Tabitha
Acts 9:36-43
April 25, 2010
Sometimes it happens that upon hearing a particular story from the Bible, its full meaning is not immediately apparent. Some stories seem to blare out their message plainly and simply; but with many others it is as if there has been a conversation going on for quite some time and we are only allowed to hear the last few sentences and we sense we are missing something important.
The healing of Tabitha or Dorcas is such a story. To say it somewhat cavalierly, it’s just another healing. We’ve heard this one a thousand times before, although usually it has been Jesus performing the miracle, now it’s Peter. If you’ve been around a church at all, if you have dabbled at all in reading the Bible, you have heard this one.
And you are supposed to have heard it before. Of course, Luke the author of Acts does not bother to tell you that as a stage-aside, but finally it doesn’t really work unless you know that. Like so much in all of our lives, it is the context that tells the story in the final run. Extremely seldom in the Bible is one story told as a stand-alone - most of the time it is or becomes connected to another story as a continuation, a counterpoint, or simply a variation on the same theme.
We are into Volume Two of the writings of the evangelist Luke, first the Gospel and then its Apostolic Succession, the Book of Acts. Luke is the only author to have attempted a gospel of the post-Jesus era, and it is obvious that he intends to connect the dots with the two works. Whatever Jesus does, the Apostles find a way to replicate or at least faithfully imitate. The Tabitha story is most closely related in a literary way to the episode involving the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-16), but also Peter reminds the reader of the Old Testament prophets in the healing by Elijah of the son of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:17-24) and later by Elijah’s successor Elisha of the son of the Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4:32-37). Nothing happens only once, nothing happens alone and isolated, for it is God, the creator of heaven and earth, who gives the power to all these people the gift of resurrection.
For that matter, nothing happens just once in the Book of Acts. Peter is on a tour of new young churches in a primarily Greek speaking region in the preceding passage to our Tabitha story. When he enters the town of Lydda and among the saints of the church he finds a man Aeneas who has been paralyzed and bedridden for eight years. “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make up your bed.” And immediately he rose. Then he moves on to Joppa where there was a well-known female disciple named Tabitha. The description of her healing is much fuller, both in detail of the healing itself and in telling of the person and situation of Tabitha. Luke often likes to tell stories in twos, doublets, and the intriguing bit here is that one is the story of a man and the other of a woman. Unlike other doublets, the story of the woman healed is treated as more significant. Not only more ink, but also her life warrants more praise, and her healing is more amazing - Aeneas was cured of paralysis, Tabitha was resurrected from the dead. Luke does not say it out loud, but the context and sequence and treatment of the various characters says it pretty plainly that in a plainly patriarchal world, women are obviously just as real players in the Good News. And sometimes as here, they are obviously better.
When Peter went to both Lydda and Joppa he visited in each place a group of “saints” - the code term for the early Christians, though seldom used. They were people who were special, who were set apart as distinctive, the original sense of the word “holy” and these “holy ones.” Tabitha is not called a saint, but she is a saint’s saint. She was full of good works and acts of charity. This is a strong hint that she was a wealthy person, a woman of means. There is mention of many women in the New Testament who were often independently wealthy and conducted their own form of ministry, were the leaders of congregations usually in their own house.
We are related the briefest of detail about Tabitha before Luke notes that she fell sick and died. What would be called today viruses would frequently attack otherwise healthy individuals and strike them dead quickly without warning and without anyone’s ability to treat medically. Life-expectancy was brutally short, and death was always present. The other saints and disciples in Joppa washed her body and laid her in an upper room in her house. That indicates she had had a big home and it was probably where the church met for worship. “Upper room” rings all sorts of bells for our ears as the place where the disciples of Jesus were usually meeting during those dangerous times.
Good news does travel, if not as fast as bad news, but the disciples, the fledgling church in Joppa, were hearing that Peter was in Lydda about 16 kilometers away, so two men were dispatched to see if they could fetch the Apostle. “Please come to us without delay,” they asked, echoing the message delivered to Jesus when Lazarus was dying.
Peter responded without hesitation and within a few hours was brought to Tabitha’s upper room. It was a scene full of pathos as the widows, friends and beneficiaries of Tabitha were weeping around the body and showing Peter coats and garments that Tabitha had made for them. Tabitha’s ministry was in the first place was a material one, making clothes and surely preparing food for the poor and widowed who had no other resources in a society that never thought of welfare support. From their emotion, it is obvious that the second thing Tabitha gave them was her heart and compassion. Surely part of the pathos was what would become of their church, their community, now that their leader and benefactor was gone. There was no denominational headquarters for these saints to go to for assistance and a new leader.
Peter clears the room, as Jesus once did, and begins to earnestly pray. Turning to the body, he commands, “Tabitha, arise” - be resurrected more precisely. And in a number of versions, the words are added, “in the name of Jesus Christ.” She opened her eyes and upon seeing Peter sat up. Peter offered her his hand and lifted her up. Do not try this at home! The story is so familiar in details that we tend to skip over the details: Tabitha was dead and not for a few moments.
Then he summoned all the saints and widows and presented Tabitha alive. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again. Peter stayed in Joppa for a good while at the home of Simon, the tanner. Simon was apparently a Christian, but among the Jews he was unclean, dealing with all those dead animals. His house must have had a certain aroma, a place stinking with death, but full of new life.
If there is a sense to this unbelievable story it is not to be found in just the words of the story itself, but where and how it fits into the whole Biblical and Gospel world. You can easily dismiss it as a pious miracle fairy tale and there are many who do just that in the church no less. Jesus did this sort of thing all the time, and that was nice of the Saviour of the world, but nothing you and I have the power to replicate. But that is the punch line of the Book of Acts - you are supposed to imitate Jesus. Jesus has been too long a wonderful figure to whom we pray and ask for help, but we seldom try to be like him.
You can resurrect someone’s life without her being clinically dead. Sometimes, it would be easier if they were dead. Yet you can make clothes for the poor and helpless and mourning. You can speak a word of hope and love where there despair and loveless-ness reigns. You can nurse a soul back to health and fullness of life. Nevertheless, like the Apostles in their acts, you don’t have the power and the charisma to do that, no matter how holy thou art; you are doing so in the name and power of Jesus Christ. That is the whole story.
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan