Her name was Tabitha. Or maybe it was Dorcas, depending on the language we are speaking, but in both Aramaic and in Greek her name meant gazelle.
A beautiful name, gazelle, an animal that is known to be swift and small, graceful in its movements. Her name may have been chosen for these reasons. Perhaps her parents hoped for her to be lovely and gentle, and bring more beauty to the world. We know that in her heart and soul she was truly lovely; we know that through her care for others she brought beauty to the world; we know that she was deeply loved by many.
Tabitha was quick to serve anyone around her who was in need. She took especially good care of the widows in her community. It might be easy for us to forget, but in that time a widow was an especially vulnerable person. Without any rights of her own, it was the custom for a woman to be shifted from the care of her father to her husband. If her husband died before her, she became the responsibility of her son. But if she had no grown sons to care for her, then she was a widow and in a bad way – utterly alone and defenseless in the world.
This is the reason why the law of Israel spoke clearly about the care of widows, as well as orphans and aliens – or immigrants, as we would say now. These were people who needed someone to care for them. And Tabitha was a woman who committed herself to caring for them.
The women of Joppa loved her. With Tabitha, they didn’t feel like they were a burden, as some others might have made them feel. With Tabitha, they knew themselves to be loved, the most precious thing we can imagine. Tabitha loved these poor women and cared for them with a fierce loyalty. We can tell that the feeling was mutual.
But then she died.
Their grief was palpable. Weeping, they washed and laid out her body. They gathered around her to begin their mourning. They carried in with them the tunics she had made for them.
It was much like the kind of funeral you and I might attend. They gathered together and told about the ways Tabitha had lived and cared for them, they showed the ways she had demonstrated her love, the love of God working in her. They gave thanks for her life at the same time they tearfully mourned her death.
They invited Peter to come. Peter, the rock of Christ’s church, should know this model of discipleship that Tabitha was, even if only after her death. The women gave their testimonies – each of them spoke of how Tabitha’s life force had touched them, even saved them. These widows knew that every day their lives were close to the edge. They knew how vulnerable they were. Tabitha not only pulled them from the edge, she afforded them dignity. They knew that because Tabitha had lived, they lived.
And Peter was deeply moved by this display of love.
He knelt beside her body and prayed. He said to her, Tabitha, get up. Then Tabitha rose.
For people who know the Bible well, this is a familiar story. When we hear it, it takes us back to a story in Mark’s gospel in which Jesus is called to the bedside of a synagogue leader’s daughter. The child was dead and everyone around her was weeping, grieving this loss of life. Jesus said to her, little girl, get up. Then she rose.
But that’s not all. This story of Jesus reminds us of a story from the Old Testament about the prophet Elijah. When he was staying with the widow of Zerephath. This poor woman had a young son; he became ill and died. In grief she called to Elijah. Elijah took the little boy in his arms and carried him up and laid him on his own bed. He stretched out his own body on top of the boy, crying out, praying out loud. And the boy’s breath returned to him. And there is yet another story about the prophet Elisha, who revived the dead son of the Shunamite woman, much like Elijah had done before him.
Story after story in the scriptures tell of God’s capacity to bring life. It goes all the way back to the beginning of Genesis when God speaks life into the world, out of nothing at all. Hard to believe, right?
We live in a world that scarcely thinks about anything beyond ourselves. We busy ourselves with the day-to-day dreariness and challenges, hopes and small pleasures. We fill our days with the mundane, and it may be that we never ever think about God until we suddenly find ourselves standing at the edge of an abyss. Not knowing where to turn, how to take another step. Only when we know that there is no way on earth we can be saved…then we may know the God who is able to break into the world with life.
I cannot explain any of these stories about life restored, but I don’t really want to explain them. We do not explain, but merely witness the divine power of God to reassert, again and again, that God is for life.
And if we, too, are for life as God is for life, then we also will support and care for the vulnerable ones.
In our nation today, to be for life, or pro-life, means only one thing: to be anti-abortion. But the truth is not so simple. To be for life means much, much more. We must care for the lives who have already been born – the children who lack adequate food and housing. The ones whom our society has made to feel less than everyone else. The women who find themselves in a situation in which there are no good options – none – and gently, lovingly give them the space to make the best decisions they can for themselves. To show care and compassion for all of these, as Tabitha did, is to be for life in the ways that God is for life.
And only when we are doing these things, when we are lifting up the downtrodden, seeing their worth as God’s beloved. Only when we are valuing and caring for, affording dignity and respect to, every life at every stage of life, only then can we truly say we are pro-life as God is pro-life.
It does not start with the unborn. It begins with the ones who are already here.
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Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-pink-flower-248068/
