Saturday, April 20, 2013

Acts of Charity

Well, let's give it a try - posting a sermon as a blog. You willing to help me do a test run?

I  was a lectionary preacher - that is, I bought into the idea that there are values to dealing with Bible passages assigned for given weeks in an orderly fashion. Passages are chosen from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles - 4 available readings every week, sometimes the relationship between them was obvious and sometimes not.

The values I found to be true for me were:
I was dealing with the same scripture readings that many others in several denominations were as well;
It was a good discipline that forced me to deal with a broad range of passages and topics;
I found the discipline wonderfully inspiring and challenging.

I note the above not to invite a discussion with those who choose to do it a different way (heaven knows I had my share of such discussions/debates/arguments over the years). Rather, I did so to introduce the content of this sermon. The Epistle reading for this Sunday, April 21, 2013 is the story of Tabitha's death and being miraculously restored to life. Tabitha was known for her good works and acts of charity, but we'll return to her story in a bit.

I last preached on this text six years ago shortly after returning from my first adult mission trip to New Orleans and from performing the funeral in Phoenix for a young man from a former church. His nickname was Beaver, although most people knew him as "The Beav." I received the phone call from his mother, Mary, on Monday morning during the orientation session in New Orleans. She began: "He didn't make it, Bill. Beav died this morning." And then she continued with something I was even less prepared for: "Julie wants you to do the funeral in Phoenix. We understand if you can't, but she would really appreciate it if you would. You might remember that she was Catholic. Beav went with her but he didn't really have a church and she and Beav always really appreciated how kind you have been to them."

I'll never forget the premarital counseling sessions I had with the two of them. He was 13 years older than she. They had met while hiking in the Red River Gorge with mutual friends. He had cystic fibrosis, that's why his death wasn't a surprise, just how long he survived before it finally got him. We had addressed it one of our sessions. I had asked them: "Are you sure you want to do this, you know because of the age difference and his health?" Julie was the one who responded because she knew it was her rationality I was questioning. "I know it doesn't make sense, Pastor Bill, but I would rather be married to Durell (that was his given name) for as many years as we have to enjoy than not to be married to him." There was no question they had discussed what they were in for. She had already endured numerous episodes of coughing and hospitalizations.

So, I performed their beautiful wedding on the 4th of July at the Art Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. Their love and joy produced more fireworks in the hearts and spirits of those of us who were gathered that evening than all of the firework displays in all of Cincinnati that night.

Over the years, the Beav's mom kept me informed of their journey - the hospitalizations, the rock rappelling and white water rafting, the move to Phoenix because it would be easier for him to breathe, the births of their twin boys - 3 1/2 years old at the tune if their dad's death. He had been placed on the lung transplant list just three weeks prior.

I cried and I cried and I cried. He was only 44 and she was only 31. They were getting ready to celebrate ten years of marriage. There were those 3 1/2 year old twins. People all over the country had been praying for this young man and his family. His mother had flown bak and forth to Stanford to be with him and his wife. One of his many close college friends had flown out and spent the lsat five days with all of them. He was at his bedside when he died.

I could write3 a book about what went on for the next few days - the way the mission team an my wife ministered to me, the unbelievable work we performed, another phone call informing me of the death of a 42-year-old young woman of breast cancer who was in the same youth group and babysat our children, the laughter, the flight to Memphis and then to Phoenix on Thursday morning, meeting with the family and several of the couple's University of Cincinnati friends who had stayed in touch with them over the years and flown out to be with the family for the funeral.

Then came the funeral on Saturday morning in a sister United Methodist Church. I wasn't on my beset pastoral behavior as I tried to do the service through my own tears. And then there were the three emotional speeches by Beav's friends - all of us referencing what a great guy he was, how inspired we all were by his drive, the attitude that sort of considered cystic fibrosis more of a nuisance than a killer, the wonderful love he and Julie shared with the world, his unshakable optimism and longing for the "other side" of his reality (which he understood would be that time after he received his lung transplant). And when it was all over - there was relief - a resurrection experience of a sort - new life in our midst. It wasn't that we were no longer sad. It was just that something different was between us - in the room - after we had summarized who he was to us - the difference he had made in our lives -  and the difference his having lived the way he did was going to make on our commitment to life - to organ transplants - to his wife and twin boys.

And so, her name was Tabitha - translated Dorcas in the Greek. She did a tremendous amount of good for the poor and outcast in her community of Joppa. Long before we began to refer to such ministries in the church as social missions, Tabitha was running soup kitchens and food pantries and homeless shelters in her hometown coastal community - a community known for piracy and other port-city problems. "It (was) a rough-and-ready center of commerce, full of (people) anxious to find an angle, do a deal, and turn a buck." (1)

The outcasts she was especially known to help were the poor widows. Proof of it is the fact that they were the ones standing around her death bed when Peter arrived. They were the ones weeping and showing off all the articles of comfort she had made for them - the tunics and shawls and quilts and other garments. Her acts of charity and good works were going to be sorely missed by the widows.

When I think of that scene around Tabitha's bed it conjures up in my mind what we often witness at funeral home visitations in our own day - the collages of photographs, the mementos placed near or in the casket (crayon pictures by grandchildren, a Reds baseball cap, etc.). It's amazing how much we can learn about a person's life from the pictures family members choose to display. And, oh what a treasure it is for the family to spend time laughing, crying, and remembering as they sort through the pictures in preparation for the therapeutic act of putting them on display. (2)

But let's get back to the scene of the widow and Peter gathered around Tabitha's bed. The widows sharing the mementos they'd received from Tabitha wasn't in the funeral home while they were preparing for others to come and offer them their condolences. Their sadness was much more ripe than when that time happens. Widows had it even worse in that day than in ours. They were culturally regarded as lost. They did not have many possessions - no one to take care of them - no pension plan or medicare or social security. Tabitha's death spelled for them their own death - an unknown future - a possible community crisis. "For those widows, the loss of Tabitha meant the loss of their lifeline to survival." (3)

Sometimes we get bogged down with trying to make sense of the miracle stories and we forget that the point of religious writing - the recording of the story - is not to be factual or historical but to reveal the faith, to nurture our faith development. One writer summarized the situation with these words: "Sometimes the recitation of miracles in the Bible causes more doubt than faith. We live in a skeptical world that demands scientific explanation for everything and finds the mysterious odd or exotic but certainly not compelling. This antipathy toward the supernatural breeds standoffishness to stories like the raising of Dorcas in today's lectionary passage. The event can be explained away, of course. Perhaps the ailing Dorcas badly needed rest, so her body slipped into a coma and began an internal healing process. When Peter came and disturbed the silent vigil, she was on the mend and came back to consciousness.

"In another interpretation, the abilities and exploits of the first leaders of the Christian community grew in size as the ears and retellings progressed until what had once been a tale of Peter's kindness to a sick woman was transformed into a resurrection miracle. It was not an actual event but a projection of hero worship into the past that eventually got recorded as scripture." (4)

I would offer that, no matter what one believes about whether there was an actual physical restoring of life or not, to me the point of the story is that Christianity, Jesus Christ, is about bringing life out of death - providing space for hope when despair raises its ugly head - carving out some space for faith when failure appears to be the reality - being able to envision victory in the face of defeat. There aren't a whole lot of verses written about Dorcas. And yet, and yet her reputation lives on centuries later. Even today there are Dorcas circles in United Methodist Women groups - circles dedicated for women with a vision to doing good - acts of charity. And friends, that's what it's all about - that's what the resurrection proclaims - that's what we communicate when we live by faith in the midst of the evil, despair, suffering, pain, and disappointments that fill our lives and the lives of others around us and around the world. It's not that we don't feel pain or don't get angry or question the things that happen to us or around us but that we rely on God to be with us in the midst of it all.

Tabitha may not have physically died that day when Peter showed up beside her believed death bed, but there finally did come a day when she did die. And the good news is that the acts of charity she performed continue as people quilt and knit and collect clothing and stock the shelves of food pantries and move homeless people into their own apartments and staff suicide prevention lines and raise money for missions and give up vacations to go on mission trips and visit nursing homes with pets and take meals to people when they return from the hospital and offer grief support groups and furnish meals for families with a a new baby and ... maybe even become organ donors.

We witnessed some awful scenes this past week - the Boston marathon bombings and the West, Texas explosion to name the ones that captured the spotlight the most. We also were the beneficiaries of humanity at its very best as heroic things were done to save some and comfort many. Acts of charity will help get us through the grief and shock to the other side of hope and peace. It will take time and the effort of us all.

Peace be with you!

1   "Roman or Catholic?," HomileticsOnline, May, 2004.

2   Emphasis, March/April, 2007, p. 74.

3   Rodney Thomas Smothe, "A Living Witness," Turning Obstacles Into O (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Company, 1994), 0-7880-0031-4.

4   Wayne Brouwer, "An Eye For the Miraculous," Emphasis, March/April, 2007, p. 70.

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