February 1, 2026
What happens when you get a rip or hole in your clothing? Maybe you have a hole in your socks now? But sometimes you are not all that ready to give up that pair of pants or sweater. I am not the best at sewing myself. I’ve never mended sweaters or socks. I do have a pair of jeans, a satchel, and shoes that have great love, and I continue to use them despite rips, tears, and extensive years of wear. I have turned to my dry cleaner and cobbler to help restore shoe soles, buttons, laces, straps and rips to some original condition and wear.
God is in the business of mending. The God of the Bible promises life, mercy, and justice for all people creation. And God calls us to the work of mending what is broken.
Mending is the main point in our reading from Micah today: “what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
It is important to go to the tailor to point out and mark what is torn and what needs repairing. One major step in mending is to name and acknowledge what is damaged and the harm that has been done. A doctor first needs to make a diagnosis before treatment. You might recall broken relationships or the ways you have been hurt by another person or a range of forces. And we can carry anger or resentment or shame or grief or self-hatred. We need to keep being reminded and remind ourselves that God desires and offers healing, restoration, forgiveness, and mends the broken parts of life.
The harm done on a social and personal level is beyond our comprehension because it is woven into the fabric of trauma, hurt, prejudice and wounds passed on from generation to generation.
Our divisive political divide is clearly seen in questionable arrests, unnecessary fear, economic gridlock, delayed justice and excessive use of force to the point of unrestrained murder. Gun violence shows no signs of slowing. In the first month of this year brought 25 mass shootings in the country totaling 993 victims. Perhaps the biggest issues come when we become numb to all the harm done.
In his farewell column in the New York Times, David Brooks makes the judgment that over his 22 years of writing columns, we have “become sadder, meaner and more pessimistic country.”
Harm continues to be done to people because of their race, nationality, their religion, mental and physical abilities, their gender identity, and their sexual orientation. Harm continues to be done to the people of Gaza, South Sudan, Ukraine, Iran, and Venezuela. Harm continues to be done to the earth because of our short-sightedness, our waste, and the pollution of natural resources.
In all honesty, we are all complicit in the harm done. Even if we personally are not responsible. In the economic systems, the politics, and the benefitting of indigenous people, farm laborers, political scapegoats and overworked animals.
In last Sunday’s gospel, Jesus calls the twelve fishermen to follow him. To leave behind their own comfort and walk the way of the cross, the way of forsaking power and privilege for something more. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount or Beatitudes shows God’s love leading to upside-down thinking. That God desires those made in God’s image especially those struggling to be restored and whole: the blessed are those who are persecuted, the meek, the poor in spirit, those who mourn. That we are not alone. That we mourn together those deaths. That we are called in faith and hope towards something more.
The call on us united with Jesus in baptism is to work for justice and peace in all the earth, to join in God’s liberating project of mending the universe.
Reparations, repentance, reconciliation, and restoration can mean many things in different contexts.
We begin by telling the truth, naming the harm done — especially to indigenous peoples and enslaved Americans, and not only harm done in the past, but how such harm continues to affect others. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, led by Desmond Tutu, is one model of listening, noticing, and naming the harm done. Mahatma Gandhi threw off the shackles of his privilege in India and adopted a life that advocated for the liberation of his people from colonial rule. He became a political and spiritual leader for peaceful, nonviolent resistance.
Reparations are about relationships, political solidarity, spiritual practices, and communal listening to where God is calling us in the project of mending what is broken.
We, of course, can’t do this work of repairing on our own. We do so as we look to and trust the God of resurrection.
Whether we are the ones who are broken or we are joining in God’s work of mending the universe, at the center of it all is the cross. The pain of the cross is a sign of contradiction, as St. Paul writes in our second reading. What the world calls weakness is strength.
The cross is the very sign of reconciliation and healing. Across our differences, the cross makes us one. The cross compels us to stand with all the broken and brokenhearted.
We always begin with God’s initiative: God, the healer, the mender, the reconciler.
Our response is to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk reverently with God: as we work; as we vote; as we pray; as we march; as we serve; as we love.
In our prayers, worship, and listening, we have the opportunity to work for such healing, comfort and new life.
In the Micah reading, some big ways of honoring God are proposed such as burnt offerings with young calves, “thousands of rams, . . . ten thousands of rivers of oil,” one’s firstborn (6:6-7). But God only asks us to “do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly” (v. 8). We often think God is most pleased with big events and activities, when often, small acts of justice and kindness can show others what a humble walk with God is like. From our humility and hurt, God blesses us as we go about our lives, sharing Jesus’ love to a world that craves faith, hope, and love.
David Brook’s lamenting farewell NY Times column also gives a call for greater importance of the smallest of manners, morality, hope and faith.
We have a calling, an opportunity, a challenge, and a humble task! We have much to learn, much to give, and much to receive as well. In this call, in this way of the cross, and through God’s grace, we receive the healing of our souls — the mending of our life.