Repairers of the Breach

A sermon by Rev. Robin Bartlett
delivered on August 25, 2019 before a three month sabbatical
​at the First Church in Sterling, MA

God is abounding in steadfast love. Bless God’s holy name. I know many of you are mourning Jim Harper’s passing today. Still at the grave we make our song, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

This poem is called ”The Lanyard," by Billy Collins.

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly 
off the blue walls of this room 
bouncing from typewriter to piano 
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor, 
I found myself in the 'L' section of the dictionary 
where my eyes fell upon the word, Lanyard. 
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist 
could send one more suddenly into the past. 
A past where I sat at a workbench 
at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake 
learning how to braid thin plastic strips into a lanyard. 
A gift for my mother. 
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard. 
Or wear one, if that's what you did with them. 
But that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand 
again and again until I had made a boxy, red and white lanyard for my mother. 
She gave me life and milk from her breasts, 
and I gave her a lanyard 
She nursed me in many a sick room, 
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips, 
set cold facecloths on my forehead 
then led me out into the airy light 
and taught me to walk and swim and I in turn presented her with a lanyard. 
'Here are thousands of meals' she said, 
'and here is clothing and a good education.' 
'And here is your lanyard,' I replied, 
'which I made with a little help from a counselor.' 
'Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, 
strong legs, bones and teeth and two clear eyes to read the world.' she whispered. 
'And here,' I said, 'is the lanyard I made at camp.' 
'And here,' I wish to say to her now, 
'is a smaller gift. Not the archaic truth, 
that you can never repay your mother, 
but the rueful admission that when she took the two-toned lanyard from my hands, 
I was as sure as a boy could be 
that this useless worthless thing I wove out of boredom 
would be enough to make us even.’

This poem reminds me of our covenant with God Isaiah alludes to. 

The covenant goes like this: 

God gives us life. God  promises us water in parched places. God promises nourishment and freedom; a breathing body and a beating heart. God promises us steadfast love, most of all. 

We cannot return the gift.

In fact, we are only human and it feels that we have hardly anything to offer in return. Our gift is just to do our human best to love God and neighbor. These small acts seem to pale in comparison to what we’ve been given. Plus, we mostly won’t succeed since we are only human and doing the best that we can.

And yet God somehow makes us sure that it’s all enough to make us even.

Covenant is a word many thousands of years old, which lies deep at the center of the spiritual and political heritage of the western world.  It means, “An agreement freely made between different but equal partners and God to respect each other and work together for the common good.” 

God says through the prophet Isaiah that we must keep our promises to each other so that we can become light in a dark place. We are to stop fighting, speaking evil, pointing fingers, and instead offer our food to the hungry, and satisfy the needs of the afflicted.

God says if we can do that, we will become repairers of the breach.

Breach has a very interesting usage in the English language when it comes to our relationship with God. Here is a list of synonyms for “breach” taken from the dictionary: break, gap, opening, rupture, split, alienation, schism.

The first definition of breach is particularly important when it comes to the church: “the breaking of, or failure to observe a law or contract or standard.” 

The second definition of breach is: “a breaking of relations; an estrangement; a quarrel; a broken state.”

Our work is the work of repair; to help heal all that has been broken.

What is broken right now? Shout it out. Where do you see a breach? What needs repair?

These are hot mess times. Our country is as divided as it has ever been while the world literally burns. We have separated ourselves from each other and from God. We have demonized and dehumanized those who are not like us.

And so we know we must become repairers of the breach. We have no other choice. We must become practitioners of revolutionary love.

We know that if this revolution is going to come, we need to arm ourselves. Not with weapons, but with a mix of humility, bravery and kindness that is foreign to the current political climate. Here at First Church, we know we do not belong to a political party, or a government. We belong to each other, and we belong to God. 
 
This place of memory and hope is a training ground for covenant mending and tending. You have healed, again and again, all that is broken in me. And I know that is true of so many others. 

You are repairers of the breach.

We do this especially well in times of joy and sorrow.

Jim Harper went home to live with God on Monday, and his funeral service is today at one. The Harper family hopes to have their church family in attendance. This church’s outpouring of love and affection for Jim was palpable in the hundreds of prayers, messages, and cards you sent. Jim was nothing short of a hero who saved thousands of lives over the course of his 72 years. He was our tender toddler tender here at First Church for close to twenty years. He took that job more seriously than his professor and veterinarian jobs. And just as seriously as his paramedic job.

He was a repairer of the breach.

School starts on Tuesday, and we blessed the backpacks of our students and teachers so that they might learn to build a world worthy of our children’s promise.

They are repairers of the breach.

And yesterday, I married off Don and Jan Patten’s daughter Sarah Patten to her wonderful new husband Nick Wilder in Harrisville, NH.

What they promised to one another in the vows they wrote themselves could be our church’s covenant (except the kissing part). 

They promised one another:

to stand by your side in moments of joy and sorrow -- through the highest peaks and the lowest pits. 

to encourage you to pursue your dreams -- celebrating you in your successes and supporting you in your challenges.

to remain hopeful for a better world, and to remind you of your own hope when you forget.

to stay silly, never take ourselves too seriously, and always dance around the house with you.

to strive for a life full of joy, laughter, and adventure - and to permeate that spirit to those around us.

to remember that you are human and to try to practice patience, empathy, and forgiveness when your bad day gets the best of you.

to keep our home a place of respite, tell you that I love you, and always give you a kiss goodnight.

to give you my attention, love, hugs, homemade meals, and strong coffee without seeking a return.

to honor and create traditions with family and always make time for friends.

“I promise all of these things,” they said, “and I promise to come back to these vows when I need reminding, I make these promises to you today, and for the rest of my days.”

They are repairers of the breach. 

When I was at the Patten wedding, I met someone who lives in Sterling and  is on the search committee for another congregational church in the area where he has been a long time member. 

He told us that my name comes up in every meeting they have about what they are looking for in a new minister. They want someone, he said, who can help them to revitalize and grow; and reach out into the community, like in our Eat Pray Learn and Community lunch programs. He was especially interested in pub theology.

I said, “I suspect you don’t need a minister like me, but to become a church like mine.” 

I asked him, “How good are you at having hard conversations? About theology and ideology; about stuff that matters in this time and in this place?”

He said, “oh, that’s the one thing people don’t want according to our surveys. No politics from the pulpit.”

“Yeah, that’s hard.” The motto at my church is “we can do hard things.” I said, “We love one another BECAUSE of our ideological and theological differences, not in spite of them. Listening to understand one another has brought us closer to God, whom we know to be Love.”

Our congregation has been gathering since it’s federation in 1947 in the sincere belief that we need not think alike to love alike.

We can do hard things like change. We can do hard things like engage each other in taboo topics such as comprehensive sex education, money and politics. 
We have made extravagant welcome a priority and we live it out in the world. We became open and affirming to the LGBTQ community in 2017, which was a statement not so much about who WE Are, but about who we know God to be: Love. We have grown as a result of our moral courage, not our programs,” I said.

And sure, we have grown in numbers over the past five years, welcoming 160 new members, many of whom are families with young children. Our young adult Facebook group has 80 people in it. Our Facebook page has 1500 followers. Our giving has grown exponentially. We have 500 people on the First Church “members and friends” list. 

But mostly, I said, we have grown in depth because we are not afraid.

We are repairers of the breach.

My seminary professor, Dr. Wesley Wildman, once said to us that "If your concept of love serves only to reinforce your own political ideologies in your church then you might as well go bowling." 

This is the Good News of the Gospel, the SCANDAL of the Gospel: is that we must continually choose to expand our concept of Love until it is as wasteful, extravagant, and as God-sized as we can make it. We must flex our heart muscles not only to include the least, the last, the lost, but also to include whomever we are currently referring to as “snowflake” or “deplorable” instead of God’s name for all of us, which is “Beloved.” We must love one another without stopping to inquire whether or not we are worthy.

That’s why this Church is rising up as it has over the course of its 275 year history to offer our meager gifts in return to an extravagantly loving God, and succeeding. 

We know the Church is made for such a time as this: 
rising up to build bridges, not walls; 
to give us a new heart for each other and the world; 
to LEAD a MOVEMENT of REVOLUTIONARY LOVE.

We are repairers of the breach.

I don’t know if he was convinced. He looked pretty skeptical.

This is my last sermon before my three month sabbatical, a meager offering in response to your extravagant love and care of you have given to your tired and increasingly more middle aged pastor over the past five years.

You have set cold facecloths on my forehead 
then led me out into the airy light 
You have taught me to walk and swim in this ministry 
and I in turn presented you with a lanyard. 
'Here are thousands of meals' you said, 
'and here is clothing and a good education.' 
'And here is your lanyard,' I replied, 
'which I made with a little help from a counselor.' 

I just want you to give you this one last lanyard before I leave:

I love you. I bless you, and I will miss you. I will rejoice when I return to you on December 1st.

And I thank you. Thank you for accepting my meager gifts in response to your life giving love for me and for my family. Thank you for toiling in the vineyards with me to create heaven on earth. Thank you for giving me this time away. Thank you for the hope you give me for a broken world made whole again.

Amen.