Complacency is a Sin

Complacency is a grievous sin because it’s so subtle. Most people wouldn’t view a complacent person as “bad.” After all, such a person isn’t “doing” anything bad to others

By Fr Sean Sheehy for Catholic Unscripted

Can you be complacent and Christian at the same time? Complacency is defined as being self-satisfied or pleasing oneself. You might reasonably ask what is so bad about being self-satisfied. Let’s look at the term “self-satisfied.” What does it imply? First of all the emphasis is on gratifying one’s own desires to the exclusion of reaching out to others. The word “satisfy” literally means to make enough. It means that a person can be so satisfied with himself that he has no need to try any harder. Complacency is conducive to mediocrity. A person can be complacent about his or her family, religion, work, health, etc. In other words, he or she is full of himself or herself. The person is oblivious to the fact that his growth is stunted, he lacks motivation, and is insensitive to the needs of others and his obligation to help. Such a person doesn’t love God or neighbour. The implication here is that a person is oblivious to the needs of everybody else and unaware of his own deficiencies. Christianity of its nature has no room for complacency since it is completely other-centered and makes us aware of our deficiencies and the fact that we need to love God and our neighbour to satisfy our need to be fully human and fully alive. Jesus is our Model who gives us the example we must follow to be perfected. He tells us that to be like Him we must serve the needs of the weak and vulnerable: “The Son of Man has not come to be served but to serve – to give His life in ransom for the many” (Mk 10:45).

Woe to the Complacent

Why is complacency a sin? Sin is a refusal to love, to make a gift of oneself to others. God warned His people against self-satisfaction, self-salvation: “Woe to the complacent in Zion! Lying upon beds of ivory, stretched comfortably on their couches” (Am 6:1ff) dining luxuriously. He was addressing the priests, religious leaders and the people who were more concerned with their own comfort rather than taking care of the widows, the orphans, and the other poor. Their luxurious living demonstrated that they were taking more than they needed and so detached themselves from helping others who were in need. The man who eats too much deprives those who have too little. A man grows rich for himself and doesn’t share his good fortune with the less fortunate is headed for a miserable eternity. God created the universe for all men and women. Every person has a right to live a decent life in accord with his or her dignity as a human being. The wealth of a nation should be distributed in such a manner that every citizen should have the opportunity to benefit from its resources. The poor are God’s challenge to the rich to share and care about them in gratitude for the blessings they received from God since all good things come from Him (Jas 1:17).

Prophets of Social Justice

Amos and Hosea are known as God’s prophet of social justice. We hear a lot about social justice today but very often its promoters are neither social nor just but rather are virtue signalers. They emphasize diversity, equity and inclusivity but do not practice them themselves. They forget that social justice without God translates into pitting the poor against the rich, white against non-white, women against men, etc., as in Marxism. Diversity in itself accomplished nothing without unity. Equality of output is impossible because people’s capacity is different. Equality in itself refers only to our human dignity and respect since people are unequal and different in abilities. Inclusivity only applies to those who accept the rules or standards of a particular group. Not everyone takes advantage of the opportunities offered to him or her. Nevertheless, the Christian recognizes that those who have more than enough have an obligation in charity, if not in justice, to make sure that the poor have enough to maintain their dignity as fellow human beings. The rich person’s humanity is impacted either positively or negatively by how he treats others. Only through caring and sharing with others, especially the most vulnerable, can we as human beings become more fully human and fully alive. The more fully human we become the more we become like Jesus and thus discover our uniqueness, our true destiny and purpose. When I know my true purpose, I know what’s genuinely good for me. If I don’t know my true purpose, or give myself a purpose other than that for which God created me, I am doomed to disappointment, frustration, and emptiness. That is the fate of the rich who do not share. People who live in luxury without God can’t be happy simply because they’ll be deprived of it when they die. God gives us what we have not so much to us for ourselves but through us to bless others. The more we give the more we receive from God. Without sharing, luxury insulates us by deafening or blinding us to our own deficiencies and sins .

The Rich Man and Lazarus

Jesus addresses the sin of complacency and its consequences in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Lk 16:19-31). Lazarus lays at the door of the rich man’s mansion. He is sick and suffers the indignity of dogs licking the sores on his body. He lays there begging for any leftovers from the rich man’s table. The richly dressed man ignores Lazarus whom he passes by every day. These two men are socially unequal. But in the story death brings justice where each man gets his due from God. Death is the level playing field that doesn’t distinguish between rich and poor. It brings every human being to his or her knees. In death everyone is judged by God according to his or her deeds. In death we complete and eternalize what we have lived for. If we’ve lived for ourselves death eternalizes our separation from the true God and the love that can only be received from Him. Hell is a state of total loneliness and emptiness forever with no one to blame but oneself. Imagine a creature who was created for love finding himself or herself in a state of complete lovelessness for eternity. Where love is absent, hate resides. We cannot love ourselves by ourselves. We can love ourselves only because we’re the beneficiaries of God’s love.

A Good Person

The rich man’s sin was complacency. He didn’t even notice Lazarus lying by the door of his mansion. He was so self-satisfied that he was oblivious to Lazarus’ lack of satisfaction. The rich man would probably be considered a “good person” because he didn’t do anything bad to Lazarus. His sin was not what he did to Lazarus but what He didn’t do for him. His sin was not one of commission but of omission. Sins of omission are just as bad as sins of commission.