Scripture: 1 Kings 10: 1-10, Matthew 12: 38-42
Sermon: A Royal Visit
Preached: October 5 pm intergenerational service
Rev. Mike Abma
1 Kings 10: 1-10
INTRODCUTION
The year was 1967. I had just turned 5. My paternal grandparents from the Netherlands were planning to visit us in Canada for the first time. Even though 1967 was the year Canada was celebrating 100 years as a nation, in my household, all we could think about was the arrival of Pake and Beppe – the Friesian names for grandfather and grandmother. It was as if royalty was visiting. They would be getting the biggest bedroom with the best bed. The freezer was stocked with food. I think that is around the same time we bought our first television.
I remember my grandparents stepping out of the car that had picked them up at the airport. After some brief introductions, they were quickly whisked off to bed to recover from their flight. The next day was the special day – the first full day of their visit. To honor the arrival of my grandparents, my mother bought something at the bakery to enjoy with morning coffee. This was special. We never bought anything at the bakery, ever. It was summer and we were having coffee outside. My mother came out of the house carrying a box. I was too short to see what was in the box. But I was curious – dead curious. I had to see what was in the box. I just had to have a peek. So as my mother was walking, I gently tried to pull the box down, a little. My mother wasn’t prepared for this. The box began to wobble and suddenly it slipped out of her arms.
Curiosity killed the cake.
QUEEN OF SHEBA
Curiosity – that deep desire to know, to find out — is what brought the Queen of Sheba to the court of Solomon. The curiosity must have been deep for her to come all the way to Jerusalem. Most scholars believe that the Queen of Sheba ruled the Sabean territory in what is now modern day Yemen (although there are some who think she may have been from Ethiopia and others who think she came from as far away as Nigeria).
Just last year the British Museum had an exhibition of artifacts from this Sabean empire. The exhibition referred to the Queen of Sheba as the original Spice Girl. That is because Yemen controlled the trade routes through to the Gulf of Aden from where you could go south along the spice rich east coast of Africa or east to India and the Spice islands beyond. The spices brought in gold, lots of it, as the temples and archaeological excavations in Yemen attest.
The Queen of Sheba had heard of a King who ruled a kingdom to the north who was, like her, fabulously wealthy because, like her, he was controlling the trade routes through his territory. But it wasn’t the wealth that most attracted this queen. What most attracted her were the rumors of this king’s wisdom. So, she packed her caravan full of spices, gold, and precious stones, and she packed her suitcase with questions, hard questions, the type you ponder for days. She wanted to know if all she had heard about this king’s wisdom was true.
When she arrives at Solomon’s court, she is duly impressed by the splendor of the palace, the menu for each meal, and the dignity of the court staff. But what really impressed her was Solomon’s wisdom. No question was too hard for him. No mystery too difficult to explain. Verse 5 sums up her reaction in one word – she was overwhelmed. Or, in another translation, “There was no more spirit in her (NASB).” She needed to sit down, put her feet up, and breathe slowly and deeply. It was simply too much to take in on one visit.
Over the years, there has been an abiding fascination with this mysterious Queen of Sheba. Artists throughout the ages have tried to capture her beauty.[1] Composers through the ages have written fanfares appropriate for her arrival at Solomon’s court. [2] She has become for Israel what Cleopatra has become for Rome – a Queen of beauty and brains.
The greatness of the Queen of Sheba, however, does not take away from the greatness of Solomon. If anything, the greatness of the Queen of Sheba enhances the greatness of Solomon. It was a general rule that the lesser would travel to the greater. For the Queen of Sheba to pack up her entourage and travel for weeks to see Solomon meant that Solomon’s wealth and wisdom made the trip seem worth it.
When she actually arrived and saw the palace and talked to the king, she was absolutely convinced that the trip was worth the journey to Jerusalem. Curiosity did not kill the Queen. Rather, curiosity overwhelmed her, inspired her, and all she could do before she headed home was gush with pleasure and gratitude and praise.
QUEEN OF SHEBA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Queen of Sheba’s willingness to make the trip to Solomon’s court and recognize his wisdom earns her a place in the New Testament. She is mentioned in Matthew 12 along with Jonah and the people of Niniveh. Matthew 12 is all about Jesus expressing who he is in the face of many doubters.
Already in verse 6 of chapter 12, Jesus says that one greater than the Temple is here.
In verse 41 Jesus says that one greater than Jonah is here.
And in verse 42 he says one greater than Solomon is here. In each of these “one greater than” statements, Jesus is saying to the people,
“You have had your priests, you have had your prophets, you have had your kings.
But now the Great Priest, the Great Prophet, the Great King is here.”
But so many people didn’t believe what they saw and heard. They wanted more proof, more evidence. They kept asking for miracles — miracles they wouldn’t believe even if they saw them. This is clearly a passage in which Jesus is somewhat exasperated. So he says to the crowds:
What is your problem?
If the Assyrian Ninevites could recognize Jonah as a great prophet,
And if the Queen of Sheba could recognize Solomon as a wise king,
Why can’t you recognize me as the great priest and prophet and king?
ROYAL VISIT
Why couldn’t they recognize Jesus for who he was?
Perhaps one of the reasons was that
unlike the Queen of Sheba who made a huge trip to see the great king,
in the case of Jesus, it is the Great King who makes the huge trip to
see us.
Jesus, the greater, humbles himself to visit us, the lesser.
Jesus travels from heaven’s height and comes down to earth’s lowest
depth to see us, to hear us, to speak to us.
He comes right down to us –
right down to our poverty, right down to our
humility, right down to our pain, right down to our mortality.
He doesn’t impress with a palace, a menu, a staff.
He impresses with his wisdom, his love, his compassion.
Have you ever stopped to think about who it was that actually saw Jesus for who he was?
In the gospels, it is the people who stand on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of
Jesus who see him as a king;
In the gospels it is the rich people climbing trees like children to get a better
look who leave Christ’s presence full of praise.
In the gospels it is the people who unashamedly scream their heads off for
the Savior to stop a minute to heal them who leave his presence
forever changed;
It is the people who pour expensive perfume all over his feet
or who nervously touch the edge of his garment
or who plead for his help …
these are the ones who leave his presence fuller and richer and
healthier than when they came.
It is the people who come to Jesus on tiptoe, in expectation, full of curiosity
with hearts hungry to be fed and minds eager to learn,
that leave him full of wonder, full of gratitude, full of praise.
Curiosity did not kill the Christ.
FAITH & EXPECTATION
I wonder if we still have that Queen-of-Sheba curiosity.
In the last church I served, I remember teaching a group of high schoolers. I loved to tell them stories about various people in church history. A number of my students complained. The stories were dumb. The people were dumb. As we talked, I discovered that many of them thought that anyone who lived over 50 years ago was living in the dark ages. The further back one went, the darker it got. How could we really think of someone as wise if they didn’t know how a toaster worked, or even that the world was round?
What I discovered in that class is that my students not only had a hard time thinking of past figures as smart, but they had a hard time seeing Jesus as wise. Holy, yes. Compassionate, yes. Loving, yes. But not wise. Not smart. As one student bluntly put it, “How smart can you be when you get yourself killed?”
In a letter to a college student who was struggling with her faith, the short story writer Flannery O’Connor answered by writing that the lack of faith is often a lack of appetite, a lack of curiosity. It is often the unwillingness to make the long hard journey required to ask the long hard questions. We often want short easy answers. Instead of packing the caravan and investing all we have for the trip from Sheba to Jerusalem, from the 21st century to the 1st, we much prefer sitting on the couch and seeing what is on television.
Flannery O’Connor’s advice to this girl who is struggling to believe
Is to keep wanting
To keep asking
To keep her mind open
To remain insatiably curious.
For eyes willing to see,
and ears willing to hear,
and a heart willing to believe
and a mind willing to be impressed
we can’t help but be overwhelmed by Jesus, the Word made
Flesh.
Jesus is the smartest person who ever lived.
He is the wisest person who ever lived.
There is no question that is too hard for him to answer.
But there are many answers too hard for us not to question.
The truth is, if we could fully understand the mystery of Jesus,
he wouldn’t be worth understanding.
But we can never fully understand.
We only see dimly as in a mirror.
His depth is too deep;
His brilliance too bright;
But it is for that very reason that there is no vocation,
no job,
no task
no activity
that is not touched upon by the wisdom of Christ.
What we need it is to keep going to the well of living water,
to keep drinking from the fount of wisdom,
to keep opening the book of life.
to be impressed, to be changed, to be overwhelmed.
CONCLUSION
My thoughts go to St. Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval thinker.
He was a great big man with a great big intellect.
He was not afraid to ask the hard questions and give hard answers.
He wrote thousands of pages of brilliant theology.
But near the end of his life, he had what can only be explained as
visions of Christ.
After these visions he stopped reading and he stopped writing.
His friend Reginald asked him, “What was the matter?”
“I can write no more.” Thomas replied.
When Reginald apparently pressed for a fuller explanation,
Thomas merely replied,
“I can write no more. I have seen things which make all my
writings like straw.”
In comparison to the wisdom of Christ, all his writings were like straw.
In comparison to the wisdom of Christ, all Solomon’s writings are like straw.
In comparison to the wisdom of Christ, all that we do and say is like straw.
But in his wisdom, Jesus uses our straw to spin his kingdom of gold.
Amen
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