Luke 16: 19-31
Michael Mitchell
September 28, 2025
In today’s Gospel Jesus tells the Pharisees and his disciples a parable in which a rich man lives a life of great luxury. He’s dressed in purple, which in this Roman occupied land, signifies a man of royalty. This man is not only very rich, he is also privileged and very powerful. His home is gated and protected from the surrounding community.
Another man, by contrast named Lazarus, is a very poor man, leaning against the front gate, starving and very ill. Leaning against the gate, we are told he hopes to get food falling beneath the rich man’s table in an effort to stave off starvation, but the rich man never offers Lazarus any food or help. So, Lazarus dies of starvation and illness. Then we are told the angels pick Lazarus up and take him to the care of Abraham where he is comforted and blessed.
The rich man also then dies, and he goes to Hades where he experiences great suffering and pain.
Now, to Jesus’ audience, this turn of events generates a faith crisis. They believed, in their religious and societal understandings, that rich people were rich because God was blessing them with great wealth in reward for being righteous and Godly in their living. On the other hand, poor and sick people were so because God was punishing them for very sinful lives. But suddenly here, the poor man is the one Jesus says is rewarded and in God’s particular favor. The rich man is the one who receives the torment and destitution after he dies.
The rich man was blinded by his wealth and his love for his wealthy life, his compassion destroyed by decadent living, causing him to ignore Lazarus until Lazarus dies. Even in death, the rich man believed Lazarus should serve him, and asked Abraham to send Lazarus to attend to the rich man’s needs. Abraham tells the man Lazarus is not the rich man’s servant, and the rich man’s torment the result of wealth served and not God, and for the missed opportunities to help the poor like Lazarus.
Said Jesus before in Luke (chapter 10), real life is lived in love of God and each other: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Had the rich man focused his attention on God and following God, it would have led him to stop focusing on his wealth and what it would get him, and he would have had room to realize compassion for Lazarus suffering at his gate, save his life and the lives of many, many other poor, blind, lame and sick. In doing this, he would have grown in love and awareness of God, and his life would have led to a joyous outcome. The rich man could have had Lazarus brought in to his home, attended to his medical needs, and fed him. Perhaps he could have provided a room and even eventual work for Lazarus once healed and healthy, and thus helped Lazarus to a better life on Earth. Perhaps he could have used his great wealth to help many more poor who lived around the rich man’s home. We know this when Abraham and the rich man discuss the need for the rich man’s family to repent of serving wealth, which if they listen to the Prophets, would realize their need for repentance and call to use their money in service to the poor. But alas, the rich man believes his family won’t listen to the Prophets. Wealth is just too important to them.
What was Jesus hoping in telling this story? Some of his listeners are Pharisees, whom we are told earlier love money. For them, the story was a warning that love of money would keep them from devotion to God, and would hinder them from loving people and putting God’s calling into action.
Jesus has said that what we think is important, or what we love and seek after determines how we live our lives. The society we live in values money, and so much of how people live is dedicated to making as much money as one can. Rich people are highly prized in our country. And poor people are looked down on. There are all kinds of stories about successful people sacrificing everything to make money, even to the exclusion of their family relationships, ending in divorce, children being neglected, looking down on the poor and homeless, underpaying their employees and over-demanding of their time. Seeking wealth can ruin the joy of life, and with Jesus’ story today, it can destroy our souls.
For Jesus, what we should focus attention on are relationships. It begins with “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as you love yourself.” In the story, Abraham names the importance of listening to Moses and the Prophets, the Scriptures. In our lives, how do we listen to God? We of the Episcopal Church have developed several practices to help us with this. If we follow the readings of the Daily Office each day, we would read the entire Bible in two years, a small amount each day for us to contemplate. If we come to church each Sunday, we will hear the entire Bible read over the course of three years. And of course, each Sunday some part of the readings is reflected on in sermons. Our worship each Sunday brings us together as a family to be in the presence of Jesus through our reenactment of Holy Communion. And wait till we get to the passing of the peace, we welcome and uplift each other in our greetings. We pray together, we pray for each other. All these things help us focus on the presence of God. And in private prayer and devotion we add new layers of devotion and love of God.
This is the first part of Jesus great love command. Now for the second part, loving our neighbor. In our story today, the rich man failed here. Lazarus was at his front gate. The rich man was too absorbed in his luxury to pay any attention to Lazarus. But Jesus says God especially loves and seeks to help the poor, the sick, those in need. It means that when we pay attention to God who created us, being in service to others becomes a focus in our lives.
Sometimes we are called to do something big and expensive for others. The Episcopal Church has historically built hospitals and schools to better the lives of others. Individuals give service to organizations that have come together to address the needs of the poor.
But in our day to day lives, as we grow in love with God, we become sensitive to needs of people around us. Doing acts of kindness becomes an expression of loving God and our neighbor. This can lead us to smile and say kind words to our fellow shoppers in the grocery store and to the people who work there. Maybe we wave to people and smile to acknowledge “we see you and hope good things for you.”
There’s an occasional series on NPR Radio called “My Unsung Hero” where people share stories when a stranger steps up to help them in a moment of particular need, a kindness that sticks with them and encourages them for many years. Some of the stories are of a hug or kind words from a stranger that makes all the difference. Some of the stories are of bigger interventions. Two stories come to mind I want to share that made an impression on me. In one story, a woman tells about a time she was walking briskly to work in the city, and she suddenly falls badly on the sidewalk. She is bleeding and in pain from her injuries, and scared. A man sees her fall, helps the woman up. She has fallen in front of his office, so he helps her inside; he calls out to his secretary to assist him in tending to the woman’s injuries. With a first-aid kit, they clean her wounds. The woman says their kind voices and encouragement comforted her, it calmed her nerves. The secretary leads her to the restroom so she can clean up. She remains in the office until she has collected herself, and then she goes on to work. Many years later, this moment of significant kindness still resonates in her life.
Another story is told by a couple who had a car accident, and a good Samaritan provides significant help. The couple and their dog are driving through Nevada on a rural highway when the dog suddenly jumps into the front seat and the husband looses control of the car and they crash. The wife is very badly injured and losing blood, the dog is significantly injured, but the husband is able to flag down help. The man who stops is a truck driver. He helps get the couple and their dog in to the truck, and drives them to the hospital, and then the dog to the vet. But it doesn’t stop there. The husband, now with no transportation, is assisted by the truck driver. The trucker stays in town, drives the husband to and from the hospital for days while the wife recovers. He drives the husband even to the vet while his dog recovers. All three survive because this man stopped to help in a life-threatening crisis. Shadows of Jesus’ story about the Good Samaritan?
I remember as a child my family returning home in North Arkansas from Dad’s rural Methodist Church, and we came upon an accident in which a man had flipped his car and was trapped inside. We stopped and my Dad and several other people, who were also stopping, worked and freed the man from his car. We had the man get in our car and we drove him to the Hospital. Turned out his only injury was a broken wrist.
All of these people were aware of their neighbors’ needs (the Good Samaritan story permeates our society, you know), and people bring the love of God into action.
You will get opportunities to help every day in some fashion. The rich man had opportunities to help right at his front gate every day. God favors the poor and people in need, and it is us whom God asks to help, God filling us with love so we can respond.
AMEN