ALPHA MAAMA (A.M.)

 Monite Fepueli 9, 2026

LEVITIKO 24-25; 2 KOLINITO 8:1-15

We see the beauty and tenderness of God in his kindness toward the poor.

‘Oku tau mamata ‘i he faka’ofo’ofa mo e manava’ofa ‘o e ‘Otua ‘i he’ene tokangaekinga ‘a e masiva.

Because I live in the heart of the city, I walk everywhere. I am on the sidewalks almost every day, walking to meet someone for lunch, to pick up something at the store, or to go out to dinner with my wife. As do so many big cities, Philly has a heartbreaking homeless problem. We see people living and begging on the streets every day. Sometimes we literally have to step over someone to get to where we are going. It is easy to get used to diverting your eyes, to act like you didn't hear that cry for assistance, to harden your heart. It's easy to get mad at someone who is messing up the sidewalks or intimidating tourists. I admit that it is often hard to look upon a street person with eyes of love, remembering that, like me, he is made in the image of God, and, because he is, he has value and dignity.

This is why I am struck by the directives in Leviticus on how to treat the poor: 

If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God. (Lev. 25:35-38) 

God's words here are touching and important. He is instructing his people to take in and provide for the poor in the community. This is a call to loving, radical hospitality. Then God addresses the motivation for such self-sacrificing kindness. God tells them, "Don't do this for personal gain, but because you fear me." God's children should remember how he responded to them when they were poor, needy, and unable to change their circumstances, and then show that same kindness to others. If you live in fearful awe of God's mercy to you, then you will be an agent of his mercy to others. Gratitude is the soil in which kindness grows. God makes the invisible mercy of his kindness visible by sending people of mercy to respond with kindness to people who need mercy. God calls his children to represent his character and will wherever he places them.

Now think about your life. The Bible says that Jesus became poor so that through his poverty we might become rich (2 Cor. 8:9). He looked on us with love and, in the mercy of kindness, did for us what we could never have done for ourselves. May God grant us the grace to show kindness to the needy people we encounter, with gratitude for the mercy we have been given.