Fourth Sunday of Easter

Acts 9:36-43

When a woman named Ann Reeves Jarvis died in 1905, her daughter Anna, who wanted to honor her work caring for soldiers on both sides of the Civil War and addressing public health concerns, began a campaign to establish a national “Mother’s Day.”  Six years later, then-president Wilson officially recognized the holiday that has been celebrated here in the States on the second Sunday in May for more than a century now. [i]

One of my preaching professors encouraged us to name the secular, or non-religious, events in our lives in our preaching because, regardless of your piety, if there is something significant happening in culture and society, it is going to shape how you hear the Good News. For some, you will celebrate today with gifts or flowers or special time shared together. But I think it’s important also to name that for some of you, today is painful because of infertility, miscarriage or the estrangement or death of a child. Others still will find joy elusive because your own relationship with your mother is difficult, or because your mother has died. Through our prayers and recognition, we hope to name the different ways that mothering happens in our lives.

On this Mother’s Day, especially, I am thinking about two very young children and their father whose mother and wife died last Saturday, May 4th after a four-week illness. Rachel Held Evans was a 37-year-old woman from Tennessee who was a popular Christian blogger and writer. She had grown up in a conservative evangelical Christian church. Her father was a religion professor who always encouraged her questions about theology, religion and faith. As an adult, her questions led her into other Christian communities and her faith expanded to make room for her doubts and her questions. Throughout this week on social media, people have quoted her writing and shared memories of encountering her and how her encouragement and affirmation made a difference in their lives. It has been said that her children, who are 3 and not yet 1, will get to know her through these stories and memories.

In the Acts of the Apostles Luke tells us about another woman, who is remembered for “her good works and acts of charity.” (v.36) According to Luke, Tabitha, whose Greek name was Dorcas, was a garment-maker, who created clothing for the widows, the ones who lived on the margins of society. [ii] Those same widow women are the ones preparing her body for burial when Peter is called to the house. From that, we can guess that she was unmarried. However, her importance to the community is signaled by Peter’s quick response and arrival in Joppa. When he arrives, the women show him all the tunics and other clothing that Tabitha had made “while she was with them.” (v. 39)

What happens next leaves us with questions of our own. It’s very likely that Luke wants us to remember the story of the little girl, the ones whose name we don’t know, who is raised by Jesus in chapter 8. She was the daughter of an important man and her house was surrounded by professional mourners when Jesus arrived, told them to leave and called out to her. Tabitha, who is named, twice, is surrounded by friends when Peter arrived, told them to leave and then told Tabitha to “get up.” (v 40) Luke-Acts doesn’t include the story of Lazarus being raised, but like Lazarus, Tabitha is never made immortal; she will die again.

So what meaning are we supposed to take from her revival?

Sometimes, stories from Scripture that tell about miracles of healing leave us confused and even angry when the people we know and love, ones who have lived with compassion and good works, still die.  There are not ready-made answers to questions about why bad things happen to good people. But watching her community grieve together, telling stories of the person they love and sharing their memories of her with others so that she could be remembered shows us one way of being church together: holding each other in love when we are vulnerable and hurting.

We could focus on what it means that Peter is now performing public acts of healing, and how others were believed when “he showed [Tabitha] to be alive.” (v. 41) But I think jumping to focus on Peter would make us miss the significance of Tabitha herself. She is not a mere prop in someone else’s story.

Tabitha is the only woman in Scripture who is called a disciple, a mathetai. As scholar Mitzi Smith writes, perhaps she was one of the disciples gathered in the upper room in Jerusalem when God’s Spirit rested on them. What we know from reading Luke’s text is that she cared for others selflessly.[iii] One of the ways I talk about discipleship or following Jesus is to say that, as disciples, our lives following Jesus bear witness to the grace we have first received; that we love because we are first loved by God.  Discipleship is loving God, loving God’s people and loving the world.

Each of these women - Ann Jarvis, Rachel Held Evans and Tabitha or Dorcas - lived lives that were testimonies to God’s love active in their lives and God’s Spirit empowering them to share that love with others. As we remember women in our lives today, may we be inspired to live with the Spirit of God that inhabited each of them – an immortal spirit of generosity, love and compassion.

In closing, I invite you to pray the prayer on your bulletin insert. It is adapted from Alcuin of York and was included in Rachel Held Evans’ book Searching for Sunday:[iv]

God, go with us.
Help us to be an honor to the church.
Give us the grace to follow Christ’s word, to be clear in our task and careful in our speech.
Give us open hands and joyful hearts.
Let Christ be on our lips.

May our lives reflect a love of truth and compassion.
Let no one come to us and go away sad.
May we offer hope to the poor, and solace to the disheartened.
Let us so walk before God’s people, that those who follow us might come into God’s kingdom.
Let Christ be on our lips.

Let us sow living seeds, words that are quick with life, that faith may be the harvest in people’s hearts.
In word and in example let Your light shine in the dark like the morning star.
Do not allow the wealth of the world or its enchantment flatter us into silence as to Your truth.
Do not permit the powerful, or judges, or our dearest friends to keep us from professing what is right.
Let Christ be on our lips.
Amen.

[i] Wikipedia contributors, "Mother's Day," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mother%27s_Day&oldid=896143656 (accessed May 10, 2019).[ii] Bartlett, David L.. Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide. Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.
[iii] Mitzi J. Smith. “Commentary of Acts 9:36-43.” Workingpreacher.org Luther Seminary..
[iv] Evans, Rachel Held. Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church (p. 109). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.