Dorcas

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

April 25, 2010

Text: Acts 9:36-43

I do not know first-hand about physically dead people being brought back to life. Such events are unknown to me personally, though occasionally I hear about persons coming back to life after near-death events and some testify about wondrous experiences of peace and light.

This story about Dorcas (Tabitha) is not about such events as these. It is about a woman who was raised to life after being apparently dead. The same word for resurrection is used to identify both Tabitha’s raising and Jesus’.

So what do we say to this reported happening?  With our finite understanding we are apt to say at least, “These things can’t happen, as far as we know.”

Yet to believe in God, the Creator of all that is and is becoming---the extent and complexity of which we have only begun to disclose; to believe in God the Redeemer, whose powers were witnessed by thousands of people;
 to believe in God the Power Source, who so turned mortal men and women into courageous witnesses to Jesus Christ---to believe in this Triune God--- requires an openness to the events and powers which we have not seen before. Such belief in this God also prompts modesty, humility, reverence and awe in the face of all the mysteries of life and death.

Who really wants to say what God is limited in doing!? It sounds presumptuous on the face of it.

This does not mean that we set aside the scientific method in determining and predicting what is possible. (The scientific method is also in a state of revision through history.) But it is to say that we need to be ready for surprises---as I believe scientists are called to be also.

 (Perhaps the seeming ignorance by so many learned men and women regarding our financial systems should cause us to wonder about the accuracy of our foreknowledge of events and outcomes! Many said that such as has happened, simply could not happen. So much for the level of our wisdom when it is blinded by pride.)

What we claim fundamentally is that God is love. And by love we intend to say that God is for us creatures, all of us, for our well-being, for our survival, for our creative work in the world.

So if we are at death’s door and come back and are alive, and we can live and serve the Lord longer on this earth in our small but important ways---if this happens, we give thanks to God who has made it happen----even if wise and skilled men and women were the instruments of God’s rescue.

When our bodies can no longer last, we can simply say with Paul that, “even though our outer nature is fading away, our inner nature is being transformed day by day.” We become beautiful in our souls by the grace and mercy of God. And death is not the victor, but God is. Nothing can separate.
Dorcas was raised, the witnesses testified, and she presumably continued her crucial work among the widows who depended on her. But some day in her future earthly life, Dorcas died and was not raised to live on this earth. Does this mean that God was there in the first instance and not in the second? I do not think so. Because in these bodies, we cannot live forever.
Why did God work to save Dorcas from death instead of, for example, a man down the street who was dying? We often ask this question when apparent miracles occur. Truthfully we have to please ignorance. We can only say that God’s shepherding love is eternal. All we do is trust in the One who does not abandon us and is with us whether we live or die. We belong to God.

Lest we put the story of Dorcas back in the past as a quaint account of a credulous people, let us consider this:

The first century was, yes, a much different world. Their world-view was radically different. But they knew extraordinary events when they saw them. They also knew when people had expired. (Though sometimes, even today, we get fooled about this!)

The question is, do we know extraordinary events when they occur?

Is the Spirit of God not moving, doing extraordinary things now? Think of the breakthroughs which have and do occur through the creativity and dedicated labor of scientists, researchers and deeply spiritually-alive persons.

What if the great developments in human understanding are the result of the Spirit’s movement? You may say, “But many of these developments have been made by persons who are not professedly Christian, or even believers in any Higher Power.” Well, who said that God is permitted to work only through those who acknowledge him?

Think of it. Polio vaccine, cancer treatments found and being found, the discovery of learning problems such as dyslexia along with the ability to help people overcome this limitation; the ability to predict what will happen when there is too much carbon dioxide----are not these signs of a transcendent power at work in our world? If God is alive as transcendent and immanent power, saving lives and restoring hope, perhaps we should open our eyes and ears to hear and see the wonders that are being accomplished now. 

 Walter Bruggemann, Old Testament scholar from Atlanta, writes that “The preacher’s task is not to explain (or explain away), but to witness to the concrete claim of the wonder that God’s power, in this instance, was decisive for life in the world.” (Theolog.org/2007/04Blogging-toward-Sunday)

Or as Martin Marty has written, “These stories about people being raised from the dead? Well, modern, sensible, skeptical, thoughtful people somehow have found a way to interpret and incorporate such testimonies into their lives.” (Martin Marty, Lectionary Commentary, Acts)

You play it as it lays or you are stimulated at least to reflect on this message and how to may illumine your own life situation.

Life-giving powers has a long history in the Bible. We must  see our story in historical sweep. (The following is from Bruggemann as well.)

Behind Acts 9, Mark 5:35-43 is surely echoed. In that narrative it is Jesus who utters the commanding words, to the child of the soldier, “Little girl, get up.”

•Behind the narrative of Jesus in Mark 5 there is the narrative of Elijah (1 Kings 17:17-24) and the narrative of Elisha (2 Kings 4:32-37) who bring back persons from death or near death.

•And behind all of these stories of Peter, Jesus, Elisha and Elijah there is the raw liturgical report of God’s own capacity to enter a world of negation and work newness. At the very outset, God said, “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3), and the world of chaos came to fruit-bearing order.

(Evolutionary theory does not threaten such a belief: science theorizes about “How), we theologize about “Who?” and “Why?”)

“It is the peculiar claim of these narratives that the power of God for life has been peculiarly entrusted to particular persons.

Obviously Elijah and Elisha are peculiar in the Old Testament, endlessly subversive and “outside the box” in their transformative capacity.

It is equally obvious, of course, that in the New Testament Jesus is entrusted with the word of life that renews the world.

Clearly the narrative attests that Peter, [symbolic of the Church]—is entrusted with the resurrection power of Jesus who himself carries the force of the creator God.”

Picture this story of the raising of Dorcas as a display of God’s compassion and power.

Apparently, Dorcas, a disciple of Christ, was active devoted to good works and acts of charity. She made clothing for widows and others----for the sake of their survival, not just ornament.

Among the most vulnerable in first century society were widows. They were “subject to being manipulated by ruthless and aggressive scoundrels.” (Will Willimon, Commentary on Acts)

“In the first century the majority of poor and starving were women, especially those who had no male agencies that might’ve enabled them to share the wealth of the patriarchal system.” ( Elizabeth Fiorenza in Willimon, page 85)

We are reminded of the Apostle Pauls’ comment that “God uses what is lowly and despised ….to bring to nothing things that are.” (I Corinthians 1:26-31)

Take notice that “Dorcas was not a preacher, theologian or eloquent writer. She did not make her mark on the church with brave deeds or major financial gifts.
“But she did win converts and touch lives, and probably influenced more people than anyone else in Joppa.
“She took care of people.”
 In modern day language, she would be the one who “made tunics and knitted afghans, baked cookies, held hands and visited people.
 “She would be the one who listened to the heartbreaks and joys, toils and triumphs of the people in the church in Joppa.” ( Jon Walton, Christian Century, April 17, 2007)                 

Her ministry exemplifies the fact that “the earliest faith communities stood by those who had no one.” (Willimon)

In the story of Dorcas, her death placed  these widows at risk: they have no one. How would they survive?
Her death was such a crisis that they sent for Peter.
Peter is traveling about the area. He is sent for and he comes immediately to Joppa.

What did they expect Peter to do? What would they want from Peter? Dorcas was already dead!

Simon Peter, the same man called from fishing to be a disciple, the same one who confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God; the same man who did not want Jesus to wash his feet……!

Peter opens himself to the power of the spirit and prays.  John Wesley, in his Notes on the New Testament, writes that “Paul empties the room so that he might have the better opportunity of wrestling with God in prayer, and said, ‘Tabitha, arise.’”

This is what the witnesses remember. “Those who believed did so because they were the beneficiaries of a witness by what they believed were credible people.” They believed those who said it happened.

If such a thing happened now, “the risen one would be a late night show, be a momentary sensation and then forgotten. The world would be the same whether or not we believed.” (Marty)

“For as the Father raises the son and gives him new life, so also the son gives this life to whom he will.”

“The whole early message can be summed up in the phrase, ‘this life.’” (N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, page 454.)
Perhaps people believed in Peter’s Savior because of what the event revealed about God. Widows would not be abandoned. God would not allow it. Whatever else this story says, it is an act of rescue, of compassionate intervention.
What do you think? We tend to be empirical determinists by nature in this post-modern world: One thing happens, then there is a reaction, then another, like dominoes: everything predictable. People make a living betting on what will happen next----in science, in human relations, in financial planning and in advertising.
 
But what if history is not closed and somehow, some powerful reality is there for the most vulnerable of the earth, interrupting the status quo to which we are so often bound.

Our United Methodist Church initiative calls us to “Imagine No Malaria.” Can we do this anymore---- this imaginative thinking beyond what we have decided is possible? Can we believe in miracles anymore, events beyond what we think can happen?  

The church at its best continues to do what Jesus did in order to redeem the world from its own death march.

We do not usually pray over those who are dead that they will be raised. We do not seem to have this power. But we do what we can for the dying and those whom the world has forgotten. Dorcas inspires us to do these things.
And the church has life breathed into it, the Spirit moves among us and hearts are turned to the God who is love.

If God can use Peter-of-the-clay-feet, God can certainly use us as instruments of a new world being rescued from its dance with the grim reaper.

The ones who have been given “eternal life,” a quality of bold freedom in the world (John 10:27) march to the beat of a different drummer.

“Perhaps that “eternal life” was already signified in the life of “Tabitha” who was “devoted to good works and acts of charity” (Acts 9:36). She already knew, in her daily round, about “eternal life. Now the whole body of saints and widows, attached to the narrative, is invited to live that life with her, close to Jesus, agents and recipients of new life! (Brueggmann)

God bless the Tabithas among us in our day, and the apostles like Peter who dare to risk their reputation in order to do what people believe cannot be done!