Mephibosheth

Scripture Lesson: 2 Samuel 9

Dr. Matthew S. Brown

August 6, 2006

In Kristin Gore’s popular book, Sammy’s Hill, Samantha Joyce, the story’s heroine utters a thought that you would never expect anyone to ever confess. A colleague’s voice reminds her of a telemarketer and she reflects:

“I happened to love telemarketers and looked forward to their calls. I found the concept of telemarketer as human being an infinitely fascinating one. Who were they? Did they enjoy their jobs? How much abuse had they endured that day and were they appreciative that I was welcoming them with open arms?

Since they were calling me and doing everything in their trained power to keep me engaged and interested in what they had to offer, I felt there was no reason I shouldn’t ask them lots of questions about themselves. It was always fun to come home and have voicemails from them on my phone, and I would often call them back just to chat.”

Now, I do my best to be kind and courteous to all who would deign me worthy of a phone call, but when it becomes clear that the voice is that of a telemarketer, I’m not thinking engage, I’m thinking disengage as the look of exasperation and desperation covers my face for the benefit of all in the room. You know the look, the “pleading for sympathy” look offered in the hope that others would participate in your misery.

What are the thoughts that cross our minds at times like these? “I don’t have time for this.” “This is such an imposition.” “I don’t need to be bothered with this.” We may manage courtesy and be proud of it, but interest? I think not.

Do you remember the classic Seinfeld scene when Jerry answers a phone call obviously from a telemarketer? Seinfeld says, “Listen, I’m very busy right now and can’t talk but if you’d give me your home phone number I’ll call you back later.” You can sense the stumbling and mumbling on the other end of the line and Jerry says, “O, you can’t give me that number? Wouldn’t want me to call you at home? Well, now you know how I feel. (Click)”

I haven’t used it yet, but I’ve been tempted.

Telemarketers tend to rank high on the list of things/people/experiences for which we have little patience, with which we do not wish to be bothered. Lines at the grocery store, stoplight, Disneyworld, the DMV; the encyclopedia salesman ringing the doorbell; the in-law who’s constantly seeking to impress you with who or what he knows; flight delays; waiting for food in a restaurant. What do we always say when the food is slow in arriving? “Did they have to kill the cow? Slaughter the swine? Choke the chicken?”

But I’ve always wondered, what do vegetarians say? “Did they forget to fertilize the green beans?”

O, we can be a most impatient people, unwilling to bother with, tolerate, or abide that which doesn’t fit your agenda. The wait at one restaurant, you deem as too long, and so you march over to the second choice where the situation is the same. By the time you get to the third restaurant you realize that you now would have been eating at the first restaurant had you stayed.

Patience is a virtue, your momma may have said, but a lesson heard is not the same as a lesson learned, and so articles continue to be written and news features continue to be broadcast about our impatience, lack of tolerance, demand for instant gratification, our fleeting loyalties.

And yet, in spite of our seemingly chronic impatience, here and there, now and then we are witness to incredible instances of steadfast, enduring care. Day after day the husband quietly holds vigil in the hospital room of the woman who has shared his name for over sixty of her eighty years.

Before it received the gentrified name of Ballantyne Commons Parkway, it was Providence Road West and eighteen years ago alongside the narrow two-lane road one could still find pockets of evidence revealing its rural and agrarian past. The McKinney house was a beautifully preserved and picturesque white frame farmhouse set amidst towering leafy oaks. Three sisters continued to live in and hold together the old homestead. In the shadows of the grand house was a small trailer that held the smells of your great-great aunt’s house, a combination of mothballs, cedar chests, dry toast, and Jergen’s lotion.

Here and there you would find evidence of a former life in a former home, but life there seemed limited to one small bedroom where day after day, and often night after night, for three years Clara sat at the bedside of the husband whose memories had narrowed to unrelated fragments of events from thirty to forty years before. The doctor’s said that death could be immanent. It could be a day, a week, a year. A year became two, two became three. Clara, herself, suffered mightily from the pain and constant irritation of shingles, but she forced any thoughts of discomfort out of her mind as she sat and held the hand and rubbed the forehead of the one to whom she promised her presence for better or worse, in sickness or in health.

In Hickory is a clergy couple who met in seminary and shared a common calling to international mission work. Their hearts were particularly drawn to Southeastern Asia and once they were married they were so energized about the prospect of spending their life and ministry together in Taiwan. Learning the language, ministering among the people, they were overjoyed when presented the opportunity to adopt a child of Taiwan needing a home and parents.

Their life’s plan and calling seemed set, that is, until it was discovered that this beautiful little boy was autistic. As hard as it was to leave, they knew that when it came to medicine, nurture, care, and educational opportunities, they would need to set aside plans for ministry in Taiwan and return to the United States where for the last fourteen years, day after day, year after year, they have cared for their son Sam, living in the simple manse beside the small church they have lovingly served, a congregation whose size would allow them the freedom to provide the care and nurture their son needed.

Can you imagine the dinner time conversations and life dreams they shared when they were dating during seminary, how they would live and flourish in ministry in a foreign land, making that land their home? But life interrupted and life dreams were set aside to care for another, and not just for a moment.

Yes, for all our impatient moments there can be found copious evidence of enduring commitment.

There is a Hebrew word I would like for us to learn and remember this day. It is a word of great importance in the Hebrew Bible. It is pronounced hesed, and in various places it is translated as kindness, goodness, loyalty, faithfulness, and steadfast love. It speaks of a faithful, enduring, undying, abiding, durable, unfaltering, perennial, unwavering care for another. Hesed.

It is most descriptive of the love God shows for us. In Genesis 24, it is written, “the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love.” In Psalm 59, the psalmist proclaims, “O my strength, I will sing praises to you, for you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love.” In the book of the prophet Isaiah we read of this amazing free gift of God’s steadfast love: “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you that have no money, come, buy, and eat. Come, buy wine without money and without price… I will make for you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.” Hesed.

In the book of the prophet Hosea, we see that even the lack of steadfast love of the people for God does not diminish the enduring commitment of God to his people. The prophet exposes the faithlessness of the people, “Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.” And yet, in a profound demonstration of the nature of God’s unrelenting love, the prophet Hosea is called restore his relationship with his wife Gomer, who is a prostitute.

Hesed is a love that will not let us go. In Isaiah, it is written, “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” Hesed.

Were Hebrew the language of the New Testament, would not hesed be the word to describe the carpenter from Nazareth who said, “I will not leave you desolate;” the Christ who said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Hesed.

Is it possible that this hesed, this enduring commitment, this abiding care, should so touch our hearts, that we would be inspired to offer some reflection of that love to another? I believe it has. I believe it can. I believe it will.

In a moment of clarity, when David is keenly aware of all the Lord has done for him, David remembers a promise he had made to an old friend. A few weeks ago we spoke of Jonathan’s words to David, “If I am still alive, show me the faithful love of the Lord; but if I die, never cut off your faithfulness from my house.”

Jonathan had died, but David had not forgotten that promise even after all that had transpired. David had escaped from Saul’s attempt to kill him. David had gone into exile, actually working with the Philistine army, an enemy of Israel. On two occasions, David had the opportunity to kill Saul, but he would not do it. And yet, Saul would die, as would Jonathan. David would become king and David would remember the promise. “Is there still any one left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness (Hesed) for Jonathan’s sake?”

Well, as a matter of fact, Jonathan had a son. When news of Saul’s and Jonathan’s fates reached the royal house, in a scene that is tragically being played out these days in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Darfur, there was a desperate rush to abandon a home that would very likely soon be besieged. In the panic and commotion, a nurse dropped a child, Jonathan’s child, crippling his legs. The name Mephibosheth would hereafter be listed among those victimized by the brutal violence of war and man’s quest for power.

But David, for all his human frailty, was not one to forget the steadfast love of the Lord. It is a love that can teach us to love. In the midst of a story filled with people in pursuit of power, nations at war with nations, households fraught with dysfunction and brokenness, death on the streets where blood is being spilt yet again, we see an image that is such a contrast to the surrounding sorrow. The hesed of the Lord inspires and prompts an act of hesed among people. Mephibosheth will always have a seat at David’s table. Mephibosheth will receive all the land his grandfather had lost.

The story could have easily gone a different way. As Saul’s grandson, Mephibosheth could have been seen as a threat to David’s power. Mephibosheth could have been eliminated, joining the nameless hordes that kings and presidents and prime ministers demean and de-name and de-humanize by referring to them as the collateral damage of war. But the hesed of the Lord can break through our egocentricity; the hesed of the Lord can teach us the ways of hesed.

“Is there any one left of the house of the Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”

As the battle scarred and lame return from the nightmare of war, there are families, therapists, and caregivers whose lives will hereafter be shaped by the care they will faithfully and lovingly offer their sons, their daughters, their neighbors, their patients. Their hearts will often break, many life plans will be drastically altered, but their love will not fail. Hesed still happens.

Each day, whether it’s the top local story or the latest report from Basra or Beirut, our senses are flooded with the evidence of the inhumanity of humanity. Self-interest, fear, and other dark forces drive so much of what we do, as individuals, as nations.

You know, David could have allowed self interest or fear to guide him at the mention of the name Mephibosheth. He could have seen Mephibosheth as a threat to his power, his rule. And let’s not paint too rosy a picture. In coming weeks we will see David fall prey to selfishness and fear, but one thing we come to know about David is that time and again David would step back and remember what God had given him. He would step back and remember who had brought him to this place. He would remember God’s hesed and he would want his life to reflect that hesed. Remembering God’s steadfast love, David would ask, “Is there anyone to whom I may show God’s steadfast love?”

Hesed. The athlete, the celebrity receives the honor or award and chokes up at the mention of the parent, the coach, the grandmother whose care, whose patience, whose support, whose love, was so steadfast, so unfailing, so abiding. And the emotions flow out of gratitude, yes. But sometimes there is a sense of guilt, of wistfulness as the honoree recognizes that in his or her single-minded, self-involved quest for success, they had failed to ask the question, they had failed to reflect what others had done for them. “Is there anyone to whom I may show God’s steadfast love?”

Have you asked the question? In counting your blessings, whose lives have you blessed with hesed? Have you asked David’s question? “Is there anyone to whom I may show God’s steadfast love?” It could be a family member; it could be a friend, a neighbor; it could be a benevolent agency in this community; it could be some ministry, some work of this church. Where will the hesed be seen in your life? Will you discover that life is not so much about what you gain, but about whom you love? Amen.

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