Dear Friends,

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 (Acts 9:36).

This past Sunday, a virus-not-covid kept me from leading worship. As it became clear during the week that I would not recover fast enough and be able to function in one of my primary roles, you all stepped in. You stepped in well, turning to a lay-led service of Morning Prayer. God was praised and God’s people were served afterward as the fast-pack activity for our Food4Thought ministry followed. 

I thought of Tabitha from Sunday’s reading in the Book of Acts (the Acts of the Apostles). This book tells the story of the Church being made in God’s time. It is the story of the apostles who are empowered by the Holy Spirit to take up the mantle of Jesus and proclaim resurrection and do. The only named female disciple in Acts is Tabitha. We learn she had an effectual ministry to widows. Unlike the seven men in a previous chapter who were appointed deacons to serve widows, she served without title, without rank. And I thought of our lay leadership. The story of divine empowerment in Acts is not reserved for and preserved in scripture, it is enacted in our community every week, daily even. 

Status and position were clearly not of motivations for how Tabitha was in the world. Acts does not designate her a deacon to serve widows. But she serves. She also seems unbounded by her status and position. They are not barriers to being with people of different means. Tabitha (or Dorcas, to those from the Greek portion of Joppa – this port city, this gateway to the west in what is the south side of modern-day Tel Aviv) was a woman of apparent means. She had alms to give. Peter is directed to an upper room to resurrect her. An upper room is indicative of wealth and status.    

I wonder if Tabitha’s ministry with widows might offer to us a deeper call and understanding into our relationship with God and with one another, especially in how we do ministry. How might her manifestation of divine empowerment further develop our own sense and exercise of divine empowerment today as individuals and as the people of God at Epiphany? 

The literal translation of the last part of the opening verse in Sunday’s reading from the Book of Acts is, “…she was full of good deeds and alms which she continually did.” It strikes me that there might be a connection between “full” and “continually.” It illudes to energy produced and sustained in between. And there is something about her ministry that is formational. Tabitha was acknowledged for her works, but they were not simple acts of charity. Her work was not simply work. It was engagement. It was relational. 

The widows who cried grief tears for Dorcas did not give Peter a list of things she did – they showed him the robes and clothing she made. In essence, they showed him the dignity they and other widows and marginalized people were given through her. They showed him how she empowered them. And in so doing, through their tears, they held up her dignity and empowerment. And through them, Peter’s own divine empowerment was heightened, and he resurrected Tabitha. In all that transpired, how might they all have been changed? The story remains delightfully (and maybe frustratingly open-ended). But we do know that after Peter raised Tabitha, he stayed for a while in Joppa. Something connected him there once he was called to be there.

As we return to worship and ministries and ways of being together that are both familiar and unfamiliar, there are probably anxieties born of the dissonance between what was and what will be. I invite you into wondering with me how we are being called to deepen our manifestation of God’s empowering that is based in relationship and engagement. I invite you into considering Tabitha and trust in God’s power of resurrection, even if we cannot quite yet see what it will look like.  

In Peace,

Rev. Dina