The Sin of the Man Who Did Nothing – Luke 16

The Sin of the Man Who Did Nothing

I went to a new office where some people had standing desks, and being from Louisiana, I thought, where I come from, if there’s a good chair, we sit down. But the Lord has convicted me, and my wife has inspired me, to be more active and healthy. I bought a standing desk and an app to build the habit, and I’m up to an hour and a half or two hours a day. A CDC survey found that one in four people sit more than eight hours a day, and four in ten do not exercise at all. Many of us live a sedentary physical lifestyle, but many also live a sedentary Christian lifestyle. Jesus speaks to this in Luke 16:19. There are far too many people in our pews who feel good about coming to church an hour or two on Sundays, maybe reading a devotional or saying a quick prayer, but who think about doing anything more the way I did about that standing desk.

The Setting

This is Jesus’ Perean ministry, about three months from his final entry into Jerusalem and the cross. Great crowds followed him. In Luke 15, tax collectors and sinners, the dregs of society, drew near, and the Pharisees and scribes grumbled. These religious people thought they had the way to God figured out. In 15 he taught about the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son, and in 16 the dishonest manager. Then 16:14 says the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this and ridiculed him. They heckled Jesus. I believe he tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus to peel back the veil of religious, pious inactivity, to show a spiritually sedentary lifestyle from his eternal perspective. I’ll call the rich man Dives, Latin for rich, as the early church did.

Here is the core: “Faith demands action.” It is not enough to go to church, believe the right things, and live a good life. The Pharisees and Dives did all of that. “The question for us today is actually not What have you done? The question for us today is What have we not done?”

Dives Did Nothing to Help Lazarus

Is this a parable or a true story? Nowhere else does Jesus name someone in a parable, so I believe it is true. Many guess that Dives was Caiaphas, who had five brothers, as in the story. He wore purple and fine linen, as the high priest did, which cost several days’ wages. He feasted on gourmet food every day, in a land where an average person was lucky to have meat once a week.

The poor man Lazarus was poor in the Greek sense of ptochos: destitute and unable to work, cowering and afraid. He was laid, probably abandoned, at the gate, which means the foot of the steps, so Dives had to step over or around him every day. His sores were licked by dogs, which in Jesus’ day were like rats. He wanted scraps, the bread people wiped their hands on and tossed aside. Dives could have easily helped, and he did nothing. “The sin of dives was that he did nothing.”

Are we so different? “What hurts the heart of Jesus should hurt us. What makes Jesus cry should make us cry.” How often do we see hurting people and say, I’ll pray for them, and keep going? Jesus calls us to give a cup of water in his name and visit the orphans and prisoners. How many of us see a homeless person and reason, he will probably drive home in a Lexus, and so we do not stop? Dives, too, would have believed that a crippled beggar had caused his own sin. What about the person in the grocery store or the office, whose hurt we can hear, but we are afraid of saying the wrong thing? How many of our small groups never do a service project?

Dives Did Nothing About His Lost Family

Lazarus died and was carried by angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man was buried. In that day, Lazarus’ body would have been dumped in Gehenna, the city dump where trash was burned, while Dives would have been given an elaborate burial with spices and paid mourners, expecting heaven. Jesus tells a different story. There is a chasm. Dives wakes in torment and finally says, what about my brothers? Abraham says they have Moses and the prophets. While alive, he thought nothing of his family’s spiritual health.

Evangelism Explosion surveyed more than a thousand church members in 2022. “70% of Christians have not shared with a stranger how to become a Christian.” 93 percent are open to conversations with friends or family, but only 52 percent had shared with a family member what God is doing in their life in six months. About 64 percent said they had prayed for the salvation of a friend or family member. We will pray, but we will not share. Barna says three in ten unchurched Americans say a Christian has never shared with them how to be a Christian.

Dives Did Nothing About His Own Salvation

Dives did not go to hell because he was rich, and Lazarus did not go to heaven because he was poor. Dives depended on his wealth, his good works, and his religiousness. He did not repent and trust God. Many think that intellectual assent to the right doctrine makes us Christians. James 2:19 says even demons believe and tremble. “If having the right theology makes us a Christian, then Satan’s the best Christian there is.” Satan believes in the virgin birth, the miracles, the resurrection, and the second coming. There is a civic religion that writers call moral deism, in which God wants us to be good and happy and does not need to be involved in our lives. Many call themselves Christians, live comfortable lives, attend church, and step around Lazarus. They worship a God that requires no sacrifice or surrender. John 14:15 says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Bonhoeffer called it cheap grace, the bitterest foe of discipleship.