When Wisdom goes Wobbly

 Watch this sermon being delivered here:  https://youtu.be/2SErwNJz9E0 

Readings:  1 Kings 11.4-13 (Solomon worships foreign gods) and Mark 7.24-30 (Jesus calls a Gentile woman a 'dog'!)

Sermon

Today, we are offered two readings that sit together rather awkwardly.  They are a bit like distant relatives at a wedding placed on the same table, who discover that the only thing they have in common is a surname and a mild sense of irritation.

On the one hand, we have Solomon in his later years.  Wise, wealthy, experienced, and, it seems increasingly muddled.  He marries widely, worships promiscuously, and gradually allows the religious life of Israel to become a sort of spiritual pick-and-mix.  The writer of Kings is having none of it.  This is not celebrated as openness or curiosity; it is portrayed as drift.  The slow erosion of covenant faithfulness.  Solomon’s heart, we are told, is no longer wholly given to the Lord.  Solomon was known for his wisdom.  But wisdom, it turns out, does not make one immune to foolishness.

On the other hand, we have Jesus in Mark’s Gospel doing something that makes preachers instinctively clear their throats.  He goes away to rest.  He tries to hide.  He is tired.  And when a desperate woman interrupts him anyway, he says something that sounds, frankly, dreadful.  Children first.  Dogs later.  One imagines the disciples suddenly finding the floor tiles fascinating.

At first glance, the only obvious link between these two readings is the question of foreign influence, which is always a hot potato in British culture, so I’ll tread carefully!  It is enough, I think, to notice something very simple: cultures have always shaped one another.  There has never been a moment in history when a society remained pure, sealed, and untouched by elsewhere. 

Even our plates give the game away.  We argue about national identity while eating pizza, curry, pasta, noodles, and drinking coffee that has travelled further than most of us ever will.  Our writing systems, our numbers, much of our music and architecture all arrive from somewhere else.  If Britain were a person, it would be the sort who insists it is entirely self-made while quietly borrowing everyone else’s ideas.

Cultural exchange, then, is not the problem.  It is simply what happens when humans live next to other humans.  The question is not whether it happens, but what it does to us.

Solomon shows us one possibility.  He encounters difference and slowly loses his centre.  Not through rebellion or drama, but through complacency.  Nobody wakes up one morning and announces that they are abandoning their deepest values.  It happens by inches, while we are busy being clever.  Solomon collects alliances, practices, and gods like souvenirs, and eventually forgets which one actually matters. 

This doesn’t have to be the result of rubbing shoulders with other cultures, though.  We have much to learn from all other perspectives, even if all they do is hold up a mirror to the things we take for granted.

Jesus shows us how this works, in practice.  He also encounters difference and is changed by it, but changed for the better.  This is not a moment of serene teaching.  It is a moment of exhaustion.  He is not at his best.  His response to the woman is curt, defensive, and shaped by the assumptions of his day.  And then she answers back.  Calmly.  Witty.  Persistent.  She refuses to go away, and she refuses to be humiliated.

And Jesus listens.  He does not explain what he really meant.  He does not accuse her of mishearing his tone.  He allows himself to be corrected.  The tired resistance collapses into compassion, and the healing happens.

That single movement should give us all hope.  Jesus changes his mind.  Not because he has lost his sense of purpose, but because his purpose is love, and love listens.  This is not Jesus failing to be divine; it is Jesus fully inhabiting humanity.  Tired enough to snap.  Human enough to put his foot in his mouth.  Gracious enough to recognise it.

Solomon shows us how encounter without humility can hollow a person out.  We can lose our centre of compassionate engagement, and become fighters for particular ideas.  Jesus shows us how humility allows encounter to deepen compassion.  The danger is not difference.  The danger is defensiveness.

Which is, perhaps, quietly encouraging for the rest of us.  Especially those of us who occasionally say the wrong thing, usually when we are tired.  This story reassures us that growth is not betrayal.  Changing your mind is not failure.  Being corrected is not humiliation.  Sometimes it is grace.

So perhaps these readings invite us, this week, not into argument but into attentiveness.  Watching what shapes us.  Noticing when weariness makes us brittle.  Listening for voices that might enlarge us rather than diminish us.

Because if the kingdom of God can advance through a weary conversation in a foreign kitchen, and if even Jesus is willing to reshape his thinking in response to common sense and cultural revelation, then there is hope for all of us yet.  Amen.