Luke 16:19-31
Revised Common Lectionary
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 28, 2025
I love a good parable. It’s like a puzzle where you get to try to figure out where everything fits. And it can shift and change over time as you change. Parables are fun to play with. Well, most of the time. Occasionally, Jesus gives us one that doesn’t leave much room for interpretation. He says exactly what he means and leaves you alone in your discomfort. Such is the case in this week’s gospel reading.
The differences between the rich man and Lazarus could not be more stark. The rich man wears fine purple linens, the most expensive designer clothes available, and his table, likely in a dining room meant to command respect in its opulence, is filled with the finest foods. Lazarus had none of those things. He was the kind of person people crossed the street to avoid, with his tattered clothes, his body covered with sores, malnourished and weak from hunger.
These men know each other. And perhaps you know them too.
Lazarus sees the way the rich man eats and longs for even a crumb that falls carelessly from the table. How much food do you suppose was swept from that table at the end of each day to be replaced by fresher foods the next day? How much of that food would go to waste, rotting in a bin while people went hungry? It is estimated that 30-40% of the American food supply is wasted, leaving food that could have fed families rotting in a landfill. Food is discarded because of aesthetic standards that deem all but the most perfect food as disposable. Consumers over-buy and over-prepare with leftovers often simply thrown away, cleared from tables in restaurants, homes, and churches. When you have more than enough, the value of the food doesn’t seem so high.
The rich man knows Lazarus. He sees Lazarus outside his gate every day. He knows Lazarus by name but does everything he can to separate himself. I wonder how many times he asked Lazarus to move along before he finally gave up. I wonder how many times he’s requested that the city remove Lazarus or if he’s invested in hostile architecture, furniture meant to deter those who would loiter where they are unwanted. Has he set his landscaper to lay a rocky path or even set spikes into the corners to keep Lazarus away? Or maybe, at this point, he and his guests have just learned how to actively avoid eye contact when he asks for mercy as they walk by.
Jesus makes it clear that there is a right choice here, and the consequence for not choosing it is unpleasant. Lazarus goes to heaven, not on his own merit, but purely by grace. After a lifetime of suffering in a broken world, the angels reach out with the compassion and hospitality never afforded to him by his community. The rich man, on the other hand, goes to Hades, exactly because of his choices. He chose to break the bonds of community, to shun a neighbor in need, and live wastefully when he had all the power to choose more generous way.
It’s about the choices we have. Jesus’s parable reinforces that it isn’t our resume of good works, the sum total of our goodness, that gets us into heaven. It’s the choices we make when we are afforded them and the ways we choose to use the resources we are given each and every day. If what you do, or don’t do, causes harm to another, that is a rift that can only be mended by reconciliation in community here and now. The rich man goes to Hades and is separated by an impassable chasm because, in his inaction, he failed to do the good he could in the time he had.
The good news is that we have heard this story, and we still have time. We have time to be rift menders and bridge builders right now and right here, closing the gaps between the ones who have and those who have none, whether it be money, resources, privilege, or power. We can be kindom builders, choosing generosity and compassion every time, so none of our neighbors succumb to the pain and suffering of this world and the rift grows wider.
Questions for reflection on Luke 16:19-31
- Who is sitting outside your gates, sometimes literally outside your churches, hoping for a scrap of mercy and grace to fall from your table? How do we hinder them in the ways we order our lives? How can we offer generosity in new ways?
- Lazarus is sick and poor, two characteristics that would have caused him to be shunned by society. By what characteristics do we judge people today? What would this story look like if they were the Lazarus character today?
- What could we do to lower food waste in our homes and communities? How can churches be role models for just ways of handling food at our tables of fellowship and at the Lord’s table?
View the corresponding Order of Worship for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
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