Running to Trouble
Dorcas Raised from the Dead by St. Peter, copy after Jacob Jordaens, c. 1670, red and black chalk, Robert Lehman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Public Domain, click image to link to the source.
In this season of Easter, it’s natural that the editors of the lectionary schedule suggest this reading about a death followed by new life. Some debate whether such a thing really happened. If it did, then was it a resurrection or a resuscitation? In context, the fact that a dead person was alive again was another clear sign that the Holy Spirit was alive and at work in the early Church.
The dead-then-alive-again person was Tabitha, also called Dorcas, and she was a pillar of faith in the Joppa congregation. She was widely loved, and death provoked grief among many within the church. Peter, who happened to be nearby, answered the call to help, and came alongside to assist. We admire people like Peter, who go into a crisis to help when others can’t, won’t, or don’t know how.
Peter might be compared to modern-day first responders. David Schanzer is an expert on homeland security who, who has written about the qualities of such people. He looks at photos of disasters in which panic-stricken civilians, running to the best of their ability, are desperately trying to escape danger. At the same time, there are others trained, committed, and duty-bound to go in the opposite direction to find people in need and to help them. He writes, “The people who sign up for a career of running toward danger don’t have the luxury of doing risk assessments for their lives or limbs or what their death might mean to their families. Even those who might have had those thoughts didn’t express them — that is simply not the stuff they are made of. They follow their duty and accept their fate.”[1]
Most of us are deeply touched by the personal stories of such people who give and receive aid during a dangerous crisis. Not only do we admire their courage, but we also look for clues about why and how they were able to respond so well. We wonder, if something like that happened near us, would we be prepared to do the same, and be counted among those who “run to trouble”?
Before Peter was called into action, he woke up with a completely different agenda. When the urgent request was made, he put aside his plans, and traveled to the scene of a tragedy. Some say that Peter’s actions were like the good shepherd that his master described in the Parable of the Lost Sheep: leaving many who are safe, he runs to trouble to help one who is lost and in danger.
Michael Lindvall, in a nice display of sacred imagination, says that “The mourners surround her bed holding emblems of her good works and acts of charity … one fingering an afghan she knit one cold January, another holding an infant’s layette, the one that Dorcas had made for her newborn just after her husband died.”[2] Dorcas, he says, is the Sunday school teacher who makes time for the unruly child who is not her own, who listens to the woes of others with a reassuring word and touch on the shoulder, the one who comes to the hospital when you’re sick and no one else wants to be near you. Lindvall suggests that Dorcas is so loved because she, like Peter, and like the Good Shepherd before him, is one who ran to trouble when most others wanted to run away.
My Hebrew skills are rather rusty these days, but there’s a Hebrew word so integral to the biblical narrative that I’m likely to remember it always: “chesed” is one way to transliterate it, and one of the best brief definitions is “steadfast love.” One of the most basic qualities of God revealed in scripture is chesed steadfast love, fidelity through thick and thin. Running to trouble is a sign of it.
Sometimes, you and I can make the difference in light shining where there is darkness, and good happening in the midst of evil. That difference arrives when we choose to embody God’s steadfast love, when we run to trouble while others are running away.
This week, I heard a portion of an interview with Janinna Sessa, the former director of a Catholic charity in Peru. She was recalling what happened three years ago, in the aftermath of torrential rains that affected a wide geographic area. More than 45,000 homes were destroyed, and more than 130,000 people were in need of assistance. She described the role of Robert Prevost, newly elected Pope Leo XIV. He not only helped coordinate the response, but personally stepped into it.
He delivered food and blankets to remote Andean villages, driving a white pickup truck. He had no problem fixing a broken-down truck, if needed. He personally waded through mud, if necessary, to accomplish his tasks. He slept on a thin mattress on floors. He ate whatever was offered to him, including the local peasant diet of potatoes, cheese and sweet corn.
Earlier in his tenure there, and during the coronavirus pandemic which killed 217,000 people across Peru, he was the driving force for the purchase of two oxygen-production plants that saved the lives and supported the recovery of many people.[3]
Pope Leo XIV has a different set of experiences than you and I. We’re not likely to agree with everything he says or does during his tenure. But I’ve heard just enough about him to believe that he will be guided by Christ and the example of Peter in moving toward trouble to help, when others are running away.
Most of us have few opportunities to be a hero in the midst of dangerous crisis. It’s not often that we’re in the right place at the right moment with the right skills to make a powerful difference. Sometimes, the right thing to do is get out of the way and pray, while others do their work. Our opportunities to run to trouble and demonstrate God’s steadfast love probably are less dramatic and more frequent. They may be as obvious as the daily care for a family member or friend, or as simple as observing a need that’s nearby, opening our ears to hear God’s call, and wading through mud to offer a healing helping hand.
NOTES
[1] David H. Schanzer, “Those Who Run Towards Danger,” Duke University Opinion and Analysis, 2 Sept. 2021, https://dukeuniversity.medium.com/those-who-run-towards-danger-9be930d60369 accessed 7 May 2025.
[2] Michael L. Lindvall, “God Is In The Details,” a sermon delivered to the Brick Presbyterian Church of New York City, 25 April 2010.
[3] Summarized from Ione Wells, Guillermo D. Olmo, and Helen Sullivan, “God loves Peru: Country celebrates new Pope as one of their own,” BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewdl4e57v7o, 8 May 2025.
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