Daily Retreat 02/09/06

2006 Feb 9 Thu: Ordinary Weekday

1 Kgs 11: 4-13/ Ps 105(106): 3-4. 35-36. 37 and 40/ Mk 7: 24-30

From today’s readings: "When Solomon was old his wives had turned his heart to strange gods, and his heart was not entirely with the LORD, his God, as the heart of his father David had been.... Remember us, O Lord, as You favor Your people.... Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps...."

Solomon’s Spiritual Disaster

Of all the tragic persons recorded in scripture, certainly King Solomon is among the most tragic. Having been blessed so abundantly by God, and having begun his reign with such fidelity and zeal for serving God, Solomon, corrupted by his many wives, turned to idolatry in his later years as his proverbially wisdom fizzled out.

Why?? How?? What went wrong? As in Saul’s case, God’s grace was certainly never lacking - in fact, God had super-abundantly fortified Solomon with great wisdom and other strengths to enable him to faithfully fulfill his royal vocation. Unlike his father David, Solomon wasn’t pricked with envy - his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines were presumably enough to smother any jealousy on Solomon’s part.

Yet scripture stipulates emphatically that it was his foreign wives who turned Solomon to idolatry. So even before worshiping their gods, Solomon must have idolatrously worshiped his wives by putting his relationship and good-standing with them ahead of his relationship and good-standing with God.

Momentarily setting aside the separate issue of Solomon’s unbridled polygamy (as if that were even possible!), we can glean a crucial insight about marital priorities from Solomon’s disastrous example(s). In marriage, the spouses certainly must hold each other as the most important person in each other’s life, yet a spouse, even a wise and holy one, cannot ever usurp the place of God. Much marital malignancy is caused when a husband arrogantly insists that his wife treat him as a god (or vice versa), but just as much damage is done when a husband (or wife) idolatrously puts the spouse before God.