Leviticus 19:9-10 - Homiletics

The law of kindness is a necessary complement to the other laws,

to make up the perfect character. A stern, just man is not the Christian ideal. The mercy and loving-kindness of God must be our model, as well as his other qualities.

"The quality of mercy … is twice blessed:

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."

The man who leaves something for others that he might have taken for himself, such as the gleanings of his field, rises from the level of justice to that of generosity, and is educated to understand the noble impulses of a liberal heart and the blessedness described in the one saying of our Lord that is not recounted in the Gospels, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."