One thought. Very amateurish.

In the previous chapter 16 Luke describes the “rich man” and Lazerus. My reading was that the rich man was removed from the world Lazarus lived in, to the point we are not given any indication “Rich” even saw Lazarus (outside his gate). Rich was not necessarily mean or communist. For all we know he was an excellent employer and family man and whatever. We know he lived in luxury and a part of that was precluding interaction with the poor.

I think at every level of wealth or riches, this interaction with the poor (define in any reasonable way you think) becomes more and more narrow.

At a certain point the nature of extreme wealth makes “seeing” extreme poverty so unlikely it becomes impossible without grave.

And yet if poverty is in some way used for our good, and we are physical beings, we have to see / hear / feel the poor to know them.

These make it hard, near impossible in the world without grace for the rich to “see” suffering. And as the chasm gets wider it fulfills the idea that sending more poor or humble will not work.

Akin to this - there are things in the world children see, or hear about, that bring tears to their eyes. There is poverty in the streets that make them want to reach out and help. These same things, that would have made my heart break as a child, I confess now make me check my car lock or roll up my window. However we define rich, it’s created a measurable chasm apart from the extremes.

We have been educated - we need Lazarus much more than Lazarus needs us in this life.