16th Day of Easter, Monday April 27: Acts 9:32-43

Having parked Saul offstage in Tarsus, the account in Acts returns focus to Peter, who is healing Aeneas in Lydda, and raising Tabitha or Dorcas from the dead in Joppa, and then staying with Simon the tanner in Joppa. Don’t skip over the proper names of people and places in quick narratives – this is, after all, the acts of the apostles, not the ideas or good intentions of the apostles. What kind of people, places, and acts are these? Are they at all like any people, places, and acts that you know?

The places are in Judea, up toward the boundary region with Samaria. Peter is still working with Judeans, or at least the people in the land, and not leap-frogging with Philip’s Ethiopian convert to Africa, or with Paul’s outreach beyond Galilee to Damascus. Often we think that ‘mission’ is ‘over there’, to ‘them’ – and we overlook the people and places close to hand, and the duties that lie next to us. Thomas Carlyle said to do that duty first, and your next duty will be clearer.

Do you recognize the parallels here between what Peter is doing, and what Jesus did in the gospels, and what the 72, going out ‘two by two’, did in Luke’s gospel? Who heals the world – Jesus, or us? What does it mean to say ‘in the name of Jesus’, or ‘by the Holy Spirit’? Nor are Aeneas, Dorcas or Tabitha, or Simon just passive recipients of Peter’s saving actions, but partners: ‘get up and make your bed’, ‘get up’ and resume your creative fabric work, and keep up your tanning, and thanks for your hospitality, says Peter.