{"id":264,"date":"2019-05-12T13:24:52","date_gmt":"2019-05-12T13:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=264"},"modified":"2019-05-13T13:29:27","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T13:29:27","slug":"ndayfourth-sunday-of-easter-of-easter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/05\/12\/ndayfourth-sunday-of-easter-of-easter\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth Sunday of Easter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Acts\n9:36-43<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is risen! Grace to you\nand peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems odd to me that\nwe should read today the story of the healing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of\nTabitha (or Dorcus). The Gospel and the Epistle readings center on Jesus as the\nGood Shepherd. The Psalm speaks of the Lord as our shepherd who cares for us and\nprotects us. Obviously, the writing of the Psalm predated Jesus, but we today\nthink of Jesus as that shepherd. So why are we reading a passage that speaks\nabout a woman, most certainly a loved member of her community, loved for her\ncharitable work, but a woman who does not have the look of a shepherd? And why Peter,\nhe doesn\u2019t appear to be shepherding people at this time; he doesn\u2019t even\nmention Jesus. Still, the shepherd image, regardless the content described in\nthis particular passage works; we would not be wrong to look at Peter as a kind\nof a shepherd, and Dorcus also as a kind of a shepherd (because of what we know\nof them both outside of this passage).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personally,\nI like the image that was shared with me by a fellow clergy member; he limits\nthe shepherd title to Jesus alone, which is in fact good theology; he describes\nJesus\u2019 disciples and all the leaders of the Body of Christ who share the love\nand word of Jesus as sheepdogs, you know those dogs that run around the flocks barking\nat the sheep and keeping them from straying beyond the area watched over by the\nshepherd. They were the shepherd\u2019s helpers, who helped care for and protect the\nmembers of the Body of Christ. That sheepdog image may also be applied today, to\nthe clergy and other leaders of our congregation and church at large. I like\nthe idea of the sheepdog; I love the image of me running around going from one person\nto the next, urging each individual back into the fold. I only wish that I had half\nthe energy of one of those sheepdogs; I only wish that I was as effective as\none of those sheepdogs; sometimes chasing you all around, helping you with your\npersonal issues and trying to keep you focused on the ministry of the church wears\nme down. One problem with this image of the sheepdog is that, a few of you, are\nprobably already replacing in your minds my words for barking sounds; with each\nword of my sermon, you are thinking, \u201cthere he goes, barking at us again.\u201d I\nmight remind you that these sheepdogs were known also to bite at the sheep\u2019s\nheels when they don\u2019t listen to their barking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well,\nnot to get too far off topic, both Peter and Tabitha served the Lord Jesus faithfully,\nTabitha by clothing the poor and widows, by sharing the good news of Jesus and\noffering Jesus\u2019 love, and Peter by healing, preaching, teaching and very simply\nby offering encouragement and love. Peter\u2019s ministry, even including restoring\nthe dead to life. Tabatha\u2019s ministry provided such a positive image of the love\nof Jesus, that some of the followers of Jesus, from within her community, sent men\nto a neighboring town to seek out Peter and insist that he come to Tabatha\u2019s\nhome to restore her. One sheepdog called upon to help another sheepdog, in her\ntime of trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nthose of us with just the smallest insight into medicine, we know that such a\nhealing cannot be seen as anything other than a miracle; even with the use of the\nbest of our modern medical knowledge and skill, brain damage would likely have occurred;\nwe are taught that just eight minutes without blood flow to the brain will\ncause great damage; Peter was a lot further away than eight minutes; in fact it\nlikely took the women longer than eight minutes to wash her body and prepare\nher for burial; Peter\u2019s restoration of Dorcas was a miracle made possible by\nthe gifts of the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus, the true Good Shepherd. This\nis not to downplay the importance of the wonderful gifts displayed by both Dorcas\nand Peter. Dorcas demonstrated her love, much as would a mother for her\nchildren, or a shepherd for her sheep, with her generous effort to clothe the\nwidows and the poor of her community. Dorcas is described as a disciple, this\nsuggests that Dorcas did much more than make clothing and give it away; in fact,\nshe seemed to be surrounded by others who were thought of as disciples, so it\nis most likely that she was a well-respected leader of the local Christian\ncommunity; she may have hosted the worship community in her own home, as most\nchurches of that time were house churches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nLord, Jesus is our shepherd, as he is described in our other readings, but Jesus\ndid not and does not work alone. He sends out his sheepdogs to encourage people,\nwith barks and nips, to trust in the Good Shepherd\u2019s love and direction. I doubt\nDorcas included biting as a part of her ministry. It wouldn\u2019t surprise me if\nPeter bit a few people (at least verbally) in his efforts to lead them to Jesus.\nThe Apostle Paul\u2019s bite was experienced by many of the churches that he wrote\nto. writing with words harsh and demanding. The same could be said of Martin\nLuther, though some times his anger went beyond the Gospel of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmessage for us in our reading from Acts is many layered; in it we can see that the\nservants of the Lord, Jesus\u2019 sheepdogs made a great difference among Jesus\u2019\nsheep; they were often loved by the sheep they helped lead; sometimes the sheep\nwould go to great lengths to care for such leaders and here we can see that Peter\nchanneled the power of the Lord to restore Dorcas to life; that does not mean\nthat the lives of Jesus\u2019 sheepdogs were always easy; they often had to struggle\nand suffer in their ministry. Remember how all but one of Jesus\u2019 disciples and\nPaul as well, faced execution and we know of the many moments of suffering that\nPaul endured, mainly because he told us about them. The story of Tabatha is not\nso much about her suffering, as it is about the love and generosity of Tabatha\nfor the widows and the poor, about their love for her, about Jesus\u2019 love for\nTabatha, shown by Peter\u2019s healing of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historically,\nthe church has too often, taken to biting and so hurting people, in the name of\nJesus. In confirmation class the kids quickly saw the contradiction of the\nchurch\u2019s actions, in the Inquisition, of trying to convert people to\nChristianity by torture; that was not the way to teach the love of Jesus. Discipleship,\nministry, Christian life in general is about caring for those in need and it is\nabout sharing the love of God in Jesus, we may bark a bit, and we may nip at peoples\nheals, but never to hurt, always to save.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acts 9:36-43 He is risen! Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It seems odd to me that we should read today the story of the healing of Tabitha (or Dorcus). The Gospel and the Epistle readings center on Jesus as the Good Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions\/266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}