May 8, 2022 + The Fourth Sunday of Easter + Seminarian Liz Kuster
Have you ever been in a room after someone has died? I remember walking into it for the first time–last summer during my chaplaincy internship at a hospital in Vermont–a hospital room where family and children gathered around the bed and wept over the body of their beloved. Children who could not understand why their father was gone, sisters feeling guilt, not comprehending how one moment he could be alive and the next he was dead. Perhaps, on our fourth, celebratory Sunday of Easter, I should not be stuck on this vision of death; but, it is such a palpable reality of this human experience of ours. Death, conflict, violence in physical and systemic forms. And furthermore I am held captive by this image we are presented in our first reading today, which is anchored around a death.
In this rather unfamiliar story from the book of Acts which takes place after the ascension of Jesus, the disciples are traveling around preaching and serving, when Peter is called to the home of the disciple, Tabitha, who has become ill and died. When Peter arrives, the mourners take him to the upper room where Tabitha’s body has been washed and laid out, and the friends of this charitable and devoted woman are gathered around her body, weeping and showing Peter the works of her hands, in remembrance showing garments she had made for them, the signs of her life, a life lived and steeped in love and tender service to others. Grief has struck and stuck these mourners in a kind of suspense–wondering, “how does life go on?”
And too, if we go to our gospel reading from John today, those that question Jesus are also stuck–their minds suspended between doubt and hope. Our lectionary throws us back to prior to Jesus’s passion, when he is walking in the temple and those gathered there are questioning who he really is.what is hsi identity? For the Jewish people, amongst the harsh realities of the Roman empire, are looking for a Messianic figure–royal, political, powerful. They’ve seen his healings and witnessed his radical ways and they want to know now if Jesus is it. I imagine they are tired of guessing and tired of waiting to know for sure, for Some translators suggest that when they ask Jesus, “how long will you keep us in suspense?” it might be better translated as “how long will you keep annoying us?” Sort of the feeling you get when you have been waiting too long for the punchline of a joke. Perhaps a cruel joke, that sometimes our lives might sort of feel like.
For we watch our physical bodies give way to time, disease, violence. We experience weeks of overcast skies when it's supposed to be time to finally soak in the sunshine that will make us feel alive again. We work and work and work in jobs that do not feed our souls. And right now, in the wake of this week’s news of the supreme court draft opinion concerning abortion rights, we feel the weight of wondering how this may affect us and those we love. We feel the weight of all the injustices at the hands of policies and policymakers who are supposed to be taking care of and tending to our communities. We may wonder aloud, “God, how long will you keep us in suspense?” God, how does life go on? Like those in our Gospel story today, maybe we’re at the point in which we just want plain and direct answers. We’re tired of waiting.
But, instead speaking plainly (or offering a political leader for those in the temple that day) Jesus–in typical Jesus fashion–responds to those who have questioned his status as Messiah by continuing a metaphor. His metaphor of the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd, who guides his sheep, whose sheep know his voice, who tenderly sets a table for them and anoints their heads. And Jesus offers us this example of a shepherd, because it is rich with allusions to his identity and relationship to the Father.
Because Jesus continues, “The Father and I are one.” There is no differentiation. And this union Jesus speaks of between him and the Father is not only some christological, Holy Trinity, three-in-one, Godhead union–no; this is a union made by distinctly mutual mission and ministry. That is to say: it is impossible to distinguish God’s work from Jesus’s work for they are one in the same: works of service to those most vulnerable, most grief filled, and of course, most loved by God.
Peter, in our story from Acts, knows this. He understands this ministry. For he has finally come to the realization that he cannot simply continue fishing after an encounter and calling from the resurrected Christ. Life must move forward–toward something bigger, toward something beyond comprehension…resurrection! He must go out and spread the good news of the Gospel, he must continue tending to all those that Jesus called beloved, bringing more into the fold simply by ministering to their bodies and hearts and minds. In this story Peter does more than raise Tabitha from the dead, Peter shepherds the mourners around Tabitha’s bed. Shepherds them from focusing on the works of her hands to the works of God’s hands; from enduring loss to enduring life; from grave suspense to eternal hope.
Like Peter, this is what we are called to as an Easter people baptized into the body of Christ. The water has marked us, united us, and claimed us. Christ the Lamb has conquered death and that changes everything. In his victory, like in the vision from Revelations, we gather around and sing praises to God. And with such a fire of new life in our midst, practically burning on our skin, how can we help but act in love to those around us? For this is what it means to be in union with God, to be one in God’s ministry of love.
And so my hope today is that we as ones anointed with the waters of baptism, embrace this baptismal call to shepherd one another through this crazy life, toward the joy that is Easter. A joy and hope we carry in our hearts and on our hands everyday of our lives. That shows us how life can go on. Amen.