Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Mercy Me!"

Text: James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17

The central moment of The Merchant of Venice comes in the Court of the Duke of Venice, when Shylock refuses to accept Antonio’s offer to repay three-fold the amount he had borrowed from Shylock to finance the trip of his young friend Bassanio to the town of Belmont, where Bassanio sought and won the hand of the beautiful and wealthy heiress, Portia. In the Court, a young male lawyer named Balthasar (actually, young Portia in disguise) pleaded Antonio’s case. If this isn’t confusing enough, remember that in Shakespeare’s time, males played the female characters. In this case, a male actor would have played Portia, the female, who then was disguised as the male lawyer. Now you know why this was considered a comedy!

In his/her/his famous speech (found in Act IV, Scene I, lines 182-200), Portia declares:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre 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 sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That, in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy.

A beautiful speech, worthy of any good defense attorney, don’t you agree? What most folks don’t remember is that the Court ruled against Antonio, saying that he must suffer the loss of a pound of flesh of Shylock’s choice, as specified in the contract.

Ultimately, Shylock failed to obtain the "pound of flesh" – since he couldn’t figure out how to get the pound of flesh without also extracting some blood – which was not included in the original contract. Good thing that cryogenics (freezing at very low temperatures) did not exist in the 1590s when Shakespeare wrote this play – but I digress.

Let us shift our focus from The Merchant of Venice to "The Merchant of Bentonville," otherwise known as Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart. Just as Shylock’s name is forever associated with a certain approach to financial dealings, so the enormous corporation established by that good Presbyterian Sam Walton has become (in)famous for how it deals with its Associates (employees).

With well over one million Associates, Wal-Mart is the largest non-governmental employer in America and also the most controversial. From its beginnings in 1962 in rural Arkansas to its current push to enter major metropolitan markets across the nation, Wal-Mart’s market share has grown and grown. As a result, mom-and-pop stores on small town squares and, more recently, large national chains have gone out of business in the face of its commitment to provide customers "Always Low Prices. Always".

But it is not Wal-Mart’s low prices that are of concern. Clearly, American consumers are willing, even eager, to shop at Wal-Mart, just as small businesses – including our own Trinity Presbyterian Church – save money on bulk purchases at the Sam’s Clubs located in many urban areas.

What concerns me, and many other progressive Christians, is Wal-Mart’s tendency to be more like Shylock than like Portia. As Brian Bolton wrote in a recent commentary entitled "Always Low Wages – Where would Jesus shop? Not Wal-Mart" (Sojourners Magazine, February 2004, vol. 33, no. 2, pp 9), Wal-Mart’s power brings with it a "responsibility to pay just wages. With hundreds of thousands of Wal-Mart employees below poverty-level income, corporate contributions to community and charity are not enough."

Wal-Mart is a barometer of contemporary American values. The "low price" wins out over "just wages" in Wal-Mart’s vision of the world. And nearly all of us buy that vision. It is pervasive and addictive, whether we encounter these "values" in a traditional Wal-Mart, in a Super Wal-Mart, in a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, or in a Sam’s Club.

Five years ago, Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a bestselling book, entitled Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting By in America (2001). She went "under cover" and spent time working as a waitress and a house cleaner in Florida, as an aide in a nursing home and as a hotel maid in Maine, and as a clerk at a Wal-Mart in Minnesota. In all of her working experiences, she encountered fully employed people who work hard, sometimes at two jobs, and still find themselves living in poverty. I highly recommend this book. I have used it in my SMU course on "Culture and Diversity in American Life" and it has been used as the "common reading" for first-year students during their first week experience at SMU. Reading Ehrenreich’s experiences will force you to contemplate your "values," especially during your next trip to Wal-Mart. In this week following our national celebration of Labor Day, making a better balance between "The Low Price. Always." and "The Low Wage. Always." becomes a matter of social justice.

The trip from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice to Sam Walton’s "Merchant of Bentonville" would be incomplete without a stop in The Letter of James, which, although written in the literary form of a letter, does not appear to be a real piece of correspondence. The author of The Letter of James, whether actually James the brother of Jesus or some other follower of Jesus who used James’s name to enhance the authority of his letter, clearly favors the poor over the wealthy. In this, he follows the teachings of Jesus, as found in Luke 6:20, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."

In a sense, both Shakespeare and Ehrenreich use the ideas of The Letter of James to challenge the values of the wealthy and to lift up the spirits of the poor. James argues that, in the end, "faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead" (2:17). And the particular "works" that James has in mind require that the rich take care of the needs of the poor. Following the law according to the scripture, James declares, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," without "partiality" (2:9). He challenges the rich (2:15-16) when he says, "If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?"

James appreciated that all human beings are "poor" before the Lord. We do not live up to the standards of the law. We fail to achieve equity and equality, not only for the poor in our nation but also in the world beyond our borders. We declare our "values" through the choices of our pocketbooks and our credit cards. We make judgments about how we live our lives and use the earth’s resources.

In the end, we will be subject to God’s judgment for the lives that we have lived and the mercy that we have shown to those less fortunate than ourselves. Listen again to James 2:13, "For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment."

As Presbyterians, we know that mercy trumps judgment. Given a choice between being judged according to what we "deserve" or receiving mercy, we choose mercy. As this morning’s Prayer of Thanksgiving reminds us, we are thankful that "God’s mercy endures forever." We are sustained by our faith in God’s mercy, so that each of us can pray, "Lord, have mercy on me." So, in closing, and recognizing the absence of Pastor Julie, our resident grammar expert, I shall proceed to "verb a noun," by offering this simple benediction, "Lord, mercy me!" Amen.