Age, Divisions, and All the Saints

1 Kings 12:1-17, 25-29

Today we enter an interesting period in our yearly Bible reading, because today we leave King David behind, and with David we conclude what most of us know about the Old Testament. I don’t want to assume—because some of you are very biblically literate—but for many, probably most here, our knowledge of the Old Testament goes something like: Adam and Eve into Noah’s ark into something about Joseph and a technicolor dreamcoat into Moses and the Exodus with Pharaoh, then some business about wandering in the desert, then the Promised Land, fast forward to David, a little bit about Solomon and his wisdom, then a good deal of blank space that we fill with prophets and look forward to Jesus.

            How many people actually know the name of Solomon’s son who takes over for him as king?

            It’s Rehoboam. He’s right there in today’s reading. But, honestly, until I read the scripture this week I didn’t remember that, and I’m guessing if I didn’t know that most of you didn’t either. The biggest thing I knew about Solomon’s predecessors is that it all went to pot and the two tribes—Israel and Judah—would end up decimated; first Israel destroyed by the Assyrians and then Judah in exile to Babylon. So, today is mostly setting the stage for why that happened.

            …And it’s also All Saints Day—a little strange combination.

            There’s at least one thing in this scripture that I want to focus on today that sort of, but not quite, bridges All Saints Day and this story, and that is the advisers who come to Rehoboam—the old men and the young men—and the kind of advice they give.

Not a little more. All.

Matthew 2:1-12

One of the big emotions of this holiday season, and one of the ones we associate most with the season of Christmas, is joy. The wise men had it right there in chapter 2 of Matthew: "When they saw the star had stopped they were overwhelmed with joy." Not just kind of happy but overwhelmed with joy.

Joy isn't necessarily the emotion we associate with wise people, or with kings, or with people who have a lot of education. We tend to think that they're the pensive ones who are just kind of always level. So to have wise people be joyous sticks out. Joy is something we tend to associate much more freely with children. Now, if we think about what it is that wise men we might say that they study, and in those days what they were studying was, among other things, the stars. That happens to be why they noticed this new thing in the first place. It's guys who are looking at the stars who found Jesus, because you can't notice a new star in the sky unless you're looking in the first place. If a new star showed up in the sky tonight I wouldn't have a clue because I wouldn't be looking, and even if I did happen to look up I wouldn't notice that there was anything different about it because I don't know the sky that well in the first place. It's just not something I know intimately. So it was the wise men who studied, who had that background to observe this, who experience this overwhelming joy. It's worth starting there.