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Hillside Street, Bennington, Vermont (802) 442-2559
"resolutely inclusive, spiritually alive, and empowered for ministry in the world." |
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“Subtle Signs of Resurrection”--April 25, 2010 Acts 9:36-43, John 10:22-30
Posted: April 27th, 2010 @ 11:00am
What are we to do with a story like Peter’s raising of the disciple Tabitha from death?! It’s one thing to hear of Jesus raising Lazarus, but now the disciples are raising the dead? And is that something that we, who may think of ourselves as disciples of Jesus, are supposed to be able to do? Talk about “great expectations”!
Tabitha, or Dorcas, is the only woman in the Book of Acts specifically called “a disciple,” and the word used here is the only place in the New Testament that the feminine form of the word is used. While the Greek form of her name, Dorcas, sounds too close to some unfortunate words in English, her name actually means “gazelle,” a lovely, graceful word. “She was devoted to good works and acts of charity,” Luke tells us. I know of several “Dorcas Circles” in other churches made up of women who sew beautiful items of clothing and church paraments, not unlike those in our church who sew school bags or layettes for Church World Service.
Dorcas, or Tabitha, was a leader of the church in Joppa, serving in the midst of a community of widows, and clearly her death made a difference to that community because her life had made such a difference. I am reminded of faithful disciples in our community like Pat Haines and Ellen Barnard, among others, whose lives and deaths so deeply affected all of us.
So when Tabitha died, after they had lovingly attended to her body and laid her in a cool room upstairs, the disciples sent two men to the nearby town of Lydda to fetch Peter who happened to be there at the time. Tabitha had modeled a life of prayer and action, and so in her death, her community continues to pray and act in faith and love. “Come quickly,” they beg Peter.
So Peter comes to Joppa and finds the widows weeping for their friend, not as the professional mourners of the culture did, but genuinely bereft. They show him some of the beautiful tunics and clothing Tabitha had made, lovingly touching the fabrics and stitches she had touched, and Peter is clearly moved. He has everyone clear out of the room, so he can clear his head. He has healed people before in the name or power of Jesus, but to raise the dead? One must be especially empty to allow such power to work through you. So Peter knelt down and prayed, and finally turned to the body and said simply, authoritatively, “Tabitha, get up.”
Luke’s readers, hearing this story, would have remembered the story of Jesus saying to Jairus’ daughter who had died, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, get up.” And that story had echoes back to the prophets of Israel, when Elijah raised the widow’s son from death. It was the same Power at work.
“‘Tabitha, get up.’ Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive.”
Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann writes that this story is “the epitome of the truth of the gospel [which is] that God-in Christ-has transformed the world toward well-being...God [is able ]to enter a world of negation and work newness...through authoritative speech,” like Let there be light or Little girl, get up or Tabitha, get up. (Blogging toward Sunday, 4/27/07) And, Brueggemann points out, “It takes a certain kind of witness to see the newness!” Here in this story of the raising of Tabitha, it is the “saints and the widows” whom Peter calls to show her to be alive. “The saints” are those, Brueggemann says, “who did not flee from the smell of death,” and the widows are the vulnerable ones, who lived on the edge of death. They are witnesses to Tabitha’s being raised from the dead.
But is this resurrection or simply the reviving of a dead body? Tabitha got up in the same body she had died in. For all we know, both Tabitha, whom Peter raised, and Lazarus, whom Jesus raised, eventually died again. Jesus, whom God raised, “got up” in a resurrection body and lives to this day.
The world craves and demands more straightforward proof. So it is that the Jewish authorities, quite convinced of “the old arrangements of death and despair,” (Brueggeman, ibid.) came to Jesus during Hanukkah and demanded, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” “Is you is or is you ain’t?”
Jesus responds that he has been telling them plainly who he is, but they just don’t get it. “The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice.” The authorities have too many other voices ringing in their ears to hear the Shepherd’s voice.
How about you? What do you listen to? Voices from your past, perhaps, that have told you you’re not loveable, or that you’re only loveable if you complete a certain list of require-ments, like earning a certain salary or living in a certain kind of house or looking a certain way or responding to every demand and whim of another, no matter how unreasonable or even unhealthy? Voices from the culture, that tell you your worth is measured in stuff or a certain standard of beauty or a certain measure of success? Voices from the media that demand you pay attention to every single thread of a million stories and messages and texts or else you’ll be lost? Voices that say death is The End?
“My sheep hear my voice.” How do we do that? We can practice listening for that voice through prayer and meditation, through Scripture reading, preferably with a group of others who can test the voice we hear, by being part of a community of listeners or would-be listeners, for sometimes another can hear what we cannot. By listening to the voices of the powerless and suffering, who sometimes have fewer delusions and for whom God seems to have an especially soft spot.
“My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” Not They know me, but “I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.”
When we are sitting by the bedside of a loved one who has just breathed his or her last breath, we may long for someone to come in and restore them back to life, like Peter raised Tabitha. When we feel utterly defeated by our physical limitations or frailties, we may long to be restored to health and vitality by a word or touch of some miracle-worker. When a dream or a relationship has died, we may long for some magic elixir or potion to bring it all back. But that is not resurrection. Remember, resurrection happens on the far side of death. The signs of resurrection are much more subtle than the “ta da’s” and “ooh’s and aah’s” of a magic show. Resurrection is sensed in a surge of energy toward new life, after feeling dull and drained for days, maybe even weeks and months. Resurrection is sensed in an inexplicable but over-whelming sense of peace in the face of otherwise troubling or challenging circumstances. Resurrection is experienced in the midst of joining in a project that began simply as an obligation and became a gift received beyond our imagining.
A friend asked me what I was preaching on this Sunday, and I told him the title of my sermon–“Subtle Signs of Resurrection”-- and what I was thinking about. “And do you have a list of stories and signs?” he asked--an important question if we want to communicate; but that’s the problem with subtle signs of resurrection, isn’t it? No dramatic stories of bringing dead bodies back to life, but rather experiences of seeing and touching my Dad in dreams that were “real” and “tangible,” experiences of feeling literally held, in prayer and love, in situations which I had been dreading...those are some of the stories and signs on my list. Just as we have been sharing Epiphany stories–“sightings” of God’s showing forth in our lives, so might we collect and share “subtle signs of resurrection.”
“My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and nothing can snatch them of my hand.” Eternal life, resurrection power, is not limited by death, and so there is a bold freedom in those who are not afraid to die. The saints and the widows in Joppa were not afraid of death; they knew that the power that had been at work in and through Jesus was still alive in the church, and so they called Peter. That same power, that resurrection power, entrusted to the church, is still at work in the world, whether or not we in the church choose to recognize it or allow ourselves to be broken open to become vessels of that power to create new life.
“My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and nothing can snatch them of my hand.” It is that same assurance of resurrection power and care that led the apostle Paul to write to the church in Rome, where he was eventually to die,
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness or peril, or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:35, 37-39)
There are headlines, news stories, movies, endless conversations about the ways that Death is at work in the world. But I tell you, deeper than Death, more powerful than Death, Resurrection is seeping in, breaking open stone-sealed tombs, bringing new life. Listen for the stories, Listen for the Shepherd’s voice.
Amen, and amen.
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