Okay, hold that thought for a few minutes; now we’ll skip forward in history to today’s scripture reading. Remember how last week David wanted to build God a temple, but God objected? Well, by now, David’s son Solomon had been born, grown up, and become king. After establishing his administration and settling into his regime, Solomon sets to work building the temple that had been denied to his father so long ago. The equivalent of $30 million dollars (not accounting for inflation), an incalculable amount of raw material, and seven years later, and the long-awaited temple is finally ready for worship.
1 Kings 8 describes the dedication ritual for this brand-new holy place. It was something like an ancient ribbon-cutting ceremony or “Grand Opening”. The whole country is in attendance as the tribal leaders and elders carry the Ark of the covenant into the temple. Inaugural sacrifices are made, and Solomon says a few words recounting the events that led up to the temple being built. Finally, the King stands to offer a dedicatory prayer for the temple – of which today’s reading is a small part.
Solomon’s prayer is actually VERY long – over 30 verses, or about half of the whole chapter. I would have loved to read the entire thing in worship this morning, but I’m sure you all have things to do later today, and I want to keep my job. So I attempted to distill this prayer into a reasonable number of verses while still communicating the heart of the prayer’s message: essentially, Solomon is petitioning for the temple to be a place where God listens to the people.
Now, Solomon’s clear from the beginning of this prayer that the temple does not CONTAIN God, nor does it limit God’s ability to listen from other locations, but he wants the temple to serve as a symbol of God’s special relationship with God’s people, a place where Israelites can feel especially connected to God through their prayers (kind of like church is for many of us). In verses 31-40, Solomon outlines several different specific circumstances in which people might come to the temple to pray, and he implores God to hear each of these prayers “…so that [your people] may revere you all the days they live on the land that you gave to our ancestors.” For Solomon, the temple finally makes tangible the kingdom’s unique status with God.
Then Solomon does something peculiar. Although this is the absolute perfect opportunity for him to propagandize – to celebrate his reign, his achievements, and his people – he takes a moment right in the middle of his prayers on behalf of his own kingdom to pray for *foreigners*. “Listen also to the immigrant,” he implores God, “who isn’t from your people Israel, but who comes from a distant country because of your reputation…When the immigrant comes and prays toward this temple, then listen from heaven…and do everything the immigrant asks.”
I kind of wonder how the Israelites would have reacted to this part. The way it’s tucked right in the middle of countless prayers for their people and their military and their kingdom sort of makes it sound like Solomon was trying to sneak it past them – like he knew they wouldn’t approve, but felt he needed to include it, anyway. I imagine them praying along with Solomon… “Yes, Lord; forgive our sins…Yes, Lord; send the rain on our dry land…Yes, Lord; protect us from our enemies…Yes, L- wait, what? What did he just say about foreigners?? Did you hear that???” Even if no one was comfortable calling him out on it, I can’t imagine a scenario in which publicly praying for foreigners would have HELPED Solomon’s standing with his subjects. So why did he do it?
It might be tempting to assume that Solomon shared our modern values anachronistically, that he was praying for inclusion for its own sake. We want to think that this great king was simply ahead of his time when it comes to ideas of equity and justice, but his own words give us no reason to believe that. He didn’t say, “God, answer their prayers because they deserve your mercy, too.” He didn’t say, “God, answer their prayers because they also need your help.” He didn’t even say, “God, answer their prayers because it’s good and right and just.” No, what he said was, “Do everything the immigrant asks…*so that all the people of the earth may know your reputation and revere you*.”
Solomon prays for outsiders because he knows that God answering their prayers would be the BEST evangelism imaginable. He knows that if immigrants are traveling to Israel because of God’s reputation, it’s a *good* thing. He wants them to find out FOR THEMSELVES how powerful and merciful God is – talk is cheap, and reputations don’t mean much without proof. It’s not enough for foreigners to HEAR that God has blessed the people of Israel; they need the blessings themselves in order to really, truly believe it. Regardless of whether or not Solomon believes that an immigration policy of inclusion is MORALLY right, it’s in the best interest of God’s reputation (and by extension, Israel’s as well) to make sure that outsiders also get to experience God’s blessings.
Which brings us back to where we started. Remember that verse from Genesis 12? God establishes God’s relationship with Abram by telling him, “*all the families of the earth will be blessed because of you*.” Not just your family. Not just the families that live where you do or think like you do; ALL of them! Solomon recognizes that IT’S HIS JOB as a descendant of Abraham to be a means of blessing for the whole earth – not just his people. It’s also notable that Solomon, who reigned during the height of Israel’s power, doesn’t seem to feel that this should happen through coercion or forced assimilation. Based on his words here, it needs to happen organically, as a result of the outsiders’ own positive experiences of God while in Israel.
Now, most of us aren’t biological relations of Abraham (or at least, there’s no way to know for sure) but as his *spiritual* descendants, we have the exact same obligation that Solomon does. As Christians, we can’t just TELL people how much WE’VE been blessed. Instead, we have to work to make these blessings accessible to “outsiders” so that they can both understand and believe what we’re talking about. What’s more, *we have to actually want it for them.* THAT’S how we fulfill our ancestral responsibility. THAT’S how we evangelize.
As Christians, what good does it do to publicly thank God for our blessings here in the United States, but then refuse to let anyone else discover what it’s like for themselves? That’s definitely not the best way to prove that our God truly is Lord of ALL. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that absolutely everyone curious about our way of life should be unquestioningly welcomed across our borders. But we need to be very, very careful about our tendency to gatekeep God’s blessings as USAmerican Christians. Solomon recognized that even Israel, God’s own chosen people, didn’t have a monopoly on God’s grace and mercy. Neither do we.[1] If we are to be effective evangelists on a global stage, then we need to recognize that God does not win when we put our own wants and needs before those of the stranger, the immigrant, the foreigner. It’s a biblical fact.
Solomon’s legendary wisdom allows him to understand that immigrants’ access to God’s blessings is more important to God’s plan than preserving his people’s sense of preeminence. This knowledge stems from a deep appreciation of Israel’s history, seeing himself and his people as heirs to a larger mission and purpose that goes far beyond his own personal legacy. In turn, we look back to Solomon and our other spiritual ancestors to help us discern the best way forward in faith. This heritage is what allows us to be a church “reformed and always reforming” – our history is what grounds us in something beyond ourselves.
But what will OUR spiritual descendants think when they look back in time at us? What will the Church of the future learn from the Church of today? Will they remember us as faithful reformers, devoted to God’s original purpose for the world? Or in their minds, will we be in the company of the Golden Calf worshipers, the false prophets, and the evil kings who strayed from God’s plan for their own self-serving reasons? Which side of history will we wind up on? We don’t get to decide what stories they’ll tell about us – but we DO get to decide what stories are there to tell.
Today, on Reformation Sunday, let’s commit the modern Church to our own reformation. Let’s remember Genesis 12 and work to get ourselves back to a truly faithful attitude towards outsiders. Let’s welcome them, pray for them, and be a blessing to them, without any conditions or expectations. Not just because it’s the compassionate and righteous thing to do, but because it’s a vital step towards the world that God envisions – one where God’s goodness, mercy, and love reign over ALL people.
Let’s practice empathetic evangelism so that all the people of the earth may know our God – the one who listens and hears all prayers, from wherever and whomever they come. May they experience this God not through a lens that we provide, but through their own eyes. That way, the truth of God’s goodness will be utterly undeniable. May the Good News always and everywhere be heard and received as truly good because of us – just as God has intended all along. Amen.
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[1] “Although nations may serve God’s purposes in history, the church which identifies the sovereignty of any one nation or any one way of life with the cause of God denies the Lordship of Christ and betrays its calling.” - "Confession of 1967", The Book of Confessions.
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