On Minding Our Gates
September 28th, 2025
Rev. Traceymay Kalvaitis
Amos 5: 4, 12-15
For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek me and live; For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins –you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate.
Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said. Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate.
Luke 16: 19-31
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” He said, “Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.” Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” He said, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”’
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Today’s sermon is titled On Minding Our Gates.
Three times in our scripture reading for today, our attention is drawn to what is happening in the gate. The prophet Amos speaks from 800 B.C., “I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins –you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate. Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said. Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate.” Establish justice in the gate. The prophet Amos was most likely referencing one of the four large gates that allowed access to the city of Jerusalem. These gates were approximately 30 feet high and 15 feet wide in Amos’s time. Listen as the significance of these gates is explained:
“In ancient Israel, city gates were not merely entry and exit points but served as central hubs for social, economic, and judicial activities. The gates of a city were often the location where elders and leaders gathered to administer justice, resolve disputes, and make important community decisions. This practice is well-documented in the Bible and reflects the integral role that gates played in civic and judicial life.” *
We can see that if there was a perversion of justice in the gate, if disputes were not fairly settled, if accountability was not established, if the foundations of the local economy (based, as we learned last week, on volume and weight) were undermined by discrepancies, we can imagine that there would be far-reaching negative effects throughout the community. “Establish justice in the gate,” the prophet Amos warns, because without it, where could one turn?
The second gate we encounter in our scripture readings is most likely not one of the city gates around Jerusalem. It is probably a much smaller gate marking the entrance to a family compound. There we find a man who is specifically named and we should note here that this is the only time, in all of the Gospels, where one or more of the characters is specifically named. In this one parable, Lazarus is identified and so is Abraham. The name Jesus would have used was not the Greek name Lazarus, but the Hebrew name Elazar. The translation reveals that the name is made up of the root words אל (‘el) which means “God” and עזר (azar), which means “to help.”** The man who has been lain down at the gate is named “the one whom God helps” or perhaps “the one who helps God.”
Lazarus has been lain down at the gate of a wealthy member of the community. We know this because we read the small but significant detail that he “dressed in purple and fine linen.” In the first century, the purple dye used to dye fabric was more valuable than gold, three times over. It was derived from sea snails through a laborious process described first by Pliny the Elder, a first century Roman naturalist and author. To make one gram of dye (one gram is the weight of one paperclip), an estimated 10,000 sea snails were used. They were salted and left to ferment for three days, then cooked in lead pots for ten days or more.*** The fact that the man who lived behind the gate could afford purple fabric tells us that he had a ridiculous amount of wealth at hand and, therefore, a profound responsibility in how his wealth was distributed. Herein lies the problem for the man in purple. As he goes from and back to his home, he passes Lazarus, a man he knows by name. The man in purple bears witness to Lazarus’s plight and apparently takes no action to affect change until he finds himself in what our scriptures call “Hades” or hell in Greek. Jesus would have used the word “Sheol” meaning “pit.” The man in purple finds himself in the pit and he is desperate to affect change, even if only for his relatives still living, but he finds he is powerless to do so. And for one who had been so accustomed, in life, to the power his wealth afforded him, it must have been devastating. “Have mercy on me,” he says. “Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool my tongue.” Imagine the circumstances in life that would have reduced the man in purple to beg for a drop of water from the hand of the man, covered in sores, lying at the gate. I can not fathom such a scenario.
While we are imagining, let’s imagine having to flee our home because our lives are in danger because of the religious beliefs we hold. Imagine traveling by ship over 4,000 miles to the eastern shore of North America, to another kind of gate known as Ellis Island, in New York harbor. Imagine the longing for a new home, the longing for freedom, safety and security in a new land. Between the years of 1892 and 1954, twelve million people passed through Ellis Island. Among them were the ancestors of Emma Lazarus, a Jewish activist and poet who would, in 1883, pen the words that are immortalized on the base of the Statue of Liberty:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” (The New Colossus)
The lamp is barely shining, Friends. We are forgetting, just as the man in purple forgot, that what affects one of us affects us all. We are forgetting, just as the man in purple forgot, that the long line of prophets have been steering us in the ways of justice and righteousness for thousands of years. We are forgetting the words of our teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, who said, “to the extent you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.”
Friends, we must mind our gates in these days. We must stay awake and bear witness as people are disappearing at an alarming rate, taken off the streets, out of workplaces and out of homes without warrants and the due process that our Constitution guarantees to all on American soil, not just citizens. As of September 7th, 58,000 immigrants were in detention and over 70% of those have no criminal record.**** “Establish justice in the gate,” says the prophet Amos. “To the extent you do unto the least of these, you do unto me,” says Jesus.
In closing, let’s narrow our focus back to our sphere of influence that each of us maintains. Let’s consider where our own gates are located. Entering the larger worlds of family and community, we go through a gate of sorts. Entering the larger worlds of family and community, we carry with us the potential to both heal and to harm, so we would be wise to take great care. Do we take the time and energy to really notice others, especially those whom we see most regularly, those who quite literally live by our gate? How are they faring, truly? Is there something we can do or say to let them know they are loved? Can we hold another’s needs with the same importance as we hold our own? Friends, this is how we establish justice, with the full knowledge that how we treat one another reflects perfectly the level of our commitment to the Source of love we call God. Jesus said, “To the extent you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.” So be it. Amen.
*https://biblehub.com/topical/naves/g/gates–holding_courts_of_justice.htm
**https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Lazarus.html
***https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231122-tyrian-purple-the-lost-ancient-pigment-that-was-more-valuable-than-gold
****https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/
Pastoral Prayer
God of All Things, you move through us at times like the light from a candle flame…gently, warmly, casting a golden glow of comfort and peace. At other times, we are cracked open, unexpectedly shaken, stripped of our comfort and complacency and thrust into a fiery awareness of human suffering that we would just as soon avoid. Through gentle flame and raging fires, and through depths of unfathomable darkness, you call to us in voices familiar and strange…sometimes whispering, sometimes urging, “Come home, come close.” Open our senses to hear your calling, Lord; empower us to care for ourselves…body, mind and spirit as befits a child of God. Help us, we pray, to feel deserving of such love so that we may, in turn, love others with the compassionate heart of Christ. This we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
Benediction
I leave you with these words from the prophet Isaiah, “For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace; the mountains and hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”