7 June 2026 • Trinity 1 • Luke 16:19–31
In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.
There was a rich man. He wore purple and fine linen. He feasted every day. His was not a life of want.
There was a poor man. His name was Lazarus. He lay at the rich man’s gate. He longed for the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. The dogs came and licked his sores.
Jesus names one of these men and not the other. The poor one has a name. Lazarus. It means: God is my help.
The simplest question in this text is the one most passed over: why does the rich man have no name? He has a household. He has servants. He has a gate, which means he owns the property. He has brothers — five of them — who will one day need to hear what he has learned. He has everything a man is supposed to have. But Jesus does not give him a name. He is simply “a rich man.” And in the end, that is all he is.
Lazarus has a name because God knows it.
Abraham’s word to the rich man in the afterlife is not a verdict of condemnation. It is a statement of fact: “Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.” (Luke 16:25) The rich man received his good things. He received them. They were given. The question the parable raises is not whether it is wrong to have good things, but what happened at the gate while the good things were being received.
Nothing happened. Lazarus lay there. The dogs were attentive. The rich man was not.
This is the Law’s word to every hearer who has received good things — and in this room, you have received them. You received a school. You received a congregation. You received generations of faithful people who handed you what was given to them. You received the liturgy, the catechism, the font, and the altar. You received pastors and teachers. You received nearly three-quarters of a million dollars in gifts and grants in the last five years. You received enough that other people noticed, came here, stayed, and brought their children.
The poor man at your gate is not always a stranger. Sometimes he is the neighbor who has been here for years and is not seen. Sometimes he is the family on the margins of the congregation’s life who waits for a crumb of attention and receives nothing but the institutional equivalent of a locked gate. Sometimes he is your pastor, your teacher, or even the janitor. Sometimes he is the person sitting next to you who is in genuine affliction — financial, physical, vocational — and the congregation has been too busy managing its own good things to notice.
We pass our gates every day. And we do not look down.
Now look at Lazarus.
He is in anguish. He has no advocates. The rich man’s household passes him by. He cannot stand at the table. He has no crumbs and no comfort. He says nothing. He waits. He dies.
And the angels came. Not at the end of a productive life. Not after he proved himself. Nor when the circumstances finally changed. While he was still at the gate, still unnamed by everyone who passed him, still lying in the dirt with dogs for companions — God knew his name. And when the moment came, God sent the angels.
“The eye of the LORD is upon those who fear Him, upon those who hope in His steadfast love — to deliver their soul from death.” (Ps. 33:18-19)
That is the Gospel word for everyone in this room who is carrying what you cannot put down. The person whose situation has not improved. The person who prays and sees no change. The person who came to church today in genuine suffering and does not know how things will work out. You are not unnamed. You are not unseen. Even if everyone forgets you or passes you by. The one who is watching is not a distant God who tallies your performance. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — and your name is in His mouth. The angels know where to find you.
But the rich man wants one more thing. He wants a sign. He wants Lazarus to rise from the dead and warn his brothers. Abraham answers: They have Moses and the Prophets. The rich man says that it is not enough. Abraham answers: if they will not hear Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
The risen Christ stands behind those words. He knows. He rose. The people who would not hear Moses and the Prophets looked at the empty tomb and called it a theft. Signs do not convert. The Word converts. The spoken absolution, the water poured over your head in the Name of the Trinity, the bread and cup given and shed for you — these are sufficient. More than sufficient. These bound to the Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
You have what Lazarus had. You have a name, given in the water. You have the promise — eternal life on account of the promise, not on account of your merits. You have Moses and the Prophets and the One they promised, who is here, on this altar, in your mouth and in your body.
The rich man received his good things in his lifetime. His five brothers are still receiving theirs. The gate is still there. The question is whether we look down.
But for those who do look — for those who wait at their own gate with nothing in their hands but the name God gave them — the eye of the LORD is on you. To deliver your soul from death. The rest is in His hands.
In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.
Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School — Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin