“And David said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul,

that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”

(2 Samuel 9:1)

King David was settled safely on his throne. All his enemies had been subdued. Jerusalem was built as a holy city. The boundaries of the kingdom were stretched farther than ever before in Israel’s history. The warrior chieftain now lived in a fabulous palace. All that the heart of man could wish was David’s to enjoy.

But David on his throne was unsatisfied. From the great soul of the shepherd king there came the question, “Is there not someone of Saul’s house to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” The remembered kindness of Jonathan, David’s well-loved friend, stirred him with restlessness until one of Jonathan’s kin could be searched out and helped.

Finally, there came a report: “There is yet one son of Jonathan’s alive, but he is lame and his name is Mephibosheth.” “Bring him to the palace,” said David, “that he may eat continually at the king’s table, and I will restore to him the land belonging to his father, Jonathan, and his grandfather Saul.”

In the structure of the universe a chain of kindness stretches from man to man, from generation to generation, from country to country, from heaven to earth. The forging of links in that chain is one of our most urgent and rewarding duties. What about us, you and me? What do we know of the chain of kindness, and what are we doing about it from day to day? Are we forging new links for the chain or digging pits of despair?

This brief episode in David’s life reveals to us some very important facts about this chain of kindness and our relationship to it.

First, there’s this: Kindness has kindling power. Somewhat like the strange atomic power, kindness sets off a chain reaction. King David asks, “Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” Yes, for Jonathan’s sake, for the remembered kindness of his friend Jonathan, whose love was sweeter to David than the love of women, for Jonathan’s sake David would pass on kindness to another. In the next chapter in this Book of Samuel we read where David, hearing of the death of his friend Nahash, king of Ammon, and understanding something of the grief and uncertainty of Nahash’s son, says, “I will shew kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father shewed kindness unto me.”

Henri Dunant, a young Swiss banker in Italy on business, witnessed the bloody battle of Solferino on June 24, 1859. The carnage sickened his soul. As the smoke cleared and the cannon fell silent, there before his eyes were the wounded and dying. When the armies moved away, leaving their casual­ties behind, untended, Dunant could not bring himself to depart. He organized companies of the humble villagers and townsfolk for rescue and nursing. He forgot all about his business schedule. He labored night and day for weeks. When finally he went home, the memories of Solferino lingered, and Dunant wrote a book about it, asking why some international organization of mercy could not be formed in time of peace to care for the wounded of both sides whenever war broke out. And so the Red Cross was born. The act of merciful kindness of Henri Dunant had kindling power. It set up a chain reaction of kindness that spread across the earth and has never stopped.

But why is it that when one does a kind deed it is like throwing a pebble in a pool of water and the waves spread out in ever-widening circles over the whole surface of the lake? Why did David feel some inner compulsion to do kindness to someone of Jonathan’s family for Jonathan’s sake?

Partly it’s due to human gratitude and to the regnancy of example in fashioning human life. When we see a clean, unselfish kindness done, it glows like a sudden flare to light up the darkness of our selfish world and leaves in passing, not only a clear photograph for memory, but also a carefully cut pattern for our future action.

Someone’s kind generosity provided a scholarship that opened the door to a college education for an eager, ambitious young woman. Years later when she and her husband had come upon prosperity and a thousand doors were open to them for luxurious living and self-indulgence, she found the way back to that old, familiar threshold of another’s kind deed to her, and in recrossing it opened similar doors of educational opportunity to hundreds of young people. So the chain of kindness of the Gooch Foundation for college scholarships began.

But kindness spreads, not only because of human gratitude and example, but also because of divine inspiration. David said, “Is there not any of the house of Saul left that I may show him the kindness of God for Jonathan’s sake?” In his friend Jonathan and all that he meant to him, David recognized the kindness of God. Once when David, as a hunted fugitive, was in mortal danger and his enemies were closing in on him, the Scripture says that Jonathan, David’s friend, came to him in the woods and “strengthened his hand in God.” Jonathan reminded David of God’s care for him, of God’s covenant with David, of David’s invulnerability against all the schemes and spears of his enemies so long as David did God’s will. So David had learned that the true source of all human kindness was Eternal God, that men are kind only because God is kind and inspires men and women to be kind.

Saint Paul put it this way: “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” And again, Paul explained his own kindness and concern for others, saying, “The love of Christ constraineth us.” Christ’s merciful kindness to us revealing the loving heart of God is the source of inspiration for any kindness we may show to any living soul.

But there is a third reason kindness has spreading power and the links of the chain of kindness reach farther and farther to bind mankind together, and it is this: We can never repay the kindness shown us. David could never repay the kindness of Jonathan, for Jonathan was gone. As Joseph Parker says in The People’s Bible, “We can never repay, in the sense of being equal with, any man who ever did us kindness…. Men who suppose they have paid their benefactors are never to be trusted…. Justice may draw a line, — gratitude stretches out a horizon.”

A young man wrote to an older friend who had helped him get his start in the business and technical world, “If I had three lifetimes to live and nothing to do in each one of them but to devote myself to paying back my obligations to you for your kindness, I could never repay the debt of gratitude I owe you.” Extravagant expression? No, literal truth. So it is with each one of us. We can never repay, partly because the debt is too great, partly because our benefactor is no longer here or does not have need of what he bestowed upon us or what we are able to pay back.

But we can do this — what David did — find someone else who needs our kindness and perform it.

And that brings us to notice another fact about this chain of kindness — the world’s unlimited and varied need for kindness. Mephibosheth was a very young boy, about four years old, when his father, Jonathan, and his grandfather Saul went off with their armies to fight for the defense of their homeland against the Philistine invaders. When the tragic news of Israel’s defeat at Jezreel and the death of Saul and Jonathan on the field of battle was brought back to Jerusalem, the nurse caring for little Mephibosheth was so frightened she turned to flee for safety and dropped the terrified child, and he was crippled in both his feet.

How many there are who, like Mephibosheth, “bear the scars of an innocent sharing in human failure,” The Interpreter’s Bible notes. “How many little children there are in our world, totally innocent of participation in the world’s evil, who will suffer to the end of their days from the ravages of war, from `man’s inhumanity to man.’ How many more grow up with twisted, crooked personalities because of the failure of fathers and mothers, of older friends, of the home, of society, of the church.” Now we are hearing of children born with AIDS because their parents had contracted AIDS, and of children born drug addicts because their mothers were abusing drugs during pregnancy.

How great is the need for someone to show kindness to these little sufferers in their vale of tears as David showed kindness to the little, crippled son of Jonathan. And, of course, not just the physically handicapped, the poor, and those on whom great catastrophe has fallen need kindness shown to them. Oh, the multitudes who need no material aid, no charity, who have an abundance of wealth in things, but are poverty stricken in friendship and in spiritual peace and comfort because they have suffered spiritual or social crippling, perhaps because of jealousy or slander or their own folly. How desperate is their need for kindness shown for Christ’s sake.

And we, whoever we are, whatever we have or don’t have, we are in a position to pass on some of this commodity that never goes out of style-the kindness of God for Christ’s sake.

Then let us take note of this: Fashioning the chain of kindness is no sentimental making of a daisy chain. It’s not simply doing a good turn daily because one good turn deserves another. It’s not the philosophy of You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.

We are talking about kindness unlimited, for that is what Christian kindness is, not polite reciprocation, nor even enlightened self-interest, but the kind of kindness Jesus enjoined on his disciples when he said, “But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you…. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.”

It’s true that Mephibosheth was Jonathan’s son and David owed Mephibosheth a debt of kindness for Jonathan’s sake. And it’s true that Mephibosheth was crippled, the innocent, pitiable casualty of social conflict and so deserving of someone showing him the kindness of God. But Mephibosheth was also the grandson of Saul, David’s worst enemy, and heir to the throne of Israel in the old dynasty that David had supplanted. Ancient Oriental tradition taught that a new regal line could safely establish itself only if all members of the former dynasty were obliterated. For David, therefore, to take Mephibosheth into his own house and show him kindness instead of cutting his throat was to do an unconventional, improper, dangerous thing.

Can’t you hear the wise men in the king’s cabinet: “Why, Your Excellency, you cannot afford this foolish charity. If you care not for your own welfare and safety, how can you do this thing to your own children and your loyal subjects? As long as one heir of Saul’s lives, he will remain a symbol about which insurrection may rally to destroy your dynasty, disinherit your children, and plunge your own loyal subjects into bloody civil war. This, Your Excellency, is an unwise charity, a cruel kindness.”

No, the making of the chain of kindness is not sentimental slush, as David must have found out, but tough welding that calls for courageous hearts challenged by the world’s deepest need on some of its most dangerous fronts.

I’ve known in my time devout Christian men and women who, constrained by the love and kindness of Christ, showed kindness to some of the neediest in our southland, and because of that kindness they suffered the loss of all things. Their only crime was that they showed the kindness of Christ to those whom others, their neighbors, did not want to receive His kindness.

And finally, this brief episode from the life of David reveals to us this about the chain of kindness: It awaits our forging, not only for the world’s great need that kindness be shown, but also for ourselves, our own soul salvation. David, human, frail, erring man that he was, yet lived always with his soul windows open upon the Eternal, ready to receive tidings and inspiration from the other world. This was the secret of his genius. This is what made him a man after God’s own heart. Because of this quality he could compose psalms. So even in the triumph and glory that was his as first citizen of Israel, the nation’s ruler and adored hero, he felt in his soul that he must do the kindness of God to someone so his soul still might live, so what in him was most like God might remain alive and in touch with the Eternal. As God is eternal love and kindness, so he, David, God’s child, must be kind, too.

Yes, the chain of kindness must be forged link by link, not only because our world needs to be filled with the goodness of God as the waters cover the sea, but more because we need to have our souls fashioned into the likeness of Christ, and that will not come without our showing kindness. It is more blessed to give than to receive. It is the giver’s soul rather than the recipient’s soul that is most filled with joy, beauty, and strength when kindness is done. Only as the love of Christ constrains us to do acts of kindness is our soul changed into his likeness.

Nothing is as important as souls. Souls are more important than comforts or kindness or kingdoms. Souls will outlast all powers and empires. And souls are not made perfect without showing kindness. It is not just that people in Africa and South America and disillusioned Communists all over the world need us to send missionaries to preach Christ to them; it is not just that the poor, the homeless, and the despairing people all around us in our city’s slums and neglected rural neighborhoods need our kindness lest they starve or rise in rebellion; but we need to perform these kindnesses so our own souls may not grow cruel, hard, insensitive — so we may become more like Christ.