My favorite uncle learned this week that he has a 5-inch tumor in his lung. He has just retired and is building a house, just like his father, my grandfather, who died rapidly of cancer 36 years ago this week. My uncle has three recently launched kids, and a 3-year-old grandchild. When he heard the news he wept, and said, “I have so much to do!”
Life doesn’t give us a blueprint, or a timeline in advance. We make our choices, each day, each season. We live our circumstances, waking up each morning and doing that day, and then laying down at night, satisfied or not, to do it all again. One day it ends. Our life is summed up and the verdict is rendered. What will we leave behind us; what will our story have been?
There are people who make an impact in the world. People whose kindness and goodness shapes those around them. Their presence seems to leave a wake, or carve a path for others to follow, for us to emulate. They make their world a better place. When their story is told, it is that they were a good person. They lived a good life. It is what we all aspire to, perhaps, and secretly wonder if we’re getting there.
Tabitha was one of these people. She was a respected leader, referred to with the title disciple- the only feminine use of that noun in the whole bible. We are given her Aramaic name, Tabitha, which means ‘grace’ and her Greek name as well, Dorcas, which means ‘gazelle.’ Giving us both names means she may have been widely known, she spoke more than one language, perhaps traveled between communities.
In any case, Tabitha was deeply treasured and greatly respected, so much so that when she dies, they send two men to Peter, to ask him to come. He should know she's gone. Really, she’s too good a person to let go.
Peter gets up, he arises, and goes. And when he arrives the room is filled with grieving people. They’re holding up tunics and clothing she made for them, displaying tangible proof of her impact and care.
It was a big deal to make a piece of clothing in those days. Rare and labor intensive, there was even a law that if you borrow a tunic you return it by sundown – it might be the only one someone owns. And here the whole room is filled with them. Tabitha was a busy, productive, good and impactful person. A benefit to her community; a blessing to the world. She was a model follower of Jesus. She’s become a saint, in fact, she is now St. Tabitha the Widow in the Greek Orthodox church, her feast day is October 25. The Catholics commemorate her as Dorcas, and Dorcas societies, which provide clothing for the poor, are named after her. Protestant churches commemorate her together along with Lydia in January. Tabitha was without doubt an exemplar disciple.
Rewind the story to the first person Peter prays and asks Jesus to heal.
The text names this man too: Aeneas. This man is paralyzed. He’s been confined to his bed for 8 years already, and will, presumably, remain there until he is transferred from his bed to his grave. If he is known in his community, it is not for his contributions, but for the burden he is. Everything that he needs, others must do for him. Bathing, dressing, bathrooming, eating. His story went quiet years ago. His possibility quenched. Any chance Aeneas had of living a good life, making an impact on the world, being productive and contributing things of value, are long over.
Death is the absence of life. She has died. Her life is over. The ink is dry; the hourglass empty. In effect, he has too. He is living in death, waiting for death.
And then the word, a command that interrupts their death with life, Anesthi!
I once spent six months in West Africa on the volunteer hospital ship, The Anastasis, which is Greek for resurrection. Children, women and men with tumors, twisted limbs or cleft palates were brought aboard. They were laid down in the hospital wing, and put under for surgery, and when they awoke, when they arose, they had moved from death to life. A new life opened before them, a life with hope and possibility that had been dead to them before. God interrupted their story with a different story, and their lives became a witness to the love of God, a window to God’s grace.
Get up! Peter tells Aeneas. Anesthi! Arise. Get up and make your bed. You make your bed when you leave it, when you wont be in it but will be out and about in the world. Instead of a bed for sickness, Aeneas, make yourself a bed for rest. Move from death into new life, Aeneas.
Immediately Aeneas gets up, and his arising becomes the story that turns the hearts of all those in the region to Jesus, witnessing to God’s love, giving a window to God’s grace.
Aeneas, the man God healed, Aeneas, the risen one.
Back to Tabitha of the tunics.
She mattered so much to so many. Her life mattered. She was a good and faithful disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ. The evidence of her goodness, her faithfulness, her worth, is all around her in her death. On display in the very room. See how good she was? See what an impact she made?
But before Peter prays for her, he banishes all of that from the room. All the people, and the tunics, and the grief, all the stories of her faithfulness, the symbols of her value, and the signs of her impact.
Now, Peter kneels down and prays.
Then he turns to the body and says, Get up. Anesthi! Arise!
Tabitha opens her eyes and sees Peter. She sits up.
He reaches out his hand and helps her get up.
Calling back in all the people, he presents her to them. Alive. And this story spreads just like the last, and just like the last, turns people to Jesus, a witness to God’s love, a window to God’s grace.
The Christian story celebrates a good life lived.
We should all aspire to a life like Tabitha’s. We should help each other be disciples.
But Tabitha is not resurrected because she has lived a good life.
Tabitha is resurrected and given life because Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
Aeneas has no value that society could affirm; he makes no impact. He is no model disciple or productive contributor. He’s certainly not changing the world. His life already over. To some he might be considered worthless.
And yet, God resurrects him too.
Tabitha is trying to live a good life inside the story of Jesus Christ. But the story of Jesus Christ is so big that it even comes to those who don’t live a good life.
Remember when we talked about self-righteousness? How insidious the temptation is to try to earn or prove our own place? How Saul was the perfect follower of God, stomping out dangerous corruption and shutting down those who would pollute the true faith? And how Ananias, a faithful follower of Jesus, questioned God’s instruction to go to Saul? And remember how God crucified both their stories and gave them a new story, one of finding the risen one and new life in the presence of their enemy? It wasn’t their own goodness and faithfulness, but the act of God through one they despised that became their window of grace.
We might be tempted to believe Tabitha has earned the right to resurrection. But that’s not how it works. God’s resurrection is so generous and promiscuous, that it comes also to the ones who can’t possibly earn a thing. And even though she is a model disciple whom we should strive to emulate, even so, Tabitha too needs God to act for her.
When Aeneas dies, they wont hold up what he accomplished. They will hold up what God did for him. And the same is now true of Tabitha. She is no longer defined by what she has accomplished. That died with her first death. Now she too is defined by what God has done for her. Their stories were interrupted with resurrection. Rise up, get up, and live. Anesthi!
I’m willing to bet that in this room we all want live in a way that when we die, they will tell stories and hold up examples and symbols of what a good life we’ve lived. But even when circumstances act to make it impossible to live the kind of life that would earn us that, God’s act reaches us, comes to us, and gives us new life.
Because that is who God is. That is what God does.
Before anything even happens, this story is already subversive; the gospel always flips the cultural script. The one who has lived a good life and is a respected leader and a true disciple is a woman. This woman has done so much for everyone. The one who can’t do anything for himself is a man. He has no good acts to commend him, for 8 years he’s been nothing but his need. And the story of Jesus’ incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection gets played out equally in both their lives. They both become part of the story of the church, shared and treasured, alongside each other.
Because it is is Peter who comes to them, Peter through whom they are healed, Upon this Rock…! The foundations of St. Peter in Rome are built on their stories.
In the name of Jesus Christ, to the paralyzed man, Peter says, Arise! Get up! Anesthi!
To the dead woman, in Jesus' name, Peter says, Arise! Get up!Anesthi!
And both of them do.
Their story speaks the Easter message: the resurrection of Jesus changes everything. Death does not get to have the last word. Not when it comes to us as suffering, or injury, or loss of mind or mobility, or the end of a dream or plan, and not when it comes to us as a life ended, and our accomplishments on display amidst our weeping loved ones.
One of my very most favorite parts of being a pastor is doing funerals. I don’t know if you’ve noticed on the bulletins at these things, but we don’t actually call it a funeral, a memorial service, or a celebration of life. We call it “a service of witness to the resurrection.” And all the loved ones who want to tell stories of their person, how good they were, what an impact they had, that is good and lovely. It’s inspiring to see someone’s life defined by discipleship or charity, marked by goodness and kindness.
It’s beautiful and important to celebrate a life well lived.
But even those who’ve lived a good life, that’s not the totality of who they are. There is the darkness too, inside all of our stories. The pain we’ve caused, the pain we hide. The failures and struggles we’ve never overcome. Sometimes it feels like there’s an invisible scale held up, and we feel the need to pile up our good on one side against the bad on the other and hope it tips us enough in the right direction in order to have been considered a worthy life.
But what about the life cut short? The life misdirected? What about the secret sins we hide, the failures we fear ever letting out into the light in case they cement our unworthiness around us?
When we gather, the final word spoken over us is witness not to the goodness or worthiness of our lives. It is a witness to the resurrection of our Lord. That each of our lives, in myriad ways, reveals the grace of God that comes to us in our places of death, and brings new life. That each of us is a unique window into the story of the Divine who joins us and redeems us, and connects us in love to God and each other.
No matter how worthy or worthless, well-lived or wasted, impressive or depressing, productive or paralyzed, no matter what proof there is of goodness or lack of opportunity to try, each life is a witness to the love and grace of God.
My uncle doesn’t even know his diagnosis or prognosis yet. He’s stuck in the horror of waiting and dread. (Lord, have mercy, O God, draw near!) But none of us knows our trajectory or our end, really. We get the chance to live as good a life as we can. And we should help each other do that. But we should also know this: we will not be measured by how well or poorly we accomplished that.
When this life is over, we will be mourned and missed, and we will be embraced and welcomed by the God who took on all sin and death so that nothing might ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. The value and worth of our lives is already declared over us by the God who claims the world in love, and names each one, Beloved, child of God. Everything else is the canvas on which that story is painted, the paper on which that portrait is written.
When all is said and done, the infinite grace of God shines through the windows of our lives, witnessing to the limitless love and resurrection power of the God who repeatedly and continuously interrupts death with new life, Anesthi! Arise, Get up and live!
Amen.
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