Get out a Kleenex before you start reading this week’s text. What a beautiful story! What an amazing account of a parent’s love! Jesus called God “Abba” (sometimes translated “Daddy”) (Mark 14:36) because He saw there a love that suffers in order to do what is good for a child. It was just the kind of love that our Lord Himself showed when He accepted the cross because it was good for us (Hebrews 12:2).
Did you catch the passing reference at the beginning of the story? The two women were prostitutes (v. 16). We might not be surprised that one of the women was willing to slice the baby into two pieces. After all, aren’t prostitutes people of low morals and sinful behavior? But, how do we deal with the fact that the brave heroine of the story is also a prostitute? Do you suppose God can use persons who are less than perfect? Do you suppose we are defined more by our bottom line values than by our mistakes? Do you suppose that God has grace hidden in the most unlikely places?
Just before this incident, King Solomon had a dream (v. 15) in which God commended him for wanting wisdom more than he wanted wealth (v. 11) The fact that this account comes immediately after that dream suggests that God gave Solomon the wisdom he desired. What have I asked God to give me? Position? Power? Privilege? Prestige? What if I asked God to give me a place to serve, a people to love, and new beginnings possible?
This is strange: a mother willing to give away a son she loves. She does it in order to save his life. She is willing to bear great hurt; she is willing to have great loneliness; she is willing to let go of her own future...and all of it because she loved the son. What is best for him? It is not ideal that he be given to the scheming other woman, but at least he would be given a chance to live.
One more thing. This woman who likes the cruel suggestion that the baby be cut in half with each woman getting half is a mother whose son has just died and he had died because she rolled over on him during the night. Can you imagine the anguish in her heart? Can you understand the self-torment that motivated her? Her dreadful request that the baby be divided comes out of her emptiness and pain. There is room here for sympathy for her crazed hope for half a child. When I see anger in another person do I know what else is going on in their life? Hang onto that tissue.
What Someone Else Has Said: In The Second Mountain (Random House, David Brooks quotes C. S. Lewis: “To love at all is to be vulnerable.”
Prayer: As you prepare this lesson, let your prayer begin: “God, You have loved me...”
