(Part II of my “sermon”):
In Second Samuel we encounter a disabled child named Mephibosheth. His disability seems like a meaningless tragedy of war, an unfair spillover from God’s judgment of Saul, or both. It appears that Mephibosheth quite literally fell between the cracks of the great and terrible events that surround the story of his life. We will see, however, that God remembered and graciously provided for Mephibosheth.
You may recall that God had warned His people, Israel, that they should not desire a king. God warned the people, through the prophet Samuel, that a king would tax the people and lead them into war for the king’s own purpose rather than for God’s purposes. Yet their response is reflected in First Samuel chapter 8, verses 19-20: “Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said: ‘No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
The chosen king was Saul, “a choice and handsome man,” as he is described in First Samuel. Saul was a natural politician, yet chosen, we should note, by God. But Saul’s rule was tragic. Though he achieved some great victories, he disobeyed God at a crucial point, preferring to enrich himself with the spoils of war rather than to destroy an idolatrous enemy that would continue to infect Israel’s worship of God alone. (All of this is narrated in 1 Samuel 15). God then chose David, a shepherd boy, to succeed Saul as king. David was often helped by Saul’s son, Jonathan, who became David’s closest friend and confidant. Saul, however, descended into a bizarre spiral of jealousy, rage, the occult, and madness. Eventually, Saul drove David out of the land, but David continued to fight independently with a band of loyal soldiers against Israel’s enemies, with great success. Meanwhile, Saul and his son Jonathan were killed in a battle against Israel’s arch-enemy, the Philistines. (These events are narrated in 1 Samuel 16-31).
Many of us have known a little bit of the paralyzing fog of war. Some of you have fought in wars or have lived in other countries during times of violence. My most vivid experience of war — and I’m sure many of yours as well — was the morning of September 11, 2001. I was working in a law firm in Newark, New Jersey, and we could see the smoke billowing up from across the Hudson River. We literally stumbled around in the hallways of our building, not knowing for sure whether to flee or stay put, whether this was an isolated event or the start of an all-out assault.
Imagine the fog of war in a time before modern telecommunications. The nurse of Jonathan’s children, a servant in the royal household of King Saul, would have heard the gossip about the King’s madness, about the usurper David and his band of mercenaries pressing on one side and the Philistines pressing on the other. Then the news came, probably from the frantic reports of straggling survivors and refugees, of the humiliating defeat by the Philistines, that the King and his heir are dead, the army has fled, and the Philistines have taken over the cities near the battleground. The Philistines are coming. David’s mercenaries are coming. It’s time to flee or to face enslavement or death! So the nurse grabbed five-year-old Mephibosheth and ran.
We don’t know exactly what happened next, because the Biblical narrative is characteristically sparse. The words “he fell and became crippled” seem rather minimalistic and clinical. How does a child “become crippled” from a fall? Usually by the shattering of bones and ripping of tendons. Later, in Second Samuel 9, Mephibosheth is described as “crippled in both feet.” We can imagine the five-year-old’s screams of pain when slipped from the nurse’s grasp and his feet and ankles slammed into the stone floor. We can picture legs splayed akimbo, perhaps a with a compound fracture piercing the skin. We can almost feel the boys legs slowly, achingly “healing” at crooked angles that forever deprived him of the ability to walk, run, jump — that mark him as an outsider in a culture with no concept of “disability” as a noble category. Indeed, Mephibosheth became a double outsider — the physically crippled heir of a spiritually and emotionally crippled dynasty brought to ruin by its patriarch’s hubris.
After Saul’s death, a “long war” ensued between those who had remained loyal to Saul and those who followed David. In addition to this civil war, Israel faced threats from surrounding nations, including the Philistines, Moabites and Arameans. David eventually conquered these enemies and consolidated his rule over Israel, initiating what the Biblical narratives picture as a sort of golden age of the monarchy in Israel. (These events are narrated in 2 Samuel 3-9). David, in fact, later in scripture becomes a type of the messiah who will fulfill all of God’s original promises to the nation — a type, from the perspective of the New Testament, of Christ.
After consolidating his rule, David remembered his friendship with Jonathan and desired to bless any of Jonathan’s descendants who might still be living. He inquired of one of Saul’s former household servants, who recalled Mephibosheth, the one “who is crippled in both feet.” We can sense here the servant’s dismissiveness — surely a cripple cannot receive the King’s honor. And when he is brought to David, Mephibosheth revealed his own concept of himself: he called himself a “dead dog.” Perhaps he expected David to publicly humiliate or execute him.
But instead David did something extraordinary. David gave Mephibosheth everything that had previously belonged to Saul — servants, land, and status. Even more, David gave Mephibosheth a place at the King’s table — a place of honor and influence. Second Samuel chapter nine concludes by telling us “So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate at the king’s table regularly. Now he was lame in both feet.” Notice how the narrator seems to be amazed at his own story: “he ate regularly at David’s table and he was lame in both feet! A lame man, feasting with the King!” (This part of the story is found in 2 Samuel 9.)