"Repairers of the Breach"

ISAIAH 58

A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley

March 25, 2001

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

I figured in our first few Sundays together, I would share with you some of my favorite scripture passages—ones that explain my theological outlook on the world. I picked this one from Isaiah 58 because it also explains the work in which UBC is engaged through its ministries of outreach and justice. Being repairers of the breaches that exist is one of the clearest ways in which the called out church is different than any social club that gets together for a few hours every week. We are here to repair the breaches out there and make the city streets safe places in which to live.

Our last president used the 12^th verse of Isaiah 58 in his inaugural address. "Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairers of the breach, the restorers of streets to live in."(Isaiah 58:12) The one who holds the office now also wants to repair breaches, wants to set a new tone in Washington. It’s a good goal. It’s a lofty goal. It’s a holy goal. But Isaiah makes it clear that it is not all that easy to get there. It takes more than words. It takes action.

Let's think about the breaches which we have in today's society:

city and country

Educated and non educated

love and hate

action and apathy

compulsory heterosexism and liberation

just and unjust

male and female

The open-minded and the closed-minded

saved and unsaved

politically correct and everyone else

There are plenty of breaches out there and we are supposed to repair them. Why? So that the cities will be safe again. So that we can live and dwell in the house of God forever. So that there will be peace and justice together at last and all people will be set free.

Isaiah bellows, "Is this not the fast that I choose to loose the bonds of wickeness and undo the yokes of oppression, to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house?" UBC is doing just that. This Friday, UBC will be sharing bread with the hungry through the Loaves and Fishes meals being prepared and served to the needy of our city. And during Holy Week, we host Families Moving Forward, bringing a few homeless families into our church building to offer them hospitality. When we do that, says Isaiah, "then shall our light break forth like the dawn and our healing shall spring up speedily…You shall call and God will say, "here I am." We can say, "great." We are on the way to living God’s way, we can almost feel the golden stones of the City of God beneath our feet. UBC is repairing the breach. UBC is restoring the city streets.

But God has some other hard words for us religious folks. We might do our work of justice and mercy at times, but it is easy to get sucked in to the ways of the world.

"Behold" bellows YHWH through Isaiah, "In the day of your so-called fasts, you seek your own pleasure and you oppress your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight." Would that our elected officials quoted this part of Isaiah 58.

The liberation Isaiah is talking about is not only the restructuring of economic inequities. It is also about interpersonal enmity. "If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, THEN your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like midday." It is easier for us to offer food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted than it is to stop pointing the finger. God is the one pointing the finger.

What we really want, I fear, is cheap liberation. We want everyone to get along. We want our life not to be so dang hard. But biblical liberation requires repentance and confession. It requires people recognizing that there is inequity. It requires a commitment on the part of all of us to put an end to inequity and enmity. That cannot happen by simply stopping the fighting. Or by putting a moratorium on our bickering. That is not liberation. That puts the difficulties under the surface where they are more covert, more insidious. It requires the establishment of justice, not just pacifism, but active nonviolence which seeks to create a new beloved community where justice, freedom and understanding reign supreme. That is repairing the breach. That is making streets safe to live in.

Over these past two weeks< I have heard many of you tell the story of this great church: the high ideals which define it, the intenionality that undergirds it, and the strength which you have discovered and experienced because of it. I hope you remember that story and I look forward to becoming more a part of the ongoing unfolding story that God is weaving through us all.

During Families moving Forward and Loaves and fishes we have a chance to hear the stories of the outcasts. Lots of people like to point fingers at the poor and outcast. It’s easy to say, "If they just got a job, if they just spend their welfare checks more wisely, if they didn’t have so many children…" But they are "those people", not Mary and Joe people with whom you have shared a meal and a roof. It’s a lot harder to point the finger when you know a story of another. All of a sudden things get more complicated. We’ll find the complexities that bring people to that place in life. What a great opportunity to repair the breach.

Third Isaiah, the probable writer of Isaiah 58 railed at the people in words similar to those of Amos, Zechariah, and the others of the Isaiah school of prophecy because the people had forgotten their stories. The result is that they were making the same mistakes over and over again. Perhaps when we get beaten up and beaten down, when we think that there is no hope, we have simply forgotten our story.

Our story as Christians is this: Christ came into this world in order to show us a new way: A way beyond the pointing of the finger; beyond the speaking of wickedness; beyond apathy; beyond the numbing silence of our journeys, beyond injustice; beyond hopelessness and despair.

This way is laden with tears and difficulty, but something worth doing is also something worth struggling for. We need to remember our Christian story. There is too much tyranny in our lives to live without our stories. We need them and we need each other.

Telling and remembering our stories is how we repair the breach. You and I are still getting to know each other. There will be years to figure each other out. With each storu we share with one another, the gaps which separate us narrow and we gain a respect that repairs the breaches and creates beloved community. I love to hear and tell the stories of our faith because it causes us to look at ourselves and others in new and powerful ways.

Having said all of that, let us look at three stories of repairing the breach.

1.

There is a story of hope and forgiveness which comes out of Nicaragua. Tomas Borge was the only original Sandinista General to survive the insurrectional fighting of Revolutionary Nicaragua. One of the first things that the New Nicaraguan government did was abolish the death penalty and make the maximum jail term 30 years. The new Nicaragua did not want to repeat the repression of Somoza.

Prior to the revolution, Borge spent many years in prison. During that time, one of the national guard troops constantly and brutally tortured him. The story goes that Borge met his tormentor with the bars reversed: Borge on the outside and the tormentor on the inside. You can just imagine the thoughts that went around in the former guerilla General's mind. He opened the bars so that he could look at him face to face. Mustering up all of his courage and righteous anger he said to the man, "For all of the beatings that you gave to me; for all of the injustice and wickedness which you brought down on me; for all of your brutality and your hatred, I pay you back with----freedom." And he released him from his sentence. And he changed his sentence to that of forgiveness. He charged him to a life where you go out and seek forgiveness from your former victims.

Borge refused to trade an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He refused to let his tormentor's evil and wickedness define who he was. He repaired the breach.

2.

As many of you know, I was part of a delegation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered folk and their allies who met with 200 people from Jerry Falwell’s church and University in Lynchburg Virginia a little over a year ago. The goal was not so much to change minds as much as it was to tell and hear stories on either side of the breach between Fundamentalists and the glbt community and its allies. We sat around tables and told and listened to our life stories. One Dolores Street member Dave, went out to lunch with a student from Liberty University. They talked and laughed and started a friendship which lasts to today. As they stood praying together in the Perkins parking lot, the Liberty University student looked at Dave and said, "I have never known a gay man, but I know you and I love you. I will not laugh at gay jokes any more and I will stand up for your rights and stick up for you from now on. Dave said the same thing about how fundamentalists are treated in the gay community. They prayed again, refusing to resort to pointing the finger. They repaired the breach.

3.

My grandparents were married for 64 years when my grandmother passed away. When we were growing up, we would often ask our grandparents about their secret for staying together for so long. My grandmother would say, "We have a match made in heaven." My grandfather would just say, "Harumph!" (in typical Donley male stubbornness, I am told).

Well, about 15 years or so ago, my grandmother had a stroke. She spent a good bit of time in the hospital and when she returned home, she was very depressed. Her mind and her body were fragile. She seemed to have lost the will to live. My cousin even caught her taking a bunch of pills one day during her recovery as a way to end her misery. My stubborn grandfather refused to believe anything was wrong. Denial isn’t only a river in Egypt.

Finally at the doctor's behest (they would not hear of this advise from family) they begrudgingly went to a marriage counselor. The first time in 55 years of marriage. For the first time, they spoke of their joys and fears. They spoke honestly about their needs. My grandfather needed to let her do things so that she would feel useful. He needed to stop doing everything for her and making all of the decisions. Up until the last year of her life, it became her job to do the dishes. She did it mostly by feel, since she was legally blind. It would often take her two hours. We would offer to help or do them for her, but my grandfather was clear that we should never take away her therapy. It was her way of feeling useful. And those dishes were spotless.

When she had a subsequent stroke, he kept her at home. He knew that familiar surroundings and routines would help. She made a complete recovery in a matter of months. When we asked him in the years following the therapy sessions about their marriage, my grandfather said, "We have a match made in heaven." All because they repaired the breach.

//

Sisters and brothers, our stories are so important. Let us remember them. Let us share them with one another. Tell your stories to another person. Be energized by what you share. Let us be moved by the lessons of our lives. May these lessons continue to encourage us to repair the breaches between each other, powers and principalities, and between our lives and God's desire for us. And through it all may we all become repairers of the breach, restorers of streets to live in. AMEN.

Back to Recent Sermon Page