Talk by Peter

Acts 9: 36ff tells the story of Tabitha, some translations call her Dorcas. What do we know about her? Essentially that she busied herself by sewing and making clothes for poor people. She was known for good works. She died and her death would have been a sad loss for her community. But she is also named as a disciple of the Lord. In other words, she is a believer and a follower of the teachings of Jesus. She lived out her faith not in theological debates with learned teachers, but in practical loving service. I’ll come back to that at the end.

But let us return to what happened. I think it is summed up in the phrase: W.W.J.D? (What would Jesus do?). In this section of Acts, Luke tells us that Peter was out and about meeting the believers in different villages. Just before this passage we read that he had met Aeneas who has been bedridden for eight years. Peter proved himself to be a good learner from Jesus for he does almost exactly what Jesus did. When Jesus healed the paralysed man he told him to ‘pick up his mat’. Here Peter commands ‘Aeneas, Jesus Christ is healing you, get up and make your bed’.

In other words, normal life can begin again. The miraculous is followed by the mundane (incidentally nowhere does it say that he had to do ‘hospital corners!’). For that man, and whoever were his dependents life has come back in all its fullness – and he still has to make his own bed! (Good job Aeneas wasn’t a teenager!).

News of this miracle had spread around the surrounding villages. It would be like us saying: news of the healing in Mickleover spread across the City of Derby. So naturally the news spread to Joppa. And soon afterwards Peter was sent for by the local disciples to go to Joppa, to Tabitha’s house.

When Peter arrives, he is told about her faith, and the amazing works of needlecraft that she was doing to help others out but realises that her death was not going to be the last word. W.W.J.D?

And again, Peter does what Jesus did when he raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead. He tells those who are weeping to leave the house, he kneels down to pray and tells the dead body, ‘Tabitha, get up!’

She opens her eyes and he helps her up. What an amazing story again and of course what an amazing testimony to the power of the name of Jesus.

Miraculous things going on in very ordinary circumstances.

And this is where our Gospel relates to this passage in Acts. Jesus was always being challenged. “How long will you keep us in suspense! Tell us!”

Jesus retorts – “I have told you and you do not believe”. He then goes on to say: ‘The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe’.

Unlike the critics of Jesus, Peter had witnessed Jesus heal his mother-in-law from a fever, the healing of the little girl, Jairus’ the synagogue ruler’s daughter, the raising of Lazarus from the dead – to name just a few. And what did Peter learn? That Jesus simply, quietly and authoritatively issues a command. e.g. ‘Little Girl ‘Get up’, or ‘Lazarus, come out!’

How encouraging for Peter. He knows the truth, that at that breakfast on the beach he had been forgiven and restored to leadership and so under the Holy Spirit’s guiding, he can ‘do the things that Jesus did.’

I said I’d come back to Tabitha’s life and what it says to us: I believe she stands for all those unsung heroes and heroines who get on with what they can do best and are doing it to the glory of God.

Whilst Apostles and Evangelists go about making important decisions, getting locked up. stoned or shipwrecked, writing great sermons, generally being great and good all over the place, it’s those who faithfully live their lives devoted in prayer to the Lord who form the beating heart of the church, and I may say, it includes people like us, every one of us.

Don’t ever think that because you haven’t seen a miracle, that God can’t use you at all. God can use all of us for his purposes. So whether that be in sewing, stitching, cooking, gardening, laying bricks, painting walls, drinking cups of tea with neighbours, praying. These are all part of our joint witness.

More Lord! (and maybe a miracle or two?). Amen.   Peter