Rabbi Maggie Wenig once wrote a sermon imagining God as a grandmother — sitting at her kitchen table, turning the pages of a book of memories, looking back over the long story of her children's lives.

As she turns the pages, God marvels at what we have created — the music, the ideas, the beauty. She beams with pride. Then there are the pages she would rather skip. The wars. The injustices. The times she watched us racing down dangerous roads, unable to stop us. The bedsides where she wept.

And as she turns the pages, one word keeps rising in her. Wenig writes: "Come home," she wants to say to us. "Come home.”

And she imagines what it would be like if we did. "God would usher us into her kitchen, seat us at her table and pour two cups of tea. She has been alone so long that there is much she wants to say. But we barely allow her to get a word in edgewise, for we are afraid of what she might say and we are afraid of silence. So we fill an hour with our chatter — words, words, so many words. Until finally she touches her finger to her lips and says, 'Shh. Sha. Be still.’"

Wenig ends her sermon with this: "God will not sleep. She will leave the door open and the candles burning, waiting patiently for us to come home.”

The door is open. The candles are burning. God is waiting — ever patiently — until we are ready.

That is the God of Hosea. That is the God we worship. And that is the invitation that stands, today, for each of us.

Prayer: Loving God, you have been waiting for us — patiently, faithfully, with the door open and the candles burning. We hear you calling. Help us to come home. Amen.

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