Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday May 8, 2022 – 4th Sunday of Easter
Scripture Reading – Acts 9:36-43
I need to begin by addressing the elephant in the room with this reading. Tabitha, also named Dorcas, was raised from the dead, was returned to life, when the apostle Peter prayed over her. And while it is a beautiful story about a woman who was a leader in her community, when I read this story, the first question that pops into my mind is: why was Peter’s prayer answered here, when so many other prayers through time and across space go unanswered?
I don’t know if you have ever prayed for someone you love to be brought back to life after they had died. It is heart wrenching. In the midst of grief, you pray for all of the what-ifs. God, please make it yesterday so I can stop them from going out today. If only I could go back 6 months or even a week and get them to a doctor sooner. If only I had come home an hour earlier. God, please bring them back to life so that I can tell them one more time how much I love them.
And yet in my experience, these prayers go unanswered. So why are Peter’s prayers answered in this story? Telling me that it was because of his deep faith – that Tabitha was raised back to life because Peter trusted that God would do just that – this isn’t a helpful interpretation. Because then what am I supposed to take away from this story, other than telling me that I’m not Peter, which I already know?
I wish that I had an easy answer for why Peter’s prayer for Tabitha was answered when so many similar prayers aren’t. I wish that I could stand up here today and preach a sermon on 5 easy steps to raise someone from the dead. But I can’t do that. I can’t do that because I don’t know why Peter’s prayer was answered that day.
All that I can say about this miracle is that Tabitha’s time hadn’t come yet. Today wasn’t her day to die, and so she came back to life. She has more years ahead of her – years when she will serve and love and be loved – and when her time comes her body is going to die, and all of the prayers in the world won’t be able to reverse that death. But that time isn’t yet.
So if I can’t stand here and preach about how to raise people from the dead, or why Peter’s prayer that day worked, then where is the good news in this story?
To me, I see the good news in this story coming in the form of community, in this very early church.
The book of Acts is set in the first few years after Jesus’s death and resurrection, after he had been raised up to heaven. The church was trying to figure out how to be the Body of Christ – how to carry on Jesus’s work now that Jesus was no longer with them. Even thought they were still very much a minority in the wider world, this community of Jesus-followers was growing quickly as people were drawn to Jesus’s message of loving God and loving one another, as they were drawn to his message of radical love and acceptance and equality, as they were drawn to a community where everyone shared what they had so that no one went without.
One of the leaders in this community was Tabitha, and we’re told that she was devoted to good works and acts of charity. She didn’t just talk the talk, she walked the walk. And she was beloved. When she died, the people of the church and the people she served came together to mourn together and to celebrate the work that she had done. I love that the author includes the detail about how they wanted to show off Tabitha’s handiwork to Peter – the clothes that she had made, presumably to go to people who didn’t have any.
And then when Tabitha is brought back to life, Peter calls in the saints and the widows – again, the other church members and the people that Tabitha served – so that they could celebrate together now that Tabitha was with them again.
And to me, this story of community is at the heart of who we are as the church – people who come together to grieve together, to celebrate together, to support one another as we try to follow the path that Jesus shows us – people who can come together to be authentically human together, with everything that that entails.
Here at Two Rivers Pastoral Charge, we know too well what it is to lose beloved friends, neighbours, family members, siblings in Christ; and yet we are able to come together in-person and online to grieve together and to celebrate their lives, just as Tabitha’s community did. And when we have things to celebrate – the baptism of babies, weddings, new neighbours – we come together to celebrate those things too. And when we do these things – especially when we do these things together – we are being fully human, the creatures that God created us to be.
I have to confess that my current television binge watching is a program called Alone – it is a reality TV series where each season 10 competitors are dropped off alone on the shore of northern Vancouver Island, miles apart from each other. There is no camera crew so each competitor is responsible for filming themselves, along with finding food and clean water and safe water… as well as keeping themselves safe from the wildlife. The person who lasts the longest out there is the winner. And while the survival skills are interesting to watch, to me the more interesting part of the show is the mental game. You see the competitors struggling with fear, with loneliness, and then for the competitors who are able to stick it out long enough to get a decent living site established, they then struggle with a sense of purpose.
And while some competitors press the “Come-And-Get-Me” button on their satellite phone because they are afraid of forest or the animals, and some competitors press the button because they aren’t able to get enough food to eat, and some competitors have to be removed for medical reasons like an injury or dehydration or starvation, the most common reason for a competitor to leave the show is loneliness. They miss their family. They miss being around people. They miss hugs.
Watching this program in a time of Covid adds an extra layer of poignancy, since I think that many of us have experienced some of this loneliness over the past two years.
Because we aren’t created to be alone. We are created to be in community with one another. We are created to celebrate together and laugh together and grieve together and be human together on this journey through life. We are created in the image of God, and the God in whose image we are created is community – the Trinity – the Three-in-One and the One-in-Three.
And so while there is good news in Tabitha’s story of being brought back to life after she died, I see the even better news in this story as the story of a community, the story of a church, the story of a gathering of Jesus followers. For when we can grieve together and support one another in our grief, the grief is lessened; and when we can celebrate together, our celebration is increased. And together, we can find ways to love and serve the world around us, just as Tabitha and her community did. And so I thank God, from the very bottom of my heart, for the gift of the church. Amen.
The Community Mourning Tabitha
Stained Glass Window from Southwark Cathedral
Image: Public Domain
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