Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
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One of the things I really love a great deal is superhero stories. They provide a sense of escapism from the mundane of this world. They make it feel as if it is possible that anything can be accomplished. Most of all, with the right superhero story, they make it feel as if good will always triumph in the end.
What really bugs me about superheroes, though, is that they can never really stay ahead. The villains always have some kind of trap or plan that the heroes fall into. The villains are always so proactive while the heroes are always just reactive, and that's where the trouble always seems to come in.
One of the few heroes that can seem to go beyond this reactive approach is one of my favorites: The Batman. But even then, that is not always the case.
For example, in one storyline, Batman has just defeated his worst villain yet, The Black Glove with its leader Dr. Hurt, worse even than the Joker. But Batman barely gets out alive. Of course, this is the moment that the Justice League calls him and needs him most. It is at Batman's weakest that the Final Crisis for the Justice League occurs.
This time, instead of facing his worst enemy, Batman is faced with the Justice League's greatest foe: Darkseid, who is as terrible and powerful as his name would suggest. Darkseid and his minions have hidden within unsuspecting people, heroes included, and Batman is too reactive at this point to catch on to the plan until it is too late. He's captured and taken away.
This being Batman, he escapes, finds the one weapon that can hurt Darkseid, and comes face to face with this living embodiment of evil in the universe.
But as Batman uses his weapon, Darkseid uses his. He sends Batman back in time, forever being chased by Darkseid's minions in a never-ending battle to destroy the present.
To beat Darkseid's proactive plan, Batman has to be more than just reactive, as all heroes are. Batman has to lay a plan out for his return to the present and forget it so Darkseid's minions won't realize what he's doing.
This is where Batman comes to a realization that, to be honest, has helped me through some of the darkest moments of my own life. He comes to the realization, just when he needs it that he has never been alone in his quest to battle evil. He's always had help.
Batman has to trust his friends in the Justice League to save him from Darkseid's reach when he returns to the present. Part of Darkseid's master plan is to use the energy Batman has gained through his travel through time to destroy the world, so to get rid of the energy, Batman has to go under, being clinically dead, and trust his friends to bring him back.
All the parts of this story, Batman's transition from being reactive to proactive, his reliance of his friends, and his emptying himself even to death, are important to us today and help explain a very difficult Gospel lesson.
Today we heard the Parable of the Shrewd Manager. It is a difficult parable because it seems to laud a corrupt person.
In the story, the Shrewd Manager is about to be fired for squandering his employer's property, that is for not really doing his job. The Manger, realizing he's about to be out of a job, decides to ensure that he will get some help when he is fired. He brings everyone who owes his boss money and has them lower their bill. The Manager's boss praises the Manager for doing this because the Manager acted shrewdly.
Then Jesus tells us that the children of light should act just a bit more shrewdly, like the children of this age.
Basically, Jesus is telling us to stop just being reactive heroes, merely responding to everything that comes our way. Jesus is calling us to be more proactive and plan. That's something that villains are normally very good at. It is also the very thing that Batman had to do in order to defeat the ultimate evil in Darkseid.
It's something the church, as a whole, is trying to figure out how to do right now. We are so used to being reactive heroes in the world. We hear about this program and that program to meet the needs of the world and to help bring more people in our church, both good things, but what we really need to do is to stop and plan. We need to think about the future in a proactive way, which is what the church, again as a whole, is trying to do a better job of.
Basically, we need to stop doing everything the way we've always done it and start getting creative in how we do our ministry.
Part of the way we do that is looking at the rest of what our Gospel reading this morning says, as well as the other parts of Batman's story. The Parable of the Shrewd Manager ends with these words: "make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes."
In other words, what matters most is the friends we have made along the way. After all, it was thanks to his friends in the Justice League that Batman finally defeats Darkseid in the end. What matters most is how we are relational with one another. That is what will help us move forward as the church in the end. This is what will help us to truly be the church, God's instrument in the world.
We are also called to be self emptying. When the Shrewd Manager lowers the bills of his boss' debtors, he is likely taking out the interest that would have been the Manger's own wages, an act of removing his own wealth from himself. Batman empties himself to the point of clinical death in order to help save the world. Most importantly of all, Jesus empties Himself on the cross when He died for you and me. It is Jesus' example that we are called to reveal and demonstrate to others always.
How are we to be proactive instead of reactive as a church? To discover that answer, we must learn and work, and continue to work, together to find creative ways to do ministry as the church as we continue to move to the future. I do know that whatever new paths we discover and whatever new ministry techniques we design, we cannot move forward and be truly proactive in bringing others to the church and, more importantly, to Jesus Christ unless we can focus on the relationships that we have with God and with each other and unless we can share the great gift of Christ Jesus' self-emptying love for us with one another and the world.