My son and his friend were wrestling as ten-year-old boys are prone to do. I paid no mind, until I heard one of them yell, “Mercy!” And the other respond, “Show no mercy!” Were they ever surprised when I interrupted their play with a motherly theological lecture about mercy. Fortunately for the boys, I refrained from quoting William Shakespeare, “The quality of mercy is not strained, so knock it off, guys.”

That familiar line is from Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice. In his book The Soul in Paraphrase, Leland Ryken notes that this phrase about mercy means that it cannot be forced. In the play’s context, Ryken says, “This speech uttered by Shakespeare's fictional heroine Portia occurs in the famous trial scene in act 4, scene 1, of The Merchant of Venice. The context is that the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock has dragged his debtor Antonio into court and is pursuing an attempted murder of him based on a contract that Antonio had signed. Portia, in the guise of a trial lawyer, utters her speech in an attempt to dissuade Shylock from his attempted murder and to persuade him to show mercy instead. Immediately preceding the speech, Shylock had asked scornfully 'on what compulsion' he must show mercy as Portia had claimed in the words 'then must the Jew be merciful.' The opening line of Portia's speech is a reply to that immediate question.”

A few lines later, Portia declares that mercy
“’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.”

I thought of another king when I read these lines, not a Shakespearean king, but the one after God’s own heart, David. In 2 Samuel 12, David got more than a Portia reminding him that the quality of mercy is not strained. He got Nathan, sent by the Lord. After Nathan’s story about the rich man taking the poor man’s one little ewe, David exploded. That man deserves to die—no mercy. Then came Nathan’s stinging pronouncement, “You are the man!” The king’s crown had slipped, and now he was the one who needed mercy. David needed someone greater than himself to show him unrestrained mercy.

He found the One. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!” (Psalm 51:1-2) And if David were to forget why he needed God’s abundant mercy, Psalm 51 is attributed to “the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after had gone into Bathsheba.”

I don’t have a crown that keeps slipping or a psalm attributed to any of my many sins (a huge mercy in and of itself), but I come to the same One who abounds in mercy and lovingkindness. I come to the God, who proclaimed his name to Abraham as “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” And I come to Zechariah’s God, who "gives knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:77-79)

I come just as I am.

The boyhood game of "Show no mercy!" showed the human perspective on mercy: don't show it. But for people in power, the showing of mercy is something that makes a person great. Mercy is at the very heart of God. As his children, we are to be people of mercy.

Back to Shakespeare and one more note from Ryken’s selected words. It’s the word “become” that means appropriate or fitting. Portia's point was that mercy is more appropriate or fitting for a ruler than his very crown. Unless, I might add, when the crown is composed of thorns.