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Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 21, 2025
Luke 16:1-13
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the great archetypes in all of storytelling is the antihero. An antihero is a character who is utterly lacking in all the qualities you usually see in a hero, and yet, you can’t help but root for them. An antihero is a character who lacks typical hero qualities like, oh, say, morality or honor or respect for the law, and yet, you can’t help but like them.
One of the most famous antiheros of all time is Robin Hood, a character who has been around in various forms since at least the 15th century. Robin Hood, of course, breaks laws left and right. He is constantly on the run from the Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John. He steals from the rich and gives to the poor. While he is a thief and a lawbreaker and exceedingly crafty (and thus portrayed as a fox in the Disney classic), he is also a beloved hero. There are plenty of other examples we could point to. Han Solo was a smuggler. Jack Sparrow was a pirate. Sherlock Holmes describes himself as a “high functioning sociopath.” These aren’t “good” guys, but somehow, they’re the good guys! You can’t help but admire their craftiness, their cleverness, their shrewdness.
The archetype of the antihero was common in the ancient near east as well. Poverty-ridden peasants of Jesus’ time loved stories about crafty antiheroes who outwitted the privileged and the powerful. Today we hear Jesus use just this kind of character in one of his parables.
“There was a rich man with a manager…” Jesus begins. The rich man accuses the manager of squandering his property and fires him. What’s this suddenly unemployed manager going to do? He knows he isn’t strong enough to dig ditches for a living. He knows he doesn’t want to beg. So he cooks up a plan. Before any of his boss’s clients know he’s been fired, he goes out to them to settle their accounts. He cancels their debts left and right! Oh, I see you owe a hundred jugs of olive oil? Make it fifty. What is that, a hundred basked of wheat? Make it eighty. This manager goes around unilaterally cancelling the debts of his boss’s clients! It is unethical. It is illegal. And it is….celebrated?
Yes, it is indeed celebrated! When the boss finds out what his former employee has done, he COMMENDS him for his craftiness, for his shrewdness! And not only that, but when Jesus himself finishes the story, he lifts this character up as a positive example! Jesus encourages his disciples to emulate him! He says, “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth, so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”
Now we need to understand what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is not telling his disciples to acquire wealth through illegal and unethical means. Jesus would never encourage anyone to violate the Eighth Commandment, “You shall not steal.” The point here is that the disciples are to be crafty and clever and shrewd in how they manage their money. The word “shrewd” here can also be translated as wise. They are to use their resources wisely, in ways that benefit others, with an eye towards eternity. They are to use what has been entrusted to them wisely while always keeping in mind where their true riches lie. They are to manage their resources well while always remembering that they cannot serve both God and wealth. Only one can have first place, and it cannot be wealth.
Jesus is telling this antihero story to put his finger on what he knows will be the biggest temptation for the disciples, which will be to feather their nest rather than build the kingdom, to worship the almighty dollar rather than Almighty God. Martin Luther writes in the Large Catechism that “Money is the most common idol on earth.” That was true in Jesus’ time, it was true in Luther’s time, and it is most certainly true in our time as well.
You’ve probably heard the old observation that $100 looks huge in the offering plate, but not so significant when you’re spending it at the movie theater or the golf course or the tavern or the yarn store or the bookstore. (Did I manage to poke everyone at least once?) People can be extremely clever and resourceful and driven when they want something. We are to be even more clever and resourceful and driven in the funding of the kingdom of God. We are to be even more shrewd and wise in investing in God’s work in the world and in tending to our neighbors in need.
I’m so grateful to say that so very many of you are. We make a point here at Oak Harbor Lutheran Church to protect your privacy in giving. There are very few people who see your year-end giving statements, and I’m not one of them. So unless a giver specifically tells me, I don’t have any idea who gives what around here. But I do know that we have many people here who have been very clever and resourceful and driven and so very generous in giving to this congregation and to the ministries we support. You have cleverly utilized so many different ways to give. We had people dig deep this summer during our catch-up campaign, which has brought our budget out of the red and into the black. Pete Pedersen has come to me more than once with a huge grin on his face, telling me that he has to make three runs a week to take food to Help House because we have so many donations coming in. You are so quick to respond to needs, both within our congregation and outside of it. You are so wise, so shrewd, so resourceful, so generous in investing in God’s work.
This is all truly wonderful – but it is also true that it is part of our sinful nature for all of us to keep wanting to cling to that idol of money. This is an idol we keep returning to, thinking it will give us peace, thinking it will help us feel secure, thinking it will give us joy. And when we return to clinging to our bank accounts, we are no longer clinging to God.
This story is told to the disciples, and to us, to remind us once again not to cling to that idol. “You cannot serve both God and wealth,” Jesus says. This story with its antihero is told to begin to peel our fingers away from the false god of our bank accounts so that we might take hold of Christ the true riches of his grace.
The parables of Jesus are never just a morality tale. They are never simply a way to cajole people to do something. The parables of Jesus can usually be understood on more than one level, and much of the time they are not just about what we are to do, but what Christ has come to do for us. This story is no exception. Because, you see, Jesus is the ultimate antihero. It might feel slightly irreverent to think of him in this way, but consider the work of Jesus from the perspective of the Pharisees. They had just been complaining that he ate with tax collectors and sinners. That’s not typical hero behavior! Not to them! They complained that Jesus healed people on the Sabbath, which they saw as a total disregard for the law. Jesus was going around just announcing that people’s sins were forgiven – like he was God or something! From the perspective of the Pharisees, what Jesus was doing was immoral, illegal, even blasphemous. And so Jesus is the ultimate antihero. He dined with sinners and he died with criminals. He didn’t have any of the qualities the Pharisees expected their hero Messiah to have.
You could even say that Jesus bears a striking resemblance to the clever manager in the parable. Jesus was going around cooking the books on the debt sinners owed to God. Jesus engaged in some clever accounting as he went around writing off people’s sins, just forgiving them. He made a lot of friends in the process. He made it possible for them to enter into those eternal homes. This was an epic scandal! And all the while, his boss, God the Father, sat back and smiled. God commended him for it! God patted him on the head and said, “You are my Son, my beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
When Jesus died on the cross he said, “It is finished.” What Jesus said here in the biblical Greek can also be translated as “paid in full.” The word is tetelestai, and it is the very same word that was stamped on the bills of the ancient world whenever an account was settled. This is what Jesus has done for all of us. Jesus is like the clever manager in the parable – only he didn’t just reduce our debt, he paid it in full.
This is where we find true riches. As we receive the riches of his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness, his love, our hearts are set free to live for the Giver and not the gifts, to worship the Giver and not the gifts, the serve the Giver and not the gifts. Our hearts are set free to cling once again to God alone, who is the only one who can give us true peace, true security, and true joy.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church