A Happy Mother\u2019s Day to all the mothers and grandmothers and mother-figures in the congregation this morning! Parents, both moms and dads, have the hardest job in the world, and we would be in horrible shape without their love and sacrifice and perseverance. Of course, it\u2019s not easy being a mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One mom on Twitter wrote, \u201cParenting is 70% me yelling, 20% asking the kids why they\u2019re<\/em> yelling, and 10% trying to find where I left my coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of misplacing your coffee, here\u2019s one mom\u2019s recipe for iced coffee:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She writes, \u201cHave kids . . . Make coffee . . . Forget you made coffee . . . Put it in the microwave . . . Forget you put it in the microwave . . . Drink it cold.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That recipe for iced coffee alone tells us a lot about the challenges and sacrifices of motherhood. So, we thank you, moms, for your dedication to raising the next generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of us had moms who could sew. My mom spent countless hours with her Singer sewing machine. Since I was a, well, husky boy, mom would buy men\u2019s pants for me, then let out the seat and shorten the legs to fit my short, yet rather ample, frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even after she finally got an electric clothes dryer, mom would still hang the wash out to dry in the backyard on clear days. Said the laundry smelled cleaner and fresher if it dried outside on the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If our clothes developed a tear, mom sewed things back together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And she even darned socks. If my socks got a hole in them, mom didn\u2019t throw them away; she darned them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mom created original Halloween costumes for me, sewing them herself.  She even made curtains for several of the windows in our house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, Mom was quite the seamstress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so was Tabitha, 2,000 years ago. She made beautiful tunics and clothing. Her work was of great quality. Besides being a terrific seamstress, Tabitha was also devoted to caring for people.  Now some folks seem to have that gift \u2013 others not so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A woman tells of falling flat on her face on an icy December day in the middle of a busy parking lot. As she was lying there trying to clear her head, another woman drove up and called out the window, \u201cAre you hurt?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m fine,\u201d the first woman answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, good,\u201d the second woman continued. \u201cWill you be leaving your parking space now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That driver\u2019s compassion was as short-lived as a hummingbird\u2019s hiccup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elton Trueblood is a former chaplain at Harvard and Stanford. In one of his books, he shares a letter from a young woman he knew. She wrote, \u201cI\u2019ve often realized that it takes courage to care. Caring is dangerous . . . It leaves you open to hurt and to looking like a fool . . . I have found many places in my own life where I keep a secret store of indifference as a sort of self\u2011protection.\u201d That\u2019s interesting, don\u2019t you think? \u201cA secret store of indifference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think that\u2019s why our world seems less caring these days? Do you think we\u2019ve lost the courage to care? Do we keep a secret store of indifference as a sort of self-protection against getting hurt?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This morning\u2019s lesson from the Acts of the Apostles is the story of a remarkable woman named Tabitha. We\u2019re told that Tabitha made handcrafted clothing items. Among the artisans of her day, she stood out. Her creations were of great quality, and she also worked on behalf of the poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When death took her, the entire community realized that it had lost a valuable resource.  \u201cAll the widows stood \u2026 weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Tabitha had made while she was with them\u201d (v. 39). They had a hard time accepting that she was gone. So strong was this sentiment that when some disciples heard that Peter was nearby, they sent a message to him saying, \u201cPlease come to us without delay\u201d (v. 38).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When someone dies, you understand that \u2014 as much as you may mourn the loss \u2014 the deceased is not going to return. But this community dispatched messengers to the apostle Peter, who arrived, and, well, you know the rest of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The response of the community to Tabitha\u2019s death gives us pause. When we die, there will surely be a circle of friends and family who will miss us and mourn our absence. This is only natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But will there be a wider circle in the community adversely affected by our absence because of the impact our lives and our ministry had on the community?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of Tabitha tightens the lens on the importance of living for the benefit of others and not for ourselves. The loss of Tabitha was devastating for those who had come to depend on her ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke says thatshe was \u201cdevoted to good works and acts of charity\u201d<\/em> (v. 36). The Greek word translated into the English \u2018devoted\u2019 is pleres.<\/em> That word is translated in other places as abounding, filled, full, and mature. Someone who is pleres<\/em> is \u201cfull, abounding in, complete or completely occupied with.\u201d So, the NRSV\u2019s \u201cdevoted\u201d is not a bad translation, but it doesn\u2019t supply the extraordinary sense in which good works and acts of charity were absolutely Tabitha\u2019s life. She did not dabble<\/em> in good works. They were not a hobby of hers. They were not a compartment in an otherwise busy life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good works were her life<\/em>. Good works were what Tabitha was all about.  She had the courage to care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We cannot, then, resist the temptation to use her life as a template or gold standard by which to measure our own. Are we all called to be Tabithas?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps not. But we are<\/em> called to be Tabitha-like.<\/em> After all, the apostle Paul says to the Ephesian church, \u201cFor we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works<\/em>, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life<\/em>\u201d<\/em> (Ephesians 2:10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bible is rather clear: Our way of life is to be doing good stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Tabitha is the example par excellence.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Another point: In this story, we never hear anything from Tabitha herself<\/em>. Luke tells her story for her. She is full of doing good things. She dies \u2014 perhaps suddenly. Peter restores her to life. She sits up, Peter \u201cshows her to be alive\u201d (v. 41) and she resumes her work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Tabitha, good works were not about her<\/em>. She wasn\u2019t interested in establishing a nonprofit foundation \u2014 although there\u2019s nothing wrong with that. She didn\u2019t train volunteers or have apprentices. Nothing wrong with that, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s just a simple woman who knows what she\u2019s good at. She desires no more. She does her thing: good works and acts of charity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, by the way, she\u2019s the first woman in the New Testament to be called a disciple (v. 36), and this disciple was a person whose vocation was to make handcrafted clothing items for the widows and the needy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Tabitha herself, like us, was a piece of work!<\/em>We are God\u2019s handiwork. We are all handcrafted by God so that we might fulfill our vocation: doing good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What, then, are the good works that God would like you<\/em> to be doing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Happy Mother\u2019s Day to all the mothers and grandmothers and mother-figures in the congregation this morning! Parents, both moms and dads, have the hardest job in the world, and we would be in horrible shape without their love and sacrifice and perseverance. Of course, it\u2019s not easy being a mother. One mom on Twitter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n