Lord, I am not the beggar with a disability waiting at the gate of the church. But I understand their plight better this year. As I stand in the breach of church–trying to hold open the bridge between the world and worship. As we collect money for food pantries, and try to find ways for communities to meet and pray. I feel like we too are stuck at the gate of the temple.
Sometimes we are outside the temple, begging to get in, yet unable to pray.
Sometimes we are at the gates of heaven, barely breathing in and out.
Sometimes we are waiting by the side of someone who is on the cusp of death.
Lord, the breaches are gaping right now: the gap between rich and poor, healthy and sick, abled and disabled, the privileged and the marginal, essential and nonessential, the black and the white and the rest of the people of color.
Help us to be the disciples at the breach, fixing our eyes upon them, seeing not just their stated wants but also their deeper needs. Help us to to touch those who are stuck, and to take their hand and walk with them in the community. Even if that touch and walk is only metaphorical today.
Lord we know what it’s like to be in the breach.
Show us how to be the helpers, the healers, we pray.
Remind us that no help is too little, that we are longing for one another’s company, touch and presence.
Help us to be present and stand in the breach, we pray.
Amen.