“Voices” Acts 9:36-43 and John 10:22-30

May 8, 2022
by Sara Baron

An explanation:

The Hebrew word for widow
connotes one who is silent, one unable to speak. In a society in
which males played the public role and in which women did not speak
on their own behalf, the position of widow, particularly if an eldest
son was not yet married, was one of extreme vulnerability. If there
were no sons, a widow might return to her paternal family if that
recourse were available. Younger widows were often considered a
potential danger to the community and urged to remarry.

Left out of the prospect of
inheritance by Hebrew law, widows became the stereotypical symbol of
the exploited and oppressed. Old Testament criticism of the harsh
treatment of these women is prevalent. So are the texts in which
they are under the special protection of God.¹

In our reading from Acts this
week, we hear “All the townswomen who had been widowed stood beside
[Peter] weeping, and showed him the various garments Dorcas had made
when she was still with them.” (Acts 9:39b, Inclusive Bible)

I have to admit something. I’ve
read this passage many times, and every time I saw the widows as
showing off Tabitha/Doras’s impressive needlework, and thought it was
sort of a strange details, but otherwise ignored it.

Maybe my heart is in a different
place this week, because when I read it THIS week I thought, “Oh.
My. Gosh. She literally clothed the widows.” The women were
showing Peter her GOOD WORKS that had blessed their lives as proof to
him that she was worthy of his healing.

(Which, of course, makes far
more sense and most of you probably noticed ages ago, but I’m slow
and I try to admit it because the Bible is dense and none of us can
make sense of it all at once.)

There is another detail to know
about this story, an important one. Not only is Tabitha named in
this story, which is pretty unusual for Biblical women, and named
TWICE which is even less usual. She is called a disciple. Now, if
you were wondering if that was unusual, let me answer with a
scholarly quote, “Luke uses the feminine form for ‘disciple’ –
the only time it is used in the NT.”²

This is the ONLY woman in the
Bible called a disciple of Jesus, who is described as someone who
“never tired of doing kind things or giving to charity,” at whose
death the people who are most exploited and oppressed gather,
grieving, and trying to prove her worth by showing the gifts she had
made them.

I am incredibly moved by the
example of this first woman disciple.

Because, here is the thing about
Tabitha. Her story suggests that as a follower of Jesus, she spent
her life making things easier for the most vulnerable people around
her, but not just by giving them things, but also by loving them.
I don’t think the level of grief we hear from the women who’d been
widowed in this story reflects a fear that new clothes are going to
be harder to come by. I think their FRIEND, who saw them, and eased
their burdens, had died.

Tabitha heard their voices, and
used her life to respond to their needs. Where the Bible talks about
God’s special protection for the widows, it seems that Tabitha was
part of God’s work.

A disciple of Jesus, a little
Christ, indeed. In John, the voice of Jesus says, “My sheep hear
my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” It is clear in this
story in Acts that Tabitha knew the voice of Jesus, and followed.
And set an example for those of us who come after her.

Now, widowhood is not today what
it was then. Today’s widows may well be struggling with economic
hardship, but the first connotation of widow is “someone who has
lost her love” instead of “someone who has lost her livelihood
and protection.”

Which means that when we are
trying to consider who the “stereotypical symbol of the exploited
and oppressed” is in our society, I don’t think it defaults to
widows anymore. Nor do I think there is one simple answer. I fear
that who is seen as the “stereotypical symbol of the exploited and
oppressed” is as impacted by context, perception, and political
party as all of our other opinions. Meaning, I’d likely start the
list with trans women of color (#mostlikelytobemurdered) and could
continue on from there to an expansive list.

After this week I am concerned
that an addition to the highest levels of the list of “stereotypical
symbol of the exploited and oppressed” is going to need to be
“anyone capable of becoming pregnant who doesn’t want to be
pregnant.” Because, it seems, our society is about to declare that
people who become pregnant stop having authority over their own
bodies. (Happy Mothers’ Day.)

You want to know what else is
really interesting about Tabitha? We get two names for her, she is
called a disciple, she is known for her good works. And, in addition
to all that, neither her marital nor social status is mentioned.
She’s known for HER works, and they eclipse the question of who she
belongs to. Which, to be fair was the sort of kindom building equity
the early church was going for, but it is still pretty notable when
it happens! It also seems notable that those widows were named as
believers. They weren’t just recipients of charity, nor even simply
friends of a disciple. They too were the church. The church was of
everyone, even those whose NAME implied “the silenced.” It seems
like Tabitha’s church had stayed very close to the roots of Jesus’s
movement.

The question of who is
particularly vulnerable, exploited, oppressed is really a question of
who Jesus would be hanging out with. To his credit, Jesus took a
really expansive view of that as well, including fishermen and tax
collectors, widows and single women, children and senators,
adulterers and the mentally ill, hemorrhaging women and those with
physical disabilities.

Several years ago, when I was
nearing time to go to camp, I had to let someone know I wouldn’t be
available for some meeting during camp. (This was not a person in
this church or community.) The person responded, “Oh, that’s
right, you go to camp and work with people with special needs.
That’s so good of you!”

I. Am. Still. Mad.

Furious.

Because, going to camp is the
most selfish thing I do all year. I got camp because I love the
campers. I go to camp because I love camp. I go to camp because my
humanity and faith are restored by camp and by the campers.

I’m not a GOOD person for that,
and to imply that I am implies that there is something wrong with the
campers and THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE CAMPERS. Everything is
right with the campers.

Which makes me wonder a bit. I
think likely Tabitha and the widows of her community were friends,
real friends, people who loved each other and mutually gained from
their connections. I wonder if a question we should be asking in
response to Tabitha’s story is, “who do I find it easy to love and
grow with, and how can I let that love expand my heart to let even
more people in?”

I worry that this question COULD
keep us too closed off, too limited to those we already know, too
small. But then I remember what LOVE is like, and how everyone has
stories that matter, and everyone has experiences of oppression, and
how LOVE likes to expand itself all over the place. And I find I’m
ready to trust love to be our guide.

I believe our faith calls us to
see the humanity in ALL people, including those who are oppressed,
and to share our love and our lives with mutuality and respect. And,
to be open to letting that love expand to those we don’t yet know who
have struggles we don’t yet understand. Let love be our guide, and
let it expand in us. I believe that’s what it means to follow Jesus’
voice, and Tabitha’s example. May God help us do it! Amen

1Bruce
J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the
Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Widow,”
423.

2Robert
Wall, “Book of Acts” in New Interpreter’s Bible Vol 10I ed.
Leander E. Keck et al
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002) footnote p. 161.

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

May 8, 2022

Sermons

“Giving Life” based on Acts 9:36-43 and John 10:22-30

May 13, 2019February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

Let’s
talk about messianic expectations for a minute, as in, what were the
expectations of the messiah for the ancient Jewish people? Also,
where did the whole idea come from? (Believe it or not, I think this
is going to come around to something relevant.)

The
expectation that God was going to set things right by working
with/through a messiah was an idea that emerged during the Babylonian
exile, probably after the royal line was intentionally extinguished
by the Babylonians. Until that point, there was an expectation that
the monarchial line of David was always going to sit on the throne in
Jerusalem, and when the monarchial line was extinguished, things got
confusing. (To be fair, I think that David and his descendants were
a more significant part of propagating that story than God was, but
for the people it was discombobulating anyway.)

Things
were all up in the air. The Promised Land was intimately correlated
with God’s covenant with the people, and they’d lost it. The story
of God giving the people their freedom was their primary narrative,
and they’d lost that too. Losing the monarchy was just another loss
in the midst of blow after blow to the people’s lives and faith.

It
isn’t clear where the story started, but it did. The story came to
be that God was going to restore the fortunes of ancient Israel
through the messiah. The expectation itself, though, wasn’t
consistent. Sometimes there was going to be a new king, a just king,
a good king, and he was going to lead the country into a new freedom
and dominance. Sometimes there was going to be a new military
leader, a general, who lead the people to win all the battles, and
restore their land (and often other people’s too). Sometimes it was
a new high priest, one able to lead the people to connect again with
their God, and restore worship in a new temple. Sometimes the messiah
was going to be a new prophet, who spoke with the power and truth of
the prophets of old, a new Moses and a new Elijah rolled into one,
whose capacity to speak the truth would bring down the power
structures and allow God’s new power structure to emerge.

And
often, the messiah was a combination of several of those things. But
in each case, the messiah restored the nation of ancient Israel
through either political, economic, or military might, and the rest
came into being too. God was going to work through the messiah, and
God was going to restore the fortunes of Israel through the messiah,
and it would all be OK again.

Since
it make the most sense to connect the goodness of the future God was
going to create with the goodness of the past where God was known to
have worked, most people assumed that the messiah would be a
descendant of David, of which there were many even though the king
and his children had died. This expectation is why Matthew and Luke
go through such pains to tell us that Jesus, like David, was born in
Nazareth and review his lineage.

When
we remember what the expectations for the messiah were, we can see a
few things more clearly: first why potential messiah candidates were
cropping up under the oppression of the Roman Empire – when people
were looking for God to save them again, and secondly why some of the
Jews of the day did NOT think that Jesus fit the bill. After all,
the fortunes of Ancient Israel were NOT reversed by Jesus, not
politically, nor economically, nor in military might. Quite the
opposite even, by the time the Gospels were written the second temple
had been destroyed, Jerusalem had been ravaged, and the masses had
been killed AGAIN in 70CE.

All
of that is back story to pick up the meaning in the lesson today from
the Gospel of John, where Jesus is asked if he is the Messiah. In
the Gospel, the Jewish authorities really annoyed that he won’t tell
them, the literal translation of “how long are you going to make us
wait” is “how long are you going to take away our life?”¹
However, this is the Gospel of John we’re dealing with, and that
means we should be looking for metaphor rather than historical fact.
John is using this story to teach his readers that Jesus IS the
messiah, and that it is better to be one of his sheep than not to be.

I
think the Gospel of John leaves the door open for other shepherds who
take care of their sheep too, a many flocks each with their own
shepherd approach, and I like that. I also love the image of Jesus
as a shepherd who has taken care of his sheep long enough that we
know his voice and trust him to lead us well, to good food, safe
pastures, and still waters. And that Jesus takes care of his sheep,
even protecting us from those who would seek to do us harm.

But,
I wonder if we are like the members of the Jewish establishment in
this story, asking who the messiah is. I wonder if we are still in
the messianic mindset. That is, I wonder if we are waiting for God
to act, and for God to act through someone else, to make things
better. Or perhaps I should say, I wonder WHEN we are in that
mindset, since I know we aren’t always there.

It
is sort of funny, since we are the inheritors of the tradition that
claims the messiah has already come, that we seem to continue to seek
a messiah! As far as I can figure out the stories of Jesus and of
resurrection, the narrative is that God was working with and through
Jesus in his life and then after Jesus died, that capacity he had to
transform the world was gifted to his followers, so that now we can
work together to continue his work. We can now show the world what
love looks like. We can now empower God’s beloveds. We can now be
sources of healing. We can now teach of a God of
never-ending-all-inclusive grace! What was once the work of one is
now the shared work of many.

We
aren’t supposed to be waiting for God, because we believe that God is
working with US, and sometimes waiting on US. We aren’t supposed to
be waiting for someone else to fix things anymore, because we’ve
learned that WE are supposed to be working with God in fixing things
for everyone.

Yet,
sometimes we still expect other people to do it, or maybe God to do.
And sometimes that’s OK – not everything is ours to do and trusting
others to also do their part is not only OK, it is excellent. But
waiting on a messiah, waiting on God to work though ONE person to fix
things, THAT isn’t our job.

The
transformation from being a follower of Christ to doing Christ’s work
is evident in the disciples in the book of Acts. In our story today,
Peter raises a woman from the dead, just like Jesus raised a girl in
Mark. In the Mark version, Jesus is said to speak in Aramaic, saying
little girl, arise, which is recorded as “Talitha, cum.” In
Acts, the grown woman is named Tabitha, and Peter says, “Tabitha,
get up!” The parallelisms are clear enough, which means the
differences are what make things interesting.

In
Mark, Jesus is directive, and he has witnesses, and he simply takes
her hand, says the words, and it happens. In Acts, Peter is quieter,
he does not have witnesses, but he is said to pray and seek direction
before he speaks. In Mark the girl’s value is mostly established
from the love her powerful father has for her. In Acts, the woman is
a disciple, a person who has devoted her life to care of the poor, a
beloved member of the community, whose worth seems to come from the
ways she has lived her faith. I really love the little detail that
the widows all showed Peter the clothing she’d made for them. Widows
were among the poorest members of society, and she’d cared for them
so well that what she’d made was worth bragging about. Her life
mattered to theirs.

It
seems clear to me that Peter is being presented as LIKE Jesus, but
not AS a new Jesus. Peter now has the connection to God that allows
him to see what others cannot, but he has to nurture that connection,
which we see when he prays before he acts. Peter is PART of the
inheritance of Jesus’ power and work, but he isn’t the whole thing
(Tabitha is part of it too). Peter is, then, like all of us. Able
to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, and WITH the rest of the
community able to continue his work, but none of us are supposed to
replace Jesus. We’re not asked to do it on our own. Our tradition
says we’ve already had a messiah, and thus we don’t have to.

Jesus
says, “little girl arise” and Peter says “Tabitha, get up”,
and I find myself wondering about how often we hear God asking us to
do the same. “Get up.” “Get moving.” “Get to work!”
I’m not sure how much of what we hear is actually God and how much is
our own inner critic, combined with the unrelenting expectations of
the world. When I look at the Bible holistically, there is a balance
between the “get ups” and the “sit down and rest a whiles.”
God who freed the people from slavery in Egypt used that slavery to
explain the need for Sabbath, for a full day of rest EVERY WEEK, in
order to fully establish the humanity of all. God is as worried
about rest as God is worried about “get up and do!” We, however,
are often much more worried about “get up and do” so we tend to
listen better to that one.

Or
at least I do. Sorry for all the times I project myself onto all of
you.

God
is seeking for us BALANCE: the capacity to make a contribution to
the world, and the space to savor the goodness of life, the time for
intimate relationships, and the joy of getting things done. God
gives us the gift of LIFE, and then guides us to living it in the
fullest. We may hear a lot of “get ups” but only because we
aren’t as tuned into the “rest a whiles.”

So,
I ask of all of us: can we remember we aren’t called to be the
messiah, even if we’re lucky enough to get to be part of continuing
his work? And can we listen as well the urging of God to rest as we
do to act? Can we receive the gifts of life, and savor them, even as
we seek to make sure everyone gets the gifts? Can we receive the
gifts of rest and the gifts of calls to action, and listen to them
both? I suppose we can at least try. Amen

1Gail
O’Day, New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX: John, Leander
E. Keck editorial board convener (Nashville: Abingdon Press,1995)
676.

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Mary 12, 2019