Sermon: Fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost
By the Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Ph.D ’13
Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in the Faculty of Divinity
Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church
(The following is a transcript of the service audio, Sept. 21, 2025)
In the name of God who loves us as a parent and loves us as a child and loves us as a friend and companion, Amen. Today we are celebrating Holy Baptism. Every baptism is special. I'm going to describe a couple reasons why this one is special. Cleo's dad was one of my first students when I joined the faculty here. He was my first doctoral student, my first graduated doctoral student. Also, his wife, Zoe, is an amazing person, and I performed their wedding ceremony, and now they are bringing their baby, Cleo, to be baptized today. It's a really special thing.
The gospel lesson today is a tricky one, if you were listening. About a dishonest manager who, to get out of his predicament, cheats his boss further, and then Jesus says, “Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth.” I would like you to know that there was a choice of readings on this day, and Mac chose this one for me, pure and evident retaliation for his general exams. This is a hard one. I mean, I know the seminarians make fun of me, for I getting up here and talking about how hard the lesson is, but this one is pure, and I was looking through the commentaries, and they all say, boy, this might be the hardest one.
One of the tricks with preaching on these little snippets of scripture is that they are parts of a larger story. Acceptance before, when I tried to get out of interpreting these difficult texts. This lesson happens in between and occurs in between two other lessons or two other parables. It's the middle of a series of three parables. The one that comes right before it is the parable of the Prodigal Son—the son who squanders a bunch of wealth. And then runs off and then comes home. If you're familiar at all with the Gospel of Luke, you might remember it.
The word “squandered,” what the son does with his father's wealth, that's the same word as squandered here with what the manager does with his master's wealth. And then the parable that comes after this is about a rich man who every day he walks through this front door, his opulent front door, and there's a beggar named Lazarus there, and every day he ignores Lazarus, and then they go into the afterlife, and Lazarus has it good, and the rich man has it bad, and that parable begins with the same words, this parable. There was a rich man.
The lesson today is complicated and difficult, as it is, it's not just a lesson that was meant to stand on its own. It is part of a larger teaching, a sequence of teaching parables that hang together and in many ways, this parable is the one that binds all three together. And I will try to explain why I think that's the case. It's important at the end of this parable when Jesus talks about a slave serving two masters, there's a little bit of dispute in the commentary around this lesson, but in all likelihood, at least I'm persuaded the quote-unquote dishonest manager here is probably a slave.
Ancient Greco-Roman culture was a slave culture. Wealthy landowners had slaves. Wealthy landowners used slaves to manage their properties. This person, this manager is profoundly vulnerable, if found to have mismanaged money, he would be subject to hard labor, labor, or to banishment. Even if you're not convinced, some scholars aren't, maybe he wasn't in school, he's still subject to these punishments of hard labor or abject poverty. I think one of the things that happens when we come to a text like this, and there's somebody referred to as Lord, O in the allegory, the Lord must mean Jesus pure, great, because we call Jesus Lord.
What part of what Jesus was doing with this ministry was trying to redefine that term for his people and the people around him here call me Lord and think of means, it's one thing, but it means this other thing, pure, I think in this case, when he's telling the parable and talking about the Lord, he means the version of lordship that he's trying to critique. Slave owner. With immense and terrible power over the people who work for him, and who has made his wealth pure through enslaving others. Through taking financial advantage of others, and through exploiting them.
Because landowners like this in Jesus's time, Lords like this in Jesus's time, made their money through enslavement. And exploitative lending practices. This is the system in which this manager operates. You might call it a system of dishonest wealth. This person, the protagonist of the story, is not the first in the line of his dishonest wealth. The whole system is dishonest. And also notice the language at the beginning. Charges were brought against him. We don't know how credible these charges are. Have vulnerable people ever been subject to false charges and accusations? Of course they have. Vulnerable and the poor are charged all the time and accused all the time when it serves power to do so.
This manager, who comes to be the protagonist of this story, is not the first in the line of dishonesty. He's caught up in a system of it. He needs to be. That's the world around him. Like all of the debtors with whom he negotiates, he is vulnerable. So what's happening here, I think, is the system is coming down on him. And he has to make a choice. The system is saying to him, his cruel, slave owning master is coming to him and saying, pass this cruelty forward. I think you cheated me. Get me back what you owe me from whoever you have power over.
This dishonest manager, he has a choice. He can protect himself by coming down hard on his debtors. Saying you owe a hundred gallons or jugs of oil, how about 150? You owe a hundred containers of wheat? How about 200? That will help my case with those above me. You can choose to perpetuate or propagate the cruelty under which he suffers, or he can choose something else. He can forgive some debts. Forgive us our debts as the prayer says. In a dishonest system, a cruel, powerful man comes to him and says, Here's your choice. Spread this around further, or suffer yourself.
And he chooses to be generous. To forgive debts. This manager realizes that the cost of protecting himself would be to shake down the debtors below him. The cost of protecting himself would be to propagate more injustice. And so he chooses not to. He forgives. He forgives the debts instead. This is why the parable ends pure you cannot serve God and wealth. This is the through line. Among the three parables. When the prodigal's father is waiting for his son to receive him to send things, he's going to go to him and say, I'm going to tell him, and I'm going to work off all of this money.
I'm going to pay back every cent. The father has to choose between loving his son or getting his money back. And he chooses love. Because you cannot serve God and wealth, the manager here has to choose between being forgiving and generous or getting some money. And he chooses generosity because you cannot serve God and wealth. The rich man in the parable to follow passes by the beggar Lazarus on his doorstep every day. Every day, he has to choose between mercy and money. And he chooses money. And he is banished from God's presence because you cannot serve God and wealth.
Not to be too on the nose about it, but this parable is not a fanciful hypothetical. You do not need to look far at all in this world, in our world, to see this exact scenario taking place. Charges, unsubstantiated charges being brought by powerful men. Charges being levied by those who manage great wealth or great institutions. And a choice offered. To punish those over whom you have power. Or prepare to be punished by our power. Propagate injustice. Or suffer it. But you cannot serve God and wealth. God bless this manager. Who risks his own welfare to spare others.
God bless all those who are forced by power into this awful choice. And God especially blessed those who choose love and generosity and mercy, pure and justice, for God's vulnerable ones over power, and money. In just a moment, we are going to have a ritual of Holy Baptism. Little Cleo, who I'm about to wake up. And she's not going to like that. A little Cleo is going to be welcomed into this church. Baptism is a special thing. In the same way that a new child being born into a family transforms the whole family, a new child being brought into the church, with the whole church, is reborn.
It's not just Cleo who is receiving a great gift today. It's not just Cleo who's being welcomed into a new community. All of us, because Cleo is going to be a part of it by going to be welcomed into the new community. That is why all of us are going to say the baptismal vow with her today. That's partly because we are renewing our vows today with ours. We are recommitting ourselves to this community, and I know when you come to church, come I do it too, there's lots of prayers that are rote and maybe you don't pay so much attention, it's easy just to read and speak, or listen, but I really, really encourage you to listen to the words of this vow today.
These baptismal vows that you will make with Cleo today. You're almost impossibly demanding. Today you are going to promise with Cleo that you will seek and serve Christ in all persons. Loving every neighbor you have as yourself. With Cleo today, you are going to promise that you will strive for justice and peace among all people here, every single one. And respect the dignity of every human being. All persons. All people. Every human being. These are the vows that we are going to make today. This is the promise to which Cleo is being bound today. The promise into which all of us who are Christians have already been bound.
The promise which we in a few moments will remind ourselves. Every person. Your neighbor as yourself. You cannot serve God and wealth. May we keep the vows that we make this day. And always, everywhere, remember whom we are first called to serve. And how.