Acts 9:36-43
Peter in Lydda and Joppa
36 Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. 37 At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” 39 So Peter got up and went with them, and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. 40 Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. 41 He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. 42 This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43 Meanwhile, he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.
John 10:22-30
22 At that time the Festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me, 26 but you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, in regard to what he has given me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”
Let us pray. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the mediation of each heart here this morning be good and acceptable in your sight. Amen.
When I was in high school, we were a part of a Lutheran Church that was in a very historic and very poor neighborhood. It had been a victim of what they called “white flight” and the businesses were run down, and most people were economically disadvantaged.
It was in this neighborhood that we met Miss Martha. She was a tiny tiny woman who lived in a very small house, filled to the brim with food. In her back yard was a two car garage with deep freezers and shelves and shelves of pantry food. When we first met her, she was too busy to talk to us. She thanked us for our grocery bags full of frozen chickens and got back to work.
She was giving out food to her entire neighborhood.
After a while, we asked more questions and got to know Miss Martha a little more. She wasn’t running any sort of charity, she insisted. She was simply being a good neighbor, doing what Jesus called her to do, doing what the church (yes, even our church) had failed to do.
If you’re hungry, I’ll feed you. If you’re sick, I’ll find you medicine. If they turn off your heat, we’ll scrape the money together to get it turned back on before the next freeze.
Miss Martha understood that when people outside of your community don’t notice or don’t care about your wellbeing, you’re going to have to figure out how to take care of one another. And that’s exactly what she did.
It is what women have always done in their own communities.
We hear in this story from Acts this morning that Tabitha was devoted to acts of charity and good works in her own community. She took care of people and loved them. She clothed them and made tunics for them.
In the very first sentence she is called a disciple. But she was called by the Spirit, not to travel and preach like many of the other disciples, but to be present in her own community. She understood her gifts and was ready and willing to use them to help the people around her in Joppa.
I have no doubt that if Tabitha were alive today, the Episcopal Church would raise her up to service within the church. We would recognize her gifts, encourage her in the Spirit, and perhaps even encourage her to go to seminary. But I have to imagine that Tabitha would insist on staying in her community. I imagine she would thank everyone for their encouragement, and say, “you know, I’d rather just be here and do what I’ve been doing.” I’d rather stay here because I know what my people need and I know how God can provide those things through my own gifts here.
We aren’t given a lot of details about Tabitha’s life or even about how she died, but if you’ll indulge me for a minute or two, I’d like to honor her by using our imagination to fill in some of the details. Because, you know, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to look around and recognize the Tabitha in many of the women in our communities.
I can see Tabitha sitting in a circle with other women and probably young girls, teaching them stitches and weaving techniques that her mother and mother’s mother taught her. I can see Tabitha gathering herbs and flowers to make dyes for fabric and maybe even some to make tea or a balm for scraped knees. I can see Tabitha bringing clean soft cloth to the births of new babies, being the first one to hold the crying children in the moonlight.
We aren’t told if Tabitha has any children or a husband, which probably means she didn’t. But she teaches us something spectacular about the community of people who followed Jesus— it didn’t matter if they were kin. They all provided for one another. They all belonged to one another. They were each one another’s keeper because of their love for God.
And if that is not an incredible faith— a faith like Jesus’. A faith that embodies who Jesus was and is… A faith that we are called to embody as baptized members of the Body of Christ. Every time we remember our baptism and every time we witness another baptism, we are reminded that it doesn’t matter if we don’t have children or grandchildren. We are the keepers of those who are baptized among us. We are family because of the promises we have made and the promises God has made in our adoption into this family.
….
As much as we need priests and preachers and traveling evangelists, we need disciples like Tabitha. The ones who are willing to stay, the ones who are willing to do the good and hard work of loving their communities right there where they are.
There is a lot that can be said today about the way this is done in communities around the world because it is Mother’s Day. But regardless of whether someone is a mother, we know that women are the ones who have been doing this work of building community and keeping watch over one another.
We know this from national statistics about unpaid labor, we know this from stories of our neighbors and aunties and grandmothers. We know this from our own experiences as women and from watching the women here in this parish. By and large, women are the ones who are getting here early to open things up and staying late to clean up and close up. And they deserve to be honored.
Not just today, but always. Because they— in unique and incredible ways— demonstrate the love of Christ. The love of a God who not only came to be among us in the person of Jesus, but God who stays. God who clothes us and catches us in clean cloth as we are born and calls us by name… and is present with us through all of eternity.
That is the God we worship. The God who died on the cross when love was too much for this world, and was resurrected from the dead when love was too much for hell. Our God who lives among us in the Holy Spirit, and our God who continues to raise up new saints among us— saints like Tabitha and and our deacons and our altar guild, and so many other women who are doing the good and incredible work of the kingdom but those who may never be remembered by name by us, but who are intimately known by God.
That is the God we worship. God who knows us, as a shepherd, as a friend, as a caregiver, as a mother.
If you will indulge me for just a few more minutes, I want to share this book with you. I share it every chance I get because it is so beautiful and it fits so well with the love we see demonstrated by God through Tabitha this morning.
That is the God we worship. God who knows us, as a shepherd, as a friend, as a caregiver, as a mother. Amen.
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