April 21, 2013: Raising the dead

Sermon for Sunday, April 21, 2013

4^th Sunday after Easter

Acts 9:36-43 (Peter raises Tabitha)

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie Smith

Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Grace and peace to you from the One who is, who was, and is to come. Amen.

This week brings us the story of Peter raising a woman named Tabitha from the dead. Peter, whom Jesus had called Satan. Peter, who had denied Jesus three times. Peter, who was asked three times by Jesus “do you love me?” (because, apparently, no one could be sure if, when Peter said something, he would actually follow through.)

Peter, a disciple who is described in Acts chapter 4 as being an “uneducated and ordinary man”, knelt down beside Tabitha’s deathbed to pray. He proclaimed, “Tabitha, get up!”--at which point the dead woman sat up, took Peter’s hand, and was presented to her community of friends as very much alive.  

Little ol’ Peter: uneducated, ordinary, and often unreliable, brought a dead woman back to life.

I have to tell you I was drawn to preach on this story from the Acts of the Apostles because I’ve been thinking about raising the dead myself all week long.

I want to raise to life Maureen Mengelt, the 52 year old woman killed when a Lutheran bishop from Wisconsin—a longtime friend of my husband—hit her with his car while driving drunk two Sundays ago.

I want to raise up Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell, Lu Lingzi, and Sean Collier, who died during this week of terror in Boston.  

I want to raise the numerous volunteer firefighters and first responders who perished in West, Texas after racing to put out a fire at the town’s fertilizer plant just before it exploded.

I want to raise to new life a famously ornery member of Bethany, Carol Stupar, who was usually (in her own words) “ jumping around like a fart in a frying pan”, but who is at this very hour journeying from life to death surrounded by her family and friends.

And let’s not stop there! As long as we’re raising the dead this morning, I want to raise Jonylah and Hadiya and all the other children killed by gun violence in Chicago this year. I want to give life and a future back to the children and teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary School. And this Friday, April 19^th,  eighteen years after the event which made “terrorism” part of my vocabulary, I wanted as much as ever to raise up little Baylee Almon, the one year old girl from the iconic photo which showed a firefighter carrying her lifeless body out of the rubble of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City.

I, Carrie Smith, a disciple of Jesus Christ, uneducated, ordinary, and unreliable though I may be, would like to exercise the power of the Risen Christ TODAY and raise the dead! Who’s with me? Amen?

After all, my sisters and brothers, this is why we’re here! We are here on this 4^th Sunday of the Easter season because we confess the mystery that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again! We gather here as a community after a week of terror and sadness, when we might rather curl up in the safety and comfort of our own homes, because we believe Christ’s resurrection means death does not have the final word. We gather to sing songs of lament and praise, trusting that there is new life in Christ Jesus and that we, his disciples, are sent to raise the dead in his name. Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!

Of course, this sort of talk generally makes people uncomfortable, and I can see a few of you squirming in your seats right now. You can be a Christian, just don’t get all up in my face about it. You can do nice things for people, volunteer at the food pantry, serve on the altar guild, maybe even go to Theology on Tap with the new pastor—but if you start talking about raising the dead, you’ve clearly gone over the edge and become a religious wackadoodle.

The author Sara Miles said it well in her book, “Jesus Freak: Feeding, Healing, and Raising the Dead”:

“Most Christians know so much more about the faith than I do. They grew up in Sunday School; they know their church's history and creeds by heart; some have even been to seminary and can read the Gospel in Greek. But when I tell them I met the risen Jesus in actual food, they often pull back a bit, as if I'd declared I saw the Virgin Mary on a tortilla. (Which, by the way, would make me very happy.) And when I tell them that Jesus said we can go ahead and heal the sick, that we don't have to wait for authorization from our bishops to raise the dead, they look worried.”

We recently started a home communion ministry here at Bethany, and those who have been delivering communion to our sick and homebound members will tell you what a blessing it has been for them and for the ones they visit. However, I suspect if we instituted a “raising the dead” ministry you’d be a little skeptical! We don’t like to talk about this particular Act of the Apostles because it just seems too outlandish. Surely, this is an allegory! Surely it doesn’t mean what it really says! Surely we aren’t supposed to believe that Peter simply said, “Tabitha, get up!” and a dead woman sat up and started talking! And even if he did, how can we possibly carry on this ministry today? I predict the volunteer sign-up sheets for this “Door of Opportunity” will be incredibly hard to fill.

And yet, we read that after the resurrection, the apostles were indeed going from village to village, feeding, healing, and raising the dead in Jesus’ name. And in fact, in the very first chapter of the Acts, Jesus leaves the disciples with these words just before they went out to begin their ministry:

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

You, my sisters and brothers in Christ, have received power when the Holy Spirit came upon you at your baptisms! You have the power to be Christ’s witnesses to the ends of the earth. You have the power to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. You have the power to comfort the grieving, to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, and yes, through Christ you have the power to raise the dead to new life.

This may sound hard to believe. It may sound a bit wackadoodle to think we can raise the dead! But then again, maybe we just need to get close enough to folks to find out.

If we’re going to raise the dead, we might need to come close to those who are sick, or dying, or dead. If this sounds too obvious to you, consider how often the work of caring for the sick, the dying, and the dead is given over exclusively to the ordained and the trained. Consider how uncomfortable we get when someone brings up in conversation a medical diagnosis or the recent loss of a loved one or an addiction problem. Consider the comment from a church member who told me that when her spouse was dying, many people said “I’m praying for you” but only one person actually visited their home.

If we want to raise the dead, my friends, we can’t run away from suffering and death. We’re going to have to come close to death in order to banish it. So while this may sound obvious, I suggest we take another look at that story of Peter and Tabitha before we start our own “raising the dead” ministry here at Bethany.

Tabitha became ill and died, and after her friends had cared for her body they sent for Peter to come over to the house. Peter, whom Scripture tells us was “going here and there among all the believers” (Acts 9:32), preaching and healing and basically jumping around like a fart in a frying pan, dropped everything to visit with Tabitha’s grieving friends.  

Now if Peter’s only purpose was to say some magic words, you’d think he would walk in and go to the dead woman and get right down to the business of raising the dead! But that’s not what he did. First he listened to the widows’ stories about Tabitha. He heard how she was devoted to good works and acts of charity. He admired examples of her sewing handiwork. He stayed there at her bedside, surrounded by her weeping friends, honoring the sacred moment. And it was only then, after bringing new life and new hope to Tabitha’s friends, that Peter prayed for Tabitha, proclaiming her to be restored to life and to her community.

If we’re going to be raising the dead, bringing new life into places where death has taken hold, then it seems clear we’re going to have to get over ourselves and our fear of death. If we’re going to raise the dead, we need to be with each other during sacred moments, we need listen to stories of grief and heartache, and we need to truly pray with and for each other. We must remember that ministry to the sick and the dying is a privilege we all share as disciples of Jesus Christ—it’s not just for the seminary trained and synodically authorized. Chiefly, we must remember that being people of the resurrection isn’t about avoiding death and the cross, but rather is about boldly going towards it, trusting that it is never the end of the story.

We saw a powerful example of what this means on Monday, when videos and photos showed people running toward the scene of the bomb blast at the end of the Boston marathon. Spectators, runners, and medical workers ran toward the cross rather than fleeing from it. I imagine they saw things they never wanted to see, and they will carry those burdens with them as long as they live. But by running into the blast that day, they brought new life, restoration and hope to people who, like Tabitha, seemed lost to death. They put aside their fear of death to be with those who were closest to it. And for those of us who were watching from afar, they gave us all new life, new hope, and new confidence in the goodness of humanity. Through the Holy Spirit, strangers have raised us all from the dead.

My sisters and brothers, because Christ has been raised, we have also been raised to new life! That is Good News that’s just too good to keep to ourselves. Through Christ’s resurrection, and with the power of the Holy Spirit, we all have the power to raise the dead to new life. Believe it or not, you’re doing it all the time! You’re raising the dead when you listen to each other’s stories, when you accompany the dying and sit with the grieving. You are raising the dead when you pray with and for each other.

And…we’re about to do it this morning.

As Sara Miles put it:

“And raising the dead? This is what Christians do every Sunday, after all, when we stand around in our boring churches, eating little wafers or pieces of whole wheat pita, saying aloud that Christ is risen. It's what we do whenever we continue in simple, literal acts: breaking bread, praying without hope of perfect outcomes, admitting our weaknesses, and loving people who don't deserve it. It's what we do when we remember that death is not the end.”  

Amen.