Epistle: Galatians 2:16–20
Gospel: Luke 16:19–31
Sunday: The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
Christ Lives in Me—and Lazarus Lies at My Gate
Saint Paul gives us one of the most concentrated descriptions of Christian life in all of Scripture: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” In the Gospel, Christ tells of a rich man who passed each day through his gate without truly seeing the suffering man who lay there. Together, the readings ask a searching question: If Christ lives in us, how will His life become visible?
We are not justified by constructing our own righteousness through the works of the Law. We receive life through faith in Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave Himself for us. Yet this faith is not an idea that leaves the heart unchanged. Union with Christ means dying to the old self so that His mercy, His love, and His way of seeing others may become active in us. Lazarus at the gate reveals whether we have begun to live that new life.
The Epistle
Galatians 2:16–20
16 Yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law.
17 But if while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a servant of sin? Certainly not!
18 For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a law-breaker.
19 For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God.
20 I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.
Justified in Christ
Paul writes in the midst of a dispute over whether Gentile believers must come under the Mosaic Law in order to belong fully to God’s people. His own conduct had already made his answer visible: Jewish and Gentile Christians could eat at one table because their common standing before God came through Christ. Circumcision and the other works that marked life under the Law could not create the righteousness that Christ gives.
To be justified is to be set right with God, received into His covenant people, and given a life we could never earn. Paul is not suggesting that faith leaves us free to remain unchanged or exempts us from obedience. Rather, he teaches that our hope rests in Christ, not in our ability to establish our own righteousness by keeping the Law. The faith of which he speaks immediately unfolds as union: “I have been crucified with Christ.” Christian faith is not bare agreement with a statement. It entrusts the whole person to the crucified and risen Lord.
Nor does Paul despise the Law. He says that “through the law” he died to the Law. The Law exposes sin but cannot by itself release us from sin’s power. It leads us beyond confidence in ourselves to the One in whom its purpose is fulfilled. We do not climb into righteousness through accomplishment; Christ descends to us, gives Himself for us, and draws us into His own life.
Crucified with Christ
Paul’s words are both sacramental and daily. In Baptism, we are joined to Christ’s death and resurrection. The old dominion of sin is broken, and a new life begins. Yet the baptized must continue to put the old self to death whenever pride, greed, resentment, or self-protection attempts to reclaim the heart.
St. John Chrysostom, the fourth-century Archbishop of Constantinople and one of the Church’s greatest preachers, says that “as Christ suffered bodily death, so does Paul a death to sin.”1 This death does not erase Paul’s personality or responsibility. It frees them. When he says, “Christ lives in me,” Chrysostom explains that Christ “works, has mastery within us.”2 Paul remains alive in the flesh, but the governing center of his life has changed.
This is why Paul’s final words are so personal: the Son of God “loved me and gave himself up for me.” The Cross is the salvation of the world, yet it must also be received as love directed toward each person. Chrysostom says that every believer owes gratitude to Christ “as if He had come for his sake alone.”3 Faith lives from that gratitude. Because Christ gave Himself for me, I need no longer make myself the center of every encounter.
The Gospel
Luke 16:19–31
19 “Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day.
20 A certain beggar, named Lazarus, was taken to his gate, full of sores,
21 and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 The beggar died, and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.
23 In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom.
24 He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.’
25 “But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But here he is now comforted and you are in anguish.
26 Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that those who want to pass from here to you are not able, and that no one may cross over from there to us.’
27 “He said, ‘I ask you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house—
28 for I have five brothers—that he may testify to them, so they won’t also come into this place of torment.’
29 “But Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’
30 “He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’
31 “He said to him, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead.’”
The Man Without a Name
Tradition often calls the rich man “Dives,” but dives is simply the Latin word for “rich.” Jesus gives him no name. Lazarus, however, is named. The world knew the rich man’s clothing, table, and social position while treating the beggar as part of the scenery. God reverses that judgment: He knows Lazarus by name.
St. Cyril of Alexandria, the fifth-century bishop and theologian, observes that Lazarus is named among God’s friends while the rich man, “as being uncompassionate was nameless in God’s presence.”4 The contrast does not mean that poverty automatically saves or wealth automatically condemns. Abraham himself possessed great wealth. The rich man’s condemnation lies in what his luxury enabled him continually to ignore.
Lazarus was not hidden in a distant country. He lay at the rich man’s gate. The rich man did not need a revelation of some unknown duty; he needed to notice the human being he passed every day. Lazarus wanted only the fallen scraps from the table. Even the dogs drew near to his wounds, while the man with every means to help remained untouched. Cyril concludes that the rich man was “more cruel than the beasts; for he felt neither sympathy for him nor compassion.”5
They Have Moses and the Prophets
The rich man asks for a miracle to warn his brothers. Abraham points instead to the revelation they already possess: “They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.” Moses had spoken plainly:
7 If a poor man, one of your brothers, is with you within any of your gates in your land which Yahweh your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother; 8 but you shall surely open your hand to him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need, which he lacks.
—Deuteronomy 15:7–8
The wording is almost a commentary on the parable: a poor brother is “within any of your gates,” and the command is not to harden the heart or close the hand. The prophets repeat the call. Isaiah describes true fasting as distributing bread to the hungry, welcoming the poor, clothing the naked, and refusing to hide from our own flesh (Isaiah 58:6–7). The rich man did not lack light. He refused to walk in the light already given.
Christ’s closing words also look beyond the parable toward His own Resurrection. A spectacular sign does not force repentance upon a heart trained not to listen. Some who rejected Moses and the prophets would also reject the One who rose from the dead. More evidence cannot substitute for the willingness to obey what God has already made clear.
The Gulf We Begin to Dig
After death, a great gulf stands fixed between the rich man and Lazarus. During their earthly lives, however, the rich man could have crossed the much smaller distance from his table to his gate. Each day offered an opportunity for mercy. Each refusal deepened his isolation.
The parable warns us that our choices shape us. A heart repeatedly closed to a neighbor can become unable to desire communion. Even in torment, the rich man speaks of Lazarus as someone to be sent on errands—first to bring water, then to warn his brothers. He recognizes Lazarus but still does not address him. His suffering has awakened fear, but the story gives no sign that it has yet taught him love.
This makes the present moment precious. Repentance is possible now. The person at our gate may be physically poor, lonely, ill, displaced, grieving, or simply easy to overlook. We cannot answer every need by ourselves, and Christian mercy requires wisdom as well as generosity. But we must resist the habits by which another person’s suffering becomes invisible.
The Faith That Becomes Mercy
Paul and the rich man both speak in personal terms about belonging to God. Paul lives “by faith in the Son of God.” The rich man repeatedly calls Abraham “father,” and Abraham even calls him “son.” An inherited identity and religious vocabulary, however, did not produce Abraham’s mercy in him.
This does not set mercy against Paul’s teaching on justification. Mercy is not a rival achievement by which we purchase God’s favor. It is the fruit of Christ’s life within us. We love because we have first been loved; we give because the Son of God gave Himself for us. If I have been crucified with Christ, then the self that guards every comfort as exclusively its own must also be crucified.
St. Cyril therefore joins hearing the Scriptures to active love: “Let us listen to Moses and the prophets calling us unto mutual love and brotherly affection.”6 The question is not whether we can solve all suffering. It is whether Christ’s compassion has mastery within us when suffering comes near.
Every gate can become a place of judgment, but it can also become a place of encounter. The Lazarus we notice, the hand we open, the bread we share, and the dignity we honor do not earn the love of Christ. They bear witness that we have received it. The One who loved me and gave Himself for me now teaches me to see the person lying at my gate—and to cross the distance while there is still time.
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB).
1 St. John Chrysostom, Homily 2 on Galatians.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, Sermon 111.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.