Date:
April 25, 2010, Fourth Sunday of Easter
Author: The Rev. Dr. James D. Kegel
GLORY TO THE FATHER AND TO THE SON AND TO THE HOLY SPIRIT, AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS NOW AND WILL BE FOREVER. AMEN.
The congregation I served in Fargo, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, was the church where my mother and grandmother grew up, where my great-grandparents were members. I did not—my parents and grandparents had transferred to a newer congregation, Our Savior’s. When I became pastor of St. Mark’s, I decided to look up by great-grandparents in the parish records. I found that my great-grandmother had become a member in 1904 but she did not have a name. The records recorded a Mrs. E.A. Wells has having joined. I felt like writing above it—her name was Mary! I did not because they were historical documents but it started me thinking. How would I feel if I did not have a name? Why was she only recognized by the man she had married? I suppose following the fashion of the day, calling her husband, E.A., no one would know that his name was Elmer August. One of the loveliest passages of the Bible is Isaiah 43, “BUT NOW SAYS THE LORD, HE WHO CREATED YOU O JACOB, HE WHO FORMED YOU O ISRAEL, DO NOT FEAR, FOR I HAVE REDEEMED YOU. I HAVE CALLED YOU BY NAME, YOU ARE MINE.” Even though others may forget our names, our congregations forget us or never recognize us, we have God’s promise that God does not forget who we are. God has called us by name. We are God’s own people, Mary and Elmer and each person here.
It seems it is often the women who are not given names. That is as true in the Bible as elsewhere but not so much in Luke’s Gospel and then his second volume, Acts of the Apostles. No, Luke makes a point of naming women. Lydia founds a church; Anna is a prophet and Tabitha a disciple. You remember Anna. She appears at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel. She has been widowed for many years and was eighty-four. Luke says, “She never left the Temple but worshiped there fasting and praying day and night.”
Anna is a prophet who had been praying to see the Messiah and now God revealed to her the child was Christ. She preached and proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah “to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Our text is of a woman who has two names, Tabitha her Hebrew name and then a translation in Greek “Dorcas.” The miracle in our text spurs the growth of the Christian movement in coastal Palestine and shows the power of the risen Christ through his Church. Tabitha is a disciple.
Tabitha was likely a widow. Her friends were the women and men of the church in Joppa. What do we know about her besides her names? She is a woman of faith much esteemed in her congregation. Luke says that she “was devoted to good works and acts of charity.” She was also a very good sewer—when Peter arrived to her home, they took him to an upper room where her body lay and the widows stood beside him weeping and showing the tunics and mantles which Dorcas had made. Many scholars think her alms were gifts of clothing to the poor. This is a lovely scene—a leader of the congregation, a disciple of Jesus, surrounded by grieving women who showed her handwork. She had a name and place in their hearts. And their grief was such that it prompted the congregation to send for Peter at Lydda to come to Joppa to Tabitha.
Now it is not so far from Lydda to Joppa. Lydda, Lod, is where you fly into Israel—the place where the Ben Gurion airport stands today. Joppa is surrounded by Tel Aviv, the old fishing village and port for this part of the coast, part now of a modern city with skyscrapers rather reminiscent of Miami. You can take a fast train between Tel Aviv and the airport but I suppose it would have been a good day’s journey for Peter. He had just healed Aeneas in Lydda and in a Lukan parallel is now willing to go heal, raise, Tabitha. Luke often puts his miracles in twins as he does the parables, man and woman, both important. This would be strange to ancient ears that Peter the apostle would journey to save a woman, a widow. Most women were devalued and their testimony disregarded. The accomplishments of a woman, making beautiful handwork or clothes to give to the poor, do not really rate with centurions and leaders of synagogues. And a widow who is not named as the daughter of a wealthy man or mother of a powerful man, is usually considered the lowest and least significant of people. It is Luke’s purpose to show that Christ overturns the established order or wealth and power. Luke begins his Gospel with the song of Mary which describes Christ’s work as scattering the proud in their conceit, bringing down the powerful from their thrones, filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty. Mary is God’s lowly servant and sings praise to God who cares about peasant girls and widows and orphans. Anna the widowed prophet proclaims the Messiah’s birth. Tabitha is worth Peter’s visit to Joppa. The miracle extends God’s powerful salvation to Tabitha and shows the importance of women in the early Church.
When I read this story, I thought of Della Twite. Della is a long-time member of Central, now living in Shoreline, Washington. I would like to show her handwork—the beautiful Hardanger paraments that hang in our chapel. I also think of widows here who have been at the center of Central’s life—Ingrid Carmichael, Esther Brunner and some like Iris Jacobson and Signy Hanson who still are. The early church made the widow into a church office something like an acolyte. The widows were given the apostolate of prayer. They were charged with being women who like Anna prayed for people in need or like Tabitha to work with the poor and needy. Most of their names are not recorded but in remembering the name Tabitha, Dorcas, we remember all these women who served and worked and prayed--people whose gifts we give thanks for and when they are gone we miss. They have names and even if we have forgotten them, they are not forgotten by God. They had names
We are sad when a friend and companion dies. I remember Ingrid Carmichael saying she was not going to any more funerals—that was when Joe Kelsey died. It is just too hard to say good bye to one friend after another. It is a precious detail in our text this part of how the widows surround the body of their friend. They has washed the body and prepared it for burial and placed it in an upper room for visitation. Then they gathered around the body weeping. The human emotion of loss is recognized and just as we put memorial tables in the parish hall to show pictures and special items of the loved one, so these women show Peter the work Tabitha had done. Another very important detail is how the congregation sent two men to Peter after Tabitha had died. It was their expectation that Peter could carry on the work of Jesus. Like Elijah and Elisha in the Old Testament, Jesus in the Gospels, so now Peter in the time of the Church is able to work great miracles including bringing the dead to life. The miracle stories have similarities. The healer is absent and must be summoned, the healer encounters mourners, the healer excludes the public, the healer prays, commands to rise and the dead person sits up, opens eyes, and is taken by the hand. Then the miracle is known and the numbers of believers grows. Prayer is crucial—it is the power of God not some innate power in the healer which is at work. It is Christ working through Peter who brings forth Tabitha, raises her from the dead and restores her to health. It is Christ’s power working through the message that brings faith to coastal Judaea and Samaria and to us here in Eugene today. It is God’s power which saves.
I wonder what happened to Tabitha. She does not appear in any saints’ lists or have churches named for her. There have been many women’s circles with her name usually Dorcas as also with the names Mary, Lydia and Hannah/Anna. We may presume that she remained faithful until she died, doing works of charity, making clothing—tunics and mantles for the needy, praying and serving. Her witness and that of this miracle drew many to faith in Joppa and the coastline of Palestine and countless others have read this story of the named widow and been encouraged in their own serving and believing. This woman was important. This woman was named. This widow was a disciple and her story proclaimed in a church growing from Jerusalem to Samaria and Galilee to the ends of the earth. I never could find my great-grandmother’s name at St. Mark’s. Their names, her name, was forgotten by this congregation. Our works and names may be forgotten too but not to God. God calls us by name. God knows us heart and soul and we will never be forgotten. “I have called you by name and you are mine,” is God’s promise to us. We are God’s people and bear God’s name. Amen.
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