The season of Lent grew from a strengthening period of preparation for baptism and entry into the Christian life, acknowledging that it is not always an easy life. Using scriptures from the Revised Common Lectionary, Lent Year C, this sermon series invites us to look deeper into the challenges our faith may face along the path. Following the example of Christ, who raged and despaired on the cross and yet trusted and forgave in the same breath, we seek the grace powerful enough to see us through.
Week 1: “When We are Offered Shortcuts”
Scripture: Luke 4:1-13
While we often think of Satan’s temptations as earthly pleasures or frivolous desires, what Satan actually offers Christ are the very tools he could use to carry out the mission God gave him–feeding the hungry, ruling the nations, trusting in God. On their own, they are not bad things, these temptations. Yet Satan offers a shortcut to each of them, one that leads Jesus to skip the long walk of his own faith, one that takes him away from the people he is sent to, one that skips all the hard work of discipleship. Imagine your congregation winning the lottery; while you might do incredible things with that money, how would such a shortcut to faithful action affect the Christian maturity of your congregation? In this scripture, Jesus shows us that true faithfulness says no to shortcuts and yes to walking in God’s paths.
Jesus isn’t called to a life where things are handed to him. In fact, entirely the opposite. Jesus is called to a life where nothing comes easy, but everything is real. He’s called to work with and among people to bring God’s kingdom the hard way, authentically, one beloved, healed, faithful human at a time.
Rev. Carol Holbrook Prickett
Week 2: “When Our Shelter is Torn Away”
Scripture: Luke 13:31-35
For many of us, God is our safety and security, so when our safety is ripped away, it can feel like it rips God away from us in the process. Whether our homes, our churches, our communities, or our relationships have been made unsafe by violence or betrayal, feeling God’s presence can be a challenge. But we are assured that God also knows intimately that same struggle. When Jesus returned to Jerusalem, which should have been the safest and most welcoming place to the son of God, he faced suspicion, aggression, and eventually, crucifixion. Yet even in the least safe place, Jesus longs to create safety for us, gathering us in like a mother hen under her wings.
Jesus longs to be a mother hen to us, to keep us safe and protected and warm. And there have been moments—when I have been willing to reach for God even when I am almost convinced that I won’t find anything at all, because my heart is so, so broken—there have been moments when I have felt the downy softness of his wings, and felt the warm heartbeat surrounding my shaky one.
Rev. Carol Holbrook Prickett
Week 3: “When Bad Things Happen”
Scripture: Luke 13:1-9
To be a Christian is no inoculation against bad things happening to us, yet when we (consciously or subconsciously) believe that what happens to us is dependent on our own goodness, a challenging event can destroy our faith. In this scripture, Jesus faces questions about two such crises–one a violent human act, the other a tragic accident. Jesus is clear that that neither were the fault of those who perished, yet he also insists that they should be instigators of our own repentance–turning away from ourselves (and, I believe, our moral righteousness and need for control) and towards God. He follows up with a parable about a fig tree that isn’t growing fruit, and a gardener who pleads for another year before it is destroyed. Yet even that gardener is willing to let the tree go if another year is not fruitful. We work, we trust, and we hope, but we must also be prepared to let go. Neither good things or bad can be taken as proof of God; only God’s presence with us through good and bad.
It takes great courage to be a gardener of our own faith. To put the work in, to put the sweat and toil and hours in, and know that in a year it might come to nothing. To not hang our faith on seeing rewards, but to know that sometimes things simply fail. Fig trees. Bodies fail. Buildings fail. Empathy fails. And when they do, it’s not because God is punishing us. It’s just because not everything is within our control.
Rev. Carol Holbrook Prickett
Week 4: “When It Goes to Waste”
Scripture: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
This famous story is generally referred to as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Prodigal can mean both lavish and wasteful, and the traditional homiletical move is to warn congregants against the kind of wasteful, lavish life the younger son lives. Yet this could just as easily be called the Parable of the Prodigal Father–the father who wastes his love, his joy, his hope, his money, even his food on this wayward boy. Many of us know what it is like to feel like we are wasting our love on someone, and the pain it can cause–yet wasting love is precisely what God models for us, and learning to love lavishly is a spiritual practice all on its own. In God, no love is ever truly wasted.
God wastes beauty on us. God wastes love on us. God wastes forgiveness on us, over and over and over again. And that’s the kind of wasteful I want to be.
Rev. Carol Holbrook Prickett
Week 5: “When There’s Not One Right Answer”
Scripture: John 12:1-8
From our childhood schooling, we are trained to believe that there is always one right answer, one best answer, in any situation. Yet life–and faith–is messier and more complicated than that. This story poses an either/or question: is it better to lavishly care for Jesus, or to feed the poor? Jesus cuts through this false dichotomy with a reminder that there is time for both. Rev. Dr. Carson Brisson, Professor of Hebrew at Union Presbyterian Seminary, often encourages his students before a test to “do the most beautiful that is in you.” How would our walk of faith be different if we discerned how to give the most beautiful in us to God, rather than fought and stressed over what the one right choice was?
Ask the question a different way: what was the most beautiful in Mary to do at that moment, when the man who raised her brother back to life sat in her house? When she knew—knew in a way that few seemed to fully realize—that his own life was about to be snuffed out with jeers and nails?
Rev. Carol Holbrook Prickett
When I think about it that way, I can only be awed by Mary’s choice. To sit in a room of judgmental people, to give away not only her perfume but her love, to show Jesus that even as he walks to the cross, someone sees his sacrifice.
Week 6: “When We Keep Silent”
Palm/Passion Sunday
Scripture: Luke 19:29-40
Many of us have learned that the only respectable faith is a quiet faith. Some of us have even been mocked, shushed, or sidelined when we have tried to share about our faith with family and friends. Whether from fear or shame, we find it hard to have an out-loud faith. Yet that is exactly what Jesus calls us to–a faith so loud that even the rocks will shout about it! As we prepare to journey with Jesus to the table, trial, cross, and grave, how do we learn to share the importance of our faith, and our Christian story, with others?
Jesus wasn’t willing to sacrifice anyone else to keep himself safe. Instead he was a loud voice for God’s love, mercy, and peace—and also God’s commandments, and expectations, and judgment. Jesus taught his disciples to do the same—to be rabble rousers, protesters, interrupters. He taught them to speak up even when it got them into trouble, for the sake of those he loved so much, who so desperately needed to hear the good news of God’s presence with them.
Rev. Carol Holbrook Prickett
Week 7: “When All Seems Lost”
Easter Sunday
Scripture: Luke 24:1-12
The story of Easter is the story of faithfulness that extends beyond death. The women who crept out in the dark to anoint Jesus approached the tomb out of loyalty to one who they fully knew could no longer appreciate it, when all seemed lost. And yet they were met there with God’s own faithfulness, a hundred fold stronger, that also extended beyond death–defeating it entirely. Jesus is risen, and all are found! The promise of Easter is that nothing is ever lost in God. There is always hope and good news at the end of the story, if we can find faith to hang on until the final chapter.
This is our Easter story: the God of love has shattered death. The God of hope has won the day. The Lord of life is here, among us, even now, and we are never alone.
Rev. Carol Holbrook Prickett
Ministry Resources
Walking the Hard Road Liturgy
Walking the Hard Road Graphics (editable Canva templates)
Deep Well Worship 