While nothing is suggested in this particular passage there are other passages which do give us come clues.

One clue came be found in our passage from John, namely our relationship with Jesus Christ. Much can and should be said of this 6^th chapter in John. Without entering into the various Eucharistic meanings of this chapter, it is enough to say that we need a close relationship to Jesus Christ, with the Eucharist being one of those ways. The popular WWJD assumes that one has a close relation ship otherwise why even care as to what Jesus would do.

And in Ephesians we see that this close relationship with Jesus Christ effects all of other relations.  Paul uses such phrases and  “be imitators of God …live in love as Christ loved us… let no one deceive you with empty words…live as children of light…do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is…”[e]

I am only suggesting possible starting places. Not that any of these will guarantee a discerning mind but that these may place us in a better position to receive such a gift from God. And having received it  be able to properly apply it.

As we have been listening to Pastor Ann’s sermons for the past several weeks it seems to me that she has been calling us to have a discerning mind regarding what the future of our congregation might be. What is God calling us to do and to be? Just how do we discern God’s will and purpose for us?

It seem clear to me and not only can individual have a discerning mind. But that as a corporate body, the church, is also to have a discerning mind. We therefore, need to remain close to Jesus, seek to live out his concerns in our day, and wait patiently, as the Psalmist say, wait patiently on the Lord for his gifts that we may see clearly our way.

Maybe you would wish that I give you more definitive steps, but I feel these can and may serve as a starting point.

I now want to shift our attention slightly, is see how this might apply to situation that made and is making news regarding a sister church only a few miles from us.

It’s not just that they want to leave the denominations but their reason for leaving that bothers me, namely that we have or are departing from scripture. This implies to me that the rest of us are blind and dumb as to what is going on and that we do not a discerning mind. This has not be said or implied but that is how I feel.

This caused me to reflect on my 52+ years of ministry in the Presbyterian Church. I may  not be the brightest person in the world but neither am I the dumbest.  Yes, there were hot buttons issues 52 years ago. Yes, we discussed among ourselves as seminarians how best to respond if we were confronted with those issues – that  is how to be honest with ourselves and to scripture without being offensive to others.

I have said for years the 4 pegs you can hang onto as what Presbyterians believe are; the absolute sovereignty of God; the supremacy of scripture; the freedom and responsibility of persons, and the parity of ministry.

And it is this number two, the supremacy of scripture, that seems to cause us trouble. When I was ordained the question was phrased this way: “Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice?”[f]

Yes, the hot button word in there was infallible. By definition infallible here means incapable of error in defining doctrine. Yet some people then and now stray out of the field of doctrine and wander into the field of science. So I and hundreds of other could say “ yes” to this question by understanding that it referred to doctrine and not Geology 101.

Yes, scriptures do witness to the word of God, and reveal the Word made flesh which dwelt among us full of grace and truth.

Well some years later when we were working for the merger of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church in the United States, and the United Presbyterian church in the United States pf American, the question was rephrased thusly: “Do you accept the scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be, by the Holy spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the church universal, and God’s word to you?”[g]

Yes there were objections that the word ‘infallible’ was replaced by ‘unique and authoritative’ as some did not understand the word ‘unique.’  But from Calvin’s time to the present, we have always maintained the authority of Scripture. Whatever way one  asks this question regarding scripture it also means that one cannot take a few selected verses out of context and make those selected verses the litmus test for faithfulness to scripture and say to the rest of us if you don’t accept these verses in the way and manner some do, that those not accepting  have departed from scripture.

Our church has and does and will hold without question the supremacy of scripture.

To imply otherwise is, in my mind, a misrepresentation  and lack of understanding of what we believe.

O Lord, give your servant and your people  an understanding mind to be able to discern between good and evil that we may faithfully serve you.