Empathy by Chris Lockley 28th September 2025

Sermon Notes Sunday 28th September

Luke 16:19-31 by Chris Lockley

Thirteen years ago, I was diagnosed with one of the big bad cancers. My GP managed to get me into a specialist surgeon within three days – a professor at the then new Macquarie University hospital. When Madeleine, my wife, and I went to see Professor John, we were still in shock. We had no idea what kind of future we would have. We had made it through those three days on a razor’s edge of anxiety.

When John met us at the door to his office, we suddenly felt enveloped by kindness. As he led us into his room and sat us down, it was as if we were the only two people that mattered to him. He was 100% focused on us. He asked how we were coping with the cancer news. He asked about us and how we were feeling. It was as if we were the two most important people in his world. We felt understood. We knew we were not alone. We found confidence.

When we were finished, John’s secretary took us into her office to work out all the practical details for the surgery. We then moved back to the reception desk – and saw John greeting another couple into his office. I waved to thank him for his help, but he didn’t see me. He was 100% present to this next couple who needed him. They were now the most important people in his life.

What we experienced with Professor John was EMPATHY.  We’re familiar with the word sympathy – which is very different to empathy. One is not necessarily better than the other. They’re both appropriate depending on circumstances.

Very simply, sympathy is feeling for someone, and what they are experiencing. It’s about what we feel. But there’s a certain distance involved. We don’t get involved.

Empathy is feeling with someone. It’s more about the other person’s feelings than our own. It’s seeing things from another person's perspective, seeking to understand, feel and respond to their experience. It creates connection.

Showing empathy recognises that sometimes the best place to start is to simply recognise what someone is going through, as best we can, listen to their pain, and be with them through the tough times. But it doesn’t stop there.

Karen Armstrong’s book “12 steps to a compassionate life”, says empathy is a crucial step towards compassionate action.

The second person I want to tell you about is a very old friend who I hadn’t seen for about 45 years until last year. Tracy was a quiet young high school student in the fellowship group when I’d last seen her. Now she is a Professor of Nursing at a Sydney university. She’s literally written the textbook on nursing. Tracy’s main area of research is empathy, the crucial and the positive impact it has on patient care.

One thing that Tracy’s research shows is that empathy can be learned. My own observation is that it comes naturally to some people. But even if it isn’t a natural inclination, we can learn behaviours and skills to demonstrate empathy.

This link will take you to a You Tube video by one of the leading advocates of empathy, Brene Brown. It’s a three minute, animated video which very helpfully and simply demonstrates empathy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEsjzzqbLIk

Crucial to understanding today’s Bible passage – which I will get to soon – is the recognition that empathy is not just exercised in one-to-one relationships.

It also has implications for how society operates and how we shape our communities, including our churches.

Public policy which neglects empathy can become cruel and inhuman. In our country, we only have to look at the heartbreaking human cost of Robodebt to find an example of policy without empathy. Or institutional cover-up of child and sexual abuse - including in the church.

Historian Hannah Arendt described this at its worst: that the death of human empathy signals a civilisation descending into barbarity.

And now a very different take on the subject from one of the best known – and wealthiest – people on the planet, billionaire Elon Musk. Back when he was a friend of President Trump, in the midst of his work closing down the U.S. overseas aid program, Musk made the comment in a radio interview: “the fundamental weakness of Western civilisation is empathy”.

Musk isn’t alone. Julia Baird has written about an anti-empathy movement in the U.S. which sees empathy as dangerous and toxic…even sinful! Yes, there are extreme right Christians denouncing empathy. According to even conservative writers, this movement is obsessed with ignoring suffering and silencing the voices of the dispossessed. It argues that love – especially love for strangers – is a distraction.

Christian nationalist pastor Josh McPherson says the word needs to be struck out of the vocabulary because “empathy is dangerous, empathy is toxic, empathy will align you with hell”.

And in something that sounds like it’s out of The Handmaid’s Tale, he also says that “women are especially vulnerable” to empathy and that husbands should exercise control over who their wives spend time with. (Please note, these are not my comments. I find them appalling.)

Baird points out that “none of these anti-empathy guys quote the actual Bible to make their point.” Because, of course, the Bible is PRO empathy! In fact, today’s gospel reading about the rich man and Lazarus talks about the harmfulness of a lack of empathy.

A little biblical background. The story is only found in the gospels in Luke. Its background demonstrates how not everything Jesus said – his teachings and stories – was his own original material. He draws on his Hebrew tradition and heritage. For instance, we can trace some of his teachings – such as the greatest commandment – back to Rabbi Hillel the Great, who lived 100-150 years before Jesus.

Today’s story is a traditional legend originating in the Jewish community in North Africa 100 or more years before Jesus.

Why is this story recorded in Luke? Luke’s gospel is characteristically concerned with outcasts, the poor, and marginalised. It is especially inclusive of women and children, and others of low social status. I suspect the story is included to reflect and shape the values and ethics of the early Christian community. Luke did the same thing in Acts in describing the life of the early church – where wealthy Christians sold what they had to support the poor and the whole community.

We’ve heard the story read so I don’t need to go over it again in detail – except to point out the rich man’s complete lack of empathy for Lazarus who was dying at his doorstep, in obvious distress and neglect. And following his death, when they experience a reversal of fortunes in the afterlife, the rich man does not repent. He expresses no regret for the way he treated Lazarus in life.

There is no recognition by the rich man of his lack of empathy or compassion for Lazarus. He is still motivated by self-interest.

Firstly, his own interests – he wants some cool water and thinks that Lazarus is still his inferior and should come and serve him.

And secondly, his interest is for his brothers – NOT that they should change their behaviour for the sake of the poor whom they are neglecting to bring about some justice and healing. No, he still doesn’t care about the poor. He doesn’t want his brothers to suffer his own fate. His interest remains on the wellbeing of those who are part of his circle. There is no sign of empathy for the suffering of the poor and marginalised his brothers are neglecting.

Psychologist Gustave Gilbert interviewed Nazi leaders during the Nuremberg trials. He said after all his work examining the psyches of those who committed the most horrendous acts of World War II that he had come close to finding a definition of the nature of evil. He wrote: “It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants . A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

Empathy is a core Biblical practise.


(Romans 12:15) “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep”. (1 John 3:17) “But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” 


And let’s not forget one of Jesus’ key parables, about a certain Samaritan, noticing an injured man by the road, moved with pity to help, despite the danger to himself. It’s such an iconic image, that “Good Samaritan” has become a metaphor for compassion even for those who don’t know its biblical origins.

But perhaps the greatest example of empathy in scriptures is God’s empathy for humanity in becoming human.

As Paul described in Philippians 2, Jesus was the human expression of God’s empathy, emptying himself and entering into our human experience – becoming one of us. The culminating expression of this empathy in Paul’s thinking was Christ’s death on the cross – God’s ultimate identification with humanity.  

When we act with empathy – when we work for empathy in our society and institutions – when we make it a building block of our church community – we are expressing the core nature of God and walking the way of Jesus.