This column is reflection on a passage you may want to read first: Acts 9:36-43.
Read through the Hebrew Scriptures and certain demands almost become irritating in their redundancy: take care of widows and orphans, widows and orphans, widows and orphans…, sometimes along with the elderly, sick and sojourners. Caring for the weakest among us is the best social justice activism of the biblical faith.
So it is with the Christian faith tradition which is built on the Jewish prophetic tradition. Over the centuries, the Christian tradition practically has screamed at the top of its lungs that a baseline for simple justice is that the most vulnerable be cared for and have a voice. No Christian theologian worth listening to has ever said anything different. The massive biblical and traditional witness for justice for the dispossessed is like a large turkey in a small fridge. You can’t open the fridge to look for a soda without seeing it.
Yet, to track whose interests have been served over the course of centuries, even in countries dominated by Christians, you can’t miss the frequent leaning away from those who need more than they can give.
Here’s the system in Peter’s day… no different than Isaiah’s day, no different than David’s day, no different than Abraham and Sarah’s day: men work jobs, women birth and watch after children, and children grow up to support their parents. For those who fit the script, the system works. Widows and orphans are like people with pre-existing conditions. They don’t fit the system. Though the prophets saw widows and orphans as being at the top of the list of those needing to be cared for, the cultures that honored the prophets in principle often simply didn’t honor them in practice. The “unattached” were drains on the economy.
Tabitha is a member of a community of widows who rely on each other, having no one else to rely upon. When, after she dies, Peter is asked to come quickly to where she lived, he does just that… even though it is like rushing to visit the run down Welfare Home for the Dispossessed sitting on the outskirts of town.
Don’t think, though, that he goes because he’s a nice guy and is rushing to rescue women. He goes, because he is privileged to go. We learn that from a beautiful detail in the story. When he arrives, the other widows surround Peter showing him treasures; a tunic, a scarf, a linen shirt, a cloak. Tabitha made these garments for them. She had been their minister.
Actually, she had been their disciple. This is another beautiful detail. Here, and only here in the New Testament, a woman is referred to as “a disciple.” This widow, who one might assume to be dependent on others, is actually a church leader. In Acts, a disciple is someone who had a significant relationship with Jesus. Tabitha and Jesus were close. Having once received Jesus’ attention, she has served as a church leader in a ministry of compassion.
Here’s yet another beautiful detail in this story: her name is “Tabitha,” an Aramaic name meaning “gazelle.” The Greek name for gazelle is “Dorcus” and so Tabitha also was known as Dorcas. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, we read in the second chapter of the Song of Solomon “My beloved is like a gazelle.” “My beloved is like Dorcus,” Luke is saying. “My beloved is like this widow who, knowing she is beloved of God, has given her life to loving others.”
And the widows make sure that Peter knows it. “Look how she cared for us. Look at what she meant to us. See the tunic, the headdress, the linen shirt, the scarf.”
And so it is an honor for Peter to be there. Tabitha is a fellow disciple whose loss is costing the church.
So, who cares about widows? Well, Tabitha cares, and showed it through her ministry to other widows. Peter cares, and shows it through coming quickly when summoned and the miracle then performed through him (“Oh yeah, Tabitha is brought back to life!). And God cares, because this widow is his Dorcus, his beloved.
This story seems to be Luke’s way of reminding Israel and the church that the conversion of powers is ultimately to result in life for those who are deemed the least among us; that those the world judges to be least are “the gazelles,” the beautiful beloved in God’s eyes. Despite what servants of special interests would have us believe, followers of Jesus must not ignore those who the greater culture sees as drains on their resources: the old, the children, the sick, the aliens, the disposed…, the beloved of God.
George Anderson is the Senior Pastor at Second Presbyterian Church. Visit them on the web at www.spres.org
