Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) on September 28, 2025 at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Chicago, IL. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Amos 6:1a, 4-7; Psalm 146; 1 Timothy 6:11-16; and Luke 16:19-31.

It feels as if today’s gospel passage wraps up some of the themes we’ve explored over the summer in the Gospel of Luke. For three months, we’ve heard Jesus’ lessons about the requirements of discipleship, sometimes focusing on the perils of wealth. Today’s gospel passage probably makes all of us uncomfortable. Just because we’re not as wealthy as the rich man in today’s parable, that doesn’t mean we have avoided the sin of neglecting our impoverished neighbors.

As Jesus declared last month: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be” (Luke 12:34). The challenge of the gospel for each of us today is: what do we treasure? How do our choices reveal what we treasure? 

Let us seek God’s mercy for the times when we’ve chosen without regard to the gospel. I confess…

This is the only parable in which Jesus gives a name to one of the characters. We also know that Lazarus was starving and sick. And if we take a moment to think about it, we’d realize that he was also experiencing homelessness. 

Most of our public discussions about homelessness leave out important facts that both challenge us and give us new hope. Today, I’ve combined my usual scriptural exegesis with four important facts about homelessness. 

For far too long in this country, we placed a lot of conditions on the people we were willing to help get housing. But on Mt. Sinai, God didn’t tell Moses only to worry about widows, orphans, or aliens who were able to speak the local language, weren’t physically disabled, and weren’t addicted to drugs. And God told no such thing to Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, Esther, Judith, Amos, Hosea, Hezekiah, Jeremiah, Josiah, Ezekiel, Jesus, Paul, or James, either.¹

Many parts of the country made great strides in the past 20 years in reducing homelessness once their local non-profit organizations adopted a “housing first” strategy. Rather than requiring someone to get a job, be on a medication regimen, or maintain complete sobriety before giving them housing, they now provide them with housing stability, which make it easier for them to get jobs, stay on medication regimens, and maintain the same leases as you or I! 

Why was Lazarus experiencing homelessness? We don’t know if he was a legal citizen of Judea. He wouldn’t have qualified for food stamps, since he apparently wasn’t searching for employment. Maybe he had a mental illness, maybe he went into debt because of a medical procedure, or maybe his family had kicked him out because of his sexual orientation. 

We don’t want to admit it, but in one way, a lot of us are worse than the rich man in the parable. How many of us know the names or the individual situations of the people in this neighborhood who struggle with homelessness? At least the rich man knew Lazarus’ name!²

As organizations have begun reaching out to each individual experiencing homelessness, learning their needs, connecting them to appropriate resources, and following up, these organizations can now spot trends, learn what’s effective, share data, and appropriately shift resources to the individuals in crisis. For example, some cities have ended “veteran homelessness” – once non-profit organizations in those cities learn of a veteran who is experiencing homelessness, they can provide him or her with housing within 90 days. Instead of assuming that we know what people experiencing homelessness need, we’ve learned that trusting them to be experts in their success… leads to their success. In fact, when a city’s non-profit organizations work collaboratively with one another, many people tracked in the system receive effective assistance quickly.

When the LORD cries out, “Woe to the complacent!” in the Book of Amos, I can’t help but wonder, is the LORD talking to us?

People who live in certain neighborhoods often don’t see destitute people on their sidewalks… especially if their neighborhoods don’t have sidewalks. But that doesn’t mean that their neighbors aren’t suffering, too. Many people struggling with homelessness – especially families – live in their cars, move into motels or shelters for a few nights at a time, or appeal to friends and relatives to take them in temporarily. Do we worry about our neighbors less when we can’t see their struggles? Do we only worry when the camps are visible?

Lazarus longed for the scraps from the rich man’s table. [Point to the altar.] Is our table something that unites us, or do we use it to isolate ourselves from one another? Do we use the gate to invite Lazarus in or to keep him out? This is an especially thorny situation at a parish with a school. Because of valid security concerns for students, we do not provide direct services on site for people in financial need. However, that obligates us to do more to help local organizations that can help. Yes, many people at Old St. Mary’s donate to or volunteer at St. James Food Pantry, Catholic Charities, and the Greater Chicago Food Depository, but we can always do more.

Every part of the country has its own mix of contributing factors to the causes of homelessness. Chicago is one of the few places in the country with adequate public transit, but we struggle with other factors: the lack of affordable housing, neighborhoods opposed to increased housing density, refusing to allow new shelters to be built near us, and — like most of the country — the inaccessibility to adequate physical and mental health care. If we create a chasm between ourselves and Lazarus during this present age, I worry that we might find ourselves on the opposite side of the chasm from Lazarus, Abraham, and Jesus at the end of time.

At the conclusion of the First Letter to Timothy, we are encouraged to “pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.” Yes, when we encounter an individual experiencing homelessness, many of us have the basic decency to treat him or her with these virtues. But as hard as it may be, we here in Chicago also need to pursue an end to the systems that cause homelessness with the righteousness, devotion, faith, and love. The solutions may not be easy or comfortable, but if we listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and if we love with the compassion of Jesus Christ, the problem is solvable.

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