This morning’s scripture passage from Isaiah, that Lorrie read for us so nicely, is just beautiful. It’s poetry, really. The author offers us a wonderful, powerful vision of the promised land, an image of the wholeness of creation and humankind.

Of all the beautiful images contained in the passage, one stood out in my own reflection this week. The prophet says, “You shall be called the repairer of the breach.” The repairer of the breach. I hear it and my mind is filled with images of healing and wholeness.

What exactly is a breach, anyway? The word gets used in a variety of ways. The word “breach” is commonly used by farmers and fence-builders to indicate a gap in a wall, where the sheep or cows or pigs can break out and get lost. In the military, it refers to a vulnerable opening, where the enemy might get in, like a breach of security. In the law, it is a violation of one’s promise and commitments, like a breach of contract. A breach is always some kind of broken space—a tear, a crack, a rift, a gap, a fissure, a rupture, a chasm, a hole. So thinking about being “repairers of the breach,” about the image of wholeness the scripture extends, got me to thinking more seriously about the breaches themselves. It got me to thinking about holes.

The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that, “A good part of our life is passed in plugging up holes and filling empty spaces.” There’s a fair amount of truth in that. There’s something about holes that just gets to us—urging us to close the gap. Have you ever had just a little hole in the knee of a pair of blue jeans? When I find a little hole, even the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen, I am compelled, all day long, to plug it up—sticking the tip of that ballpoint pen in to fill the hole. Then, of course, the hole begins to grow, and soon it is the width of the entire ballpoint pen. At which time I am still compelled to plug it up, so I use my finger. And at the end of the day, the hole has gone from a tiny pinprick to a giant finger-sized rip. There’s something that gets under our skin about holes. We rearrange the furniture in our homes, the ornaments on our Christmas trees, the pictures on our walls to cover up the holes.

I think there is a fear within us of empty spaces, of the blankness of holes. Think of small children, who often have a very big fear of gaps and open holes. I have seen many a child terrified of getting into a subway car, like the kind on the Red or Orange T lines, because of that two-inch gap between the platform and the train. The gap is scary. They fear falling in to the darkness of the hole. As unreasonable as it sounds to us as adults, children frequently fear being sucked into the bathtub drain or flushed down the toilet. In fact, enough children expressed their fright at the hole in the bathtub that Mister Rogers, that purveyor of rich wisdom for young and old alike, was moved to compose a song to allay their fears.

You can never go down
Can never go down
Can never go down the drain.
You’re bigger than the water.
You’re bigger than the soap.
You’re much bigger than all the bubbles.
You’re bigger than your telescope.
The rain may go down
But you can’t go down.
You’re bigger than the bathroom drain.
You can never go down
Can never go down
Can never go down the drain.

While we may outgrow our fear of subway platforms and bathtub drains, most people continue to carry a certain amount of fear and trepidation about holes. We describe the grief and loss in our life as having left a “hole in our heart.” Many people struggling with depression describe themselves as falling into a dark hole, from which they cannot climb out. And who of us, at some point in our lives, has not described the shape of our life at that time as having “something missing,” a hole in the completeness of who we want to be.

So when Isaiah prophesies that we can be repairers of the breach, that we might find ways to patch the holes in our living, my ears perked up. Those images of wholeness sound so enticing: “You shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.” Yes, I want to be like a watered garden, full and satisfied and growing. I want to be like a never-ending spring of water, feeling rejuvenated and full of life. I want to make a world where ruins are rebuilt, where breaches are repaired, a city where we have streets to live in! Yes, dear God! Please!

So I looked to the words surrounding this vision, and I found several “if-then” statements. If you do X, then Y will happen. The “if” statements named three different “breaches” that we might begin addressing in our lives and our world. First of all, the scripture says, “If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil.” How many breaches have we created with our harsh and unkind words? How many puncture holes have we poked through with our finger pointing? This first “if” statement asks us to refrain from all that interpersonal pushing and shoving, finger pointing and badmouthing that we do to one another. Finger pointing is not usually a helpful result of a deep examination into the causes of our social ills. And “speaking of evil” probably does not refer to constructive criticism. Pointing out the wrongfulness in other people’s behavior is simply a way of masking our own emptiness, a quick and ineffective strategy to patch our own holes. There are so many gaps that exist between us, so many breaches within human relationships that are caused by our own unwillingness to forgive, to end the cycle of blaming, to cease our attacks on one another. God cannot extend wholeness to us if we are not willing to extend it to one another.

The second “if” statement points us to another gap in human relationships with one another. Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord says, “If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted.” There existed in Isaiah’s time, and there exists in our own time, a great gap between rich and poor. As in our own day, there was a giant chasm between the lives of those with wealth and the lives of those who struggled to survive. This second “if” statement asks us to work to close that gap.

The translation we read says we should “offer our food” to the hungry, but many older translations read “pour out your soul to the hungry.” This is a much greater call than to simply give away our leftovers or extras to those who have nothing. John Calvin, that great leader of the Protestant Reformation, commented on this passage, “’To pour out the soul’ therefore, is nothing else than to bewail their distresses, and to be as much affected by their own poverty as if we ourselves endured it.” Calvin is describing compassion—literally “suffering with” those in need. This “if” statement calls us to reach out with more than an outstretched hand, but to extend our hearts, to pour out our very souls to those in need, thereby closing the gap between rich and poor in a way that handouts of food or clothing or shelter can never do. This is not a call to lean across the breach and offer help, but to jump in and upset the scales. To get our lives and our welfare and our souls mixed up with the lives and the welfare and the souls and the suffering of all people, so that there is no gap between us. This is not simply a call for increased charity, but an insistence that we entangle our lives with the lives of those in need, so that we no longer stand on opposite sides of a great chasm, but recognize ourselves as one people, one community, whose fates are intertwined. We must stand in solidarity with those in need, placing our souls in the breach with theirs. Only then is the breach no longer a breach, the chasm between us no longer exists, because we are all in it together. Rich and poor are no longer, and all needs have been satisfied.

Wholeness will not reach us as individuals, but as a community. The gaps between us, whether because of disparities in wealth or because of our interpersonal fighting and finger pointing, must be closed in order for us to find wholeness. The third “if” statement at first seems out of joint with these other two. “If you refrain from trampling on the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs.” The first two “if’s” clearly direct us to work toward healing in the relationships we have with other people, to seal the cracks that break us apart from being a whole and holy community. Hard work. This third “if” urges us to do the opposite, to sit back and rest, to delight in God’s company. It is almost as if, instead of asking us to plug up some kind of hole, this “if” is asking us to make a hole in our life, by carving out some empty time in our busy schedules.

Sabbath. It’s not just a holy day of the week. It’s not just coming to worship. It’s not just ceasing from work to attend to God. Sabbath is about empty time—time that is free from obligation and burden, time that is free for prayer and play and rest and just plain doing nothing. Ah, but therein lies the problem. There’s something in us that is bothered by holes, holes in our jeans or in our time. We are disturbed by emptiness, by the absence of doing. God Bless that Protestant Work Ethic. In our culture, our identity, who we are, is wrapped up in what we do. When you leave this hour of worship and go across the hall into coffee hour, hopefully you will introduce yourself to someone new. And how will the conversation begin? Two questions: what’s your name and what do you do? It’s how we define ourselves. And as you get to know each other better, you’ll talk more about what you do—not only your job, what you do for hobbies, what you do on vacation, what you do on the weekend, what you do with your money. We value our lives based on what we accomplish and what we accumulate. But Sabbath asks us to stop all that doing and to just be. To have time that is empty of doing. And when our identity and sense of self-worth is based on what we do, empty time leaves us feeling, well, empty.

When we stop doing, we often come face to face with and the holes in our lives. Sabbath is about opening ourselves to that emptiness, because that emptiness is space where God is able to enter our lives and transform us. When we are doing all the time, we can hide our need for God in the busyness of day-to-day living, letting ourselves be swept up in the flurry of our own importance. But Sabbath, by carving out a hole in all our doing, makes room for God to make us whole. This third “if” reminds us that all our efforts are not enough. Although our participation in repairing the breach is critical, it is not sufficient. This command to keep the Sabbath tells us to make no mistake, wholeness does not come from what we do. Wholeness comes from God. The Lord, through the prophet Isaiah, says, “I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth.” We will cry for help in our brokenness and God will answer to restore us. Keeping Sabbath opens up a gap in our minds and hearts, creates the space we need to let God in, to let God make us whole and make us holy.

So we hear three “if” statements: If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil. If you offer your food (pour out your souls) to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted. If you refrain from trampling on the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day.

These “if” statements are the holes we must attend to in order to make way for God’s grace to enter our lives and bring us healing. If we are not attentive to these breaches in our relationships with God and one another, then we remain unprepared for God’s grace and wholeness to reach and restore us.

But wait, stop, hold it just a minute. I believe I have fallen prey once again to that obsession with holes. What Isaiah offers is a vision of wholeness, and here I am once again distracted by the holes. Like poking at that small rip in my blue jeans. The holes have moved to the center of my attention. Did you also lose sight of the vision?

While we must always work to repair the breaches, to close the holes as the scripture describes, we cannot lose sight of the larger wholeness that God offers. As much as we yearn to be whole people, God desires to make us into a community of wholeness, a community of holiness. So after looking closely at the holes, let us return to the larger vision God offers. Our ending is not with the gaps and breaches, the “if” statements. Our ending is in the “then” statements, the fulfillment of the wholeness God has promised. Our ending is not in holes but in wholeness, in the promise of God we hear from the prophet Isaiah:

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; You shall cry for help and he will say, Here I am.
Then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
Then the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong. Then you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail.
Then your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
Then you shall take delight in the Lord, and God will make you ride upon the heights of the earth and feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Let us pray: Gracious God, we lift up our lives to you as we search for wholeness. We offer you our thanks for the promise you make to restore our lives. Give us the strength to attend to the breaches between us, while never losing sight of your vision of whole and holy community. Amen.

Scripture Reading
Isaiah 58: 9-14

Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
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 the noonday.
The LORD will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.
If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the LORD honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
then you shall take delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.