You would think that to end up in hell you’d have to be a bad person, someone who tortured cats, maybe. The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus provides a chilling alternative. The rich man is, apparently, not a bad person. He at least cared about his brothers. ‘I beg you, father Abraham, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’ He cared for his people, his family, his friends. But that narrow vision of care was not enough to keep him from punishment. He didn’t include the needy person at his gate in his circle of care and it landed him in hell. This challenges us to widen our circle of care. Who is at our gate, who do we know of, who are we connected with that needs our compassionate concern? By expanding to include them among those who deserve our acts of love we place our own reservation in Abraham’s bosom.
