This parable sketches two worlds divided by a gate: a banquet inside, a wounded neighbor outside. Step by step, a life is constructed around that gate—habits, choices, comforts, and blind spots harden into architecture. When death comes, the architecture holds. As Abraham says, “a great chasm is established.” The tragedy is not only punishment; it is permanence. A man who would not cross toward communion discovers he can no longer cross at all.
We build our eternity. Every decision trains the heart for either communion or isolation. The rich man did not simply “get what he deserved.” He received what he desired. He spent his days curating separation—clothes that announced status, meals that confirmed privilege, a doorway that filtered who mattered and who did not. Even in torment, his speech betrays the same architecture: he asks for service, not friendship; favors, not fellowship. The poor man, who had lingered at the threshold yearning for a world without gates, awakens to that very world: embraced, honored, and at home.
This month our parish has been practicing the art of crossing thresholds. We played together at the family fun day and discovered again that joy multiplies when shared. We walked the tables of the ministry fair and watched talents come out from behind their doors. We listened as the finance council opened the books and showed how gifts have become mission. None of that was just events to fill the calendar. It was training in communion, brickwork against the chasm.
Now the call becomes concrete. This weekend, in our parish, two baptisms will be celebrated—at different liturgies— each a living commentary on the parable. An adult will renounce the old way and rise with Christ, stepping deliberately from self-enclosure into the communion of the Church. An infant will be carried to the font while mother and godparents speak the promises of faith. The whole community promises too. Stewardship is the ordinary shape of those baptismal promises. It is how vows become bread for the hungry, welcome at the door, catechesis for our children, visits to the sick, heat and light for this house of prayer, and support for the poor who linger at humanity’s gates.
Jesus gives himself without remainder—on the cross and at this altar. He teaches a pattern of self-gift that dismantles gates. If we claim his name, partial offerings will not do. Generosity that is consistent, sacrificial, and joyful forms a heart ready for heaven, because heaven is love shared without barrier.
The Lord is calling us today. Let talents that have stayed on the shelf find their place in ministry. Let hours be reordered so that worship, service, and community sit at the center rather than the margins. Let financial giving rise—steadily, intentionally, beyond comfort—so that our parish can strengthen its works of mercy, form disciples, and keep building the bridges we have begun together this month. Such choices, made now, become capacities for eternity.
We build our eternity. The gate can shrink under daily acts of mercy; the chasm can be resisted by a pattern of self-gift. When we cross the threshold toward our neighbor—time, talent, treasure in hand—we are already learning the ways of the Kingdom. Then, when the final passage comes, the table set in heaven will not feel strange. It will feel familiar—because we have been sitting down together all along.