Sermon — March 30, 2025
Michael Fenn
It may come as no surprise that I, your seminarian, was a bit of a “church kid” growing up. I was in church pretty much every Sunday up until the age of fifteen, when I got confirmed. After I got confirmed, my attendance was sporadic but still pretty steady. Even so, I was still going to youth events around the diocese and to Christian summer camp. My point being, I have been around the block a few times.
My whole childhood and adolescence I had gone about with the assumption that Lent was certainly somewhere in the Bible. Maybe we just read it in church during the summers when I was away at camp. Or that we read it on a Sunday that I just happened to miss every three years. Maybe it was in part of the Bible that wasn’t in any Bible study type curriculum. It was never something pressing enough for me to go and check in about it with anyone. I was very content knowing that it was in there somewhere.
Eventually, I got to seminary and began my classes in the Bible, with this pondering about Lent somewhere in the back of my mind. My first semester, I get through my class on the gospels…and, no Lent. No big deal, it is probably in the other part of the New Testament, which we were taking in the second semester. I get through the second half of the New Testament and…weirdly enough….no Lent. A bit strange, but maybe it is in the Old Testament. Got through that class too, and you may have already guessed….still no Lent. You can fact check me on this one, Lent does not *strictly speaking, appear anywhere in the Bible.
So if not the Bible, where does this whole season of great importance come from? It seems that the very earliest Christians observed a kind of fast in the days immediately preceding Easter Sunday, but it was only a few days long. Eventually it would get a bit longer, and then at some point it was lengthened to mirror the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness.
Lent would eventually take on a few different meanings. One important ancient Lenten tradition was that those who had committed notorious sins would be restored to the Christian assembly around Easter; Lent was a period of time for them to make amends and repent of what they had done. In this way, Lent became a time when Christians would try their hardest to work out their differences and overcome any strife within their community.
However, even those who were not guilty of notorious sins would still take time during Lent to take a good look at the way they were living their lives. Maybe they did not do something notoriously bad, but maybe there are ways in which they would like to live differently. These people would take on practices that many people retain today: fasting, reading scripture, and self-examination. Lent became, in big and small ways, about repairing your relationship with God and your fellow Christians.
And so, our gospel lesson today is quite timely. We are smack in the throes of Lent, and there is a wonderful sermon in this story about the younger son. This younger son repents of the bad ways he decided to live his life–a very appropriate Lenten story. In many ways, we are the younger son, and Lent is a time where we recognize our affinity to the younger son. It is a time where we intentionally take a look at our lives; a time of fasting, repentance, and sometimes even lamenting. Our own practices of Lent mirror the son’s words and actions when he turns from the error of his ways and goes back to his home.
Just as we have this similarity to the prodigal son, we are the recipients of the same kind of love of God that he receives from his father. In the parable, the father seems to be a stand-in for God, and the father welcomes back his son with a celebration that is almost unthinkable in its scope. He brings out a fine robe–which is soon-to-be soiled, since his son has just been working in a pig sty; he brings out a ring to put on his son’s finger, and sandals for his feet–totally unnecessary at the moment; and he summons up a fatted calf to be killed–one of the most prized foods available to him. He easily could have given his son a normal robe and regular food and it would have been a kind gesture.
Moreover, the father pays no attention at all to anything his son wants to say about the bad things he has done. If you noticed, the son begins his apology speech to his father, and is interrupted by his father’s requests for the fine robe, and the fatted calf. The father does not care, seemingly at all, what the son wants to say in apology for squandering his inheritance and ending up in such a sorry state.
And this is the same love with which God treats our mistakes. In this story, we recognize that there is nothing we can do that will ruin God’s love for us. We recognize that God is always ready to run out to meet us on the road, and excited to kill the fatted calf for us. It is a reminder, during this season of repentance, that God loves us in a way that is practically unimaginable.
And, there is another brother in this story. The very angry, very responsible older brother. To really capture the anger of the older brother, I think it is important to revisit what is actually happening. The younger brother:
- gets some kind of advance on his inheritance
- leaves his older brother and father to manage the family business
- loses his share of the inheritance
- comes back, and is welcomed back by his father
And the cherry on top. The fatted calf–as with everything else the father gives to the younger son–rightfully belongs to the inheritance of the older brother. The older brother’s anger has many justifications. He is the responsible one, who works to maintain what he is given. In the story, if he did what his younger brother did, then both of them would be starving and out of luck. The younger son has something to come back to only because his older brother did the responsible thing.
I suspect that, many of us here, at some point, have been in the position of the older brother. Whether that is dutifully doing your job while your coworkers seem to slack off; taking the time to volunteer to help the community when other people do not; keeping the house clean while whoever it is that you live with continues to be a slob; or maybe something closer to the actual story of the parable. Examples abound of moments when we play the role of the responsible older brother.
And so, our gospel lesson today is quite timely. We are smack in the throes of Lent, and there is a wonderful sermon in this story about the older brother. In this kind of sermon, we are invited during this time of Lent to a time of forgiveness. It is an incredibly difficult kind of forgiveness. So hard in fact that we do not actually get to see the older brother achieve it in the story. It is not an easy invitation to respond to, but it is a timeless kind of Lenten invitation none the less.
In this sermon about the older brother, I think it is important to point out two things. The first, the father actively seeks out his older son when he realizes he is not at the party. The father goes to his older son, who is angry, and is standing in the field outside the party. Just as the father meets his wayward younger son on the road, he goes out to find his angry older son standing in the field. It is a different kind of example of God’s love for us. It is a reminder, during this season of difficult forgiveness, that God will constantly seek us out to be with us, even when we are angry and refusing to go into the party.
The second thing I want to point out is what the father actually says after his older son is finished yelling at him. The father would be within his rights to reprimand his son, to tell him he is being selfish, to get angry back and yell back at his older son. He does none of these things. He does not return his son’s anger with anger, or even express disappointment about how his son is acting. Rather, he responds with a calmness and love for his older son. In a way, he even gives his older son what he wants. The chief complaint of the older son is, essentially, “you didn’t even give me a young goat to celebrate with my friends”. His father seems to tell him in response “you never even needed to ask for a young goat, it was yours this whole time”. There is a deep love for his older son even when his older son is yelling at him and overwhelmed by anger.
And so our invitation for Lent remains much the same as it did for the earliest of Christians. We should repent, take stock of the ways we might consider living differently, and turn back to our Father–much like the younger son in our lesson today. We should also try and forgive, even though it is incredibly hard, just like the earliest Christians did during Lent, and just like the older brother is invited to do in our lesson today. All of this, with the knowledge that in our repentance, God is already running to meet us. With the knowledge that in our trying to forgive, God is already there with us. In the name of the one who loves us first. Amen.