9/28/25 Sermon

Last week we wrestled with one of Jesus’ strangest parables—the story of the dishonest, or shrewd, manager. A man who wasted his master’s possessions got caught, rewrote the debts on his way out the door, and somehow ended up being commended for it.

What we discovered was that Jesus wasn’t praising dishonesty—he was lifting up resourcefulness. The manager suddenly realized that money could be used for more than self-interest. It could shape relationships, build trust, and open up a future. And Jesus pressed the point: if even the children of this age know how to use wealth to build community, how much more should the children of light use what they’ve been given for God’s kingdom?

We also talked about how this lesson stretches beyond money. It’s about privilege too. Wealth, status, education, connections—all of these can enslave us if we cling to them as our masters. But when we put them in service to God, they become gifts that can bless others, open doors, and build community.

And that brings us to today’s passage, which almost feels like the counterpoint to last week’s parable. If the dishonest manager finally figured out how to use wealth well, today we meet a man who never learns that lesson—a rich man who lives in comfort while a poor man named Lazarus suffers right at his gate.

If last week’s parable asked what happens when someone finally learns to use wealth well, today’s text asks: what happens when someone never learns? Luke lets us see the cost of that blindness.

Let’s listen together to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16, beginning with verse 19.

“There was a certain rich man who clothed himself in purple and fine linen, and who feasted luxuriously every day.  At his gate lay a certain poor man named Lazarus who was covered with sores.  Lazarus longed to eat the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Instead, dogs would come and lick his sores.

 “The poor man died and was carried by angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. While being tormented in the place of the dead, he looked up and saw Abraham at a distance with Lazarus at his side.  He shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I’m suffering in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received good things, whereas Lazarus received terrible things. Now Lazarus is being comforted and you are in great pain. Moreover, a great crevasse has been fixed between us and you. Those who wish to cross over from here to you cannot. Neither can anyone cross from there to us.’

“The rich man said, ‘Then I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my father’s house. I have five brothers. He needs to warn them so that they don’t come to this place of agony.’  Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. They must listen to them.’  The rich man said, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone from the dead goes to them, they will change their hearts and lives.’  Abraham said, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the Prophets, then neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’”

WORD OF LORSD

There are two points I’ve seen this parable used to make.  The first one is as a warning about Hell and to make the case of why someone wouldn’t want to go there. But I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who actually wanted to go to Hell… The second point preachers seem to want to make is that being rich in of itself is bad or a sin somehow.  But to use this parable to make those points is a gross misunderstanding about what’s going on and what Jesus is trying to say.

The sin, what lands this guy in Hades or Hell, isn’t the fact that he’s rich.  It’s what he does… actually it’s what he  doesn’t do with what he’s been blessed with.  The guy throws parties every night.  He’s dressed in purple linen which is like saying he had a new Coach bag or a new Versace suit every day.  That’s not even his big sin. Living extravagantly wasn’t the big deal here.  I think all that extravagance would’ve maybe been excusable but in Jesus’ eyes what couldn’t be overlooked was that day after day - all day - Lazarus sat outside his gate.  What’s interesting is that Lazarus here is the only person ever named in any of Jesus’ parables.  He’s the only person in a story that Jesus gives a name to.  And interestingly enough it’s a name that’s derived from the Hebrew word Eleazar which means “God has helped.”

But Lazarus sits outside this rich man’s gate, the dogs licking his open soars, wishing he could even get the scraps of food that fall on the floor of the rich man’s dining room, and he sits there day after day.

How many times do you think that guy walked past Lazarus?  Do you think he even noticed him after awhile or did Lazarus just begin to blend in?  Did the rich man begin to forget Lazarus was even a person and just mistake him or regard him as an inconvenient piece of litter on the sidewalk?

You ever see the homeless in the city?  How people avoid eye-contact or any human acknowledgement as they step around them?  Did any of you even blink at what I just called them?  The homeless?  It sounds strangely better than saying that person who’s really struggling on the sidewalk, doesn’t it?  Calling them “the homeless” takes away the face of it. They sound more like objects than people. It’s more comfortable for us if we don’t put names on those people.  And yet Jesus names him in this parable.  He makes the man outside the gate human to us.  The Rich man may not see him but Jesus wants us to see Lazarus and pay attention. And Jesus DOESN’T name the rich man.  Another way Jesus turns things upside down…

The sin of the rich man isn’t being rich at all. It isn’t even in living a lavish lifestyle. The sin of the rich man is in regarding Lazarus as something less than human, in stepping over him every day without really seeing him. I don’t even think it’s a case of seeing someone in need and not helping them. I think it’s a case of not even seeing the person at all. It’s a case of getting so comfortable with the world the way it is and growing so accustomed to it that we can’t even see the very real suffering and poverty that literally sits at our own doorstep, right outside our own gates every day.

Now, I want to step back from the details of the parable because what Jesus is really doing here is holding up a mirror. He is telling the Pharisees—and us—that the danger isn’t simply wealth, it’s blindness. It’s the ease with which we can grow numb to the suffering right at our doorstep. And then Jesus sharpens that point even further: he says that even a miracle, even a resurrection, won’t be enough to open some eyes that have chosen not to see. That’s how stubborn our blindness can be.

And this is where the gospel gets very concrete. Because if Jesus insists on anything, it’s this: faith is not abstract. It isn’t a set of private beliefs we hold in our heads or a ticket to the afterlife. Faith is about learning to see people as God sees them—restoring names where the world uses labels, restoring dignity where the world sees inconvenience, restoring humanity where the world is blind. That is the theological heart of this parable: the refusal to see another person as fully human is a rejection of Christ himself.

Which leads me to ask: who is sitting at our gate today? Who do we walk past every day without really seeing? And what does it mean, not just in theory but in flesh and blood, for us to open our eyes?

So let’s bring this closer to home. Because if Jesus’ parable is about failing to see the person at your own gate, then we can’t leave this as an abstract question. We have to ask it in practice: who is Lazarus sitting at ours?

I have a confession to make. About a month ago, a colleague of mine reached out. He told me he had been going to Broadview, to the ICE detention center, to stand alongside the people who gathered there. He said tensions were rising. Families were terrified. Protestors were showing up every week. And the response from ICE was getting harsher and harsher. He felt that having more clergy there on the ground could help—someone to pray, to listen, to help keep things calm, maybe even to serve as a bridge between protestors and law enforcement. He asked me if I would come. And so I’ve been going.

Each week things have escalated. What began as tense standoffs has grown into tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets fired into crowds. Ordinary citizens, clergy in collars, parents with children—all of them facing chemical weapons on a Friday in suburban Chicago. And each week the fear has deepened, not only for immigrants and their families, but for neighbors who wonder what kind of country we’re becoming.

I’ve been going every week. Sometimes more than once. And each time, it’s the same pattern: the tension, the shouting, the chemical weapons, the fear in people’s eyes. I stand there in my collar, my eyes, lungs, and arms burning from tear gas and pepper spray, trying to pull people back to safety, getting them water, helping however I can. But what I’ve come to realize is this: the most important thing I do out there isn’t fixing anything or solving the larger crisis. It’s simply being present. Listening to people. Reminding them they aren’t alone. Because when you’re unseen—when you are Lazarus at the gate—the first act of grace and mercy is simply for someone to notice you, to see that you matter. I go every week because for some reason I believe that’s where Jesus wants me to be.

And here’s what I see when I go. I see mothers clutching their children, terrified of what tomorrow brings. I see citizens and immigrants alike living under a cloud of fear and tear gas. I hear about families torn apart, parents not coming home, children not knowing why. And I stand shoulder to shoulder with other clergy—Catholic priests, ministers from several denominations, rabbis, imams—each of us saying by our very presence: these people are not invisible. They are not objects. They are Lazarus at our gate.

For me at least, this isn’t just about immigration. This is about Lazarus. This is about the people at our own gates we’ve stopped seeing.

And I want to say this, too: the ICE officers are human beings as well. Many of them believe they’re just doing a job, carrying out orders, trying to support and return to families of their own. I don’t believe Jesus is calling us to demonize them any more than he calls us to demonize the Pharisees in his stories. The tragedy of sin is that it dehumanizes on all sides. It dehumanized Lazarus, and it dehumanized the rich man who lost the capacity to see. And I fear it also dehumanizes officers when the only way they are trained to respond to pain is with more force. If we fail to see their humanity, we fall into the very blindness this parable warns us about.

And that’s why Broadview has been haunting me. Because it presses the same question Jesus pressed into the Pharisees: who have we stopped seeing? Who sits at our gate while we walk past? Are we becoming so accustomed to their suffering that we don’t even notice it anymore?

I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know how to solve the complexities of immigration policy or the deep divisions in our country. I don’t know how to fix systemic injustice with the wave of a hand. But I do know this: Jesus calls us to see. Jesus calls us to notice the ones the world ignores. Jesus calls us to recognize humanity where others see inconvenience and even illegality.

And friends, that’s something we can do. We can listen. We can make space. We can name Lazarus and refuse to let him remain invisible.

Because the point of this parable is not to condemn wealth. It’s not to frighten us with visions of hell. The point is that the kingdom of God begins with seeing the humanity of those the world refuses to see.

Listen—what I know, what I believe, is this: we have to care. We have to stand with those who cannot stand alone. We have to help give voice to the voiceless, and hope to the hopeless. And even just starting to see them, to listen to them, can help do that.

Friends, the gospel doesn’t allow us to stay blind. The gospel does not allow us to keep walking past the Lazaruses at our gate. The gospel does not allow us to shrug and say, “That’s just the way the world is.” Because Jesus has torn open our eyes. He has given us new sight. And once we see, we can’t go back to pretending.

The resurrection itself is proof of that. The very thing Jesus said wouldn’t convince the blind—God has done. Christ is risen, and because he is risen, no one is invisible anymore. The poor are not invisible. The immigrant is not invisible. The frightened child clinging to her mother is not invisible. Even the officer behind the shield and mask is not invisible. Christ’s resurrection has declared once and for all: every human being bears the image of God. Every human being is worthy of being seen.

And so, family, what will we do with that vision? We may not solve every problem. We may not change every policy. But we can open our eyes. We can see; truly see. We can refuse to step over Lazarus anymore. We can say with our presence, with our prayers, with our resources, with our lives: you are not forgotten, you are not alone, you are not invisible.

That is the call of this parable. That is the call of the gospel. That is the call of the risen Christ: to see, and in seeing, to love.

So let’s open our eyes. Let’s open our gates. And let’s join Jesus where he’s already standing—beside the ones the world refuses to see.

Because that is where the kingdom of God begins.

Because Once you see Lazarus, you can’t unsee him. Because Once you see Christ, you can’t unsee the world.

Amen