Rabbi Maggie Wenig imagines God as a grandmother who has not seen her children in a long time. When they finally come to visit, they fill the air with nervous chatter — stories, deflections, anything to avoid silence. Until she touches her finger to her lips and says: "Shh. Sha. Be still.”

Then she pushes back her chair. "Let me have a good look at you.”

Wenig writes: "In a single glance, God sees us as both newly born and dying. She sees us when we were young — when we idolized her and trustingly followed her anywhere, when we were filled with wonder at all things new, when we thought there was nothing we could not do. And she sees us in our later years: when we no longer felt so needed, when chaos disrupted the rhythms we had learned to rely upon. She sees us sleeping alone in a room which once slept two.”

"When she is finished looking at us, God might say, 'So tell me, how are you?' Now we are afraid to open our mouths and tell her everything she already knows: whom we love; where we hurt; what we have broken or lost; what we wanted to be when we grew up."

I think about how rarely we allow that kind of stillness. We fill every quiet moment with noise — our phones, our plans, our endless inner monologue. Afraid of what we might hear if we stopped.

But God is asking. Be still. Let me have a good look at you. How are you — really?

The question deserves an honest answer.

Prayer: Loving God, still us. Quiet the noise inside and around us. Let us sit with you long enough to be truly seen — and to answer honestly when you ask how we are. We are here. Have a good look at us. Amen.

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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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I once read about a woman with twin sons who could not have been more different. One thrived — Eagle Scout, student council president, college, law school. The other struggled from the beginning — in trouble constantly, in and out of the principal's office, eventually arrested on a felony charge.

By a strange coincidence, the day one son was to receive his diploma was the same day the other son was to receive his sentence.

The mother went to the graduation. She watched her son cross the stage. She was proud. But her heart was somewhere else entirely — in a courtroom across town, grieving for the son who couldn't stay out of trouble.

Does a mother forget one son because of what he has done? Does she simply stop loving him?

The answer, of course, is no. Love doesn't work that way.

God speaks through the prophet Hosea with words that sound exactly like that mother: "How can I give up on you? My heart recoils at such a thing. My compassion grows warm and tender."

This is the God we worship. Not a God who writes off the ones who have wandered or failed or gone their own way. But a God whose heart is in two places at once — rejoicing over what is flourishing, and grieving over what is lost. Still holding on. Still calling.

If you have wondered whether you have gone too far — whether God has finally given up — the answer from Hosea is clear. He hasn't. He can't.

Prayer: O God, we thank you that your love does not give up. For the times we have wandered, for the failures we carry, for the distance we have put between us — your heart is still toward us. How can you give up on us? You can't. And for that we give thanks. Amen.

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There is a line in the book of Hosea that hits home for me. God is speaking about Israel — the people he has watched over, carried, fed, and rescued — and he says simply:

"They did not know that I healed them."

They did not know.

I think about what parents carry quietly, without their children ever knowing. The worry about what they eat, who they spend time with, what they're watching, where they're headed. The sacrifices — financial and otherwise — so a child can take music lessons or play on a traveling sports team or simply have new shoes for school. The hours of lost sleep. The prayers offered in the dark.

Children don't know. They can't, really. Not yet.

And perhaps we are not so different. God speaks through Hosea of teaching Israel to walk, taking them up in his arms, leading them with cords of human kindness, bending down to feed them. A long, tender history of care — most of it invisible, most of it unremarked upon.

How much has God carried for us without our knowing? How many moments of grace have passed through our lives unrecognized? How many times have we been held, guided, or quietly healed — and simply gone on our way?

The invitation today is simply to pause. To look back over your life with different eyes. And to say thank you for what you are only beginning to see.

Prayer: Gracious God, we confess that we have not always recognized your hand at work in our lives. Open our eyes to see the ways you have carried us — the healings we missed, the grace we walked past. Today we simply say thank you. Amen.

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There's a legend about the great artist Michelangelo pushing a huge piece of rock down a street. A curious neighbor, sitting lazily on the porch of her house, called to him and inquired why he labored so over an old piece of stone. Michelangelo is reported to have answered, "Because there is an angel in that rock that wants to come out." 

Friend of Dial Hope, think imaginatively. Color outside of the lines. Think of rocks as those challenges which you have met. Think of rocks as those things you have tamed, or those times when you brought order out of chaos. Whenever you find angels in rocks you are being creative. It is our creative potential that puts us in the image of God, for it is our charge in life to be creators. Some of you will be creative with pen or brush, others with touch or thought. Be you a teacher or a veterinarian, a parent or a chef, an engineer or a musician you will fulfill your post through creativity. 

Vincent Van Gogh used to say that "many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the passionate painter who is daring and who has broken that spell of "you, cannot!"' The creative person paints. In Genesis 1:26 we read, Then God Said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness."  

Let us pray: Loving God, whom we see in every summer flower and flowering stream, teach us to see you as well in the haggard faces of the old, the gaunt or bloated bodies of the poor, and the imploring eyes of children. Help us who are called by your name to have your vision of the world of the future, as a place where the lion lies down with the lamb, the person with two coats shares with the person who has none, and everyone takes care of children and the aged. Release us from our bondage to self-interest. Grant today your amazing grace to those who are ill in body or spirit. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. 

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