Tabitha's brief story has elements of faithful discipleship, deep and abiding trust, and a God who acts through those who follow. Faith, trust, God’s action.
In six verses in the book of Acts, a story is told about an amazing woman, the disciple Tabitha. She is an ordinary saint
who is devoted to great works and acts of charity – something we should all
aspire to as we live out of lives in the grace of God.
This story has few characters - Tabitha is faithful, Peter is trusting, and God - whose spirit brings new life - and yet it speaks to the power of the resurrection and the power of faith. It bears witness to the mighty power of God. It’s a
resurrection story about the new life that comes to those who are faithful and
trusting and I hope that this story can bring new life to us all.
What
does this story tell us about Tabitha? The author of the story names her the
disciple Tabitha. She had a relationship with Jesus Christ. And in the port
city of Joppa ,
she devoted her life to good works and acts of charity. Your guess is as good
as mine as to what exactly those good works are because there is no record, but
I suspect that she touched a great many lives because of the uproar caused when
she became ill and died.
In
Stephen Covey’s wildly popular self-help book “The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People,” there is a mental exercise designed to help you determine
the most important relationships in your life. The exercise goes something like
this: imagine that you are a spectator at your own funeral. Imagine who would
be there (the sad ones – not the happy ones – if you can only imagine people
happy that you are dead, then you need more help than a self-help book!).
Imagine who would speak and what they would say. It’s supposed to help you
become aware of what is most important to you.
As
a pastor, I attend more funerals than most people. And let me tell you, the
things that are talked about at a funeral are seldom the titles or the bank
accounts. What is talked about is the character and quality of life. God has a
way, in the end, of helping us focus on those relationships that are most
important to us. The bible is filled with stories of people who have titles and of people who have life. Pharoah was king of Egypy; Moses was God's chosen.
When
Tabitha dies in Joppa, she created quite an uproar. This tells me that she
touched a great many lives through her devotion to good works and acts of
charity because so many people are upset at the time of her death.
We
don’t know for certain that Tabitha was a widow, but all of the women around
her are widows. She probably was. In the first Century where Tabitha lived,
widows had very little status in society. All of the scriptural references to
caring for the list of these usually included orphans and widows in this
description. They were the bottom rung of society. In a culture where adult
males had all of the status, if you didn’t have a husband or a male child, you
had no standing or voice in society. Tabitha would have been a forgotten nobody
by the standards of her day. But this story is not about a nobody. Tabitha did
not accept the place given to her; she was resourceful and made good with her
life. That, in itself, is remarkable. Somehow she climbed out of her status as
a nobody and became an accomplished seamstress who was loved by those in her
community because of her goodness and kindness.
The
church universal has been blessedly filled with ordinary saints like Tabitha
who trust in the goodness of God to do good works and acts of charity in their
own lives. And this church is no different. Look around you, remember your stories about how you have loved and cared for each other and the community in the name of Jesus Christ.
We all are ordinary saints living extraordinary
lives. Anytime we do something for someone else, be it great or small, we are
being a saint. Anytime you give to the communion offering, you are being a
saint. Anytime you volunteer your time, you are being a saint. Anytime you pray for a young person because they are a part of the life of the church, you are being a saint. Anytime you volunteer
for Vacation Bible School
To
be sure, the good that she did touched many peoples lives because when she died
there was great distress. The women took care to clean her up and placed her in
an upper room and then they went to find Peter, a disciple who was nearby
working miracles.
I
don’t know what exactly was in the minds of the women that went in search of
Peter. Did they believe that he could raise the dead? Had those rumors about
the disciples reached the village
of Joppa
Perhaps.
Perhaps, but I suspect that these were practical women. Grieving and sad – to
be sure, but practical women. They wanted Peter to share in their grief. They
wanted to reach out to the community of believers for comfort and support.
Tabitha was a disciple and so she and some of the others would have known Peter
and would have reached out to him for comfort and help in this time of trial.
In
the book of Acts, this is our reintroduction to the disciple Peter. This is the
same Peter perhaps better known as Saint
Dunderhead because he just doesn’t get it. Time and again in the gospels, when Jesus and Peter interact, Peter looks like the fool. "Get behind me Satan!" proclaims Jesus to Peter in exasperation. But the Peter of the book of Acts
appears to be a changed disciple. After encountering the resurrected Jesus and
experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit, Peter has the ability to perform
miracles. There are two stories about Peter back-to-back in this part of the
book of Acts and in both stories Peter performs a miracle. He heals a bedridden
paralytic named Aneas and he brings Tabitha back to life from the dead. "Get up and make your bed!"
Peter
is filled with trust in the power of God and God’s spirit. I can’t imagine that
Peter’s rational mind can make any sense out of what he is able to do. Thinking
through those things and explaining them was never his strong suit. He just
knows that God is at work through him and he is trusting the holy spirit to
continue to work through him. I can only imagine that it is quite an exciting
time in the life of Peter right now. Peter’s trust in the power of God, leads
him to listen to the women who come bearing the news that their friend Tabitha
has died. His trust leads him to her bedside in the upper room where Tabitha
has been cleaned and prepared for the funeral. Peter spends time with the
grieving women, admires the fine garments that Tabitha had sewn in her
lifetime, and sends the women out of the room so that he might perform the
miraculous act of prayer. The fact that Tabitha and Peter are in an upper room
should remind us of other upper rooms in which the grand drama of God has been
revealed before.
Once
Peter is alone with Tabitha’s body, the scripture says that he begins to pray.
As a pastor who has been with people when they have passed from one life to the
next, I find this to be one of the holiest moments of the story. I have been
with a family who has just lost a deeply loved person and I have looked in
their eyes and seen their pain and have been asked to pray. It is a deeply
humbling experience. It’s something that no amount of learnedness or study can
really prepare one for. It takes a leap of faith to trust that God’s spirit is
there and that whatever words I utter, God will bless and God will be found in
them. I describe this trust and this faith as being inadequately adequate. What
I mean by that is that there are many things in life and in ministry that I
feel so inadequate for. I don’t feel like there is anything I can say to
comfort in such times of deep sorrow. But I have learned to trust that in all
of my inadequacies, God will make me adequate (adequate enough?) At the end of
the day when all is said and done and I have fallen well short of the mark,
because God is with me, it was enough. It’s a belief in an embodied grace.
When
Peter prays for Tabitha, God is there. Peter is simply a means of grace for
God’s power to work through. Time and again, that is how God chooses to work –
through the prayers of the people who have put their faith in Jesus Christ.
Peter
prays. God acts. Tabitha returns to life. It is a remarkable story.
But
that’s not the end of the story. The miracle of Tabitha’s resurrection is used
to bear witness to the power of God and an entire village begins to believe in
Jesus Christ. It’s a story about sharing the message of God's grace and of God's promise to make things new.
We live in a world that needs to know about these promises. You don't need me to remind you of the recent headlines to know that we live in a mad and crazy world; a world where darkness and chaos are in abundance. To that world, we can offer our lives, our everyday, ordinary lives.
I believe that God invites us to make a difference in this world. I believe that Tabitha's story gives us permission to not think that we need to do big things, but that little things, faithful things, compassionate things can make a difference.
And so, the challenge is this: go out into the world to love one another, to care for one another, to serve one another. Go out into the world to love the world. Do little things of kindness and compassion. Together, we can make a difference and change the world.
Amen and amen.
