SERMON FOR EVENING PRAYER - TRINITY 8, SUNDAY 2 AUGUST
First Reading: 1 Kings 10.1-13
Second Reading: Acts 13.1-13
In May 1991 a jumbo jet touched down at Addis Ababa airport. This in itself was not so unusual.
What was unusual was that it had no seats and was not a freight plane.
Even more unorthodox, 1,088 people boarded the flight –which remains a world record for passengers on a single flight – and during the journey after take-off, two babies were born.
This flight was part of Operation Solomon.
The plane’s destination was Israel.
And over two days, planned by Israeli Defence Forces, over 13,000 Ethiopian Jews, the remnants of the Ethiopian Jewish community were transported from civil war torn Ethiopia to Israel.
Another sad example of a religious minority fearing for their lives – and in this case a happier outcome, finding safe refuge.
What is the story behind the Jewish community in Ethiopia?
All of which brings us back to the visit by the Queen of Sheba to meet King Solomon.
For many of us, King Solomon we associate with the proverb in Matthew (6:29), when Jesus commands us not to worry for the morrow “Consider the lilies of the field ….Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these”
Solomon was the son of David who ruled the united kingdom of Judah and Israel, it is thought around 970 to 930 BC and he built the First Temple.
The Queen of Sheba for many of us, has legendary status owing to Handel’s oratorio Solomon. This work was seen at the time as a eulogy to the wise royal incumbent George II, an era of peace, happiness and prosperity.
But what do we really know about the Queen of Sheba? The historian Josephus refers to her as the “Queen of Egypt and Ethiopia.”
It is entirely natural for diplomatic forces to pull together powerful monarchs. We can think of the example of the Field of the Cloth of Gold when in 1520 (a quincentenary that passed unnoticed this May) King Henry VIII and the French king Francois I, met with their courts just outside Calais.
So too, in much the same way fifteen hundred years before, the Queen and King should meet, not outside Calais, but in Jerusalem to cement relations.
You may have noticed that our reading concludes with the words the King gave to the Queen of Sheba every desire that she expressed, as well as what he gave her out of the royal bounty. Then she returned to her own land, with her servants.
What were these every desires?
In Ethiopia, tradition has it that she was called Makeda who lived in Axum, that she and Solomon had a son, Menelik, the ancestor of Ethiopian monarchs. Menelik was brought up a Jew by his mother and later would return to Jerusalem in adulthood. Solomon asked him to stay and become his successor, but Menelik declined his father’s offer saying he wanted to return to Ethiopia and his home city of Axum. Solomon sent many Israelites with him to help him rule according to Biblical standards, and as an aid to this sent with him the Ark of Covenant – where it is believed by the Ethiopians they remain to this day, housed in the Church of Our Lady of Zion.
That is the belief of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
Some other scholars suggest Sheba, or Sabea is modern day Yemen.
If you are lucky enough to visit Ethiopian churches and see their magnificent and ancient wall paintings, you will note the equal stress on Old Testament writings to the New.
What lessons can we take from the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon?
Can I conclude by suggesting two?
First: that we pay more attention to Old Testament writings as a gift and support to our faith.
Jesus, imbued with Old Testament writings, himself refers to the Queen of the South coming from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon and then adds “See, something greater than Solomon is here.”
Second:
We should note that the attitude of Queen foretells of others who are receptive to God’s message and take it back to their own country.
We think of the wise men presenting Sabean gifts in Bethlehem.
Of the Ethiopian official from the court official of Queen Candace who meets Philip (in Acts 8), who had come to Jerusalem to worship, is reading Isaiah and in conversation with Philip agrees to be baptised “and went on his way rejoicing.”
Let us, tonight when this service ends, find that we too go on our way rejoicing.
Father Peter Wolton
2 August 2020