Proper 21 (26) – Year C
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost: September 28, 2025
Gospel Lectionary Text
Luke 16:19-31
16:19 "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.
16:20 And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
16:21 who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
16:22 The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.
16:23 In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.
16:24 He called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.'
16:25 But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.
16:26 Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.'
16:27 He said, 'Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father's house--
16:28 for I have five brothers--that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.'
16:29 Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.'
16:30 He said, 'No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.'
16:31 He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"
Context
Welcome to the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost. This week’s Gospel is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. One dines like royalty behind the gates of privilege. The other rots outside, longing for scraps. The only ones who cross the threshold are the house dogs, who lick Lazarus’ wounds with more compassion than their master shows.
But here’s the twist: Jesus gives the poor man a name — Lazarus — and leaves the rich man anonymous. In Scripture, names mean relationship, dignity, belonging. God remembers the forgotten. The “blessed” man has no name.
When death levels the playing field, their roles reverse. The rich man, now in agony, begs Father Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead as a warning to his brothers. Abraham’s reply is chilling: “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
And here the parable both collapses and explodes. Abraham cannot imagine resurrection. But we can. Jesus is Lazarus — the one cast out, despised, treated as cursed. And God answers the rich man’s prayer in the most shocking way: Jesus does come back from the dead. Not as a vengeful ghost, but as mercy itself.
Which leaves us with the most uncomfortable question: if we can’t recognize God’s blessing in the wounded one at our gate, what makes us think Easter will convince us? The resurrection isn’t a magic trick. It’s the unveiling of the neighbor we’ve ignored all along. The gates of mercy are opening wide. The only question is whether we will walk through them.
Question
Who are the “Lazaruses” at our gates today, and what keeps us from seeing them as bearers of God’s blessing?
Reflections
The Rich Man and Lazarus
By Kate Davis |
This week in Luke 16, Jesus shares the parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus at his gates — a strange story full of inversions for any listener. This story isn’t an isolated tale. It comes as part of a series of parables, beginning in Luke 15, that are told in the presence of...
The Divide
By Pat Thompson |
I imagine the rich man at the beginning of his day. He is a man about town, with pressing matters on his mind and very important people to meet. I am easily persuaded that someone like him has no time to volunteer with a local charity or dedicate himself to the protection of the less...
Not Even Abraham
By Kris Rocke |
This week’s text is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man lives a life of plenty, while Lazarus lay at the threshold of his gate “covered in sores” suffering the indignities of wretched poverty. “He longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table” (v. 21). The…
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
This week’s lectionary text tells us the familiar parable of “The Rich Man and Lazarus.” By the end, the anonymous rich man begs Father Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead as a warning to his brothers. Abraham’s chilling reply: “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
Obviously, then, the “they” in Abraham’s warning refers to the rich man’s brothers… But is that all it refers to?
Gamaas-Holmes’s poem reminds us that Lazarus spent his life laying at the rich man’s “gate.” He would have been passed over, not only by the rich man, but by everyone coming and going from the rich man’s house. His pitiful presence would have helped these VIPs (might we have been included?) to “divide” themselves from the whole outside world – themselves from “all life.”
Curiously though, it’s not just the VIPs who are at risk. Gamaas-Holmes uses a carefully indeterminate “he” to refer to the subject of his poem. Lazarus, too, is capable of using the gate as a marker of what sets him apart, a “great chasm” between himself and the resurrection that is reaching for him.
The resurrection that, scandalously, imagines all of us dividers together.
Chasm
by Steve Garnaas-Holmes
…at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus…
Luke 16.20
It’s only a gate
but enough to hide,
to divide.
If he lets it
it can come between
him and all life —
and that thin gate become
a great chasm.
Only when our gates are open
can they become
the gates of heaven.
Excerpts from A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens
"Darkness was cheap and Scrooge liked it."...
″‘You are fettered,’ said Scrooge, trembling. ‘Tell me why?’
‘I wear the chain I forged in life,’ replied the Ghost. ‘I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?‘”
The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Prayer
This week, the call to prayer comes from the Street Psalms Centering Prayer:
Come, Holy Spirit, wild and free. Do as you please. Shine your light on me that I might see things as they are, not as I am. Free me to act in your name with courage, creativity, and compassion.
