acts

 

As many of you know, I run, with others, as a matter of habit. As a discipline, it reminds me that I am a whole made of parts – heart and soul and mind and physical strength. It also helps me to attend to these things. If you know this about me, you will also know that this past winter I have struggled with the discipline to run, even though I desired to do so, and that my absence had a negative impact on me. Now that the days are lighter, I am returning.

It is the discipline of the Church to read through selected extracts from the Acts of the Apostles throughout the Season of Easter. These bring us back to the first women and men who wrestled with what it looked like to live in the light of the resurrection. Since last year – and perhaps much longer ago than that – we may have struggled or even fallen away; but each year we can begin again.

This coming Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, we will hear Acts 9.36-43 alongside John 10.22-30 where Jesus says, of those who follow him – that is, who apprentice their lives to his – that ‘I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.’ ‘Eternal’ life relates to a quality of life, experienced in the present, as a good and enduring gift from God: a fully alive life.

In Joppa (Jaffa, Yafo, today part of Tel Aviv-Yafo) we meet a disciple whose Hebrew name is Tabitha (‘gazelle,’ from a Chaldean root – the language of the people Abraham grew up among – meaning ‘beauty,’ ‘glory,’ ‘graceful,’ ‘elegant’) but who is also known by the Greek variant Dorcas (‘gazelle,’ from a root meaning ‘to see clearly,’ gazelles having large eyes and being alert to their surroundings).

Backstory: in the early Church in Jerusalem, there were many widows. Some were from the Hellenistic community, those who, while holding onto their Jewish faith traditions, had in other regards embraced Greek culture – and language – over the generations of Greek expansion around the eastern Mediterranean. Some were from the traditionalist community, who distanced themselves from anything Greek. The Church was drawn from both communities. The Church also sought to provide for at least the most destitute of the widows among their number. But the Hellenistic widows complained that they were being overlooked in the distribution of support. So, the apostles – those who had been apprenticed to Jesus and now sent out by him to gather apprentices of their own – decided to appoint administrators. Significantly, they did not seek balanced representation: they appointed only from the Hellenistic community, from the group who had been overlooked, trusting that they would not seek revenge but guarantee equity. One of those was Stephen. When false allegations were made against him, he became the first person to bear witness to (to be a ‘martyr’) the long salvation history that ran through Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, and now Jesus ‘the Righteous One,’ in the face of public execution (hence ‘martyrdom’). This sparked a greater persecution that scattered the church across Judea and Samaria. Some made it to the historic coastal port of Joppa (a port somewhat superseded by this time by Caesarea Maritima to its north). The account of Tabitha/Dorcas suggests that both Hellenistic (Greek-speaking) and traditionalist (Hebrew-speaking) widows lived there harmoniously.

Tabitha lived a life that was evident to all as abounding in accomplishing good, in acts of compassion. In particular, she had taken to heart the words of Jesus, ‘I was naked and you gave me clothing,’ (Matthew 25.36) and was a maker of both undergarments and outer garments. And we hear that she became ill and died – that is, perished. Cut off from the life she had known, and for which she was known. The thing that Jesus had said would not happen. And so, having heard that Peter, who was travelling around the scattered communities encouraging them, was only ten miles away, they sent for him to come quickly.

We read that Peter got up: the word can mean to rise, but it is the same word used, in other contexts, to rise from the dead. Peter’s commonplace rising hints at what is to come. After prayer, Peter will tell the dead Tabitha to get up (same word) and when she responds by opening her eyes (remember the root of Dorcas?) and seeing Peter, she sat up and he gave her his hand and helped her up (same word).

Then Peter called the saints and widows back into the upper room (another element of this story that resonates with the events surrounding the resurrection) and showed her to be alive: to be experiencing God’s gift of life, the life Jesus gives that restores what death would attempt to take away.

Of course, Dorcas would eventually go on to die again, and this time she would not be raised with a perishable body, condemned to taste death over and over again. The point is not that we don’t die, but that our dying is not the same as perishing: we are not cut off. Not cut off from Jesus, who is Lord of the living and the dead; and not cut off from the Church, for Tabitha’s story is told to this day and reveals a principle of belonging beyond physical separation.

Some questions to reflect on:

For what would you want to be remembered by the community among whom you live?

How might a practical activity such as knitting or sewing with others stitch people from different backgrounds and worldviews together as one whole?

Does loss (of a spouse, of the place you knew as home, or the fortunes of that place) necessarily mean a diminished life, or is life in its many seasons a gift that endures?

Is it possible not only to survive the end of the world, as you have known it, but to thrive?

How can simple acts such as rising from our bed or chair become a participation in the resurrection?

John 10.22-25 tells us that ‘it was winter’ (‘storm season,’ ‘tempest-driven’) and that the Judeans ‘gathered around Jesus,’ or ‘encircled’ or ‘besieged’ him, asking ‘how long will you keep us in suspense?’ – or ‘withhold our vital breath from us?’ In times when we are collectively battered by the storms of life, and others besiege us with their overwhelming sense of need, where do we find shelter, and what do we draw on?