26 Sunday Ordinary Time, C, 29 September 2013, Luke 16:19-31

I was in Croke Park yesterday for the replay of the All-Ireland hurling final. Shouting for Cork, I was disappointed that they did not win. I was delighted for Clare though. They were definitely the better team on the day, indeed on both days!

Thinking of the hurling final and this Sunday’s gospel, I remember the story of Ambrose Gordon. Ambrose is a Galway man, a bit of a ladies’ man by his own claim, and also something of an entrepreneur and a rogue.

From 1982 to 1989 Ambrose ran a very profitable business. He tells the story in interview with RTÉ radio. You can listen to it yourself. The documentary is called ‘Sex, Flights and Videotapes’. Narrated by Mícheál Ó’Muircheartaigh, the story is told of how Ambrose developed a lucrative business, delivering pirate copies of RTÉ's The Sunday Game to pubs in London, from 1982 to 1989. Before then, on All-Ireland Sunday and many other Sundays throughout the year, Irish people would gather on one of the the highest points in London, Hampstead Heath, to tune in their pocket radios to Radio Éireann.

Ireland and Britain

At a time when Irish television was not available in the UK, Ambrose would find a way to bring televised football and hurling to London. He would fly to Dublin on a Monday morning. There, he would visit a lady whose house had been turned into a recording point for his business. There a bank of video recorders would have recorded copies of The Sunday Game. Picking up the fresh copies, Ambrose would turn on his heel, and fly back to London. The first showings would be at lunchtime on Monday. Pubs and Clubs paid him £20, £30, £50 to rent a copy. Punters would queue up to watch the precious shows over a pint and a sandwich.

At a time when the boundary between Ireland and England was much greater than it is now, Ambrose Gordon found a way.

We live at a time when there are few geographical boundaries. For a relatively small amount of money, compared to a few decades ago, world travel is within reach of many people here in Ireland. Even when loved ones are far away, on the other side of the world, the boundary between us is blurred by the use of technology. Mobile phones and Skype mean that we are in contact regularly, and cheaply.

Collapse of the Berlin Wall - 1989

Other boundaries in our world seemed to be insurmountable a few decades ago have come crashing down. The collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989, and with it the collapse of Communism in the USSR, signalled a new beginning for the relationship between East & West. It would gradually mean that the threat of nuclear war diminished as well.

Landing on the Moon - 1969

A couple of decades before then, the moon landings signalled that a boundary between our world and space had been crossed in almost miraculous fashion.

There are many boundaries that our world has crossed, and remembering those crossings is a kind of food for our journey. Remembering those crossings gives us hope that we can continue to push beyond the boundaries that still exist.

Pope Francis - 2013

It seems to me that Pope Francis has crossed many boundaries since his election as Pope. He is teaching us a new way. He is reminding us what is of primary importance, love of God and of our neighbour.

His actions speak louder than words. I think of the car that he uses, a Ford Focus; I think of him paying the bill for his hotel room after his election as Pope; I think of him phoning the lady whose child was born from a relationship that she had with a married man. The Holy Father promised her that if she could not get a priest to baptize her newborn, that he himself would baptize the infant.

The key thing about many of the boundaries that Pope Francis has crossed is that they are human creations. There may be good reasons for this, and yet, the Pope is showing us that these human boundaries, and the reasons for them, are secondary to the people whom they actually effect.

It is humanity that creates the boundary that our gospel is focused on today – that between the poor and the rich. Lazarus tried to help himself by coming right up to that boundary in the gospel. That boundary is a closed gate, erected precisely to keep away Lazarus and his ilk. Yet even the dogs take pity on him as they licked his sores. The dogs in the story symbolize the animal kingdom, and all of creation, being on the side of the poor man. And remember, as the verse from second Corinthians goes: “Jesus Christ was rich, but he became poor for your sake, to make you rich out of his poverty.” We might ask the question: why would Jesus become one of us? As the Sheryl Crow song went a few years ago: “What if God was one of us, just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home?”

The richest man, Jesus Christ, gave up his position, gave up his inheritance, so that we might all be rich. Rich in recognizing that no matter how much money we have, or how much stuff we have, or how much food we have; rich in realizing that our real wealth is life, health, love, family, community, the Lord himself, and the poor. Sharing our knowledge, our wealth, and our lives, with the poor, actually enriches both them and us. The gift that the poor offer is is the gift of being more completely human, more divinely human.

Maybe, as it is in the gospel, maybe the really wealthy person turns out to be Lazarus, the poor man who lay at the rich man’s gate.