speaker-0: The first readings today are going to be from ⁓ Colossians chapter 3, verses 12 to 14. Therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another, and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other, just as the Lord has forgiven you. So you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourself with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. The word of the Lord.

speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ We are we are gonna continue this morning ⁓ with as said ⁓ the fruits of the spirit and this morning's fruit ⁓ is kindness and we heard from ⁓ from the of Colossians that letter that Paul wrote to the Colossians and now I'm gonna tell you a story ⁓ from 2 ⁓ about David and ⁓ And then I'm going to give you some background so we can understand it. But this this is this is this is the word of the Lord. Listen with me ⁓ from from Samuel, 2 Samuel chapter 9, verses 1 through 13. David

speaker-0: asked.

speaker-1: Is there still anyone left in 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 Zeba, and he was summoned to David. And the king said to him, Are you Zeba? 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? Zeba said to the king, There remains a son of Jonathan. He's crippled in his feet. The king said to him, Where is he? Zeba said to the king, He's in the house of Machor, son of Amiel at Lodabar. Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Majir, son of Amiel at Lodabar. Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David and fell on his feet and or fell on his face and did obese. David said, Mephibosheth. He answered, I am your servant. David said to him, Don't 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 obese and said, What is your servant that you should look upon a dead dog such as I? Then the king summoned Saul's servant, Zeba, and said to him, All that belong 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 Zeba had fifteen sons and twenty servants. Then Zeba 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 Mekah. And all who lived in Zeba'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. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we pray that you would teach us kindness, that you would give us courage to allow compassion to issue forth from the depths of us. And now, O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be pleasing and acceptable in your sight, O Christ, our rock and our Redeemer. Amen. A little background is probably necessary here. So Saul was Israel's very first king. Having been ruled by God previously, the prophet Samuel warned that a monarchy would essentially be a descent into the people fighting wars to massage the king's ego and having them be conscripted into various means of servitude. This occurred, as was spoken in olden times, post-haste. Israel became ground zero for Game of Thrones Hebrew edition almost immediately, with David being secretly or anointed as king by the prophet Samuel while Saul was still on the throne. Messi Already, immediately. And this was complicated even further by the fact that David was best buds with Saul's son Jonathan. Some scholars actually suggest that their relationship went beyond a mere bromance, as these guys were talking about making vows of faithfulness to one another based on their love for one another, a love which, according to the text, and And out of their own mouths, they confessed was deeper than the love that they had for their own souls, and and I quote, greater than the love of any woman. So happy pride maybe, we don't know. The transition between David and Saul is every bit as fraught as you might imagine. But ultimately, Saul, along with all of his sons, including Jonathan, well, not all of them, but including Jonathan, die in a battle that actually doesn't have anything to do with David. So David gets to transition into the kingship without having to, as he says, lift his hand against the Lord's anointed. David knows enough to know that God. Apparently chose Saul and he doesn't want to lift his hand against him, and so good for him. He gets to take the throne without having to do battle with Saul. That doesn't mean that Saul doesn't try to kill David a couple of times. He does. At any rate, it's complicated. Just a few chapters later. After David is settled in his power and all of the remaining spats have been properly spatted, David sits on his throne as king of the northern and southern kingdoms alike, and he asks the question that starts our reading: Is there anyone left in the house of Saul? Which is a question that you would expect for him to ask if he had finished it, so that I can tie up any loose ends if you know what I mean. Right? But instead, he asks if there is anyone left in the house of Saul so that he can show them kindness. For the sake of his friend Jonathan, remembering the vows that they had made to one another. He calls for Zeba, and then he makes a little bit of a change to his request, to his question: Is there anyone remaining in the house of Saul so that I may show them the kindness of God? Now it isn't just for Jonathan's sake, it is a kindness that is reflective of the very nature of God. So it's a it's worth asking what exactly this kindness is and what it means. In the context of David, the Hebrew word is chesed, which usually means something like steadfast faithfulness or loving kindness. When God's love is talked about in the Old Testament, it is this same word. It's chesed. It is steadfast faithfulness, loving kindness. When David promised Jonathan that he would show his family chesed after he became king, he was promising, agreeing to always be Invested in the welfare of Jonathan's family, no matter what. In our reading from Colossians, the Greek word is Christotis, which of which there are a whole bunch of renderings. It's kind of a it only occurs eight times in the entirety of the New Testament, and all of them are from Paul's pen. But the 20th century Church of Scotland pastor and New Testament scholar William Barclay described it as best as I Can that anyone has done it as far as I can tell? He says that kindness is the virtue of a person whose neighbor's good is as dear to them as their own. The virtue of a person whose neighbor's good is as dear to them as their own. Kindness, as far as I can tell, is compassion. Met with met with a steadfast mindfulness of one's neighbor with flesh on. It goes beyond just a feeling to action. It turns out that after all the fighting was over, only one of Jonathan's sons, Saul's grandson, Mephibosheth, is left alive, and the disparity between the two of them could hardly be greater. Mephibosheth lives in Lodabar, which is a backwater town on the edge of the kingdom. While David lives in Jerusalem, which is the very center of power. David is a renowned warrior. While the only detail that the author seems to be interested in giving us about Mephibosheth is that he's lame in both of his feet. And the backstory on that one Is that this happens because when Mephibosheth was a little boy and David and Saul are kinda in conflict, Mephibosheth's nurse carries him hastily out to Lodabar to hide him, and in her haste drops the boy, and both of his feet become crippled. The whole thing is just tragic. But now Because of David's commitment to kindness, Mephibosheth is in David's presence. A presence, by the way, that I'm not sure Mephibosheth is all that interested in. He might have heard stories about why he was crippled at both of his feet. I'm not sure that he is very fond of David, and he may very well be afraid that David has, in fact, sought him out to tie up those loose ends. But that's not how the story goes for Mephibosheth. Instead, He is restored to the lands and all of the staff that would have been his, and is invited to sit and to eat always at David's table. This turns out not to be a story about David tying up loose ends, but about loving kindness and compassion that result in the reparations for one who is a defeated enemy of the crown. It is kinda wild and unexpected. And it's all because of David's commitment to a promise he made to Jonathan. That is a reflection of God's own character of steadfast loving kindness. At the same time, the story highlights the kind of power dynamics that are often at work in kindness, right? Kindness is often initiated by the presumption of need. We see someone struggling, compassion ignites within us. We recognize our ability to do for another what they cannot do for themselves, and then we move to act. We open the door. We hold the door open. We bring the meal. We send the encouraging email or text. This is compassion. This is kindness. Compassion with hands and feet. And this is always a good, right? To allow that compassion that ignites within you to work its way out, to do for someone else what they cannot do for themselves. And we ought to continue to receive those urges of compassion within us as a gift from God, just waiting to be born as the fruit of the Spirit, which is kindness. It is an evil of our age. That people would try to dull that sense of compassion within you. You have likely heard someone talk about toxic empathy, which is little but a ploy to blunt your God-given sense of compassion in order to keep you from acting with kindness in the interests of, if we're very honest, most of the time, some sort of minority. Sea boilas and families getting raw treatment from ice, you know, like in here what kindness looks like and what it doesn't look like, right? Hear of laws specifically targeting the LGBTQ community in Texas, like SB12, which, among other things, banned student-based groups and clubs where kids could find community. You know what kindness looks like and what it doesn't look like. See pictures of Gaza or other war-torn areas and your stomach turns a little bit. You know what kindness looks like and what it doesn't look like. Compassion, that feeling inside of you that says something isn't sitting right here, compassion is a gift from God meant to move you forward toward kindness. Don't ever let anyone convince you otherwise. Kindness is a gift from the Spirit because its fruit helps us to imitate the very nature of God. That is always our prayer to become more like the God who has loved us first. And the kindness of the Lord is steadfast. It is never ceasing. God sees need and moves in compassion and doesn't require us to deserve it. God has simply committed God's self to us and calls us to do the same with one another. to be as committed to the welfare of our neighbor as we are to our own welfare. As a matter of fact, our Colossians passage leads with that neighbor mindedness. These commandments that Zane and Braden read to us to clothe ourselves with compassion and kindness, patience and all the rest, these are preceded immediately by the insistence of Paul that God's love has been poured out upon all people. And he names them. He says, Jews and Gentiles, slave and free men and women, God's Spirit has been poured out upon everybody. Jesus' arrival on the scene has blown our exclusivity out of the water. Therefore, Paul says, because we are all God's chosen ones, and God is committed to all people, we are then invited to see the world as God does. And we are invited to participate with God in acting toward our neighbor with these same manners of life in compassion and kindness and patience, right? And such an expression of the Lord's kindness may indeed change the very structure of our world. Kindness might lead us beyond singular acts of goodness toward one another, which are always good, by the way, but they may lead us to structural change. They may guide us even into something that looks a lot more like justice than not. You know, I'm not sure that David is the sort of hero that you want to imitate. For A lot of reasons that come in the preceding chapters of 2 Samuel. Two chapters later, David has taken advantage of Bathsheba. Six, seven chapters later, David turns tail and decides he doesn't actually want to be gracious to Mephibosheth anymore. And only ends up giving him about half of what he said he was gonna. But for right now, I do wonder what kind of structural changes David had to make to ensure that Mephibosheth could always eat at his table. Like, what kind of structural changes did David have to make to allow this singular kindness to become part and parcel of what it meant for Mephibosheth to live into this new stage of his life? Did he have to build ramps? Did he have to hire more staff to carry Mephibosheth around? I don't know. But there has to have been some sort of different look because of David's kindness toward Mephibosheth. And our kindness, our commitment to our neighbors' welfare. may result in similar structural changes to the way that we live together. For instance, we are in the waning days of Pride Month, and making sure that our LGBTQ plus folks know that they are welcomed and loved in this place is a good thing. It is a kindness. But a deeper kindness, a move toward justice, would be to ensure that their rights are made lawful instead of hinging, for instance, on one particular court decision, right? That could be changed or overturned. It is a kindness to offer charity to the poor, right? I know a lot of you we made these packets that we could keep in our cars ⁓ to be able to hand out to people on the street corner, right? You get off of the highway down toward Harry Hines, there's gonna be somebody on this corner asking for something, right? And we made these little packets with granola bars and other wipes and things like that so that we could give them out. That is a kindness. It is a deeper kindness for us to work for living wages and fair housing, especially when that will cost us something, right? That will lead us, that kindness pushes us into justice. We just passed World Refugee Day. It was on the 20th. And it is a kindness to aid those who have been swept up apart from their lives, right? And just had everything turned upside down. It would be a greater kindness to ensure that we can offer them asylum here in our neighborhood. Kindness that is worthy of being called a fruit of the Spirit ought to lead us to create such a world where justice is so present that the only opportunities left for us to show kindness to one another are the everyday things like helping the widow across the street carry her groceries in. Wouldn't that be absolutely wonderful? If our world was so healed and such a place of justice and love, that the only things left to us to do to demonstrate kindness were every day sort of small tiki tacky things where we could bless one another with our presence and with the gift of ourselves. What a privilege and a joy. Lord haste the day, right? But our half measures toward justice are good measures, so long as they aren't the last measure. So, my friends, may you allow God to lead you around by a heart filled with compassion for all those whom God loves. And may your body follow your heart's lead. Putting flesh to the fruit of kindness, making change after change, until God's kingdom comes. And the distances between us are closed, and love and justice abound. Thanks be to God.