Resuscitated for Service
a sermon based on Acts 9:36-43
by Rev. Randy Quinn

There isn’t much to base it on, but I can almost imagine what it was like in Joppa.

Like many parts of the world today, including many parts of our own country, people were bi-lingual.  In Joppa, people spoke Greek and Aramaic.  Depending upon the context, she was called Dorcas or Tabitha – both names meaning gazelle.

I imagine she was like many women I’ve known – like people you’ve known, too.  She seemed to have an unending supply of energy.  No one knew how or where or when, but Dorcas managed to remember everyone’s birthday.  She worked hard to support her own family, but there was always time to make special gifts for other people, too.

You’ve known people like that, I’m sure.  Most of us know we are limited to 24 hours in a day.  Most of us know there are only seven days in a week.  But people like Dorcas seem to have 32 hours in a day and somehow find an eighth day in every week.  They just seem to get more done than is possible to do in the regular day or week.

But it was more than that, I suspect.  It didn’t matter whom you were, Dorcas made you feel special.  When she came to see you, she would bring something she had made – a scarf or a tunic, perhaps.  But somehow it seemed as though the most precious thing she gave you was her time.  She knew how to give her undivided attention.

And if she had a fault, it was simply that she couldn’t say “no.”  If there was a job that needed to be done, she was always there to do it.  And she not only did it well, she did it with a smile on her face.

Sounds like people we’ve known, doesn’t it?  I don’t need to name them, you can see their faces in your own mind’s eye as well as I can.

What very few people saw in Dorcas, however, was how tired she was getting on the inside.  She was becoming weary:

·        weary of the constant requests for her time,

·        weary of the day-after-day burdens of caring for the needs of others,

·        weary of the hurts and sorrows she was carrying for people,

·        weary of the growing expectations that she could do it all.

“She was devoted to good works and acts of charity,” but it seemed as though no one else was devoted to them (v 36).  The church in Joppa loved having Dorcas do the work.

I don’t know if it was a function of her personal style or a function of a complacent church, but no one else seemed interested in doing the work she did.

So when she died, there was a crisis.  No one else knew what to do.  No one else knew who to visit or how to visit.

And worse still, no one thought anyone could replace her.

But it was also true that no one had ever taken time to thank her.  They didn’t know how.  Words never seemed to convey it effectively; and she was so talented, no one knew what to give her that she couldn’t make herself.

Only in her death did the church find a way to thank Dorcas.  Only in her death did they find a way to minister to her.

They carefully washed her body and laid her on a bed (v 37).  I don’t know about you, but that’s a rather touching scene in my mind’s eye.  The woman who had in many ways washed their feet is now being washed from head to toe by the people she had served.

It reminds me of other times and settings when I’ve seen people finally find ways to express their gratitude and appreciation when someone leaves or dies.  I’ve often wondered why it is that we are better at thanking people after they’re gone, but I still haven’t found an answer to that.

By the way, did you realize that Dorcas is the only woman in the Bible who is specifically referred to as a Disciple?

Dorcas was an exceptional woman.  She was a wonderful role model.

But her ministry had allowed the church to focus on their own needs.  Her work in their midst had made people think the church was there to serve them.  Her method of caring for people created a self-centered group of people who thought there was no future if there was no Dorcas.

In their minds, the death of Dorcas spelled death for the church.

But God had something else in mind.  God’s vision of the church was larger than their vision of the church.  God knows there is more to the church than caring for the people who attend.

So when God raises Dorcas from the dead, there is a dramatic change as God’s vision for the church comes into focus.  The church begins to change from simply caring for the “widows and saints” who had benefited from her charity to one concerned about the community around them.  The people begin to share the good news of God’s love and grace as they tell her story (v 42).

I’ve been reading the book, The Holy Longing, by Ronald Rolheiser (Doubleday, 1999).  In one chapter he suggests that there are two kinds of deaths and two kinds of life.  I want to read just a short passage from his book for you.

But before I do so, I want to make sure you understand a word he uses.  It’s one of those “technical” words that I try to avoid in sermons because they generally have little meaning outside the church.

This particular word is “paschal.”

How many of you have heard the word before?

How many know what it means?

Paschal is word derived from the Hebrew word, pesach, which means Passover.  In Christian circles, it’s often used to speak about the passion of Jesus as he gives his life for ours much as the Passover lamb was given for the people of Israel.

“There is terminal death and there is paschal death.  Terminal death is a death that ends life and ends possibilities.  Paschal death, like terminal death, is real.  However, paschal death is a death that, while ending one kind of life, opens the person undergoing it to receive a deeper and richer form of life.  The image of the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying so as to produce new life is an image of paschal death.

 

“There are also two kinds of life:  There is resuscitated life and there is resurrected life.  Resuscitated life is when one is restored to one’s former life and health, as is the case with someone who has been clinically dead and is brought back to life.  Resurrected life is not this.  It is not a restoration of one’s old life but the reception of a radically new life.  We see this difference in scripture by comparing the resurrection of Jesus and the so-called resurrection (which is really a resuscitation) of Lazarus.  Lazarus got his old life back, a life from which he had to die again.  Jesus did not get his old life back.  He received a new life – a richer life and one within which he would not have to die again.

 

“The paschal mystery is about paschal death and resurrected life.”[1]

Dorcas died.  All indications are that her death was what Rolheiser refers to as a terminal one.  And she was given the gift of a resuscitated life.  She comes back to life and resumes the kind of life she had been living before.

But there was another death as well.  The church had died when Dorcas had died.  The difference is that the church’s death was a paschal death; it was a death that yielded a resurrected life.  It was given a new kind of life.

Dorcas doesn’t change what she does.  She still serves the people she loves.

The church, however, changes.  They not only learn how to thank Dorcas, they find ways to thank God.  Their resurrection gives them an opportunity to change the very basis for their existence, dramatically changing the way they live.

They find ways to respond to God’s love and grace by sharing the story they have witnessed.  Dorcas had lived out that love and grace in their midst, now they learn to live it out as well.

·        They do that by joining her in acts of charity.

·        They do that by joining her in acts of piety.

·        They do that by proclaiming the good news to their neighbors

·        They do that by imitating the Disciple Dorcas.

 Those of you who have been reading the entire book of Acts realize that this story isn’t just about Dorcas.  It’s about the working of the Holy Spirit in and through the church – a story that does not end when the book of Acts ends.

Not only does the Holy Spirit begin to begin to work among the Christians in Joppa, the Holy Spirit continues to be at work in the church today.  The Holy Spirit is at work in our midst.

But it can only begin to work among us when we experience a paschal death and our own resurrection.

We experience the paschal death in at least two ways.  We experience it every time we share in the paschal feast of Holy Communion as we will this morning and we experience it when we put the needs of others before our own.

Dorcas is a role model for us as much as she was for the church in Joppa.

May we find ways to follow her example.

Amen.

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[1]  Rolheiser, p 146.