This sermon was preached for Good Shepherd Sunday, May 8, 2022 at St. Mark's Episcopal CHurch, East Longmeadow. The readings for this day were: Acts 9:36-43, John 10:22-30, and Psalm 23.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…
At one of my learning parishes, the rector came into my office a bit baffled. He had just been meeting with a family loosely connected with our parish whose relative had died. They had been selecting hymns and readings, and doing all the preparation work required for the upcoming funeral. Knowing the family was relatively unchurched, my priest pulled out the old funeral standby, Psalm 23. But the family balked. The Psalm, you see, included the word death in it. Too depressing, the family decided. Who wants to dwell on death?
My rector at the time was never one to tell someone how they should, or shouldn’t grieve. But he was, understandably, wondering a bit about how to get through a funeral without touching on the subject of death. How can we claim the power and hope of the resurrection without acknowledging, naming, grieving death?
I have recited Psalm 23 many, many times. At nursing homes and funeral homes, gravesides and hospital rooms, whispered it into my grandfather’s ear on his deathbed. It is this line, “Yea though I walk…”--it is that line that never fails to choke in the throat or bring a tear to the eye. But not, I think, just because it is sad. No, this psalm is more than that - it is defiant. Even though I am in the midst of death, even though I am surrounded by the forces of decay and decline, fear and foreboding, I will refuse to be afraid. Because you are with me. “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies…” This psalm is infused with defiance and courage. We say it together in the face of death because it gives us the courage to name death and claim hope in the same breath.
Peter’s healing miracle from our Acts passage today echoes an earlier miracle by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. A man named Jairus falls at Jesus’ feet and begs him to come save his dying daughter. But while Jesus is still on his way to her, someone comes from Jairus’s house to tell him, “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the teacher any longer.” Don't bother. But bother he does. When Jesus reaches the house, he finds it filled with weeping mourners so convinced that the child has died that they reportedly laugh in his face when he proclaims she is merely sleeping, and that her story isn't over yet. Jesus takes the girl by the hand, but Jesus commands her, “Child, get up!” Her spirit returns, she gets up at once.
Our story from Acts has so many striking parallels - it’s clear that Peter knows what to do and say because he has seen Jesus do the same. He knows to clear the room, he knows to call her name, to reach out his hand to help her up. But there’s a major difference here between these two stories, too. The people who surround Tabitha, the widows she has lovingly supported and served in a lifetime of good work, they call on Peter after she has died, after they have washed her body, laid her out on her bed. Unlike the person from Jairus’ household, these friends refuse to say, don’t bother, she is gone, but instead, come quickly without delay. They face death, they hold and handle death. They weep and feel and mourn. And yet, they claim hope anyways. They insist that Tabitha and her works be known and celebrated by the apostle. Her community chooses to reach for a future with their friend beside them, a future in which her ministries continue to thrive.
Here’s another important difference between the two healing miracles. Peter stops to pray. Peter stops to listen to and call upon God. This simple act reminds us that this miracle is God’s doing, not Peter’s. So it's also not the only way this story could have gone, not the only miracle God could have chosen. The church that Tabitha built through her ministry and good works was alive and real even after she had died. Gathering to remember and weep together - that’s church. Gathering to hope together - that’s church, too. God chose the miracle of bringing the center of their community back to life, and through it, brough many in Joppa to Christ. I can’t help but wonder what it would have looked like for those widows and saints to have carried on Tabitha’s church in a new way themselves, serving and giving to those in need through her example. I think that would be another kind of resurrection miracle, too. Perhaps just as powerful.
I am standing before you today because I have seen in you a deep belief in the truth of resurrection. It drew me in, irresistibly. When I came to visit here, your vestry representatives told me all about the ministries and activities they've loved here, just like Tabitha's community showed Peter her textile work and the impact of her donations. And they spoke bravely and honestly of death, of the dark valleys you have walked through, of the tough times your community has known together. You named isolation, fear and loss, boldly. You did not pretend that everything’s been okay. You showed me that you are in the middle of asking the hard, courageous questions we all need to be asking in these days. In doing so, in the same breath, I heard you claim hope. I saw you weep tears of grief and tears of defiance. I heard you begin to imagine this community in new forms, honoring the essence of your identity, looking toward serving God’s people as they need now. That is faith. That is the faith that built the church then, and builds the church now.
Our Easter faith is not about ignoring death, or grief. It is not about refusing to weep,it is not about pretending that Good Friday never happened. Resurrection is neither the denial of death nor its erasure. It is its transformation. Easter is about how faith transforms both death and grief. This moment in our church year asks us to stop and listen for where and how our shepherd is calling us to get up and go and do.
We have walked, this community, this nation, this world of ours, through the valley of the shadow of death. We are walking this way still, in so many ways. The enemies that sit at our table are hatred and violence, ignorance and apathy. But we take our place anyway. We say Alleluia anyhow. We stop and pray. Then we reach out our hands to one another and help each other to our feet.
Let us pray.
Mothering God, you are with us. Thank you for bringing us together to sing and praise you, to weep and rejoice, and to tell your story. Bless St. Mark’s in this new time in our community life.
Shepherding God, guide this community along right pathways. Restore our souls. Teach us to be like Tabitha, serving and giving the needs of God’s people. Remind us to stop to listen for your call in our lives.
And always, strengthen our faith and hearts that we may see the power of the resurrection in all its mystery, active in the life and works of St. Mark’s.
We pray all this in the name of our one true pastor, Jesus the Christ,
Amen.
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