May 11, 2025
The First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Acts 9:36-43
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. At that time, she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. 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.” 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. 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. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.
On this Mother’s Day, we rightly turn our attention to those women who birthed us and nurtured us and fed us with their bodies and loved us into this world. Some are here. Some are gone. But all are close on this day.
So, of course, I think of my own mom, still perking along and working in her garden at 88. I hope I got those genes! And think of my mother-in-law today, although more than two decades have passed since she died.
Marcos’s mother was a remarkable woman, who had a very difficult life, yet maintained a deep and abiding faith. By the time I met Dona Conceição, she was already older, but still quite formidable - so much so that I was a little intimidated by her in the beginning. But over the years, as we stayed with her in Brazil and she stayed with us in New York, she and I became quite fond of each other.
My mother-in-law had many gifts, but she was especially skilled at needlework. Some of her pieces are now in our house: a beautiful crocheted table runner, a colorful knit blanket. She also used those needlework skills to make clothes for the poor. She would collect scraps of material that no one else wanted, and stitch them together as shirts and coats and dresses to be given to those who had nothing.
I’ve always loved that part of her story because, in part, it reminds me of this story about someone else’s mother and mother-in-law - a woman named Tabitha. Tabitha lived in Joppa, which is modern day Tel Aviv. And one day, she became ill and died. As was the custom, those who loved her lovingly washed her body and then laid her out in an upstairs room – keeping the kind of intimacy with her in death that we have sadly lost.
Then her friends did what we do when death comes to call – they sent for the preacher. They asked Peter to come without delay. And so, he did, and was immediately taken upstairs to see the body and to pay his respects.
The room was full of widows, implying that Tabitha was a widow too; that these were her people. And these widows showed Peter all the clothing that Tabitha had made, and which, like my mother-in-law, she used to give to the poor. But now she was dead. And in addition to the hole in their hearts, there was a hole in the social fabric that provided for the poor.
Then Peter did an odd thing: he cleared the room. Maybe he was remembering how Jesus had done the same thing just before he raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead. Or maybe he was afraid of what was being asked of him, and he needed some time to screw up his courage.
When the room was empty, Peter knelt beside the gray, lifeless body and began to pray. Now, I, too have prayed over dead bodies, but I never prayed for them to do what Tabitha did. When Peter said, “Tabitha, get up!” the color came back into her cheeks, and her eyes fluttered open, and she looked at Peter, her face full of questions. Peter took her by the hand and helped her to sit up on the edge of the bed. And then he threw open the door and said to the crowd: “Come and see for yourselves what the Lord has done!”
Well, the news spread like wildfire. And because of it, many people believed in the Lord. Well, no kidding. If I raised someone from the dead, this place would be packed to the rafters!
So, what are we to make of this story? Well, first of all, it fits the pattern of the book of Acts, which is a history book of the earliest church. In the stories of Acts, one idea is underscored again and again and again. And it’s simply this: the Resurrection of Jesus Christ changes everything that we thought we knew, even our concepts of reality itself.
Now, some people get all tangled up in whether the story of Tabitha is a factual report or a powerful metaphor. It’s an interesting question and faithful people have all varieties of opinions about it. But I don’t get too caught up in that anymore, remembering that the miracles of the Bible are rarely not the main point of the story. Instead, the miracles get out attention long enough for us to understand the main point. Miracles are signs and pointers to something else that is profound. As I said on Easter Sunday, it’s the truth that’s underneath the Resurrection that really matters. So, what is the truth that matters here and what does it mean for us?
Well, let’s rewind to the time before Tabitha died. Her claim to fame was “that she was devoted to good works and acts of charity.” In other words, this was a good soul – a woman who spent her time and her resources helping others. And we’ve all known people like that. Many of you are people like that. The Tabithas of the world are kind-hearted and quiet and devoted. Without any fanfare or need for attention, they make meals for the poor and work in food pantries and tutor children and write letters to Congress and pick up trash along the highway and teach Sunday School. They are, like their patron saint Tabitha, devoted to good works and acts of charity.
And according to the book of Act, that made Tabitha a “disciple.” Now that may not seem like much to the casual reader, until you realize that this is the first and only time in the entire New Testament that a woman is called a disciple; that the feminine form of the Greek word is employed. And the explicit message is two-fold: 1) that Tabitha was equal to any of the male disciples. And that was an astounding, revolutionary claim in the ancient world. And 2) that her ministry of making clothes for the poor was as vital a sign of Resurrection power as anything the men folk did - including preaching and teaching and even raising the dead.
The great Tabitha of Tel Aviv stands as a witness to this transformative Easter truth: that every act of goodness and kindness and generosity and selflessness has the power to raise us and other from death itself.
Tabitha did that by making clothes for the poor. She was devoted to it. But what about you? What are you devoted to? How do you make the Resurrection a reality?
It doesn’t need to be complicated, you know. You don’t have to stand in a pulpit or wear a fancy robe to do it. The great preacher Barbara Brown Taylor writes in her marvelous book, An Altar in the World, that there are as many ways to show forth the Resurrection as there are people. And here I quote: “To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger—these activities require no extensive commentary, no lucid theology. All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir. Most of these tasks are so full of pleasure that there is no need to complicate things by calling them holy. And yet these are the same activities that change lives, sometimes all at once and sometimes more slowly, the way dripping water changes stone.”[1]
The Resurrection didn’t just happen once. It is the divine design of the Universe. It is God’s master plan for the whole creation. And it happens all the time – in any of us who are willing. All it takes is willing hearts and hands. It’s Resurrection in the everydayness of our lives… moment-by-moment, person-by-person, deed-by-deed, drop-by-drop, stitch-by-stitch-by-stitch.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World
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