First Sunday After Trinity 2026
We are just entering the Trinity season with all its focus on growth in the Christian life. The liturgical colors change from the white of last Sunday to the consistent green for the remainder of Trinity season. The church uses green as a reminder of our calling to GROW in the Christian life. If we are to bear much fruit, we must begin with foundational truths. We must consider the centrality of God’s love which animates any meaningful human love.
Love and its inseparable union with belief is the main theme in today’s Epistle, which is found in the first general epistle of St. John. It should not surprise us that the author who called himself “the disciple that Jesus loved” as being the author of this helpful description. St. John uses some form of the word love 26 times in the course of this passage. If you take anything away from today’s sermon it is this - that God so loved us that he sent his Son to take our flesh and show us his love by stooping down to meet us in our need.
We were like Lazarus in today’s Gospel - longing for the crumbs that would fall from our Master’s table, but God became man to show us his love by taking the worst of our sins and punishments and binding up our wounds and bringing us to a great banquet where we are received as sons.
In fact, our situation was more grave and terminal that the Lazarus in today’s Gospel for we were dead in our trespasses and sins sealed in a tomb like another Lazarus in the Gospels until such time as Christ brought us up from the grave.
In today’s Epistle, St. John tells us that one of the great evidences of conversion is a life marked by love. He says “Everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” St. John’s emphasis on love is practical and fundamental. What we do tells us more about what we love than what we say. Our treatment of others who are made in God’s image will tell a lot about our Christianity. Why? For God manifested his love in action. He sent his only-begotten Son into the world to give us new life and to be forgiveness for our sins. God’s love was manifested in sacrificial and transformative action.
He gives us new desires, new purpose, new perspective. His love is enacted in planning our redemption through the death and resurrection of the Son. How much more full can his loving expression toward us be? What more could God do to manifest the abundance of his love? We are given new life in his name. We received forgiveness for sin and a purged conscience that pushes aside fear and gives us boldness in the day of judgment. His love conquers the fear that so characterizes our present daily life.
His love silences the anxiety of our present age - where people are tormented by the fear of disease, vexed by social discord that seems insovable and the pressure of a collapsing economy. These are legitimate concerns but they pale in comparison to the day of judgment in which we must give an account of our thoughts, words and deeds. Yet we are assured that the love of God is more than sufficient to be our rescue and salvation. If his love is sufficient for the exhaustive scrutiny on the day of judgment, it is also more than adequate to meet our present needs.
The love of God is vast in scope. If we receive it, we will give it as well. We will love our brother; it is impossible for us to have truly and meaningfully received the love of God and then deny it to another human. We did not deserve God’s love so we aren’t in a position to deny love to another when God has been so generous towards us. When we understand this, it will be impossible to hate another. True belief in God will result in love because we understand ourselves to be in need of and the recipients of God’s love.
The Gospel shows us an example of one in desperate need of love and the carelessness and callousness of someone who should have helped. The Gospel provides an object lesson of what type of people we should not be. The rich man was self-absorbed; he had self-love in abundance.
While the emphasis seems to be on his love of riches and his disregard for the needs of others, they are only symptoms of a deeper problem of unbelief. He stored up riches for himself as though there was no death, no judgment, no accounting for the life given unto him.
He may have had formal belief but his deeply held affections sought out pleasures at the expense of showing love to someone in need. His is an example of someone who did not know or believe the love that God has toward us. The rich man, like so many others, believed that he needed to lavish all these things upon himself and love himself, provide for himself because God was not going to do so.
So, let’s take a closer look at this negative example. We know from St. Luke’s description that the man was not of ordinary means. St. Luke tells us that he was clothed in purple and fine linen and ate well every day. Purple and fine linen of this sort were reserved for the ultra-wealthy so feeding a beggar would have been feasible for the rich man. Apparently, the rich man provided better for his dogs than another human made in God’s image. They were fed with the morsels that fell from their master’s table. Lazarus longed to take their place and receive just some portion of what the dogs received. It is also clear that the rich man knew who Lazarus was. For in his torment, he petitions God that Lazarus, who he knew by name, would be sent to cool his tongue now that he was in agony.
The rich man’s request was a plea to Father Abraham directly. Lazarus was merely a tool for his relief. Abraham informs him that there is a great gulf between them that no one can cross, and the rich man asks Lazarus to be his messenger to his family. All along the way, the rich man still views Lazarus as a means to an end.
Even in his apparent concern for his brothers, some commentators see a subtle accusation against God and a perverse rationale of his unbelief. You see, the rich man would like to blame God for not sending a miraculous messenger to tell him of his pending danger. If God would have done that for me, says the rich man, I would be safe now and not in agony. Abraham takes his rationale to task and says that all had access to the law and prophets. If someone will not practice the truth revealed unto him, he will not believe something greater. The rich man would have known Deuteronomy 6:5 which says “thou shalt love the Lord thy God hwith all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy hmight” The commandment to love God came directly after the Shema - the Jewish declaration of belief - hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one.
He would have known the commandment in Leviticus (19:18) to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Love for and belief in God were linked together and in so believing and loving, the Law directed the Jewish believer to love his neighbor as himself. He chose to ignore this commandment and lived in unbelief manifested by his perverted form of self love.
The underlying issue for both the Epistle and the Gospel is belief. If we believe God, we believe what he says in his holy Scriptures and we will express love to the world around us. If we are unbelieving, we will behave contrary to this love. Remember that our actions rather than our words alone express our belief. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
I am reminded of a story about St. Lawrence who was an early martyr of the Church. At that time, the Church lacked opulence, power and money, but the Roman persecutors were convinced that Christians were hiding their wealth. The Roman authorities arrested St. Lawrence and gave him a week to bring all the riches of the Church to the local government. A week later, St. Lawrence returned with hundreds of Christians.
The authorities asked where were the riches of the Church. St. Lawrence said - these men and women, they are the riches of the Church. People, the precious lives of those redeemed by the blood of Christ, they are the Church’s riches. People are not riches in this world’s system; they are economic burdens. But in God’s economy, the one that matters, people are the reason that Christ shed his most precious blood.
So how do we treat Christ’s riches? Our fellow man is the one for whom Christ died. We manifest our love for and belief in God by loving others. As we enter into Trinity season, with its emphasis on growth in the Christian life, let us ask Him to transform our lives by transforming our loves. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who loves not, knows not God for God is love. And who is my neighbor? My neighbor is the one whom Christ has placed before me, next door, down the street and in the shops and businesses I visit. Let us step into Trinity season with prayers on our lips and a humble remembrance of God’s love shed abroad in our hearts, covering our sins and adequate for the sins of the whole world.
