Hanging on a wall of our house are a couple of framed cotton doilies.  Now I suppose that to the uninformed it must look a bit strange, the kind of thing you’d expect to see on an end table or a nightstand, not displayed like some picture or painting.  But as you might guess, there’s a story behind it all.  They were after all gifts from dear soul in my first parish, a ninety plus year old woman named Dora.  The doilies had been presented to us with great care on two separate occasions, which led me to believe that the second time around she may not have remembered giving us the first one.  No matter though, they’re still beautiful not only because of their delicate intricacy, but because they were gifts given with great love.  And though the years have come and gone, though Dora died some years ago, I can still look at those doilies and think of her deep, froggy voice, of her tenacity and wit, of a woman whose life was a unique reflection of God’s gracious love. 

            And I guess that’s the way it is with the best gifts—not that they’re particularly expensive or lavish or impressive, but that they point beyond themselves to the endearing qualities of the giver.  In our own way, I suspect, we’ve all received such special gifts, those that we cherish for a lifetime. 

In the Book of Acts, we meet a wealthy woman named Tabitha a.k.a Dorcas, a disciple “devoted to good works and acts of charity.”  But even before we get to know this delightful person, we hear the bad news that she has become ill and died.  Surely those most grieved are the many to whom she devoted her life—the widows who gather to weep for her.  They shed tears for a dear friend, of course, but also that now the one  who offered them support, protection and hope has been taken from them.  “What now?”  They must wonder.  What to prevent us from falling forgotten between the cracks?  Clearly that pile of tunics and clothing are so much more that mere fabric and stitching, but gifts that point to the love of one Tabitha, a love that they have every reason to believe will never be theirs again.

As we behold a host of grieving widows gathered together in Joppa, we catch a glimpse of the kind of human vulnerability that is ever present in our world but that so often we’re unwilling to see, let alone to accept—the poor, the hungry whose ranks are overwhelmingly filled by women and young children.  We hear the statistics—6 million children die every year from preventable causes, that’s one every five seconds, almost thirteen million children in the US who go to bed hungry every night.  What’s to keep them from falling further and further into the cracks?  What hope can they hold on to today, let alone tomorrow? 

In a cynical world where hope is at best a limited commodity our response to the widows of Joppa, to hungry women and children around the world, even in our own community is to say, “well, it’s too bad, but that’s just the way things are in our world, always has been that way, always will be.”  After all, wasn’t it Jesus himself who said, “the hungry will always be with you.”  We do what we can to help, but there’s only so much that any of us can do.  Like it or not, it’s the way things work, it’s the cold, hard truth that we inevitably come to believe, it’s the way the world is and that is that.

Or is it?  The strange goings on there in the upper room suggest that a very different reality taking hold.  Putting them all outside…“Peter knelt down and prayed.  He turned to the body and said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’  Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up.”  Into a world of death there breaks a word of life, a word of hope.  Of course that’s the way God always works, speaking a world into being where there was none before—“Let there be…and there was”, proclaiming a word to set free those who are bound, “I have seen the affliction of my people…I know their sufferings and I have come to deliver them”, raising up the most unlikely and least qualified to declare the end of the world as we know it, “My song proclaims the greatness of the Lord…He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things but the rich he has sent away empty…according to the promises the Lord made to our forebears.”  The raising up of Tabitha is nothing less than a sign of God’s promise at work, not just for her and the women at Joppa, but for an ever widening community that comes to include the likes of you and me.     

The dying and rising in the story of Tabitha is mirrored in our own story, the story begun in baptism—as the old sinner is put to death and the new Adam or Eve is raised up to new life.  And that movement from death to life isn’t something that happened long ago, on that first Easter or on the day when we were baptized, but happens again and again, with the dawning of each and every new day.  No longer is who we are determined by the past, by the bad choices we’ve made, the things we’ve said and left unsaid, the things we’ve done and left undone.  No, because Jesus died and is risen, because Jesus lives we are free to be what God means for us to be, free to live out our calling as God’s own children, “sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ (not until next week, or until God finds someone more suitable or until we really screw up, but) FOREVER!”

And the message of Easter doesn’t just have implications for what happens to us in our physical death, but for today.  Tabitha lived in a world where people had a very clear role to play based on gender, class and wealth.  According to the rules of the day, her role is to stay at home and let the men take care of business, devise an affordable welfare system.  In the same way Peter has his defined role to play as well, tending the fishing nets, but when it comes to matters of theology and religion, it’s best to leave it to the scholars, to those who know better. 

But something has happened, something has changed, something is different even before the amazing incident in Joppa.  Something or someone has gotten hold of Tabitha and she’ll never be the same again.  My friends, something, someone has gotten hold of us too—God’s word of life, Jesus Christ, risen from the dead—and we’ll never be the same again either. 

The message “rise up” is always a timely one for us, no less so I believe than now, as my time of sabbatical draws near…

“Rise up!”  For the power of God is at work in us—forgiveness, healing and life—gifts to share with the whole world—through our lives to others.  “Christ is risen.  Now rise up and live.”  Amen.

 

Pastor Brian Peterson