Repairers of the Breach

Post Author: Rev. Julia Burkley

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: 11-12 (NRSVUE)

Back in May, one of my best friend, Jill, and I took my dog Jackson, filled up the car with outdoor gear, and drove the 3.5 hours down to New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia. It was supposed to rain the whole weekend, so not letting that deter us, we put on our rain jackets, and entered the woods onto a trail. A couple of extremely rainy miles later, looking a bit like soggy dogs, we emerged on a rocky point right as the rain decided to let up. We were greeted with a view of the New River Gorge Bridge framed perfectly by the golden clouds as the sun peaked through kind of like it was saying, “Hi, you made it!”

We were the only ones there at the viewpoint that the park rangers warned ‘is always extremely busy’. The rain was dripping behind us off trees like a gentle percussion as we just stood in silence and awe.

It was utterly breathtaking.

New River Gorge Bridge in Fayetteville, West Virginia

The New River Bridge, is the longest steel span in the western hemisphere and the third highest bridge in the United States. It towers 800 ft over the second oldest river in the world, ironically named the New River. 

As we looked in awe at our own private view, my friend, Jill under her breath said: “It’s not often a man-made bridge makes the landscape even more beautiful.”

Her comment has stuck with me. What is it about this bridge that is so captivating? What is it about this connection piece that seems so important? Because I agree with her, the bridge made the landscape. Is the reason this bridge captivated us so much because we as people need connections, need things that bring us to one another? Is the beauty in the loud statement that we can overcome breaches?

We are in a season of disparities, in a season of people being pushed apart because of political ideologies, backgrounds, opinions, and so many other things that divide us  We are really good at looking at people on the mountain across from us and being content just as we are, where we are, convinced that we are right that and they have to do the hard work to hike down and climb up the trails to us, because of course, we are right, not them and it’s not up to us to do the work ourselves. And even when a bridge does actually start to be built, I see the people who are on the margins be the ones who extend a hand first, the ones who make the first move.

I am the first to admit that I am a person of privilege. I am white, I grew up upper middle class, I am educated. There is so much going for me. And this passage from Isaiah honestly embarrassed me a little bit, because it reminded me: how often could I make a bridge and I don’t?

And why even build bridges in the first place? The answer is right there in scripture. I go back to the words from Jesus in Matthew 22 that in so many ways seem to be at the center of my faith:

Jesus said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Love. Love is why we build bridges. Love is the one commandment we cannot under no circumstances break. Love calls us to work together with those around us. Love calls us to sometimes break the rules and status quo to serve our neighbor. Love calls us to be in community with God all the time. Love calls us to care for those around us. Love.

It is love that tells us to be ‘repairers of the breach’, going forth to serve God in action and in spirit.

Repairers of the breach. Bridge builders. Those who see those who are different than us, or need things that are different from us and loudly and boldly extend a hand.

Instead of barriers, God calls us to create bridges. Bridges that bring us to those who need our love, meeting them where they are, not asking anything in return.

Bridge building is community building and justice, but most of all, it is relationship, again centering everything we do on God’s call to love.

Because we love our neighbor: our neighbor we agree with but especially the neighbors we don’t. We all have people we don’t agree with. And yet, God calls us to love. Unconditionally. 

We are in need of more bridges. Especially with less than a month before the election. Maybe that’s what stuck with me when Jill and I stared out over the New River. Rivers are meant to be crossed. People are supposed to be connected. We are called to be repairers of the breach, bridge builders. Let us be God’s love in the world.