The town that I lived in West Virginia, Marlinton, was a small
town. Its population was about 900;
3,500 if you drew a three-mile radius and took in the people up on top the
ridges. The communication network there was
something that you could never disregard.
Everybody knew everybody else’s business or a modified version there
of. The local paper, the Pocahontas
Times, did and still does a fantastic job keeping the facts straight – local
news, who died, who got arrested, and other endearing nostalgic tidbits. But regardless of the facts, there was always
the story behind the story. I often
joked that Marlinton didn’t need its one town cop because gossip did his job
for him. If you did something wrong
sooner or later everybody would know about it. Small town talk, it’s powerful.
I suspect it’s like that here around Chatsworth. This is a small town and this small town has
its talk, does it not? It doesn’t take
long for “word” to get around, am I right?
Imagine what would happen in this community if word got around that our
very own Mother Teresa of the Martha Circle took sick and soon thereafter died
but then got raised from the dead by some follower of Jesus that come here from
Desboro. What do you think the result of
that talk would be? Would this church be
full next Sunday morning? That’s what
happened in Joppa when Tabitha died and was raised. Word got out.
Many believed.
Let me play Pocahontas Times here and give you some facts
about Tabitha. She is the only person in
the Bible to be called a “methetria” – a woman disciple. This is an intentional female version of the
word disciple, which is “methetes”. The
NIV ignores this fact by simply translating it as “disciple”. Tabitha was special a special woman in the
church, like a nun but not, and was an example for women in the early church. She was not married. As her house had an “upstairs room” in which
the widows laid her after they washed her, she was likely a woman with
wealth. But, Tabitha did not spend her
days like other wealthy women, attending functions of pomp and circumstance or
shopping or visiting and contributing to the small town talk. Rather, she worked with her hands making
clothing to support the town widows. You
see, back then widows if they had no family particularly sons, they had to
support themselves usually by begging.
Apparently, Tabitha took in many Christian widows in Joppa as her own
family and supported them by making and selling clothing. It is also quite possible she employed these
widows in a clothing factory in her home. Tabitha devoted her life to good works and
helping the poor. She was a “methetria”
– a devoted “woman disciple” not just a disciple.
Tabitha was her Jewish name and it means gazelle. She was also known by her Greek name, Dorcas,
which also means gazelle. That she went
by both a Jewish and a Greek name is significant. One of the earliest disputes in the church,
particularly in the Jerusalem church, concerned fair distribution of support
for the widows. Jewish or
Jerusalem-based Christian widows were being given preference over Greek-speaking
widows though they too were Jewish Christians just not Judean Jewish. They were from a far. Tabitha, Dorcas, was likely known for either
helping specifically the Greek-speaking widows in Joppa (for they called her
Dorcas when speaking to Peter) or for just not discriminating and helping them
all. Regardless, not only was Dorcas, Tabitha,
a model of good works and helping the poor she was a model of unity in the
church. In and through Dorcas the
Kingdom of God and the Lordship of our risen Lord Jesus Christ was evident.
Well, Tabitha takes ill and dies and this creates a couple of
problems. One, what’s going to happen to
the widows she supported. When Peter
arrives in Joppa to pay his respects to Tabitha, the widows are quite adamant
about showing Peter the clothing she made as if to say what do we do now for
support? What would happen to them?
A second problem was that in the first decades of the church,
the followers of Jesus were expecting Jesus to return at any moment and there
was a common belief that no disciples of his would die before he returned. If someone died, it must have been that she was
a martyr like the deacon/evangelist Stephen who was stoned to death by the
Jewish authorities in Jerusalem while Paul held their cloaks. Or, he was crooked like the benefactors Annas
and Sapphira who in chapter 5 of Acts dropped dead “at the Apostles’ feet”
because they lied to the Holy Spirit by holding back some of the proceeds from
the sale of a field when they promised to give it all to the church for the
help of the poor. Tabitha wasn’t a
martyr, so…what’s the story behind the story?
So, we can see that a real needs issue with widows had arisen
and maybe even some unfavourable small town talk about Tabitha had
started. Not knowing what to do, the
“disciples” there in Joppa knowing that Peter was in the next town over sent
for him. Certainly Peter, a former
leader in the Jerusalem church and one of the original twelve disciples, would
know what to do about providing for these widows.
It seems quite evident here that they are not calling for
Peter to come and do a miracle and raise her from the dead. It seems more likely that there is an urgent
problem dealing with justice here: how could God just abandon these widows like
this? How could God just seem to
disregard all the good that Tabitha was doing for the poor in Joppa? If the Lordship of the risen Lord Jesus
Christ was so apparent in and through the work of Tabitha, why would he end it
so senselessly at the consequence of these widows?
When he got there I think Peter was as much at a loss as to what
do as the disciples in Joppa were and so he prays. He sends the wailing widows away and kneels
to pray. We don’t know why he does what
he does next. Maybe the Holy Spirit
directed him, compelled him, or maybe he just decided to make a “pot shot
prayer” and see what happens…or, in frustration, he turned to Tabitha and said,
“Tabitha, get up.” In the Greek, the
word for “get up” (anastethi) sounds very much like the word for resurrection
(anastasia). “Tabitha, resurrect.”
There are some precedents for that sort of thing from Jesus’
ministry as well. In Luke’s Gospel Jesus
did this very same thing to a young man who had died leaving his mother a
widow. Jesus told him to “get up” from
his bier. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus said to
a little twelve year old girl who had died, “Talitha cum” which means “Little
girl, get up.” Would it work for
Peter? “Tabitha, get up,” he says and she
did. She sat right up and looked at him
and he took her hand and helped her the rest of the way up. Problem solved. And then, the small town talk network kicked
in a good way and many came to believe that Jesus is Lord.
So, what do we do with this story of Tabitha
resurrecting? Do we claim it as our own
and start hanging out at the funeral home telling the dead to rise? That would get the town talking, but not in a
good way. I see two ways we can take
this story of Tabitha to heart.
First, there’s the question of “legacy”. Tabitha’s death left a huge hole in the lives
of many people because she had devoted herself, indeed all of her livelihood,
to good works and helping the poor. If
we ever want to test ourselves to see if we are on the right path, a good
question to ask would be – If I die today, who would miss me and for what
reasons? Would I have made a real
Kingdom of God difference in the lives others…or have I just been in it for me
and my own?
And what about this church?
If this congregation shut down tomorrow, are there “widows” in this
community who would miss us for very necessary reasons? That’s a huge question. It gets at what a local congregation is
about. A theologian named Emil Brunner once said, “The Church
exists by mission, just as fire exists by burning. Where there is no
mission there is no Church…”. Do we have a local mission here for which
we would be dearly missed if we closed tomorrow?
A
second thing to take from this story with is the question, “What’s the small
town talk about this church?” What are
people saying about us? Anything? Jesus through Peter by the power of the Holy
Spirit raised Tabitha from the dead and word spread. What’s going on here of that magnitude that
people would talk about and come to believe that Jesus is Lord?
I
can give you one answer to that. Jesus
has caused each of us to “get up.” He
has given each of us new life in himself in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are alive in him and share in his
relationship with God the Father. We
have been raised to a new life and adopted into the “family of God”. Jesus has made us to get up for a reason –
that he might live through us and manifest his kingdom and his Lordship through
us.
Every
morning we get up and we go about our day, but when we get up do we realize
that it is to the command from Jesus to “get up”; to live in his resurrected
humanity and devote ourselves to his good works and helping those in need just
as Tabitha did. It would be nice to know
that the folks of this town could say they know Jesus lives and is Lord because
those Presbyterians don’t just have private beliefs about him but are obviously
living for him. So, may we “Get up” and
generate some small town gossip that’s inspiring. Amen.
