An Extraordinarily Ordinary Story
The story in Acts you've probably never heard.
The beginning of Tabitha’s story is extraordinarily ordinary. All of us have been touched by someone like Tabitha or know someone who has. We all know people who “overflowed with good works and compassionate acts on behalf of those in need.”[i]
There are people, like Tabitha, who give life and dignity to those overlooked and forgotten in a world that favors the haves over the have-nots. This is why Pastor Jeff’s reading of Tabitha’s story was probably the first time you’ve heard her name.
The extraordinarily ordinary stories in our lives are often overlooked, even forgotten, when sandwiched alongside extraordinarily extraordinary stories. This is the case for Tabitha and even Aeneas four verses before Tabitha’s story. We are drawn to the bright light of Saul’s encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road and Paul’s subsequent ministry, along with Peter’s conversion of Cornelius – both stories I am sure you have heard of, maybe even studied in a Sunday school class or Bible study.
Tabitha dies and two disciples in Joppa send for Peter who was in a nearby town. If anyone could do anything in this moment of death and sorrow, it would be Peter. Peter, the guy who denied Jesus at Jesus’ lowest hour is now the rock upon which the Church is being built.
Peter is the one for the job because of one of the things Saint Luke recorded in his namesake gospel.
“Jesus called the Twelve together and he gave them power and authority over all demons and to heal sicknesses. He sent them out to proclaim God’s kingdom and to heal the sick.”[ii]
When Peter arrives in Joppa, the sting of death has set in and the widows once cared for by Tabitha are beside themselves.
As Peter entered the room where Tabitha’s body lay, the widows were “crying as they showed the tunics and other clothing Tabitha made when she was alive.”[iii]
Elisabeth Schüssler Piorenza, a Romanian-born Roman Catholic feminist theologian who teaches at Harvard Divinity School notes, “in the first-century – as today – the majority of the poor and starving were women, especially those women who had no male agencies that might have enabled them to share in the wealth of the patriarchal system.”
In the first-century widows had no one to advocate for them or protect them in a societal structure that gave deference to men.
Tabitha had given agency to women who were at the bottom of the rung of societal power.
Tabitha’s life had given light to those who lived in their community's dark corners, and her death has caused a crisis.
We live within fixed structures and arrangements. Our nation is governed by a fixed document that at times has been amended. Laws can change but the overall structure is fixed. On paper, our fixed structures are to be applied or enforced equally.
“Equal Justice Under Law” is engraved on the West Pediment of the United States Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision back in 1891, in Caldwell v. Texas, Chief Justice Melville wrote, “the powers of the States in dealing with crime within their borders are not limited, but no State can deprive particular persons or classes of persons of equal and impartial justice under the law.”[iv]
On paper, yes, equality under the law, but when we step outside of what’s on paper and step beyond the fixed expectations for how we behave the degree to which we are punished varies depending on markers like gender, race, and economic status.
Joppa was a port-town in Judea, a mixing pot of religions and cultures. An area that did not adhere to Jewish Law as let’s say, Jerusalem. Under Jewish Law, and on paper the widows Tabitha cared for those who were to be cared for by the community, and not mistreated.
“Don’t treat any widow or orphan badly. If you do treat them badly and they cry out to me, you can be sure that I’ll hear their cry. I’ll be furious, and I’ll kill you with the sword. Then your wives will be widows, and your children will be orphans.”[v]
The system was broken, and Tabitha stepped in to care for those who were forgotten.
Even within our fixed systems, with clear guidelines, we sin against one another. The churchy way of saying this is we turn away and our love fails. We forget the widow, lie to the person asking for a buck, and sit on our hands when we see others mistreated or exploited. We do it over and over again.
Tabitha was the source of hope for the widows of Joppa and when she died so did their hope.
On needing one another for hope, Christian ethicist Dr. Stanley Hauerwas writes, “We need each other because we cannot hope alone. We learn to hope by trusting others who have learned to hope by doing the same... hope is the virtue that takes pleasure in our need for others.”[vi]
We need one another, and Tabitha gave others another to hold on to.
Luke tells us that after Peter said, “Tabitha, get up,” and all saw that she was alive, “many put their faith in the Lord.”[vii]
“Faith in the Lord.”
Not faith in Peter.
Not faith in Tabitha.
“Many put their faith in the Lord.”[viii]
The Lordship of Jesus Christ and the Good News of his Grace subverts the present order by announcing a new age where reality is not based on our fixed structures but upon God’s promise to make all creation new – God’s promise to restore all of creation by reconciling us to God and one another.
Our fixed structures often lead to paralysis and death for those on the margins or lower rungs of the social ladder. But the One who ordered the chaos of creation, was worshiped in a manger, and carried a cross telling fishermen to drop their nets, and the ill and dead to get up.
In Aeneas’ healing and Tabitha’s rising these social systems have been rendered null and void.
And church, we bear witness to this. We are witnesses to how Jesus Christ has overcome the power of Sin and Death. In the empty tomb, leaving his burial clothes behind, Jesus tells the world no more with we be separated from God or one another.
It is not that the last shall be first; they are.
It is not that the dead shall live; when we were dead to our Sin Jesus offers us new life.
In Christ no one stays in their place: fishermen will preach, the paralyzed walk, and the dead live again.
From death in Sin to new life through Grace.
[i] Acts 9:36
[ii] Luke 9:1-2
[iii] Acts 9:39
[iv] Caldwell v. Texas, 137 U.S. 692 (1891).
[v] Exodus 22:22-24
[vi] Hauerwas, Stanley. The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson. Pg. 97.
[vii] Acts 9:42
[viii] Acts 9:42