When we return to this familiar part about the prodigal we realize how hopeful the story  is, that you can go home again! As we focus on the father we recognize this God of amazing grace revealed by Jesus. In the hymn “He Looked Beyond my Fault and Saw my Need,” we hear the couplets:

Amazing grace shall always be my song of praise

For it was grace that brought me liberty.

I do not know just why Christ came to love me so

He looked beyond my fault and saw my need.

At the close of this first movement we pause to lift high a God of grace. This God celebrates when the lost are found and come home. We turn around and celebrate such an incredible God of grace. This is not merely the cool abstraction of “the Unmoved Mover” of the philosopher Aristotle nor the impersonal “Force” in Star Wars. We stand in amazement at this God of grace. 

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Many of us like God and even believe in God because of this very story. Your picture of what God is like is deeply influenced by this revelation by Jesus of what God is like in this most famous parable. When I read this story I want to know where to sign up. We can meet a God even better than we expected. We overturn with this parable any childhood pictures of God as a vengeful deity, a domineering God that crowds us, a heavenly policeman, a harsh parent.

Some leave the church or take a leave of absence in reaction to childhood impressions of the divine. If we stumble into God’s presence carrying an intolerable burden from a misspent past, the barriers that we erect to talk ourselves out of coming to God can tumble down. You can approach God even after you have messed up. We are not disappointed by the father in the second movement of the parable either. Let’s segue to the second part. Are you ready to go there?

The Second Movement: The Father Reaches Out to His Older Son (15:25-32).

We bring the two pictures together -- the outgoing father reaches out first to his prodigal and then to his older son. So we can now propose a name for this sermon: “Twice in One Day.”

The reception of the Prodigal stands emblazoned in our imaginations. The picture of the Elder Brother has found more space and place in our minds. Now we pull together on one canvas the same father going out to both sons. We see a father that loves both of his sons -- and a God who loves daughters and sons like the older as well as the younger son. This may well be good news for someone listening right now.

When we do this last bit of the story we tend to feature the elder brother rather than the father. In the historical context Jesus did anticipate the predictable criticism that would follow on the heels of the prodigal story and the father’s extravagant reaction -- perhaps your criticism as well. The elder brother is entirely opposite of the father in response to the return of the black sheep of the family. Let’s pay far more attention to the father, the one who went out twice in one day to meet a son. When this first hits you, your admiration for the father in the story leaps. So just how does this unusual father relate to his older son?