David asks a simple question at the start of this chapter, but nothing about it is ordinary. 1"Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?" Every other king of David's day, once secure, went looking for the opposite, any surviving heir of the old dynasty so he could be quietly removed before he grew into a threat. David goes looking for one on purpose, meaning to bless him and not to remove him, and the only reason given is a promise made years earlier to a friend who is long dead. Jonathan cannot see this kindness, benefit from it, or even know it happened. David keeps the promise anyway.
The man they find is Mephibosheth, hiding in Lo-debar, a name that means, almost too fittingly, a place with nothing. He is Jonathan's son and Saul's grandson, lame in both feet since a nurse dropped him while fleeing the news of the deaths. Every instinct years of watching royal houses fall had taught him would tell him what a summons from the new king means. He comes before David and falls on his face, and when David offers land and a permanent seat at the royal table, his answer shows how he sees himself. 8"What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?" David himself once used the phrase, before Saul (1 Samuel 24:14).
David speaks first, before Mephibosheth can finish falling to the ground: 7"Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan." There was every reason to fear, but David had decided, before Mephibosheth ever walked into the room, what he meant to do for him. The kindness was settled first. The fear was answered before it could turn to despair. He is given land he did not ask for and a place at a table he could never earn, and he eats 11"like one of the king's sons," seated in the middle of the room and not tolerated at its edge.
The last line of the chapter does something remarkable. Twice we have been told that Mephibosheth eats at the king's table, and then the narrator closes with the words 13"now he was lame in both his feet." He wants that detail sitting next to the honor, not erased by it. Mephibosheth's brokenness and his place at the king's table are both still true, and the second does not require the first to disappear.
A greater son of David would one day go looking, on purpose, for exactly the kind of people every other kingdom would rather forget, the outcast, the lame, the ones with every reason to expect removal from a king's presence. To each one who comes limping in and calls himself nothing more than a dead dog, he says what David said first. Do not fear. I have already decided to be kind to you, and a place is already set for you at my table.
If you have felt too unworthy to come to that table, come as Mephibosheth did, still lame and still yourself. Let the kindness already decided for you land.
Prayer
Father, thank you for going looking for the Mephibosheths, the ones who expect exposure and find a table already set. Forgive us for letting our own sense of unworthiness keep us from what your kindness has already decided to give. Thank you for the greater son of David who welcomes us, still lame, as sons and daughters and not as tolerated guests. In Jesus' name, amen.