Living in the Spirit

August 16, 2022

Scripture Reading:

Isaiah 58:9b-14

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. –Isaiah 58:9b-12

The word breach today is most often used to describe an infraction or violation of a law, obligation, tie, code, or standard unfulfillment or nonfeasance constituting infraction*. During Isaiah’s time, it most likely took on the connotation of something that was broken, ruptured, or torn condition, a place showing rupture, split, or fissure*. While the definitions are much the same the first describes a more sanitized meaning where we would go to court, whether civil or criminal, and handle the issue. Isaiah speaks more of something more visceral and observed as being irreparable but must be repaired for life to be meaningful. As impossible as life may seem at times, we serve a God who is a repairer of the breach and who has called us to be repairers of the breach.

We are at a crossroads in our nation, the whole world, where breaches surround us. Where discerning what is just and right has become so fractured, we cannot find the common ground needed to support the Common Good even to the extent that we are caught in a pulling contest with God being the rope. Rather than conducting a religious tug of war, we must let God be God as God strives to rebuild us and makes us repairers of the breach.

Prayer:
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
forgive our foolish ways;
reclothe us in our rightful mind,
in purer lives thy service find,
in deeper reverence, praise**.  Amen.

*https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/Breach

**First verse of the Hymn Dear Lord and Father of Mankind by John Greenleaf Whittier. See at https://hymnary.org/text/dear_lord_and_father_of_mankind

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.