October 14, 2018 “Kindness” – II Samuel 9

II Samuel 9, Kingdoms p. 148
“Kindness”
October 14, 2018 – Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

I’ve always been the guy with the weird name. My first name was well-intended by my father Jonathan. He took ba‘al, an old word for “lord” in Hebrew and many other languages around us and combined it with a word for “hero.” So at birth I was Meribbaal, “hero of the Lord.” My uncle on my father’s side had a similar name, Eshbaal or Ishbaal, “man of the Lord.”

The problem was that Ba‘al was the name Canaanites often chose for their idols. When people around us talked about worshipping that “lord,” that ba‘al, they did not mean the true Lord of Israel. They meant a false and evil god. So later in Israel “ba‘al” became a name to be avoided, a word for “he who must not be named.”

That’s why when you read my story now I’m called Mephibosheth. My uncle is called Ishbosheth. They replaced the ba‘al in our names with bosheth, which means “shame.” Great, huh? That first part of the name means something like “scatter,” which makes me a scatterer or destroyer of shame, which is O.K., but, you know, still kind of weird.

As weird as it was, my name was not the worst of my troubles. No, my real trial in life was my handicap. I can barely walk because both my feet were broken and remain deformed. It happened when I was only a boy, five years old, just as my father’s and grandfather’s lives came to an end. Those days were the worst of my life.

Grandpa Saul and David had been skirmishing for years. David had been in Saul’s service and seemed like a young soldier on the rise. Then Grandpa got jealous of David’s success and his popularity with the people. More than once he tried to run David through with a spear, but David responded with incredible kindness and respect for Saul. There were two occasions when he could easily have killed my grandfather but chose not to. When I grew up I would learn about David’s kingly kindness first hand.

So it was not at the hand of David that father and grandfather died. It was those cursed Philistines who did them in. My family beat the Sea-People back for years, but that year when I was five they proved too strong. Philistines chased our forces across the valley of Jezreel up the ridge of Mt. Gilboa and slaughtered them there. I never learned exactly how my father Jonathan died, although I’m sure it was bravely. But the story is that my grandfather Saul took his own life rather than die by a Philistine hand.

The healthy little boy I was then played soldier myself that day in our courtyard in Gibeah. I swung my tiny wooden sword in every direction and shouted threats at imaginary Philistine foes. Everything changed when a breathless, exhausted, sweating messenger came to our gate and shouted for attention. “They are fallen, they are fallen,” he cried. Women rushed out of the house and my nurse snatched me up. I know now that she meant to carry me away to safety, but that day I fell too.

Deborah only meant to save me from the Philistine army that would soon be invading our now defenseless homes, but I had grown too big for her to carry far. As she ran with me down the road she stumbled. She dropped me and my life was forever changed. I was graceful then, like a cat, so I landed on my feet, but too hard. I felt the bones bend and snap beneath me as I collapsed in pain. Deborah and the other women stopped and picked me up more carefully then, but it was too late.

My broken feet and ankles healed crookedly. I never moved gracefully or even stood straight again. That toy sword was the only one I’ve ever swung. I get around slowly and painfully on a crutch, but to those close by and in my own eyes I am only half a man.

Of course, compared to those with similar limitations among my people, I have been fortunate. As I limp along, I see crippled and blind and deaf men and women begging by the roadsides. They have nothing and depend on a moment’s kindness from a stranger for food each day. Their plight has been worsened by the false story that the new king David dislikes people like us, that he would chase the blind and the lame from every house in Israel. As I would discover, it’s not true.

My father and grandfather were gone, but I still had a mother. I still had land and a home. I was broken and weak but I had food to eat and I grew up. I discovered that I had other worries besides my handicap. King David might not have hated me because I was lame, but he had every reason to wish me ill because of my parentage. As he consolidated his power over Israel, those still loyal to my grandfather’s family gathered around my uncle Ishbosheth and rebelled. I soon learned that as one of the last remaining heirs of Grandpa Saul, even my poor bent, limping self was a political threat to the new king.

Perhaps my uncle deserved the change in his name. “Man of shame” was a fitting description for Uncle Ishbosheth. Despite the Lord’s favor toward David, which my own father Jonathan had recognized and accepted, my uncle let Abner persuade him to style himself as “king of Israel,” king of all the tribes except David’s own Judah. But Ishbosheth was just a front for Abner’s own ambition. It was Abner who led the armies and was the strength behind my uncle’s throne. Abner even thought he could get away with taking one of grandfather Saul’s women as though he himself were of royal blood.

It all unraveled when Uncle Ishbosheth challenged Abner’s presumption. Abner sensed which way the wind was blowing and left to join the other side, to make peace with David. But Abner had killed the hot-headed brother of David’s army commander Joab, who swore revenge. On his own initiative, Joab treacherously deceived Abner and murdered him. My uncle then lost all heart, all courage, all honor. And he in turn was betrayed and stabbed to death in his own bed, a shameful death for sure.

Do you see how I grew up? I was the helpless, broken, last child of a disgraced family. It was cruelly fitting that my name come to be associated with shame. Yet even with all that, the sensible thing for the man who then ruled Israel would have been to have me killed. It was just possible that all those in the north still loyal to Saul might have rallied behind his remaining heir, continued their resistance to David’s kingship.

I confess. I often daydreamed about that slim possibility, the chance that one day a stout band of men would arrive to bow at my crippled feet and call me their king. They would have to cross the Jordan to my friend Makir’s house where I hid in Lo-debar of Gilead. Lo-debar, hah! There’s another strange but apt name. It means “no pasture,” a worthless place of rocks and dirt, a ghetto in Gilead. Oh, how I longed to escape from that dreary place and have a real home in this world.

Yet I hunkered down there in Lo-debar, with my wife and my own little boy Mica. No shame name for my son. Mica was our pet name for little Michaiah, which means “Who is like the Lord?” My child’s name spoke not of an idol’s name, but the unique and holy name of the one true God. For all that had befallen me, I still worshipped the Lord and wanted my son to do so too. So our small family took humble shelter far from the center of war and politics and prayed to God for better times.

To my surprise a band of hearty men did finally show up there in the dusty streets of Lo-debar. But it was not the fulfillment of my dreams. They had not come to make me king. They had come to bring me to the king, the only one left in Israel. They did not kneel before me, but they did respectfully bid me to return with them to Jerusalem, to present myself to King David. What could I do but go with them?

I kissed my wife and baby Mica. The men heard enough about me to know I could not walk to Jerusalem. They had a donkey for me to ride. They put me on it and walked along on either side as we headed west. I was sure I was a prisoner headed for execution, but no one struck me, and those rough soldiers treated me with unexpected gentleness.

The sight of Jerusalem was amazing. After the mean and lifeless environs of Lo-debar, all I could do was gape as I rode up the lush hillside to what had become the capital of our nation. As we passed within the great stone walls I wondered how David had managed to get through them and defeat the Jebusites who lived there before him. I later learned the the battle of Jerusalem was how the rumor began that David hated blind and lame folks like me.

When we came upon David’s grand new palace in the center of the city, I gasped. It rose tall and still red with fresh cedar logs from Lebanon. My grandfather Saul had never lived in anything so beautiful when he was king. I saw in that building David’s power. Even a foreign king like Hiram in the north wanted David’s favor and so built him this royal house. I grew certain that I was merely a mangy, stray dog the new king was about to kick from beneath his feet.

I got down from the donkey and a couple of men made as if to carry me up the steps. But I still had a spark of pride burning in me. I shook my head and reached out to take my crutch and lurch painfully up those stairs one by one. With the guards around me, I limped on into the great hall and came face to face with the man himself.

At that point my pride and courage failed. Sure I was about to die by the great sword which stood beside the king’s chair, I dropped my crutch, fell to my knees and bowed my head, waiting for sound of iron whistling through the air. Instead, I heard my name, that weird name of which I was so ashamed spoken with surprising tenderness, “Mephibosheth.” That’s all he said.

With my face to the polished floor, it was all I could do to choke out the only words that seemed right, “I am your servant.” In those moments I lost all my dreams of continuing a royal line, of commanding soldiers or servants of my own, of even living for more than a few seconds longer. David’s next words caught me wholly off guard, “Don’t be afraid.”

“Don’t be afraid.” My incredulous ears heard the words which the Lord God Himself had said to our people over and over, first to father Abraham and then to Moses and all our people in the wilderness and then to Joshua as he led us into this land. “Don’t be afraid” was a divine word, a holy word, a word of peace and of salvation, and I heard it now spoken to me.

I grasped for my crutch and pushed myself to my feet. I listened as David quietly explained how he meant, not to kill me, but to show kindness to me. I could not believe it as he explained a long-ago promise to my father Jonathan and that he was going to give back to me all the property my grandfather Saul once owned. And I, myself, would sit like one of David’s sons to eat at the royal table in this very palace. It was not my dreams come true. It was beyond my dreams. I did not need to fight for the heritage that was my family’s. It was being handed to me in loving kindness.

No, I could not believe it. I bowed again, not falling on the floor this time, but with deep respect. “Who is your servant,” I asked him, “that you should show such kindness to a dead dog like me?” What else could I say? I still thought it was some sort of royal joke, a little fun with the crippled man, before I really became a dead dog.

Yet it was all real. David called in our old family servant Ziba. I hadn’t seen him since that fateful day my nurse tried to carry me from our home in Gibeah. Now that huge estate just three miles north of Jerusalem would be ours, would be mine, again. Ziba and his large family would farm it and feed and care for my family, while I would come each day to take my place and eat with the king’s family. It was wonderful. It was incredible. It was kindness beyond anything I ever imagined.

Oh, I’ve experienced what some people think is “kindness” all my life. People around me, even my wife, look at me and their eyes soften. They may try to take my arm and steady me as I walk or help me up stairs like those guards. But that sort of kindness is always mixed with a sad pity, a look that tells me how much they feel sorry for me.

But the kindness, the hesed in our own tongue, I experienced there before king David was something else. Perhaps David pitied me, but that’s not what I saw in his face. No, I think in his kindness to me I felt and saw not pity but love. My father Jonathan was gone, but I now received all David’s love for him. Despite being in families on opposite sides of a war for control of our nation, they had been like brothers. Now in loving kindness I too was brought into the king’s family.

I realize now the kindness David showed me was not the answer to my dreams, but to my prayers. I had prayed to the Lord God of Israel, to the Lord who led my grandfather to victory over our enemies but then chose David to be king in his place. My son’s name asks “Who is like the Lord?” and I know for certain now that no one is. No other God is so powerful, so glorious, or so kind.

I don’t really understand what I am about to say, but I believe that there in the face of David that day, as he smiled and told me not to be afraid, I glimpsed the face of One who would someday say those words to all people. He the Lord Himself would stand on this earth and announce the end of fear and the day of His loving kindness for everyone. I’ve no idea how it can be, but somehow it’s all tied up with David’s family.

Not all went well in my relationship with David after that. He would have his own losses. One of his sons would lead a rebellion that drove him from that beautiful palace. And to steal our land for himself, our crafty old servant Ziba would convince David that I had betrayed him. Yet in the end all would be well. The truth would be revealed and the king’s kindness would return to me once again. That’s another story.

This story now is to make clear for you how the kindness of the king showed me the perfect kindness of the King of heaven and earth. For you or anyone who finds yourself in some far off Lo-debar of your own, living in pain and fear, there is a kindness beyond all measure. He wants you to hear Him say, “Do not be afraid.” He wants to restore your life and pour out healing and blessing and, yes, love upon you.

Look for that royal and divine kindness. I hope that perhaps you’ve heard more about it now than I, that you have some new word about a kind One, one like David, maybe even one from David’s own family, who offers you the kindness of the Lord God Himself. And as you accept His kindness for yourself, I pray that you will somehow, sometimes go to the Lo-debars of your world. Bring home the lame and the poor and the abused and the hopeless. Teach them not to be afraid by showing them a kindness beyond human expectation. Like David, show them the loving kindness of the Lord God of Israel, the Lord of all the world.

Shalom.