Welcome Welcome to Above All Love. This is Simply Fellowship — the Good News, quietly told. This is a gentle space. No pressure, no performance. You don't have to have it together to be here. You don't have to be certain, or hopeful, or even very present today. You're welcome exactly as you are, wherever you are reading this. If you need to read slowly, or stop and come back — that's completely fine. There's no right way to be here. Just be here. Hymn We begin with a hymn verse. Read it slowly. You might want to sit with each line before moving on. Just as I am, without one plea, But that thy blood was shed for me, And that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. — Charlotte Elliott Prayer Loving God, Thank you that you do not wait for us to deserve welcome before you offer it. Thank you that your arms are already open before we have finished our speeches, before we have explained ourselves, before we have made ourselves presentable. Meet us today in the far country, if that is where we are — or in the long road home, or at the door. Wherever we are on the journey, let us feel the movement of your love running toward us. And if we have been standing in the field a long time, watching from a distance, finding it hard to go in — grant us the grace to step across the threshold. Amen. Old Testament Anchor "I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants." — Luke But before we reach the son's rehearsed speech, we need to hear the older word that echoes underneath it. The prophet Hosea, writing from within a broken covenant — God's people far from home, scattered, faithless — hears God speak in a way that should not sound like God at all: "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?... My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger... For I am God, and not a man — the Holy One among you." — Hosea This is the heartbeat underneath the parable. The God who cannot let go. The Father who is undone by love. Not a cold sovereign distributing justice from a distance — but one whose heart turns within him at the thought of the lost child. How can I give you up? It is not a rhetorical question. It is a cry. And it is the cry that sends the father running down the road. Scripture Our reading today is from Luke chapter fifteen, verses eleven to twenty-four, from the Easy English Bible. Jesus also said, "There was a man who had two sons. The younger son said to his father, 'Father, please give me my part of your property now.' So the father gave each of his sons their part of his things. A few days later, the younger son sold everything that was his. He went away to a country far away. There he wasted all his money by living in a wrong way. He spent everything. Then there was no food to eat in that country, and he began to be hungry. He went to work for a man who lived there, and that man sent him to his fields to look after the pigs. He was so hungry that he wanted to eat the pig food. But nobody gave him anything. Then he began to think clearly again. He said to himself, 'My father's servants have plenty of food to eat. And here I am, so hungry that I am nearly dying. I will go back to my father, and I will say to him, "Fathe...