Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Kings chapter 1 verses 3 through 12:
3 Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David; only, he sacrificed and offered incense at the high places. 4The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the principal high place; Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt-offerings on that altar. 5At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, ‘Ask what I should give you.’ 6And 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 towards you; and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne today.7And 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. 8And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. 9Give 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?’
10 It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. 11God said to him, ‘Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, 12I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind.'
Last night, I was asked to speak to the incoming pledge class of my college fraternity. As I was preparing for what to say I remembered sometime back when fraternity members at the University of Oklahoma were captured on video chanting a repugnantly racist video. We were in the midst of a visioning process at our church and talking about what we hoped for from our church. One of the women on our leadership team said, "I hope that if I raise a child in our youth program and they go off to college and are on a bus where racist songs are chanted, they'll be wise enough to know it's wrong and have courage enough to say so." That statement became the foundation for one of our vision goals: "Deep Wisdom and Courageous Faith".
Wisdom is a gift that comes only to the humble. Only the wise can know good from evil because only the wise are humble enough to know they themselves cannot know good from evil. The wisdom of discerning right and wrong, good choices from bad, is a grace that can only be received by someone who knows how badly they need it -- and how desperate and morally lost they would be without it.
Last night, I talked to the pledges about the three cardinal principles the fraternity is founded on: Friendship, Scholarship, and Moral Rectitude. I told them it's a chord of three strands. For having friends may make you popular and one day rich, but perhaps petty and vulgar. And smarts are impressive, but lots of brilliant people have done incredibly immoral things in the name of science or the market. Friendship and scholarship are not enough by themselves. The third strand has to be joined. For brotherhood alone will end you up a spectacle on video, and education alone will get you science without soul. But wisdom tells us morally right from wrong. It's a chord of three strands not to be broken. I pray they were listening.
The Book of Proverbs says, "The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom; whatever you get, get wisdom."
May we humble enough to listen, let us hear.
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