April 25, 2010 - Easter 4

Get Up!
Acts 9:36-43
Easter 4 – April 25, 2010

I've been thinking in these weeks after Easter about what it means to be a people of a resurrection faith. What does it look like when we have experienced Christ's resurrection, when we have felt that power of new life at work in our own experiences and our own situations? What do we do? How do we live? Well, today's story from Acts gives us an example.

It's the story of Tabitha,
and the saints and widows who were her friends,
and of Peter.
Tabitha's a pretty amazing woman, a pillar of her community.
Because Tabitha sees the hurting and needs around her
and she gets involved.
She gets to know these people;
She reaches out.
She becomes a part of their lives.
These widows who she helps become her friends,
not just strangers, not just statistics.

And then she dies suddenly, and it leaves a hole.
They are beside themselves with grief for this woman
who had done so much for them
and meant so much to them,
not just because she was generous in her giving,
but because she was generous with herself.
Tabitha lived a resurrection faith.

Peter does too –
Peter, who has been preaching the good news
about life under God's rule,
who has been traveling around healing people,
who is in the next town over from Joppa.
And when the disciples in Joppa call him
because Tabitha has died,
Peter is bold to get involved.
He comes to their town,
and he sees the tears running down their faces.
He hears the grief in their voices,
as they show him these clothes that Tabitha handmade for the widows,
as they tell him the stories of her good works and acts of charities
and what she meant to them,
how her love transformed their lives.

And Peter gets involved.
He sends them all out of the room,
and he prays.
For what?
For words to speak?
For guidance?
Does he dare ask for the power to raise Tabitha from the dead?
Who knows...
All we know is what he does next -
which is to take a chance,
to turn to Tabitha,
to stand in the place of death,
and to trust in the power of God's love and life anyway
To call forth the impossible
and to say - “Tabitha, get up!”
And we are amazed – not just that it worked,
but that Peter even had the audacity to say the words.

But even in this place where the power of death has proven itself,
Peter remembers what he has seen.
Peter is a man of resurrection faith
He knows what God can do,
for he has seen what God has already done.
In that place, Peter calls on the one who has power over death,
the one who raised Christ after 3 days in the grave to live forever!

Peter knows that God is stronger than death
And so he speaks God's word of life
in the face of that death.
And God uses Peter once again to remind those early Christians
and the rest of us on down through history,
and probably Peter himself,
that God is always on the side of life,
that God is always working to overcome the power of death,
that God always seeks to replace fear with courage,
despair with hope,
and doubt with trust.

That is what people of resurrection faith do.
They are bold to go into those places that harbor and hold
desperation and despair and death,
trusting that some how, some way, beyond the world's evidence,
God is at work,
that the power of God can and will triumph
to banish the finality of death
and bring new life.
And because people of a resurrection faith
trust this One whose promises to us are always love and life,
because we have the confidence that as strong
as the powers of darkness and death are,
they do not have the strength
to match the God who brings light out of darkness
and life out of death,
people of a resurrection faith are bold to get involved.

Because the world is filled with the signs and symptoms
of dread and despondence.
The upper rooms where death seems stronger than life are all around us.
We see it in myriad ways:
in the developing world,
racked as it is by poverty and hunger and disease,
where in sub-Saharan Africa, just as one example,,
AIDS, a preventable disease, is the leading cause of death
and 12 million children under the age of 18 have lost 1 or both parents
to its deadly power,
and where malaria, which is both preventable and treatable at very low cost,
kills 2800 children a day.
A day.

But it's not just in the developing nations of our world.
The reality of death and disease and despair
make themselves know in our own country, in our own neighborhoods
where in 2008, 13.2% of Americans lived in poverty
and 19% – that's about 1 in 5 – of our children lived below the poverty line;
where over 22 % of our kids live in food insecure situations,
meaning they're likely to go to bed hungry tonight;
where homelessness is a growing problem that affects
people we never would expect
and includes growing numbers of children and their families.

And we don't need statistics to feel the pain
of our own struggles with death and disease and despair,
with illness and addictions and relationships that seem beyond repair.

We are well-acquainted with these upper rooms of death
and sometimes we are those calling
for the Peters of the world to come to help us in our grief.
But just as often
probably even more so,
we are the Tabithas and Peters
who the world calls to come to the places of death,
not knowing exactly what we might be able to do,
but calling us to come anyway.

And through this story, God calls us out.
God says to us who are dead in our busyness,
dead in our apathy,
dead in our overwhelming sense that there is nothing we can do –
“Get up!”

Get up,
because there is something you can do -
as individuals, as a congregation, as part of the larger church -
God says, “Get up!”
For you are not bound by the powers of death.
You are a people of a resurrection faith
who have witnessed God's resurrection power
flowing through the life and ministry of Jesus
lifting him up from death to life.
We witness it through the stories of the Acts of the Apostles,
who felt the wave of God's resurrection power carrying them
through their own fear of death and despair.
We witness it in the lives of Tabitha and Peter
who dared to come into the places of darkness and death,
who were not intimidated by their power
but dared to get involved,
to take a chance.
to speak the power of God's light in the face of darkness
God's hope in the face of despair
God's promise of life in the face of death.
God says to us,
Get up
and get involved!
Look around you and see the needs of the world
and dare to do something!
Dare to be a light in the darkness;
dare to be a voice of hope;
dare to trust that in Jesus, life and love overcome death.
And then in that trust,
get up and make a difference
as God's resurrection power flows through you.

Amen.