The Fourth Sunday of Easter, 8 May 2022
Austwick, Keasden
The late Henri Nouwen once said, ‘For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved.’ [1]
We hear that echoed in today’s gospel reading in which Jesus, as he does so often in John’s gospel, talks about the way that he cares for his people and protects them just as a shepherd cares for his sheep, just as a father cares for his child, just as his Father cares for him.
‘For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved.’
And the story of Peter and Tabitha shows us how the first followers of The Way of Jesus took this to heart and loved each other openly, practically, unconditionally. Though their numbers were modest at the time we know they were growing daily, attracting others to join what they saw as a close-knit network of people who knew each other well and cared for each other considerably.
See how the disciples responded to Tabitha’s death: hearing, on the obviously active grapevine, that Peter was in the area, they sent to him for help. And see how Peter responded to the men who brought the urgent message, ‘Please come to us without delay’: unhesitatingly, he got up and went with them. Consider what this tells us about the active mutual care of this group of Jesus people.
The headline of this story is of course the miracle which Peter performed - another resurrection in the scriptures’ growing catalogue of resurrections performed first by Jesus and later by his followers, each of them drawing on the life-giving energy of The Father God, who raised his Son from the dead; each of them performed in the power of The Holy Spirit, demonstrating that the followers of The Way of Christ have a different relationship with death than those who aren’t on The Way. They are - we are - resurrection people. Alleluia.
Behind the headlines of this story there’s a real rich picture of early Christian community. We hear Tabitha / Dorcas described as being ‘devoted to good works and acts of charity.’ We find that in her good works she made good use of her skills as a seamstress: for we’re told that the women who came to mourn her passing carried the tunics and other clothing that she had made them while she was with them. And it’s clear that as well as having a steady hand with a needle Dorcas had a keen eye for people in need of charitable help - for the women who carried these precious items of clothing back to the deathbed of the person who’d given them, were widows, and we know that in that society widows were among the most vulnerable people, people who would struggle to buy good clothing for themselves. Having seen their need, Tabitha had given so much of her time and skill and resources to show them practical care.
Tabitha’s passing is a public event, with the people who had washed her and laid her in an upstairs room, with the disciples and the messengers who called Peter, with the mourners crowding into that room when Peter arrived. But the scene at the heart of the story is an intimate one, for Peter asks for privacy to make his prayer for Tabitha’s healing. He and she are alone together when he says, ‘Tabitha, get up’, when she opens her eyes, sees Peter, and sits up, when he gives her his hand and helps her to her feet. It’s a tender scene. There’s no anxiety in Peter’s prayers or actions; there’s no fear in Dorcas when she awakes.
Why does it play out so calmly like this?
Is it because there’s already a deep love between these two people, rooted in the mutual life of prayer and care which they have shared as people on The Way?
Is it because Peter and Dorcas, being prayerful people, sense another presence with them in that room, the life-giving loving Spirit of The Father?
Is Peter at peace in these moments because he has found within himself a courage to make himself useful in this way, a courage which comes from that same life-giving Spirit of The Father, that ‘allows him to be brave, to acknowledge that precious things have been put into his hands and that to do nothing to honour them is to do great harm. A courage which allows him to be generous’? [2]
We might permit this episode to teach us that God puts precious things into the hands of each of us who seek to walk in The Way of Christ. And that life-giving Spirit of The Father will give us the courage to use these precious things to reach out in generosity towards others.
It can require courage to reach out towards another we see in need; not knowing how we might be received; fearing that what we have to offer will not be helpful, not be enough. We may have to overcome a sense that we’re not good enough, expert enough, experienced enough to be of any help to another.
But there are so many passages describing the Acts of the Apostles, the activities of the first followers of The Way, just like this one from which we can draw this final observation: that God gives us all we need to be of help to others, each one according to the gifts we’ve gained through our life experiences:
Dorcas the seamstress realising what a precious gift God has put into her hands, feels encouraged to use her precious skill in sewing to create generous practical gifts for others in need.
Peter the fisherman, able to draw on his patient spirit cultivated by his countless hours of waiting on the water, his instincts to sense the right place to be and the right thing to do to ‘catch’ the moment, finding that all these gifs of character translate so well into his new commission to be a fisher for people, to find the right way and the right moment to share God’s good news with others.
And where does this story end? In the home of ‘a certain Simon, a tanner’. The Acts of the Apostles were sometimes miraculous, often dramatic, but they were rooted in the places where ordinary people lived and worked - people encouraged by the discovery that God had already gifted them all they needed to be People of the Way of Christ.
So let us be encouraged that God has likewise gifted us all we need to walk with them in this Way.
Notes
[1] Widely attributed to Henri Nouwen.
[2] Paraphrasing Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, p.280-281.
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