“Mean Girls. Every school has them.” Mean Boys are found in every school, too. Sadly, they can be found in every church as well.
The good news is this: Our scripture lesson tells us about another kind of person altogether that is found in every church. A person that’s always doing kind things for others. Luke, in the telling of this story about Dorcas, seems to be wondering out loud, where would the emerging church be without people like her?
Luke tells the continuing story of the work that Jesus began. The story of the pursuing love of God, and the growth of the early church through persons, changed by the risen Lord, who express kindness to others. Philip shares the gospel with Simon the magician and then with the Ethiopian eunuch. Saul is befriended by Ananias. Peter acts on Easter faith when he heals a paralyzed man who had been unable to get out of bed for eight years. Then he raised Dorcas.
The early church is indelibly marked by her caring response to the needs of others. The Spirit moved among the early church in such a way that Luke describes them as being so concerned for each other that there was not a needy person among them (Acts 4:32-35). They responded appropriately to every person’s needs--not an easy thing to do.
Peter, traveling in Lydda, is called to Joppa. He is asked to come because a woman named Tabitha got sick and died. Her name in Greek is Dorcas, meaning a deer or gazelle. She has been devoted to the service of others. Her death is going to leave an enormous gap. The church in Joppa is what it is, because of their friend, Dorcas. What would they do without her?
Peter is present at their time of need. Two come and plead, “Please hurry!” Peter goes with them. When he arrives, he’s taken to the room upstairs. The widows crowd around him, crying and showing him the shirts and coats Dorcas has made. Now she is dead, but Peter, their friend, is there.
A friend comes in our moment of grief to ask, “What happened?” We answer and rehearse our future ability to accept what seems like only a nightmare. We’re numb. We’re in shock and hope to goodness that this is only a bad dream. Denial takes many forms, yet at this stage it is appropriate, though all the denial in the world can’t change what happened.
The Psalmist gives us light, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Acknowledging that even the paths of righteousness lead through the valley of the shadow, but neither death nor evil has the power to make the psalmist live in a state of perpetual fear. Notice, he stops speaking about God, and instead, speaks to God. You don’t speak about a person when the person is right there with you. He says, “For thou art with me.” Help comes from our God who is ever present. When someone takes your hand in the dark, you’re not afraid anymore. “The power of dark is a great power, but the power of light is greater still.” (Frederick Buechner).
Out of death comes the birth of new life, and yet, it’s difficult still to accept the reality of new life and recovery.
In Acts 9:40 Luke tells us that Peter puts them out of the room, kneels, and prays. “Tabitha, get up!” And do you know what happens? She opens her eyes, and when she sees Peter, she sits up. Peter reaches over and helps her get up. Then he calls all the believers, including the widows, and presents her alive to them. The news spreads all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord and the power of his resurrection.
Dr. James Forbes, former pastor of Riverside Church in New York, delivered the Lyman Beecher Lectures on preaching at Yale University. He told of growing up in the “hollers of North Carolina” in a Pentecostal Holiness Church surrounded by healing stories hearing that if you didn’t believe people can be raised from the dead, then you weren’t called to preach. He went off to New York City and to Union Seminary, got all this education, studied around the world, and learned to think otherwise. Confused, he worked to find a place to land with all of this. During chaplain training he was given a definition of clinical death by a doctor. The doctor described the experience of finding no visible evidence of life, vital signs flat, and, it hit him, “I preach to people like that every week!” He discovered he could believe in healing. People can be raised from the dead!
You don’t have to die and be brought back to life to struggle to understand the miracle of the life that we share. It cannot be explained, but it can be celebrated; a mystery that takes a lifetime to comprehend. There are miraculous stories of recovery.
It is a miracle of God’s grace to live as those who do good and give themselves to help those in need. I encourage you to pray for insight and see miracles that, even now, abound. What would it mean for us to accept the miracle of life within us?
What will it mean for you if God were to present you alive; alive like you’ve never been alive before? The pursuing love of God is looking for you. Goodness and mercy are following after you.
My brother’s close friend, Taylor, was returning to Wake Forest for his junior year. It was a time in his life that he was uncertain of what to make of life’s ambivalences. Unconvinced. Uncertain. At a difficult moment in time he recalls being greeted warmly by a tall, gracious soul, who said, “You look discouraged. Have you thought of what you might become by God’s love?”
She startled him so, but it was then that Taylor believes when he began to open his life to Christ. He said, “And to think I didn’t even know the woman’s name!” But I think I do. Her name is Goodness, or if not Goodness, then it must be Mercy. You see Goodness and Mercy are following him, pursuing him, chasing after you. What might happen if you slow down enough to let goodness and mercy catch up to you?
Together at Royal Lane we can celebrate countless persons who have stood among us and made a difference in the life of our fellowship. Where would we be without them? If we are to be presented alive, will be found to be like them doing kind things for others?
On this day we confess with Arkansas poet Miller Williams, that after all, we mean to be the people we meant to be, to keep on going where we meant to go! So, let us be presented alive to the needs that surround. Where will Christ’s church be without your witness?
In the Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin, Chanticleer, the rooster, encourages the animals as the cloud of danger looms over them. “Now that time is come which one day had to come. God breathed faith into us so that today we might be faithful. For generations God won trust from us so that today we might trust him. Years and years of providence had this purpose: that for one day we might not faint, but believe in him—and fight—stouthearted, fight—and win—and live.”