Humility, not Hubris

Then David slept with his ancestors, and was buried in the city of David. The time that David reigned over Israel was forty years; he reigned for seven years in Hebron, and thirty-three years in Jerusalem. So Solomon sat on the throne of his father David; and his kingdom was firmly established. … Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David; only, he sacrificed and offered incense at the high places. The 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. At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask what I should give you.” 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 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. 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. 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. 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?” It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. God 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, I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor all your life; no other king shall compare with you. If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life.”

1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14 (NRSV)

In our world, political power too easily gives way to nativism, despotism, warmongering, and fascism that land the world’s violence disproportionately on black, brown, poor, and marginalized others. Compassion, and even the capacity to see all humans as worthy of opportunity to flourish do not emerge as core values within political climates that prioritize winning elections at all costs. Leaders who present as fighters – strong and tough – exude a confidence that many see as essential to good leadership. From President Trump’s raised fist, following an assassination attempt, to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent fiery speech to the US Congress, much of the contemporary imagination around good leadership remains beholden to a conflation of successful domination with good governance. Just because leaders appear tough and strong, formidable and forceful, does not mean they have the qualities needed to govern well. Hubris should not trump humility.   

The Hebrew biblical canon gives us an expansive treatise on leadership across the Torah, Prophets, and Writings. No leader (besides Moses) looms as large in that biblical memory as David. From the 70+ psalms assigned to his pen to a continuous narrative of his life from 1 Samuel to 1 Kings (and parallel narration in Chronicles), David’s rise to power and reign as Israel’s second King narrates core convictions and concerns of ancient Israelite identity. As an archetype, his courage, strength, and military might figure prominently in present estimations of leadership. We use David’s words to proclaim our victory over all sorts of things. We make war with the devil, demons, personal problems, and the people who cause them.  We deputize David’s witness, vacate it of humility to support our insatiable need to be right in our own eyes. What we miss in David’s humility, Solomon, upon David’s death, acknowledges and reconfigures as a new mode for leading God’s people. Solomon recognizes something other than military acumen as necessary for leading God’s people into their next phase of existence.   

Like his father, Solomon’s anointing comes at a young age. Unlike his father, he ascends the throne through dynastic lineage (1 Kings 3:6, 2 Samuel 7:12–13), not God’s displeasure with his predecessor. Solomon does not have to prove or build a name for himself as a warrior or skilled military strategist. Instead, his reign from the beginning contends with matters of worship and God’s dwelling, matters core to Israelite identity. More than the Israelites are warriors, they are those God sanctified for God’s own purpose in the world. The core convictions given to them by God through Moses were to remember God and to keep God’s commandments. To imagine leadership anew does not require scrubbing the violence from history, but recognizing it is not the only way to inhabit the world as God’s people. Solomon’s rise gives us space to imagine leadership emerging not from one’s prowess at defeating giants, but instead, from building alliances. In the verses omitted from the lectionary’s pericope, Solomon’s first act is forming a treatise with Egypt through marriage. He builds a bridge with the very nation that held his ancestors captive. After this, God speaks to Solomon at a high place, Gibeon (Hill City), and invites Solomon to request from the Lord anything he desires. 

When Solomon acknowledges his youth, he is confessing his ignorance in leading. This expression of humility foregrounds the strength that is characteristic of youthfulness with the wisdom needed to govern.  Solomon is able to acknowledge, to himself and God at least, that his experiences however royal and privileged have not provided him with a range of knowledge and understanding needed to govern well. So in verse 9, when Solomon gives his two-fold request – to govern and discern – he is imagining leadership anew. Even God acknowledges in Solomon the absence of unbridled self-interest (desirous of personal riches) and vengefulness (destruction of his enemies), but instead a prioritization of an ethic that matters to God: understanding and discerning good from evil and acting accordingly. 

And sure, in our present time it might seem rather simplistic to associate discernment between good and evil with revolutionary leadership, but I suppose that is because we take for granted that knowing the difference between good and evil is coterminous with choosing good. Additionally, the relativity with which evil can be spoken of as good is as permanent as the latest fashion trend. What is revolutionary about Solomon’s desire to discern good from evil is the humility that presumes that neither he, as leader, nor the people are sovereign. Simply put, as a leader, Solomon desires divine assistance to discern what God deems best for God’s people.   

Solomon’s request tacitly recognizes that leading without understanding good and evil on God’s terms is detrimental to the welfare of God’s people. It is worth noting that discerning the difference between good and evil is not synonymous with attempts to annihilate evil. Instead, it is about distinguishing what reflects God’s ultimate interest in the world from that which undermines it. Understanding and discerning those things mattered more for Solomon than defeating his enemies or amassing personal power.  

Solomon’s prayer welcomes learning as a posture for leading. Desiring understanding means maintaining an openness to the winding road experience where ignorance is neither a virtue nor a foe, but an opportunity to learn and understand. Solomon’s orientation to leadership is not a recapitulation of domination, us vs. them logic, defeat the enemy at all costs orientation, or even a separatist nationalism (exampled in his treatise with Egypt). His desire to lead with a sensitivity to God’s interest in human community is a recognition that he does not start the job with all the answers and solutions. 

In our political context, especially those with democratic ideals, we expect our leaders to tell us all the solutions we want to hear to assuage our anxieties and fears. We demand that they tell us it will all be okay, that it is not as bad as it seems, and that we have a reason to hope, even if that hope is nothing more than an empty promise. Our leaders are poised to win elections, take up arms to overthrow undesirable regimes, and win by any means necessary. 

The theologian Walter Wink made it his life’s work to explore the power of statecraft and systems of domination, inviting us to find God’s call to a radical nonviolence that turns the promising narrative of these violent regimes upon itself. For Wink, the myth of redemptive violence coopts Christian rites and rituals. It subordinates them to the interest of governing elites whose narrow interests have no compassion for people experiencing poverty nor justice for the disenfranchised (see Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination). Solomon’s privileging of understanding and discernment as foundational for leadership opens the imagination to something other than domination or even winning. After all, doing what is right does not always look like winning. 

As leaders of every stripe succumb to populist pressures, the virtue of learning loses to the expediency of soundbite solutions and narrowed interests. An Achilles heel of democracy lies in its surrender of anointing leadership to “the people,” which history teaches us comes with a host of told and untold exceptions. I am not suggesting that theocracies have fared better, but it would be woefully disingenuous of us to think that democracy has moved us beyond a world of domination. Solomon’s interest and his petition invite us to consider a leader’s capacity to understand, learn, and discern as vital for the care and welfare of a whole people. Solomon’s wisdom is to realize that the people he will lead are God’s. And for those of us who believe the entire created order as God’s handiwork, then to lead in any place among any people is to lead a people who are God’s. A desire to govern well and to discern good from evil is in service to all creation. May the wisdom born in Solomon’s youthful prayer be the wisdom that guides us in these perilous times – to understand and discern on God’s terms, a God who is Love, even the God from whom dust finds its inspiration.