God.

How are you?

We show up to these conversations, and we talk and complain.

We tell you what we want, what’s wrong with what others or you or we are doing.

And we almost never ask you how you are doing.

Or if there is anything we can get you while we are up.

We almost never bring you coffee, like we would bring a friend, and then sit with you and listen to you unfold stories.

Like the time that you and Abraham met together.

You changed his name, and Sarah’s. You told him, not for the first time, that his life would change completely, again, during the next year.

You told a ninety-nine year old man with an also elderly wife that she would have a child.

If we welcomed you and sat with you and drank coffee with you, would you tell us more of his reaction? Would you fill in what his conversations were like during that year? What his fears were, what his questions were?

Better, if we welcomed you and sat with you and drank coffee with you, would you tell us more of your words to us? Would you change our names to names of completeness, names of affection?

Would you offer us your grace rather than forcing us to sit up and measure up?

Would we know your promised peace and presence?

Could we?

Please?

Through Christ our Lord,

Amen.

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Reflecting Genesis 17 and Romans 14