Published With Thanksgiving

Acts 9:36-43

 One of the important rules of storytelling is economy. If something doesn’t serve the story it should be cut out of the final draft. This is especially true of characters. It can be really difficult for a reader to distinguish different characters from one another in a story. So, as a result, you don’t want to crowd a narrative with unimportant names. While it might be interesting to you as a storyteller to note that the doorman’s name is Fred, if they aren’t going to play an important part in the story, you leave out that detail.

The Bible, however, breaks these rules right and left. Take this week’s reading from Acts. We’re given three names in this story (four if you count Tabitha’s Greek name). Peter is important because…well because he’s Peter. Last week he was standing on the shore with the risen Jesus and today he’s a travelling evangelist raising a woman from the dead. And Tabitha’s important. If someone is raised from the dead, we want that name. Her name goes in the list with Lazarus and the guy who fell out a window while Paul was preaching.

But this last person “a certain Simon, a tanner.” Who’s this guy? His name appears four times in Acts, and each time it’s just to note that it was in his house that Peter stayed. He never says anything. He isn’t sick and, subsequently, healed. He doesn’t die and come back to life. It doesn’t seem like he did much of anything other than give Peter a hot meal and a roof to sleep beneath. That’s nice and all, but he really doesn’t do anything to advance the plot. In a good (and perhaps proper) narrative, he’d be left out completely. Who cares about a minor character like him?

Who cares? Well, the biblical writers cared. And in doing so they didn’t so much break a storytelling rule as redefine what it means to be an important character. Think about it, this Simon, in the grand scheme of things, didn’t do anything that exciting. While I’m sure Peter appreciated the hospitality, I doubt any of us were on the edge of our seats wondering at which house Peter stayed.

But here we have just one more bit of evidence how Jesus turns everything upside down. In any other story our “certain Simon” wouldn’t be worth a mention. Yet here, in the Biblical story, he’s an important person. And why? Because he did just what Jesus told Peter to do: “Feed my sheep.” Just by being kind, loving, and hospitable, this “certain Simon” went from nobody to someone whose name is remembered centuries later.

Makes me wonder, which (truly) important people belong in my story? And am I living a life that makes me worth remembering?

God you are our gracious host, inviting us to sit and eat with you. Help us to see as you see and acknowledge the characters that are truly worth including in the story.