All the Feelings: David and Mephibosheth

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David was one emotional dude.

I came to this realization when I asked the Two-Way [Sermon Discussion Group] a couple of weeks ago which David story about emotions they thought I was going to preach about…and they came up with four or five:

• “Is it about David’s joy and his wife Michal’s anger when he danced in front of the Ark of the Covenant?” No.

• “Is it about David and Bathsheba and the passion and guilt and grief in losing their child?” No.

• “Is it about David and Absalom, grieving his son’s betrayal and his death?” No.

It was about then that I realized that we could have done a whole sermon series on emotions in the David narrative! There are a lot of feelings in there!

They came closest when they thought that it might be about the emotions between David and King Saul and his son Jonathan. If you don’t remember that story, a young man David had entered the good graces of King Saul, and had developed a deep relationship with his son Jonathan. In fact, the two of them entered into a vow of friendship, which scholars have noted has language similar to and as intense as a marriage vow. These two had a powerful relationship, but it was complicated by Saul’s growing resentment of David and his popularity. Their relationship soured as David grew in political and military power and the whole thing turned into what was basically a civil war. Saul, Jonathan, and Jonathan’s brothers were all killed in battle, and as a power move, David had most of their family rounded up and killed.

After that emotional story comes another related emotional story, which we will take a closer look at today…

2 Kings 9.3–13

³ 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.” ⁴ 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.” ⁵ Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar. ⁶ 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.” ⁷ 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.” ⁸ He did obeisance and said, “What is your servant, that you should look upon a dead dog such as I?”

⁹ 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. ¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ 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^[a] table, like one of the king’s sons. ¹² Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Mica. And all who lived in Ziba’s house became Mephibosheth’s servants. ¹³ Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he always ate at the king’s table. Now he was lame in both his feet.

So, who had Mephibosheth on their Bingo card for the July sermon series? Actually, anyone want to admit that you have never heard the name Mephibosheth before? As the Two-Way noted, there are a lot of emotional David stories, but this generally isn’t considered one of the most popular. You might be surprised then that there are actually FOUR Mephibosheth stories in 2 Samuel…and then a kind of important footnote that helps explain the story. Some scholars call it a Mephibosheth Saga! We won’t get to the whole Saga today, but a couple of the other notes help us know what is happening in today’s text:

• The first story introduces us to Mephibosheth, who was a son of Jonathan and thus a grandson of Saul. In the midst of that civil war between David and Saul/Jonathan’s family, Mephibosheth was still a young child. And he and his nurse were fleeing the violence of the war and somehow he became permanently injured, and lame in both feet. His birth name seems to be Meribbaal, connecting him to the power and virility of the cultural god Baal. But after this injury, he was called Mephibosheth, literally “seething dishonor.” It was a derisive, mocking name for someone who had become disabled. This became his new identity.

• A second story comes out of order, kind of like an endnote at the end of the book. Scholars point to an important note in the text late in the book, about how David at the end of the civil war had killed just about all of Saul’s remaining descendants, including the sons of his concubines, as a show of loyalty to a neighboring king, and a chance to get rid of his potential political rivals. In this violent act, Saul’s family was just about wiped off the earth…

Except for Mephibosheth. Who had been living in exile. Terrified for his life. Aware that his father was dead. Aware that all of his brothers were dead. Aware that there would be precedent for David to find him and kill him to assure that none of Saul’s descendants would try and seize back the monarchy. Physically disabled, in a time when such disability would be a death sentence for many. Ironically, it was probably his disability that saved him, as he was not perceived to be a threat to David. Mephibosheth was a victim of political violence, living terrified of further political violence, literally renamed “seething dishonor.”

If there is an emotion associated with this man and his story, it would most likely be fear. He had plenty of reasons to be afraid. Scholars talk about the importance of fear as an emotion. It helps protect us from dangerous things. It heightens our awareness. It even serves as a gateway to other emotions. Scholar Harriet Lerner says it this way:

Feelings are a package deal, and you can’t avoid or deny the painful ones without also forfeiting part of your humanity. If you are never fearful, you may also have trouble feeling compassion, deep curiosity, or joy. Fear may not be fun, but it signals that we are fully alive.

So here Mephibosheth, aware of the danger when David’s servant shows up to retrieve him, can fight, flee, or fully live into his vulnerability. The one named “seething dishonor” chose to come to the throne of the king, bringing the whole package of his feelings with him.

And is met by King David, who brought plenty of emotions of his own.

Let me acknowledge here that there is an inherent complication: making guesses about someone’s emotional state, some 3,000 years after they lived. Pastor Cristina and I are fully aware that we have to tread lightly about assuming what someone was actually feeling, or trying to psychoanalyze them as we read these stories, all of which existed before our contemporary psychological vocabulary. But with that disclaimer, I think we can make some educated guesses based on how we know human emotion works. David, for example:

• Seemed to be feeling some level of grief. He had lost his friend Jonathan, and wanted to remember him. This was obviously an important relationship, and David wanted to honor their vow of friendship.

• His grief was likely mingled with guilt. Jonathan and all of his family were gone because of David’s political and military actions. When he asked his servant if there was anyone left in the house of Saul, it was because he or his soldiers had killed most of the rest of them, including his dear friend.

• And, I would argue that there could also have been a certain level of fear and anxiety. Anyone with a valid claim on Saul’s throne, even though he was as powerless as Mephibosheth, was a threat. The most cynical translation of David bringing Mephibosheth to his court is that he was trying to control him or at least keep him close to keep an eye on him. We don’t know, but it could be one of the emotions he brought to this encounter.

So, David has his own pile of emotions that he brings to the encounter. What would happen when these two men met each other? Again, we turn to Harriet Lerner for a picture of how wrong things could have gone:

When anxiety is chronically high it leads to more serious outcomes such as greed, bigotry, scapegoating, violence, and other forms of cruelty. In these anxious times, on both the personal and political fronts, ideas are embraced, and decisions are made not on the basis of clear thinking that considers both history and the future, but rather on the basis of hearts filled with fear. We owe it to ourselves and others to learn how to recognize behaviors that reflect and escalate anxiety—and how to manage our own anxiety so it doesn’t get played out in hurtful ways.

Any of that look like our world today? The reality of this election season? Any of that sound familiar in your own life or families? Does any of that look like the life and times of King David? You could argue that most of the story of David is him acting out of fear that becomes greed, bigotry, scapegoating, violence, and cruelty.

Until this story. Again, you can translate this story cynically, and I will honestly say I am pretty cynical about a lot of David’s choices. But this one feels different to me. And what makes it feel different is one word: love.

There is some disagreement among psychologists whether love is actually considered an emotion. Some say it is, others say it is an action, but not a feeling. My favorite anecdote on this disagreement comes from psychologist Thomas Dixon, who led for years something called the Centre for the History of Emotions. So here is this expert in emotions, who set out to write a book about emotions, including his theory that love was not an emotion. And then somewhere in the middle of writing that chapter, he decided that it kind of was. So, psychologists differ on this, even with themselves sometimes.

And I would suggest that even the Biblical text is trying to figure out if love is a feeling or an action. In fact, there is this Hebrew word hesed. Like a lot of Hebrew words, hesed can be translated a lot of ways, but the one that I like the best is “loving kindness.” It is often used as an example of the way that God loves us, reaching out to us with loving kindness and mercy, when we don’t deserve it. Hesed is a favorite word of the psalmists. And it kind of holds both the emotion side and the action side…together in tension.

Which plays out in today’s text. We find that word about five times in the whole chapter, and it is that interplay between emotion and action that I think teaches us something about love. Look at the text through the lens of hesed:

• David uses the word when he asks his servant if there is anyone left in Saul’s family to whom he can show hesed, translated here as the “kindness of God.” David didn’t have to do this, but it seems to me like this was a part of his internal work of grief and guilt over the loss of his friend. In order to remember Jonathan, he reached out to his son.

• Then, when Jonathan’s son showed up in his court, David looked him in the eye and the first thing he did was simply say his name: Mephibosheth. What a gift it is for someone to call us by name! Mephibosheth had been renamed as “seething dishonor.” He even called himself a dead dog before the king. But now, in the mouth of the king, this name granted him honor and value. “I wish to show you hesed, because I loved your father.”

• Finally, look at the way that David showed loving kindness. It would have been loving kindness to simply tell Mephibosheth that he would be allowed to live, unlike the rest of his family. It would have been loving kindness to grant him immunity and a place to live. But David goes far beyond the bare minimum: he told Mephibosheth that every single meal that the king eats at his table, he will join him as his son. That’s hesed. And that is the picture of emotional, active, whole-hearted love.

Which brings us to how we might connect this story to our own lives. A few thoughts to take home…

One, David was an emotional dude. We are all emotional dudes (can I say that? Is “dude” gender neutral now?”) We are all emotional people. All of us possess and are possessed by emotions. We sometimes say that she or he is an “emotional person,” but that is like saying “they have skin.” Or “they breathe.” We are all emotional people. Sometimes what folks mean is that “they show their emotions in ways that I am uncomfortable with, or trigger my own emotions in ways I don’t like.” But all of us are emotional people. That’s how God created us. Like Lerner writes, it is what you do with those emotions that separates us.

And that is where we get to the hesed. How might David and David’s story teach us some healthy ways to deal with those emotions? I believe that one element of hesed is internal. Self-love. Developing a vocabulary for our emotions. Like David, we learn to acknowledge our grief, our guilt, our shame, our fear. Perhaps we go to a therapist or professional who can ask helpful questions to help us uncover those emotions. Or we keep a journal and write down the things that make us afraid or anxious or lonely or joyful. Or we talk to a friend about those feelings, someone who can be trusted and honor those emotions. Or like Harriet Lerner writes, instead of reacting in greed or violence or bigotry, we choose to be active listeners and learners about ourselves and others. But that cannot be the end of the story. It is possible to get caught up in naval-gazing, a kind of analysis paralysis that takes us to a place of frozen inaction. But David reminds us that there is another part of the emotional work of hesed.

Because hesed is also external. Neighbor love. Sometimes our emotional hesed work may look like serving or caring for others, like David did with Mephibosheth. I know I have quoted Richard Foster a lot lately, but he suggests in his classic book Celebration of Discipline that if we want to experience internal joy and transformation, the way to do it is to go find some way to serve others. When we serve others, we begin to see them differently, upending worldly assumptions of power and beauty, and start to see others through God’s eyes. When we serve, we are changed. Again, that cannot be the end of the story by itself. We all know of people who go and act and do and serve, and never once pause to think about what they need internally. Again, David didn’t do that either.

It cannot be one or the other to the extreme. It must hold the tension of both-and:

• David needed to serve Mephibosheth because Mephibosheth was vulnerable and needed care. David needed to serve Mephibosheth because David was vulnerable and needed care.

• In caring for others, we care for ourselves. In caring for ourselves, we care for others.

David would have been familiar with the Torah teaching in Leviticus that Jesus quoted when he was asked what is the Greatest Commandment. It is the both-and of hesed: love your neighbor as you love yourself. We love our neighbor. We love ourselves. The internal self-love that cares for our emotional well-being. The external neighbor-love that cares for others. May we live in hesed together in these days.