Fourth Sunday of Easter May 2, 2004.

Acts 9:36-43

Psalm 23

Revelation 7:9-17

John 10:22-30

By now, the immediacy of Easter Sunday will have faded along with most of the lilies. My altar guild will have nursed the last of the blooms along until this pivotal Good Shepherd Sunday, when we take one last look at the tomb before being led out to prepare for the coming of the Spirit of Pentecost and a mission to tell the good news to an ever-widening circle.

First Reading

The group wondered what they expected of Peter in our story from Acts--a funeral for Dorcas, or a healing? The commentaries tend to support the latter. Peter's reputation was widespread. He had just healed Aeneas in Lydda. Luke seems to consciously echo stories of miraculous raisings by the prophets as well as Jesus' raisings in Luke's Gospel. While Dorcas was already laid out for burial, she had not been anointed, perhaps signaling the community's confidence that such a radical call to rise to new life--resurrection (anistanai)--is possible in God's grace.

I've always imagined that when the widows showed Peter the garments that Dorcas had made, the women held them up, saying, in effect, "Look at this cute jumper!" But the middle voice of the participle "showed" (epideikynymenai) indicates that the widows were actually wearing the clothes made for them by Dorcas. When they showed them to Peter, they showed themselves, whole selves, newly clothed, restored to life and dignity through Dorcas's attention to the community sharing of goods. The community's confidence that Dorcas could be bodily raised up to life seems to be intimately connected with the way she has raised them bodily and wholly after their widowhood. Peter exercises the gift on Dorcas's behalf that Dorcas has exercised on theirs: the ability, through the power of Jesus' name, to raise a believer to life.

Doris, a member of our group, was reminded of a story she'd seen on Good Morning America about people gathering professional clothing for women who are trying to make a new start and don't have anything to wear to a job interview. She suggested I visit some agencies like that in our neck of the woods and see how lives are being raised up, to "see and proclaim how Christ is alive in the world and in the church."

On this pivotal Sunday we note that Peter stays in Joppa with Simon the Tanner, an unclean outcast. In our reading from Revelation, John has heard about the sealing of the 144,000 out of the tribes of Israel, but after this John looks and sees a great multitude around the throne that no one can count.

We wondered what the great ordeal is for us--the thing, the Rome, the power we need to be led out from by the Good Shepherd in a New Exodus. Bruce thought it was life itself. It could be from debt, addiction, abuse, wanting acceptance, bad marriages, and crumbling bodies. It could be death. Doris felt that there were far worse things than death ... like living in fear, or in Iraq, or in Palestine. But Carol wanted to focus on the vision of Paradise, the reward for those who haven't turned away from God when the tides turn. She wanted to talk about the celebration. The best way she could describe it was to tell how, a couple of days into hunting season, my husband had burst into the local store where she worked with the news: "My hunt is over! I've got a big eight-point buck! Come and see ... it's beautiful!" This is the place we're going to. This is the joy we're looking for. This is why we have nothing to fear, not even death.

As Dorcas can be expected to be gracefully raised to life because of the way she raised others to life, so Jesus can lead us into the way of life because Jesus is life. The leaders of the Jews express their irritation with Jesus and his metaphors. "Tell us plainly!" they demand. We might wish for the same. Jesus replies that he has told them, but they don't believe. More to the point, Jesus has shown them, through his works in God's name. The group recalled that there were no sermons by Peter in the healings of Aeneas and Dorcas. The works led many to believe. What does the church who understands itself as Jesus' sheep look like? How is our identity shown to the world as we live as Jesus' sheep?

Pastoral Reflection

"The thing of it is," said Kim, who has worked with both domestic abuse and sexual assault at the Women's Center, "is that nobody much covers the reasons why women show up needing clothes for an interview. It's because leaving is the most dangerous time for women and their children. 70 percent of domestic homicides take place when a woman is leaving an abusive situation. Sticking around to pack isn't advised."

There is a wide network that keeps the resale shop going. There are the people who donate fabulous clothes, the people who shop there and turn over their $5 coupons, and the area churches that play important roles in these campaigns.

When I asked Kim about the ways she sees women at the Women's Center being clothed for new life--not just with new clothing, but as whole selves--Kim talked about offering shelter and safety. Finally, no more walking on egg shells! She talks about voices regained in a place free from violence. Choice is a primary piece of clothing. "The world these women are coming from is all about what the batterer wants, so learning to make decisions is hard." This leads to empowerment, through education that the battering was not their fault. "Actually," Kim says, "we usually just boil this down to an acronym. You'll flip: it's LOVE! Listen Objectively, Validate, Educate. Love. That's how we clothe women for their new life. Just being here--that this place exists--is the first step."

Kim knows I'm a pastor and apologizes for the fact that she doesn't get to share her own faith explicitly (unless the woman brings it up first). I've told her a little bit about the story of Dorcas, the story that brought me there in the first place. Now I point out that the story doesn't say anything about Dorcas being a preacher, just about her distributing clothing that brings the widows the dignity of new life. For this, Dorcas is the only woman in the book of Acts who gets the title "disciple." It almost seems like some molecules shift in Kim's body. She sits in her chair differently after that.

I'm tentative about my next question: Does Kim know of anyone whose life has been changed by this healing ministry who would be willing to talk to me? She hesitates for a minute, then says, "You're already talking to one. You can use me." Four years earlier, Kim had been in an abusive relationship. She had just gotten off a shift of bartending and was at the gas station when she decided she needed to do something different. She picked up a newspaper to start looking for a new job. There was an ad for a job at the Women's Center. "If it weren't for the Center ..." she says. "This place changed my life."