May 12, 2013 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Leaning In, Running Toward, and Standing Up

Judith L. Watt
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 23
Acts 9:36–42

May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that
has been given to you. . . .
May you be content knowing you are a child of God. . . .
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to
sing, dance, praise, and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

St. Teresa of Avila
“May Today There Be Peace Within”

She was Tabitha, but you could call her Dorcas, too. If you spoke Aramaic you called her Tabitha, and if you spoke Greek you called her Dorcas. Tabitha navigated more than one world and more than one culture. Otherwise Luke never would have pointed out these two names. Tabitha in Aramaic. Dorcas in Greek. In English, both names translate to the word gazelle. A gazelle is a type of antelope—small in size, swift, graceful. That’s how I imagine Tabitha: small, swift in her actions, graceful, nimble.

Tabitha has died. The group of Christians around her is devastated, full of tears, remembering what she’s done for them and wondering how on earth anyone will ever replace her. The story tells us that when Peter arrives, the widows, all of the women Tabitha shared ministry with, stood with Peter in the room where Tabitha’s body had been washed and prepared for burial, weeping and talking nonstop about what Tabitha’s life meant to them, proudly showing off her gifts to Peter, the tunics and clothing she had sewn.

The book of Acts tells the story of the expansion and spread of the gospel in those first years after Jesus’ death. These first chapters focus on Peter and his activities among the believers. In Peter’s travels, so much happened: miracles, healings, people coming to faith. In fact, just before the story about Tabitha, Peter comes upon Aeneas, bedridden for eight years , paralyzed, and Peter tells Aeneas to get up, and just like that Aeneas gets up. And then there’s Tabitha who is in even more trouble. She’s dead. Someone sends for Peter, and he enters the scene, a scene filled with death and grief and loss, and Peter prays, tells Tabitha to get up, and she gets up just like that.

Story upon story of life again. Reminders of resurrection. All meant to remind us in this season of Eastertide, which we are still in, that we are a people of the resurrection, that we are a people of the resurrection who stand by the belief that death is not the end, that new life is possible. All meant to remind us that in this season we celebrate that good news.

Except there’s a problem. Like Peter, we’ve been brought into scenes of death recently too. Far too many of them. We keep absorbing and absorbing the news and the images, and yet I’ve noticed that as they seem to multiply, it’s easy for us to become fragmented. Three days after the Boston bombings, I had breakfast with a very close friend. We were together for over an hour. And after we parted, I was embarrassed and even a little shocked that neither of us had mentioned the bombings or the horror of Boston—just three days after the fact. It’s as though our psyches are full—we can’t absorb much more—and for self-protection, perhaps, we become split off, fragmented, disconnected with the pain because the pain is too hard to bear. So Easter people or not, joy has been hard to come by, given the tragedy we know people are enduring. The news of the world has been extraordinarily difficult. The news in some of your personal lives has been extraordinarily difficult too. Loss, surgeries, struggles with employment. And no one like Peter making it all go away with a prayer or a word.

Today there’s news of a different sort, closer to home. A much-beloved pastor will be leaving. Not right away, but sometime. Granted, there’s no violence or death attached to this leaving. But it still hurts some, or maybe it surprises others or puzzles a few. It’s another part of the transition—the transition plan for Fourth Church. We’ve been sustaining an enormous amount of transition. This congregation is extraordinarily good at soldiering on. We know how to summon strength and to buck up and to keep on keeping on. And those are good, good things. It’s good to be strong and resilient. In fact, we heard news at a recent Session meeting that attendance hasn’t diminished and that giving hasn’t diminished. Even in the face of all of this transition. All of that is so good.

But what does it mean to be a resurrection people when there have been so many losses, expected or not: a cherished senior pastor, a cherished parish associate; a cherished minister of children and families, and now a cherished executive associate pastor who has been a constant through significant times in this church, for almost sixteen years. Not to speak of various family members, too.

There will be some of you who won’t like that I’ve named all of this, because we think it’s easier to get through this kind of thing if we don’t think about it. But I think that being a resurrection people requires that we acknowledge the feelings we have, whether they be sadness or anxiety or hurt. Otherwise new life and resurrection don’t mean much.

Today’s story about Tabitha gives some hints about what we might do. The people around Tabitha don’t hesitate to show their sadness. They weep. They weep and they talk about the many gifts Tabitha had. They cherish those gifts, the memories, while they still admit their feelings of anxiety and their sense of being on unsure ground, of not knowing what will come next.

Henri Nouwen wrote a long letter to his father after his mother’s death. His letter was later published as a book called A Letter of Consolation. In his letter he makes the case that consolation after a loss isn’t simply patting someone on the back and pronouncing that everything will be fine in time. Instead he and his father will have to face the difficult task of remembering all of the very important things that meant so much to them about the wife and mother they lost. He writes to his dad, “I want to comfort and console you, but not in a way that covers up real pain and avoids all wounds. I am writing you this letter in the firm conviction that reality can be faced and entered with an open mind and an open heart, and in the sincere belief that consolation and comfort are to be found where our wounds hurt most.” That consolation and comfort are to be found where our wounds hurt most. Our feelings about the world news or a personal loss or the transition we are sustaining in our congregation can be shared. We can bear those feelings together by simply acknowledging they exist. And at the very least, we can offer them up to God in our prayer lives.

When I titled this sermon, I only had a guess as to how the sermon would evolve. And, of course I didn’t know about the announcement that would come this week. Thank you very much, Calum. But at that time, the title of the book written by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook was on my mind. It is called Lean In, and it received a lot of press when it first came out. It focuses on women and challenges they face in the workplace, and it points out some new behaviors and ways of thinking they might adopt. I admittedly haven’t read this book yet, but I like the title. It is active. It is engaged. I believe as a community of faith we’re to lean in and engage and do what we need to do to take care of ourselves, including admitting the losses we are bearing together as a community. Acknowledging that we need one another in this transition because we are community. Trusting God holds us through all of it. There is a banner in the former church I served that says, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”

The second thing this story about Tabitha also reminds of is to keep offering the gifts we have, whatever they are, as insignificant as they may be, no matter what takes place in the world or in our lives. Tabitha is described in two verses as a disciple because she was devoted to good works and acts of charity. That was who she was. A person devoted to good works and acts of charity.

Twenty-six words describe Tabitha in two verses. What if you had twenty-six words to write down about yourself? What description would capture who you are today? Or who you want to become as your life plays out? Or who you want to be in this community of faith, especially during this time of transition?

An image from the day of the Boston bombings continues to stay with me. Just after the bomb exploded, people who had just crossed the finish line turned around and ran toward the explosion. The volunteers from the medical tent close by ran out of their tent, toward the trauma. To see all of those people who ran toward the suffering to help, instead of away, still moves me. They ran toward the trouble, probably not knowing how they could be of help, but there was a hand offered here and pressure on gaping wounds offered there. Others moving barricades. Others lifting people into ambulances. And there was the woman pictured on her knees, praying, pleading with God. Those people offered their gifts, not knowing how those gifts would be used, not questioning the significance of their offerings. Good works and acts of charity abounded that day. Stories of life again. Resurrection.

I wonder if Tabitha really did move like a gazelle—swift, graceful in her actions, nimble. I don’t know, but it’s what I like to imagine is possible for us, as a people of faith, as a resurrection people. That our church can continue to be graceful in our actions and nimble in our responses to life’s hurts and transitions and challenges. We are a resurrection people because we know that resurrection and new life is not only possible, but promised. Our job is to trust, to lean in and be honest, but also to lean in and to trust. To run toward places where pain or grief threaten to overwhelm, to stay devoted to good works and acts of charity. In that way, we’ll show ourselves to the world as being alive. After Peter prayed and told Tabitha to get up, she did. And the story says, he called all the saints and widows and showed Tabitha to be alive. Then, the last verse of the story says, “This became known through all of Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.” May we be shown to the world as alive, too, full of new life, and may many believe in the Lord because of it.