Miracle Worker

2016-04-17-MIracle-Worker

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
© Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
April 16, 2016

Scripture: Acts 9:36-43

It may be the most unbelievable kind of miracle: raising a person from the dead.  On one hand, it’s what we long for, when someone we love has died – that we could have him back for even one more day; that we could hold her in our arms again; that we could rewind and rewrite the instant in which that person was snatched away.  The Rev. Mary Luti notes that “a moment is all it takes for life to give way to death. The twinkling of an eye. One second there’s breath, the next there’s none.”  What wouldn’t we do to reverse that moment?

But grieving means coming to terms with death, including the fact that it is final.  We know that.  How then, do we make sense of a story about a body brought back to life?  Science and logic bump up against myth and magic, and we ask:  is it a ghost?  An illusion?  Some kind of a zombie??  In fact, it’s not uncommon for children (even adults, sometimes) to listen to the stories of Jesus’ resurrection, of Lazarus and Tabitha being raised from the dead, and ask, “So, were they zombies?” The question even came up among our Saugatuck liturgical writers, when we gathered, recently, to study the Easter season scripture readings and to explore possible themes for worship. Yes, we were being a bit tongue -in-cheek, but the question still provoked an intriguing conversation. Let me explain.

First, I’ve never been a big fan of zombies.  Fun fact: I was an avid viewer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while I was in seminary. Ask me why, some other time.  But when a resurgence in zombie fiction replaced vampires in the popular media, I checked out, because, well: yuck.  Right?  Zombies are ugly, mindless brutes; I failed to understand why they’d become so popular.  But if you doubt their popularity, just check out the Wikipedia entry on ‘zombie’, which discusses their recent roles in movies, TV shows, books, gaming and even in academic papers (including a theoretical study involving zombies and the estate tax – I kid you not). If you or children you know play the wildly popular MineCraft – a virtual design-your-own-world environment which has replaced Legos as a wellspring for creativity – you may have seen the zombies that pop up and wander aimlessly around the MineCraft landscape…

So yes, as disturbing as I find them (and maybe you agree?), it seems zombies are currently lodged in the popular imagination, so much so, that they even pop up in conversations about our sacred texts. The question is, why?

One of the many advantages of having a writer in the family is being able to tap a source of insight on cultural trends in popular fiction.  So my husband has wisely observed that our culture’s obsession with zombies actually exposes a deep-seeded fear about contagion and chaos; how vulnerable we feel in the face of forces that threaten our health, our well-being, our way of life.

Of course!  Think about all those real-life viruses that currently fill our newsfeeds: Ebola, West Nile Virus, Zika… diseases that spread invisibly, person to person, community to community, often leaving devastation and heart-ache in their wake.  Diseases we cannot see and which the medical community is struggling to control. This is frightening enough.

But then there are those other, less tangible but equally insidious contagions like fear, distrust, and misplaced hostility that can infect an entire population and destroy countless lives.  All it takes is one murmured accusation to travel through a community like power along a live wire, one whispered word repeated over and over, until it takes on a life of its own: “Communist,” goes the whisper, or “Japanese sympathizer,” “Illegal” or “Muslim,” or “sexual deviant…”

Once our fears are given faces and an address; we can confront them, round them up, deny them jobs, arrest them, inter them in camps, deport them … all in the name of trying to stave off chaos and regain control.  We’ve heard the incendiary remarks made during this primary campaign, about deporting Muslims from the United States, because they all pose a threat.  This kind of talk is toxic, but it is not new.  On the contrary … Our history is pockmarked with the scars left by such virulent crusades.

Friday night I had the privilege of attending the installation for the Rev. John Dorhauer as the next General Minister and President of our wider church family: the United Church of Christ. Over the course of the evening, worship leaders asked whether the Church can be relevant in the 21st century.  In three reflections titled, “This is our time,” preachers made the case that we, in the United Church of Christ, have something critical to offer the world, if we are willing to rise to the challenge.  Yes, you could say that the world is profoundly unsettled. Yes, you could argue that that we are plagued by fear and distrust, increasingly hostile and less compassionate…  Former NY Times correspondent Chris Hedges has said that these days violence is the primary language with which we communicate.

How, then, do we interrupt the violence, ease the suffering; begin to inoculate against the viruses that diminish our humanity and threaten the fabric of our community?  Maybe, just maybe, what we need is a different kind of virus…

All through Easter, we are reading stories from the early church, stories about people and whole communities that were converted – completely transformed – in the wake of the resurrection.  Something was spreading like wildfire through their midst… What was it?

If we look at today’s scripture (you knew I’d back to the text sooner or later, right?), we see this:  a story about a woman in a culture that favored men.  A story about a woman given a name, two names in fact – “Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas” – in a sacred text that rarely recorded the names of women.  A woman who is given not only a name, but also a title,  “disciple,” the only woman in the Bible to be identified that way. And she’s given a CV:  “Tabitha was known for her good works and acts of charity.”  Now, Lazarus was raised form the dead, but nothing about his character or good works is recorded in the gospels. So all things considered, this is a remarkable episode.  Remarkable, not just because a woman was raised from the dead, but because the Risen Christ in whose name Peter prayed, and by extension, the fledgling Christ community, valued this woman, and all the widows she served.

Again and again, those early Christ-followers declared, in the words of the Rev. Freeman Palmer (at Friday night’s installation), that “there is no such thing as an outsider at Christ’s table.” Women were welcomed, and men.  Children and elders. Joyful and bereaved alike could find a place at the table. This, this news was infectious. From town to town it traveled, from Jerusalem to Damascus, from Lydda to Joppa. Not in whispers, but in full-throated “Alleluias!” it traveled; in acts of kindness and – yes! – acts of healing, the Word spread:  “Have you heard?  The Holy Spirit has gone viral!”

So it was that a woman named Tabitha caught the news and became a leader in that Jesus movement.  She became known for her ministry among the widows – woman who were intimately acquainted with loss, woman who knew that “a moment is all it takes for life to give way to death.”  Grieving women, frightened women, because in that time and place, losing a husband meant more than losing a beloved companion; it also meant losing all means of economic support, so that widows risked becoming destitute.  Imagine: fear layered on top of grief layered on top of loss.

This, then, may be the most remarkable miracle: that Tabitha gathered these women and brought them back to life, made them clothes, yes.  But along the way, offered them a new vision, a vision of life lived not on the margins, but at the very center of a caring community, empowered and cherished.  A vision of life not consumed by despair, but ignited by possibility.

You see, that’s what it means to be a disciple of the Risen Christ.  It means looking death squarely in the eye and proclaiming that new life is possible, when we gather together in Christ’s name, when we honor every person and celebrate every gift, when we open ourselves to the movement of God’s Spirit within and among us.

In the words of Rev. Mary Luti again:  “If life can be extinguished in a moment, surely a moment is all God needs to make life new.”[1]

This is the Good News of Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit has gone viral.  God only knows what She will do in our midst.  But we know that this is a virus worth spreading! Not a death-dealing virus, not death that begets death, but life that begets life! Life that is contagious the way laughter is contagious, the way hope is contagious, the way Love is contagious…

No, there are no zombies here.  In the end, zombie stories aren’t really about life after death; they are about death after death: death which is animated and so continues to consume life, until there’s nothing left alive. We are witness to a different kind of outbreak, an eruption of the imagination, because if Peter could restore Tabitha’s life, and if Tabitha could restore the widows’ hope, and if all those early Christ-followers could ignite enough imaginations to launch a movement that would become the Christian Church, then surely, we can continue to be a Church that makes a difference in the world.

It was none other than Howard Thurman who once said, “The Spirit of Jesus grows by contagion!” So yes: the Church does have something critical to offer, in a world that threatens to be overcome by the death-dealing forces of fear, distrust and hostility: an irresistible vision of resurrection hope.  Like Peter, like Tabitha, like our faithful ancestors in the faith, may WE catch the Spirit and spread it far and wide, until God’s entire, precious creation is made whole!

Amen.

Scripture

Acts 9:36-43  New Revised Standard Version

36 Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. 37 At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” 39 So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. 40 Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. 41 He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. 42 This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43 Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

[1]Still Speaking Devotion, April 16, 2016 http://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_in_the_twinkling_of_an_eye_1?utm_campaign=dd_apr16_16&utm_medium=email&utm_source=unitedchurchofchrist