Another powerful narrative story from the biblical texts that I have not preached previously. In addition to a minor characters series, it also has turned into a "texts I've never preached before" series.
I still remember reading about hesed in my Old Testament survey class. The textbook had a box on the page that explained in further detail about hesed. It has been formative to my understanding of God's covenant with us.
Until I worked on this sermon, I had not realized that there were two Mephibosheths in the bible, nor had I thought about the difference between how the two were treated by David. It could be its own sermon, without focusing solely on hesed.
I also did not realize that hesed was the Hebrew word used to describe Ruth's faithfulness to Naomi. Since I had preached on the Ruth story two weeks ago, it was a good illustration for this sermon.
“Mephibosheth: Hesed” August 7, 2016; FPC, Troy; 2 Samuel 9: 1-13; I Samuel 18: 1-5 7-12;
We continue reflecting on minor characters in the biblical story.
(2 Samuel 9:1-13) David asked, "Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan's sake?" Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba, and he was summoned to David. The king said to him, "Are you Ziba?" And he said, "At your service!" The king said, "Is there anyone remaining of the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God?" Ziba said to the king, "There remains a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in his feet." The king said to him, "Where is he?" Ziba said to the king, "He is in the house of Machir son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar." Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar. Mephibosheth son of Jonathan son of Saul came to David, and fell on his face and did obeisance. David said, "Mephibosheth!" He answered, "I am your servant." David said to him, "Do not be afraid, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan; I will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul, and you yourself shall eat at my table always." He did obeisance and said, "What is your servant, that you should look upon a dead dog such as I?" Then the king summoned Saul's servant Ziba, and said to him, "All that belonged to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master's grandson. You and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him, and shall bring in the produce, so that your master's grandson may have food to eat; but your master's grandson Mephibosheth shall always eat at my table." Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants. Then Ziba said to the king, "According to all that my lord the king commands his servant, so your servant will do." Mephibosheth ate at David's table, like one of the king's sons. Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Mica. And all who lived in Ziba's house became Mephibosheth's servants. Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he always ate at the king's table. Now he was lame in both his feet. (NRSV)
Introduction: Two men named Mephibosheth.
Two men named Mephibosheth in King Saul's royal family.
One Mephibosheth is a son of King Saul and the half-brother of Jonathan, another of King Saul's sons
The other Mephibosheth is Jonathan's son.
One Mephibosheth is put to death by Gibeonites after David hands him over for execution (2 Samuel 21: 8-9) .
The other Mephibosheth is brought into King David's royal court and invited to sit at the royal table.
The difference between the two Mephibosheths? One word – Hesed
1. Hesed is used by the Hebrew writer to describe Ruth's faithfulness to Naomi.
2. In the first passage we read today, we read of how Jonathan and David's souls are bound together, and how they pledge to be faithful to one another. That faithfulness/love/commitment is hesed.
3. At this particular point in time, Jonathan, as the son of King Saul, is the person in power, and Jonathan lives out hesed by protecting David from King Saul in several instances, can continually trying to talk King Saul out of taking action against David.
4. The second passage we read this morning describes how David lives out hesed when he has defeated King Saul and Saul and Jonathan are dead.
5. David asks if there is anyone left with whom he can live out his covenant to Jonathan. When he learns that Mephibosheth, Jonathan's crippled son, is still alive, he send for him and treats him like one of his own sons.
6. David living out hesed toward Jonathan after David has come to power.
b. hesed matters to us because it is the Hebrew words that is often used to describe the kind of faithfulness/love/covenant God has for us.
1. In that covenant, God is clearly the person in power.
2. That covenant gives us hope that /God will choose to protect and care for us, the one who are not in power.
c. God remembers and acts.
Two things about hesed this morning.
Move 1: Hesed causes David to remember and act.
a. David remembers what Jonathan had done for him.
1. I suspect those moments when Jonathan had literally saved him from King Saul are etched in his memory.
2. avid also remembers the covenant that he had made with Jonathan.
3. Now David acts on that memory.
4. Robert Wuthnow tells a story about how remembering impacts how a person acts in the future.
Wuthnow recounts an interview with Jack Casey who spends many hours as a volunteer fire fighter and rescue squad worker. Jack’s own father was an alcoholic; his parents were divorced when he was a teenager. “All my father ever taught me,” Jack says, “is that I didn’t want to grow up to be like him.”
But in the interview with Wuthnow, Jack continued to talk, and, as he did, he related the time when he was a child and had to have five teeth pulled while under general anesthesia. A nurse standing beside Jack, fear etched in his face as the mask was lowered over his nose and mouth, took his hand and spoke soothingly, calmly, “Don’t worry, Jack. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here beside you no matter what happens.” And Jack said, “When I woke up, she was still standing right there.”
Almost 20 years later, that comes back to Jack when he is called out to an accident where a man's pickup truck had overturned and he was trapped inside. When we arrived, the rescue equipment was already there, ripping through the twisted metal to free the man. The man was terrified, crying out that he didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to die. There was gasoline dripping down so that one errant spark could have caused everything to go up in smoke in an instant. I crawled through the jagged glass of the windshield over to where the man was and I just kept saying over and over, “Look, don’t worry. I’m right here with you. I’m not going anywhere.” When I said that, I was reminded of how that nurse said the same thing and she never left me.
Nearly two decades had elapsed between the time that a nurse held Jack’s hand, promising that she would not leave him, and the time he rescued the man in the mangled pickup truck. But the memory was so powerful that it empowered him to risk his life for someone he didn’t even know. The memory was powerful, not as a vague recollection, but because the remembered story provided a script, the exact words even, for Jack to use. (2) (1)Robert Wuthnow, “Stories to Live By,” Theology Today, Vol. XLIX, No. 3, October 1992, 302. See also Wuthnow, Acts of Compassion: Caring for Others and Helping Ourselves (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991). 2. Ibid., 308.
3. David remembers how Jonathan had been faithful to their promise, and now he acts to show that faithfulness to Mephibosheth.
4. Hesed is not primarily something people "feel." It is something people DO for other people who have no claim on them (http://discovertheword.org/2010/10/18/the-hebrew-term-hesed-and-what-it-means-for-our-lives-today/; further study on hesed see http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/430
1. that's what the Israelites discover when they are enslaved in Egypt and cry out to God – God remembers.
2. that's what the psalmists will promise again and again – God will not forget them.
3. that is what we learn in the coming of Christ – God not only has God not forgotten, but God has acted on that memory.
2. that's what the psalmists will promise again and again – God will not forget them.
3. that is what we learn in the coming of Christ – God not only has God not forgotten, but God has acted on that memory.
God remembers and is true to hesed.
Move 2: David invites Mephibosheth to sit at the king's table.
a. Not just a little food to keep him from starving.
1. not just a little shack to call his own
2. David gives Mephibosheth a place at the king's table.
3. The best that King David has to offer.
b. that is like the faithfulness of God who invites us to the banquet table for the Lord's Supper.
1. Not just a little food to survive, but the gift of Jesus Christ himself.
2. the hope and the promise of resurrection and new life.
3. God lives out hesed by giving us God's very own self in the person of Jesus Christ.
Conclusion: Baptism – not just the splashing of water and walking a baby around as proud parents watch.
Not just a congregation committing to help raise the child.
It is about God's extending hesed to the child who still does not even know who God is. God offering the best – being bound to Christ in his death and resurrection, to a little child.
God offering hesed to you.
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