Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

September 28, 2025

Luke 16: 19-31

In the past, when I read today’s gospel, my thoughts were always on Lazarus and how his hardships won him eternal life. But today, I paused to think about the rich man. Before, I did not have much sympathy for him; but today, it occurred to me that it is the rich man that I must think about and think hard. Because when you consider it, in our country we are all rich when compared to the standards of ancient time. People of that time would consider us all rich. Even our poor have more access to food, shelter, clothing than did the poor of Jesus’ day; and what does that say about most of us?

So, why is St. Luke bringing this image up to his community? After all, Jesus first mission was to the poorest of the poor. When the gospel took root in the great cities of the ancient world, the Christian movement for the first time converted people who had some disposable income. Luke was concerned about what his own community of relatively “rich” should do with its resources in light of the gospel.

And so, Luke drew upon the Hebrew Scriptures like the passage from Amos in the first reading. Amos makes it clear that God cares for the poor of the land, and anyone who abused them will answer to God.

Luke makes it clear to his audience that their extra income must be used to help God’s poor. As we saw a few Sundays ago, Luke teaches that it is not bad to have a good income, but that the Christian cannot hold on to wealth as more valuable than the poor whom Christ served. 

Today, we see that it is disastrous to ignore the beggar on our doorstep. We, then, are the ‘rich.’ Being called rich is not meant to shame us, but rather to encourage us to generosity. Realizing that all we have has been entrusted to us by God’s goodness, we must always carry with us the question, “How can I use my resources to support those who have less?”

We do not need to take literally Luke’s directive that the poor, crippled, lame, and blind be invited every time we hold a banquet. But, as we use whatever wealth we have, we must recognize that our responsibility extends beyond ourselves and our own family. Some of our resources belongs to the poor. Serving them is essential to our faith. Caring for them is caring for Christ.

As long ago as the 300s, St. Basil wrote and preached:

"So you are not a miser, nor do you rob, yet you treat as your 

own what you have received in trust for others! Do we not say 

that a man who steals the coat of another is a thief: And what 

other name does he deserve who, being able to clothe the naked,

yet refuses? The bread you keep belongs to the hungry; the clothes

you store away belong to the naked; the shoes that molder in

your closets belong to those that have none; the money you

have buried belongs to the needy. Therefore, you have wronged

all those to whom you could have given and did not."

He could be preaching to us today. As Advent will remind us in a few months, it is high time to prepare for the Lord’s coming. The message of Abraham in today’s gospel rings true: that if we don’t take to heart Jesus’ message to us, then, “neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.”

Fr. John Tran