Who Are You Listening To?
1 Kings 12:1–17
Third Sunday after Pentecost · June 14, 2026
Last week we stood with Solomon as he stretched his arms toward heaven and dedicated the newly built Temple, the high point of his reign. This week, we discover just how quickly the glory cracked. A kingdom fractures, a king refuses to listen, and we are left with a question that lands as squarely on us as it did on Rehoboam: when we say we have a “listening heart,” whose voices are we actually choosing to hear?
When Glory Turned to Gold
Solomon tasted glory, and like almost everyone who tastes that kind of power, he wanted more. He began covering everything in gold, building an empire of opulence that the rest of the world was expected to admire. Somewhere along the way, the lev shomeya—the “listening heart” God had granted him back in chapter three—started tuning in to a different voice. Solomon began listening to the god of gold rather than the God of neighborliness.
Here’s the irony: much of what Solomon did was likely done with good intentions, all in the name of national strength and prosperity. But he forgot the Torah’s mandate of neighborliness. To put it in modern terms, a booming stock market doesn’t necessarily mean the hungry are being fed, the naked clothed, or the homeless housed. His building projects ran on forced labor and were funded by crushing taxes that fell hardest on the poor.
“It is odd and noteworthy that the steps taken toward security produce more anxiety. The provisions for happiness produce more tension.”
— Walter Brueggemann, on Solomon’s folly
By the time Solomon died, the people had had enough. The kingdom he tried to make “great” had only widened the gap between the haves and the have-nots, and those chickens were about to come home to roost.
A King and His Two Councils
The crown passed to Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, and trouble stirred almost immediately. The northern tribes came to him with a simple, weary request: lighten the yoke. Ease the forced labor. Cut the taxes. “Do that,” they said, “and we will serve you.”
Rehoboam took the question to two very different groups. First came the old guard—advisors who remembered the days before his father grew drunk on power. Their counsel was wise and humble: be a servant to these people, speak good words to them, and they will be loyal to you forever. Rehoboam mulled it over and remained unconvinced.
Then he turned to the younger men, who had known nothing but the glitter of Solomon’s reign. They told him exactly what he wanted to hear: don’t back down, double down. They even handed him a taunt for the northern tribes--“My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins”—an insult I’ll let you decode for yourself. Their entitlement was music to Rehoboam’s ears. He chose the flattery, the people revolted, and the kingdom split in two.
The Difference a Rival Makes
Rehoboam, I’d argue, did inherit his father’s “listening heart.” But he learned the hard way what many of us are learning today: a listening heart is no moral compass at all unless we make the intentional choice to listen to voices that challenge us, stretch us, and offer a perspective we don’t already hold.
Years ago I read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, which chronicles how Abraham Lincoln deliberately filled his cabinet with former political rivals—people who disagreed with him sharply. In the middle of a nation tearing itself apart over slavery, Lincoln did the exact opposite of Rehoboam. Where Rehoboam gathered “yes men,” Lincoln gathered people who would tell him no. Was it messy? Absolutely. Did it work every time? Of course not. But Lincoln understood what Rehoboam discovered too late: a leader who listens only to what he wants to hear is no leader at all.
Naming the Voices We Heed
Few of us will ever be president or king. But every one of us is a leader—in our families, our friendships, our workplaces, our church. We lead simply by representing Christ wherever we go. And we are stronger when we listen to a wide range of voices and, together, discern which ones are leading us in a faithful direction.
Because not all voices are of God. Some voices tell us to turn against one another, to treat our neighbors with suspicion, to give in to selfish individualism. Listening to a voice is not the same as heeding it. So this week, I invite your lev shomeya to get honest:
Who am I listening to? Who am I not listening to? What voices have been pushed to the side?
In a few short weeks our nation will mark its 250th anniversary—for many of us, a time of real celebration. Hear me clearly: we don’t have to choose between being Christian and being patriotic. But part of being patriotic Christians is having honest conversations about our nation’s own listening heart. Who has this nation heard, and who has it dismissed, disparaged, and dehumanized over 250 years? All kingdoms rise and fall in time; only God’s faithfulness remains. We can give thanks for what is good and just in our country while still tuning our hearts to those for whom “liberty and justice for all” has not yet come true.
We close, as we did in worship, by tuning our listening hearts and our singing voices to the prayer of the hymn “O God of Every Nation”:
From search of wealth and power and scorn of truth and right,
from trust in bombs that shower destruction through the night,
from pride of race and station and blindness to your way,
deliver every nation, eternal God, we pray.
Questions for Reflection
- When you picture your own “circle of advisors”—the voices you actually take to heart—who is in it, and who is missing?
- Rehoboam preferred flattery to wisdom. Where in your own life is it tempting to listen only to what you want to hear?
- What is the difference between listening to a voice and heeding it? How do you discern which voices are leading you in a faithful direction?
- Solomon pursued security and glory and ended up with more anxiety, not less. Where have you seen that pattern—in the world, or in yourself?
- As our nation approaches its 250th anniversary, whose voices do you think it most needs to hear right now?
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