The Quality of Mercy 2/16/41
Scripture: Micah 6: 1-8.
Text: Matthew 5: 7; “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”
You and I, like most other people, live in an atmosphere of hurry and tension. We are much occupied with the present. And the present is filled with daily concerns which make it vitally important to draw aside from confusion, now and then, long enough to view ourselves and our surroundings in the light of the eternal.
We are impressed with the appearance of might which often prevails at the expense of justice. Whole nations, yes, a world of people, are victims of lying propaganda which attacks the ears from many directions. Are there still values that are eternally right?
After moments and minutes of worship, and in periods of quiet contemplation, we know that there are values that are just as valid and as vital now as they ever were. The great minds of the world have known these values and laid hold upon them, practiced their virtues and dramatized man’s dependence upon them.
William Shakespeare was a great dramatist for a number of reasons. For one thing, he was a great poet. He knew how to put fine thoughts in excellent verse. For another, he knew how to make his words appeal to the eye and the ear. Again, he used the finest of the English language. Many of his expressions and allusions come from that masterpiece of literature, the King James translation of the English Bible.
But these reasons are superficial compared with the real reason for Shakespeare’s greatness. For William Shakespeare knew the qualities of human life, and how to dramatize them, as few other men have known them.
How often man has to be reminded of the quality of mercy. We drive a bargain that may be hard on the other fellow, surround it with the rules or laws of the game, and then rest easy that the whole transaction is fair, when sometimes it is not. In the struggle to exist, and to get ahead, we are tempted to ride over the rights and the emotions of other people without heart or conscience.
Shakespeare pictures in vivid extreme such a situation in his play, “The Merchant of Venice.” The money-lender Shylock has made a deal to furnish three thousand ducats to Bassanio on the surety of Antonio. In case Bassanio is unable to pay it back in three months and Antonio can not make it good in cash, the money lender is to be privileged to take a pound of flesh from Antonio; Shylock to take it from whatever part of Antonio’s body it pleases him to do so.
The three months have passed. The loan is not repaid. Antonio’s ships have come to grief and he is not able to make good the financial backing of his friend, Bassanio. So Shylock demands, in court, his pound of flesh. His determination is born of deep hatred. Many a time he has been spurned, spat upon, kicked in public by this merchant. Why should he not satisfy his resentment and hatred by getting even, or more than even?
It would seem that untempered justice were on the side of Shylock. A bargain was made; a forfeit was named in writing. This was Antonio’s bond and Shylock proposed to collect it.
The lawyer, Portia, recognizes the legality and the hard justice of the claim and pleads with the stubborn Shylock to be merciful.
Perhaps some of you remember the speech. It is one of the great passages from Shakespeare and many have memorized it in school.
“The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath; it is twice bless’d; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings:
But mercy is above this sceptered sway,
It is enthroned in the heart of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself,
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.”
“The quality of mercy is not strained.” It is freely given and freely received. It has a healing, renewing quality. Its importance is apparent in the Lord’s Prayer when divine mercy is implored to “forgive us or debts and we forgive our debtors.”
The quality of mercy “is twice blessed; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” Jesus, the great teacher, put it this way: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” It works both ways.
President Lincoln was not a man to compromise a great issue. He believed that the cause of federal union (and with it freedom from slavery) was worth even the horrible price of war. But his generals sometimes despaired of their discipline when Lincoln responded to appeals for mercy. You recall the story of a mother whose son was to be shot for falling asleep on sentry duty. Of course that is a grave offense, for an enemy could quickly master an unguarded, unwarned, sleeping camp. This mother managed to get the ear of the great President, who, after considering the tragedy, wrote a pardon for the soldier boy. That deed of mercy not only saved the boy’s life from an otherwise inescapable penalty. It also saved the soul of the President from anguish. Both the giver and the receiver of deeds of mercy are blessed.
The quality of mercy is illustrated in man’s treatment of the animals. His cruelty has sometimes gone to the point where laws were necessary to restrain him. To protest the helpless creatures who occasionally suffer from man’s cruelty, humane societies have been formed all over our nation. These organizations of mercy not only see to the making and enforcing of necessary laws for the prevention of cruelty. But they call our attention to the value, in character and community morale, of kindness to the creatures which serve or delight us. The boy who learns to study, to photograph, to promote the welfare of the birds, becomes a man with finer sensibilities than the one who thinks only of slaughtering the winged creatures with slingshot or gun. The man who feeds and shelters his work horses properly and gives them their periods of rest, as well as work, is a better man than the driver who beats his half-starved mules through all the hours of daylight.
Steady gains have been made over the last two centuries in the humane treatment of unfortunates. Prisoners whose lot was once only filth, vermin, cold, disease and slow death, now receive a fair measure of decent treatment. The mentally unbalanced, who were once only tied, or locked up are now studied, treated, made as comfortable as possible at public expense. It is all a part of the steady increase in respect for human personality.
Today we see the growth, in several quarters, of a philosophy that has no respect for personality as such. People are only instruments or pawns of the state. Every person who believes in the dignity of God-given human life must be unalterably opposed to the cheapness of such a philosophy! It is a pagan, essentially God-less philosophy. It feeds tyranny, and tyrants cultivate it in order to be fed.
The prophets have always spotted it and condemned it, sometimes at the risk of their lives. Sooner or later it must yield, for tyrants are not blessed. “Blessed are the merciful,” the considerate, the kind. That is the ultimate truth given us by Christ, but the prophets before him and by his apostles and saints to this day.
The book of Micah comes to its climax when the prophet reaches a height of human insight into this matter. “He hath shewed thee, o man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” This is one of the noblest of the verses of the Old Testament.
Out of God’s revelations to man; out of the testing of man’s experience, God’s way has been shown to man. What is good in God’s sight? These things: (1) “to do justly”, not just to clamor for one’s rights like the scheming, hating, stubborn Shylock. But to act with justice toward others. The lesson was just as important for Antonio at this point as it was for Shylock. (2) “to love mercy;” to love mercy - not grudging, but glad reaching out to others who need a helping hand. (3) “and (this goes with it) to walk humbly with thy God.”
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Probably from man - certainly from the Father.
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Dates and places delivered:
Pilgrim Church, Honolulu, April 14, 1940 AM
Wisconsin Rapids, February 16, 1941
W.F.H.R., Wisconsin Rapids, September 23, 1941
Wordl Fellowship Council of Wisconsin Women,
Green Bay, April 21, 1942