Plymouth Congregational Church of Fort Wayne, UCC
April 25, 2010
Fourth Sunday of Easter

Scripture Lesson:  Acts 9:36-43

Life Surprises

"... Now in Joppa there was a disciple
whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. 
She was devoted to good works and acts of charity.
At that time she became ill and died ..."
(Acts 9:36-37)

Prelude

During spring break earlier this month we,

as family, had opportunity to take leave of Fort Wayne

for few days.  Our furthest destination was Atlanta,

and good tourists that we were, we centered our

visit upon the downtown area,

with its Centennial Olympic Park and the ring

of attractions that are located there.

Our time was somewhat limited,

but we did stop at the world headquarters of CNN,

and paid our money for a behind the scenes

look at the workings of this media giant.

The headquarters is part of a complex located on the south side

of the park, where there stands an Omni Hotel

and a cavernous interior courtyard built in the 1970's as

an amusement center.  That venture didn't take,

and CNN moved, converting the space for use as a

broadcasting center.  The courtyard is filled with

purveyors of fast food, Starbucks Coffee, and

a gift and trinket shop featuring all things

CNN, HLN, CNN espanol. 

Upon purchasing your overpriced ticket,

you pass through security,

and ascend 8 stories on the world's largest

freestanding escalator,

ground floor to top in 2 ½ minutes,

whereupon you are seated within a Control Room Theater.

Here you face a bank of screens displayed upon a wall,

including a large main screen

(showing what is currently being sent out for cable view),

which was framed by 14 smaller screens.  It was explained

that these smaller screens are called "routers,"

each one representing a cable link from a different place

from somewhere in the feeding network of the CNN world.

We were in Atlanta - and the large screen

feature was a CNN national weather report. 

One of the 14 routers was coming in from Boston,

an apartment complex was on fire.

So there was a click, and the main screen

went from a report on the pollen count

in the southwest to the fire department hosing down

the fire in Boston.  Really, it was quite remarkable.

From this orientation session, we made the descent for a view of the main news

room, a floor with filled with desks and computer terminals, with capacity for

about 100 people to work, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

This is the heart from which the news flows. 

As our tour guide reported, up to 100 people work

on this floor, which is equipped with up to 100 routers,

100 screens feeding from around the world

that can be reduced to the one

that comes into the home.

The determination of what is seen on screen

is a coordinated effort involving a

technical director flipping switches, clicking buttons,

following the directions of the news director. 

I was intrigued by this process (as you can probably tell)

and I asked our tour director, where on the maze of the floor

is the news director located.  She indicated where the

technical director was positioned, but said

the news director's office is not on the floor. 

It is not visible - at least to the eyes of those on the tour.

How intriguing - an invisible news director,

making the decisions on what cable to route,

what picture to show and what story to report

to the billion people worldwide who reportedly

watch CNN.

I came away wondering:

Through whose eyes do we see the world?

And whose stories get routed our way,

and whose may be left out?

          *****                   *****                   *****

We might look upon the material we have in the book of Acts

as a first century literary equivalent to CNN; we might

call it BCNN - Biblical Cable News Network, with the author

routing various stories to our attention, reporting first here,

then there, of the Holy Spirit at work,

manifesting God's grace, revealing God's glory,

surprising people with unexpected life

even and especially in the face of death.

BCNN is headquartered in Jerusalem,

but there is state-of-the-art technology

(faith) which helps us understand that

the Holy Spirit is being routed all over the place.

It's not just in Jerusalem, but it strikes also on the

road to Damascus, not just there, but also on the

road heading north to Samaria (Acts 8:14),

and not just north, but south, even on the

road out of town heading down to Gaza

(Acts 8:26).  The author of Acts is routing us

to various instances where the Spirit flames,

where lives are transformed, where those

seemingly dead are raised.  When you click

through the BCNN routers, you find the Holy Spirit

is bouncing around all over the place. 

The lesson this morning offers report from Joppa.

Archaeologists report evidence of human life and settlement

at Joppa 5,000 years before the time of Christ.

Joppa translates as beauty, beautiful.

It is a harbor town on the Mediterranean,

35 miles due west of Jerusalem.

Joppa - said to be the site where the daughter of

Cassiopeia, the beautiful Andromeda,

was bound and chained as sacrifice

to a sea monster, until rescued by her

future husband, Perseus.

Joppa - where lumber from Lebanon was shipped,

unloaded, and hauled off to Jerusalem to build the

beautiful temple of Solomon.

Joppa - where Jonah once bought a ticket for Tarshish,

that he might sail west, taking flight, for the Lord

wanted him to minister in the east, in Nineveh

(Jonah 1:2-3).

Joppa - where once a horrific cruelty was carried out;

when a Greek tyrant ruled (Antichocus IV Epiphanes),

with a policy of strict conformity to Hellenic culture,

and without known cause or reason, 200 Jews

were boarded upon a boat and then drowned. 

They died, but they and their circumstances

were never forgotten.

Joppa - beauty, beautiful,

where we find an early Christian community,

a church vibrant and strong in

spirit due to the ministry of a woman

named Tabitha (Dorcas in the Greek). 

She was known for good works and acts of charity (NRSV),

"full of good works and almsdeed which she did" (KJV),

"she was always doing good things for people,

and had given much to the poor" (Cont. Eng. Version),

she was "bubbling over" (Berkeley Version, Gerrit Verkuyl)

one translator assesses.

The church, Plymouth specifically, but the

whole church more generally, is always in

need of those "bubbling over"

with good works and an eye that can see

and respond to the poor. 

And the church is impaired in its gospel

mission when such personalities are,

for whatever reason, shut down or turned off

or taken away.

Tabitha got sick and she died.

In the wake of her death, there were those who

understood that the church wasn't going to have much

life in her absence.  So the call was sounded for help,

and someone seemed to have heard that Peter wasn't

far off, so two disciples were dispatched to seek his

assistance, and having been called, he came;

having come he entered the thick grief of a people

who could not see their way forward through the

shadows death imposed upon them.

Widows wailed and wept. 

Tabitha's needlework, the design, the stitching, the sewing

and hewing, was on display as evidence of her talent and skill.

Peter is immersed in sorrow. 

Gone was the good work. 

Gone was the "bubbling over" of

charity, grace, mercy.

We may linger here, just for a moment -

it is the moment that comes to us when death

shadows, and the shadows are so intense

we believe that life is over.  Not life for

the deceased, who are gone.  But what life

remains in the wake of death is over.

Done with.  Never to return or be the same.

Those moments happen in our lives, when we

are so distraught we have not the strength to

cry from the depths.

Peter then proceeded to order everyone out of the room

where Tabitha was on view.  He knelt and prayed.

He spoke:  Tabitha, get up.  And then came this

sequence: 

she opened her eyes;

she sat up;

Peter gave her his hand, and helped her up.

Having helped her up, Peter led her out,

and showed her to be alive.

          *****                   *****                   *****

The good news from Joppa?

There are some lessons for us here.

(1)

We see Peter engaged in work that

continues the work of Jesus.

There are parallel stories in our New Testament.

Jesus did this work (see Matthew 9:18-19, 23-26).

When summoned, he went and found a funeral

dirge in full swing.  The flute players had shown up

to accompany those singing sad songs;

and he was mocked when he suggested

that a girl presumed dead would rise.

This work of rising up those folks others

think dead did not die with Jesus.  It continues

in the Way of a believing and beloved people.

(2)

We see that God will raise up

good work and charity for the gospel work

of the church to continue.  People die - we know

this.  But God is calling, God inspiring,

God desiring the mission and means for its advance.

The mission:  good work and charity for the poor

and those in need.  The means:  a people committed

to Christ and bubbling over with Spirit.

Barbara Bugg, our moderator, emailed me this week with

a reminder that the week just past was National Volunteer

Week (April 18-24).  The email mentioned (thanks to Marty Kabisch

meeting with Eric Black and friends) that over 60 Plymouth

folks serve as administrative volunteers working on committees and

subcommittees, and that if you count other service volunteers,

Sweat Equity, Dirty People, Caring Committee, there are over

200 Plymouth members involved in mission.  I found this

wonderful, an amazing testimony, a good illustration, that

God will rise up what is needed to honor Christ, and to promote

that for which Christ lives:  good work and charity for gospel work!

Let's be honest - we come and we go, do we not?

We live and we die.  But our faith in Christ is affirmation

that we are part of something far larger than ourselves. 

We are part of a gospel movement,

the Jesus life, a missionary endeavor

convinced of the goodness and

committed to the advancement of the Christian life

authentically marked by good work

and charity for the impoverished. 

God will not let that spirit die, but will raise it up,

again and again and again and again. 

Our faith, infused by resurrection wonder, affirms:

sin, though always abundant, shall not prevail;

evil, though always evident, will not conquer;

in all, through all, after all,

goodness and mercy shall endure;

life will surprise!

I happen to be quite partial to

a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

It is a word of defiance that has long inspired:

("Conscientious Objection," 1934)

I shall die, but

that is all that I shall do for Death.

I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;

I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.

He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,

business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.

But I will not hold the bridle

while he clinches the girth.

And he may mount by himself:

I will not give him a leg up.

 

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,

I will not tell him which way the fox ran.

With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where

the black boy hides in the swamp.

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;

I am not on his payroll.

 

I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends

nor of my enemies either.

Though he promise me much,

I will not map him the route to any man's door.

Am I a spy in the land of the living,

that I should deliver men to Death?

Brother, the password and the plans of our city

are safe with me; never through me shall you be overcome.

We need more such defiance in our life,

in our time and in our church.

We concede too much to death,

and forfeit too much life.

Faith falters with such resignation.

We fail to fulfill one fundamental claim

"to resist the powers" that play.

          *****                   *****                   *****

Surprised by Life?

Peter resisted.

Peter waded into the thick lament

that death had wrought,

and imperiled the community with a loss

never to be recovered, not to be revived.

In some way, that is our calling in the world,

whenever death would appear to deny

us the grace of being surprised by life.

I shared in a parking lot conversation Friday evening

as the covenant class was embarking upon their adventure to

church headquarters in Cleveland.

I was talking with friends, and in just a few minutes time

we covered the following topics:

(a) a car was broken down and in need of a tow,

(b) a marriage wasn't working out;

(c) a name needed be added to the prayer list;

(d) two friends had lost parents,

(e) two reports of cancer in people far too young;

(f) a teen displaying risky behavior due to what I call

"lack of institutional control."

Then the question came to me:

"Well, do you have any good news?"

That moment I sensed a need for a news director

to change the screen, to open my eyes to the

life surprises that always abound, if we have

but the faith, hope, and trust to see.

May we be so blessed,

knowing well what we know of life,

knowing well what we know of Jesus,

risen, working with us, working through us,

working round us, working for us,

forever.

May life surprise, my friend,

in such a state of grace and wonder

may God be praised!

Amen.