Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
Acts 9:36-43
April 25, 2010

Life-giving Acts

What will people have to show of your love when you die?

Will they be hand-sewn quilt squares like the ones in Betty’s room at the Scandinavian Home? Or fishing flies like those Alan tied with his grandson? Or a beautiful poem or a scrapbook of family pictures? Maybe people will talk of the wonderful dishes you brought to the church potluck suppers, like Margaret’s rice, or the pictures that Jen has taken and posted on the wall downstairs, or how you loved animals and helped the shelter like Stella. Or perhaps what you will have to show for your love will be happy and successful children, a beautiful flower garden, or a renovated education building. Whatever it is, could be as big as an invention that saves lives – or as unassuming as a kind word or a smile or a helping hand. What will people have to show of your love when you die?

In today’s scripture from the Book of Acts, Tabitha has died. She was a church lady, one of those women who serve church faithfully (and there are church men like that too) who are always there when you need them – like Jack who counts the offering and collects the trash, and Jametta who bakes the bread, and Kathy who plants the flowers, and Carol and Wendy and Susan who vacuum and dust, and Herb who resets the clocks, and Charlie who folds and stuffs the bulletins.

Tabitha, as she was known in Aramaic, was that kind of servant in the church in Joppa. She was a widow who worked with other widows, a disciple when women weren’t given the honor of being called disciples. Yet she was known in the wider community, too, so the writer of Acts tells us that the Greek translation of her name is Dorcas. Tabitha / Dorcas, whose name means “gazelle,” was a seamstress, a strange name for a woman who sat and sewed. Her hands must have flown over the fabric, a stitch here, a tuck there, to clothe her community. For when she dies, the widows come with proof of her love in the garments she has made.

The Book of Acts is a strange little book, sandwiched as it is between the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – and the letters from Paul and others that circulated in the early church. My New Testament professor described it as a “romantic novella,” telling the stories of conversions and healings and early missionary activity.

In our secular day and age, we might think Acts quaint and magical, to say the least, because, in truth, we are Humpty Dumpty people:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses, And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!

But God can! Acts comes to say that God is still working in the church and the world, in the lives of individuals and of society, to restore brokenness and bring wholeness. God is still speaking – in your life and in mine.

Tabitha’s community is devastated when she grows ill and dies – just like all of our congregations when we are wracked by illness and loss – whether we are in Joppa or in Cranston. We, too, have lost our saints, like Margaret and Carol and Earl and Barbara and Harriet. They have lost a pillar of the church, and so they send for help.

Peter is nearby in Lydda, and he comes at their bidding to restore Tabitha. The importance of the story is not inher healing, for apparently it’s not her time to die, but in the community of faith that cried together and prayed together and acted together. Commentator Stephen Jones notes, “The emphasis of this text is not upon a return from death, but upon the community honing all of its spiritual strength and resources passionately on life and wholeness.” 1

The Tabitha story is interesting from another perspective, too: Tabitha is worthy. Nowhere else do we read in the Bible, in quite the same way, that someone deserved to be saved, and a woman at that! Women’s lives had little value in that culture, just as they do in some cultures around the world today. Women are born, they serve, they die. My African friend tells of her husband who kicked her out of her house with nothing. “Go away. I don’t need you any more; I’ve found someone prettier, younger.” But God’s value system is different from the world’s, and, this time, Tabitha is restored to her community – at least for a little longer.

A few months ago, Kim and I watched the 2008 film, “Gran Torino,” about a lonely, angry old man, Walt Kowalski, whose wife had died from cancer. He can’t get along with his kids or his grandchildren or his neighbors, and he has a running argument with his wife’s priest who wants him to go to confession.

A Hmong family moves in next door, and the teenage son Thao, is pressured by his gang-member cousin to steal Walt’s prize possession, his 1972 Gran Torino which he keeps in mint condition. As Thao’s sister says of the Southeast Asian community, “The girls go to college, and the boys go to jail.”

But Walt pulls out his Korean War gun and stops Thao in his tracks. Thao’s family is mortified and insists Thao pay restitution to Walt in the form of slave labor, fixing up the house across the street while Walt rocks on his porch. Walt is surprised and impressed with his progress and his work ethic. He and Thao become buddies, and Walt helps him get a construction job. Thao will make something of his life after all. He’s industrious and reliable.

But the Asian gang members taunt him and harass his sister. Walt intervenes with the threat of an imaginary gun. The gang members are wary. And then comes the ultimate insult: they rape Thao’s sister Sue Lor and shoot up their house with guns.

Thao is thirsty for revenge. The code of honor. He asks to borrow one of Walt’s guns. Walt realizes that Thao will die and cautions that he take a few days to think, to come up with a strategy, to outwit them at their own game. With the gang in the neighborhood, there will be no peace – and no life for Thao.

It’s Walt’s birthday. He picks up his new suit, stops at the church for confession, goes to the barber for a hair cut and shave, loads his guns – and, at the last minute, locks Thao in his basement so that he can’t go with him – and drives to the gang’s house.

It’s evening, dark; music and laughter come from the house. A crowd gathers, sensing a showdown, to watch what will happen. Walt calls up to the porch, and the gang members come out to look down on Walt, guns held loosely in their hands. “What do you want, old man?” Walt raises his arm, sights along his thumb, and pulls an imaginary trigger. They raise their guns; Walt reaches inside his new suit jacket, and they fire.

When the ambulance arrives for Walt’s body – and the police for the gang members who have shot an unarmed man – Thao, who has managed to escape Walt’s basement, rushes to the scene. Let me through; he’s my friend! Walt has given his life so that Thao might have a life; he has made the ultimate sacrifice.

Most of the time, except for those who willingly put themselves in harm’s way for the benefit of the greater community, we are not called upon to make the ultimate, life-giving sacrifice. But the community of faith is called on through the ages to make life-giving acts central to its calling. Few of us are called upon to outsmart a gang, but we all are called upon to care for each other – and for the least of these.

This means collecting food for the hungry, vitamins for Haiti, blankets for the homeless. It means becoming knowledgeable about legislation that helps to lift people out of poverty, cleans up our environment, puts people to work. It means thinking about our shut-ins, working on the May Breakfast, paying our pledges, being good neighbors, reaching out into the community. It means acts of courage and kindness and love, acts to lift up the lowly, acts to serve the world.

Tabitha’s church gathered around her, weeping, vulnerable, hopeful, showing Peter what she meant to them – and celebrating her life.

What will people have to show of our love when we die?
May it be miracle enough!

Amen.

1. Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2, page 431.