Learning to Come and Go
Following the death of King David, the heir to the throne, David’s son Solomon, dreams that he is in a conversation with God. In the dream, God asks the young king what he needs or wants. Solomon replies that, he is so ‘young’ at being a monarch of a large nation, he does not even know how to ‘go out or to come in’; that is, he is unsure of what he needs to do or how to get it done. Often, we, like the young king, do not know what the best course of action is or how to take it. We are invited, as was Solomon, to begin by seeking God and wisdom will be gained.
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Transcript
In last week’s readings, Jesus spoke in very specific terms about his flesh and blood as life-giving. In this week’s gospel, he continues with virtually the same words, making certain that they hear him, likely trying to help them remember earlier cultural themes, mythological tropes of taking in the gods in order to gain their strength, and to join themselves to the gods’ epic journeys.
The gospel is paired this week with the story of King Solomon’s dream, in which he asks for the wisdom of God, another way of coming at this radical idea of consuming the divine and being transformed as a result.
In a dream, the newly crowned king, young Solomon, tells God: ‘I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know how to rule. I am not my father…but I am my father’s son. You helped him. Please help me. Because right now, I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know how to go out or come in.’
It is also a happy coincidence that these readings fall to us after the first full week of school. Initial excitement or trepidation has yielded to sheer overwhelming paralysis: students, teachers, parents, clergy – we all hold our breaths and, like the young king, confess we aren’t sure at this point how to go out or come in to all that is laid out before us.
In 1903 the Russian author Leo Tolstoy published a collection titled “What Men Live By, and Other Tales.” Among the stories was “The Three Questions.” More recently, John Muth published a children’s version with exquisite watercolors also titled “The Three Questions,” which I highly recommend to families.
In Tolstoy’s story, a king desires to know how best to rule his kingdom. No one likes this king. He seeks the wise counsel of many well-respected elders in his kingdom to no avail. They finally suggest that he visit a wise old hermit who lives in isolation in a mountain forest. Concerned that the hermit would not help him because he probably didn’t like him either, the king disguises himself as a beggar, finally arriving at the hermit’s cottage where he finds him struggling to dig up some roots and weeds from his garden.
The beggar king explains that he has come with three questions:
What is the best time?
Who is the most important person?
What is the right thing to do?
The hermit doesn’t answer but continues to dig. The king notices that the elderly man is physically struggling and so the king steps in and takes over the project. At which point, he repeats his questions. The hermit remains silent.
Then, a man stumbles toward them from out of the forest, clearly bleeding from a grave wound.
The king gathers the stranger in his arms, bringing him to the hermitage where he tends his wounds and cares for him.
When the wounded man is able to speak, he is incredulous at the care he has received. He recognizes the king despite his disguise and explains that the king had once sentenced his brother to prison and the man had come to kill the king. But the king’s guards had discovered him trying to enter the palace and attacked him, from which attack the man had escaped into the forest, which is where the king found him.
Now reconciled with this king from whose hand he had received comfort, the man returned home. And the king again asked the hermit his three questions.
“But,” the hermit finally responded, “You have your answers. The best time is now. Pay attention to now. Yesterday’s time is gone forever and you are not promised tomorrow.”
“The most important person is the one you are confronted with. Know who you are in relation to that person. Perhaps you owe them a debt. Or maybe they have brought you encouragement. It could even be that they are a thief come to steal your peace of mind your safety. But – whatever is afoot — in that moment, the person you are with is the most important person because who we are is always affected by who we are with.”
“And the right thing to do is whatever is necessary in that best time with the most important person.”
It’s easy to pick apart the three questions. Unless you happen to be overwhelmed at the moment by life, and feel paralyzed. Or feel as though you are enduring some sort of water ritual and can barely get your nose above the rising tide. Whatever metaphor works for you, I know full well that storm seasons come and whatever lochs we had in place can be quickly breached if the winds are sufficiently strong.
And if that’s where you are — unsure, like King Solomon, whether you are coming or going, these questions can help. Because they remind us that we are being transformed by what we take in, and the wisdom of God is becoming in us.
Perhaps, we can ask these questions this way: Is there a reason I am procrastinating? What fear or anxiety is blinding me to the gift that is my life? Have I remembered my baptismal promise to seek and serve Christ in another person? Have I considered that the best thing to do for the most important person I am with may be to sit still, or to listen instead of talking?
King Solomon, like his father before him, and his sons after him, would lose his way from time to time, forgetting the God who had granted him wisdom, who showed him how to “come and go.”
But, if it is true that the book of Ecclesiastes is the distilled wisdom of Solomon in his later years, then he learned eventually that nothing good comes from ignoring life’s most basic truths.
Behold who you are – and be aware of who and what you are taking in — the body, the mind, and the light of Christ. May we become the wisdom that we receive.
Amen.