There are certain repairs in life that announce themselves with considerable drama.
A plumber arrives carrying enough equipment to suggest that he intends either to repair the kitchen sink or excavate a small portion of Mesopotamia. A roofer appears with ladders, trucks, compressors, and three men who spend the first twenty minutes looking thoughtfully at the sky. A mechanic telephones and begins the conversation with the phrase, “Well, we found the problem,” which is rarely followed by anything financially encouraging.
Repair can be noisy.
But some of the most important mending happens quietly.
And I am beginning to suspect that this is one of the great lessons of Ordinary Time.
We have come through Thanksgiving. All Saints is still somewhere ahead of us. The autumn leaves are beginning their annual theological demonstration that something can be extraordinarily beautiful while simultaneously falling apart.
And here we are.
Ordinary Time.
No angels appearing to shepherds.
No Magi crossing deserts.
No palms waving.
No empty tomb surrounded by astonished disciples.
Just ordinary days.
Coffee. Laundry. Meetings. Groceries. Emails. Appointments. Dinner. Dishes.
And God quietly mending things.
We Usually Notice the Breaking
Human beings are remarkably good at noticing what is broken.
Give us a beautiful white wall and we will immediately notice the tiny scratch near the baseboard.
Give us a wonderful day and one irritating conversation, and guess which one we will rehearse while brushing our teeth that evening?
Give us twenty encouraging comments and one criticism, and the criticism will move into our imagination, unpack its luggage, rearrange the furniture, and apparently sign a twelve-month lease.
We notice what is broken.
Perhaps because broken things demand attention.
But grace often works differently.
Grace can be remarkably quiet.
Jesus once compared the kingdom of God to mustard seeds, yeast, growing crops, hidden treasure.
Small things.
Hidden things.
Things happening beneath the surface.
The kingdom, apparently, does not always arrive accompanied by a brass band.
Sometimes God simply begins mending something.
The Repairs We Cannot Yet See
There are wounds in our lives that do not disappear quickly.
Grief does not obey schedules.
Relationships do not heal because we have decided that sufficient time has passed.
Forgiveness does not erase memory.
Disappointment does not vanish because someone quotes an encouraging Bible verse at us, however enthusiastically.
Some things take time.
And perhaps one of the gentlest truths of Christian faith is this:
God is willing to take the time.
We often want resurrection by Thursday.
God sometimes seems content to begin with one small green shoot.
We want the entire relationship restored.
God begins with one honest conversation.
We want the grief gone.
God gives us one morning when we suddenly realize that we have laughed again.
We want certainty.
God gives us enough light for the next few steps.
We want the whole garment restored.
God begins stitching one torn edge.
This can be frustrating.
I would personally prefer divine grace to operate rather like one of those home-renovation television programmes in which an entire house is transformed between two commercial breaks.
Apparently sanctification has not adopted this production schedule.
The Ministry of Small Repairs
Perhaps there is also something here about our own calling.
We live in a world fascinated by large solutions.
Large programmes.
Large announcements.
Large strategies.
Large promises.
The Church occasionally catches this enthusiasm and begins believing that the Kingdom of God is perpetually awaiting the arrival of our latest five-year strategic plan.
Plans have their place.
But Jesus also spent an extraordinary amount of time doing very small things.
He noticed people.
He touched people others avoided.
He ate with people who were lonely.
He listened.
He asked questions.
He restored dignity.
He forgave.
He stopped beside people everyone else had learned to walk past.
Small repairs.
One human life at a time.
Perhaps Christian discipleship is often exactly that.
You telephone someone who has been alone.
You apologize.
You forgive.
You make room at the table.
You bring dinner.
You listen without immediately explaining how the other person should feel.
You speak kindly to someone who has become accustomed to being treated as an inconvenience.
None of these things will make the evening news.
But somewhere a little piece of the world has been mended.
The Holy Workbench
There is an old temptation in Christianity to imagine that God is primarily interested in extracting us from this messy world.
But the Gospel tells a different story.
God enters the mess.
God takes flesh.
God walks dusty roads.
God eats ordinary meals.
God touches wounds.
And ultimately God promises not the abandonment of creation but its renewal.
“Behold, I make all things new.”
Not: “Behold, I throw everything away and start again.”
There is a difference.
God is a mender.
Which means that the places in our lives that seem frayed, cracked, bruised, disappointed or unfinished may not be evidence that God has abandoned the project.
They may be precisely where God is working.
Quietly.
Patiently.
Perhaps with the divine equivalent of glue, clamps, sandpaper and the firm instruction not to touch anything until morning.
Ordinary Time Is Repair Time
That may be one reason I have grown increasingly fond of these ordinary days between Thanksgiving and All Saints.
They ask very little of us liturgically.
There is no frantic preparation.
No enormous feast approaching tomorrow morning.
No complicated choreography involving candles, palms or multiple bookmarks in the service book.
There is simply time.
Time to notice.
Time to listen.
Time to let God work on things we have been too busy to examine.
And perhaps time to participate in the mending ourselves.
There may be someone who needs a telephone call.
There may be an apology that has been waiting.
There may be a kindness we have postponed.
There may be some neglected corner of our own soul that needs compassion rather than criticism.
There may even be something we thought was permanently broken that is already beginning, almost imperceptibly, to heal.
Look Closely
So today, look closely.
Not only at what is broken.
Look for what is being mended.
Look for the relationship where conversation has begun again.
Look for the grief that no longer occupies every room of the heart.
Look for the courage that was not there six months ago.
Look for the person who is slowly becoming kinder.
Look for the community learning to listen.
Look for the tiny green shoot pushing through what looked like dead ground.
These things rarely announce themselves.
Grace seldom sends a press release.
But God is working.
And perhaps one of the spiritual disciplines of Ordinary Time is simply learning to notice the sound of divine repair:
a conversation,
a kindness,
a forgiveness,
a laugh returning after sorrow,
a door opening,
a wound closing,
a heart softening.
Stitch by stitch.
Grace by grace.
God is quietly mending the world.
And, wonderfully enough, God keeps inviting ordinary people like us to hold the pieces together while the glue dries.
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Companion Prayer
God of patient grace,
you are at work in places
we have already decided are broken beyond repair.
Teach us to notice
the quiet work of your hands:
the wound slowly healing,
the relationship beginning again,
the courage quietly returning,
the grief becoming gentler,
the heart learning once more to hope.
When we demand instant answers,
give us patience for the slow work of grace.
When we see only what is broken,
give us eyes to recognize what you are already mending.
And when you place within our reach
some small piece of your wounded world,
give us the tenderness to hold it carefully,
the courage to help repair it,
and the wisdom to know
that we do not have to fix everything ourselves.
Stitch together what has been torn.
Restore what has been wounded.
Renew what has grown weary.
And make us willing partners
in your quiet work of making all things new—
one kindness,
one forgiveness,
one conversation,
one small act of love at a time.
Through Jesus Christ,
in whom even the wounds of the world
are gathered into resurrection.
Amen.