One of my favorite memories as a little girl was going to visit my grandparents in Lexington, North Carolina. When I was very little, we only lived about 30 minutes away, so visits were frequent. The rhythm changed a bit when we moved to Northern Virginia, lengthening our stays. In fact, once when I was 6, my parents took a church youth group on a mission trip to Korea, and I got to stay with my grandparents for a few weeks. It was priceless time. So many special trips and fun things to do with them, and of course, discovering ways to pass the time without a room full of my own toys. One of them was to follow my grandmother around her daily work. She had her own drapery business, with a workroom adjacent to the house with a huge table, and cubbies underneath to hold massive bolts of thick fabric, and she had huge books of samples of seemingly every color and pattern you could think of. Eager to keep me busy, no doubt, she presented me with a box full of scraps, and several of the older sample books. I remember dragging the box into another room, carefully organizing and laying out the fabrics, creating my own “shop.”
When I read this story from Acts 9 about Tabitha, or Dorcas in Greek, I cannot help but think of my grandmother. We learn from the text that Tabitha was a woman who made tunics and other clothing, and was devoted to charity and acts of service. The parallels are many. My grandmother, Gladys, could sew just about anything, and regularly made me (and my Barbie dolls) dresses like it was nothing. She, along with my mother, and my great-grandmother and others before her, was truly a “woman of the cloth.” You see, I come from a family of quilters and seamstresses. My parent’s house includes stacks of quilts made in a time when they were needed practically and also were passed on from generation to generation as a way of telling the family story. Among my favorites are the “crazy quilts,” with patterns sort of like what is on the cover of the bulletin. Scraps from here and there that come together to make some sort of masterpiece.
In many ways, I think quilts like this are a beautiful image of our journey of faith and the life of the church. We’re kind of a crazy quilt, knit together in sometimes erratic and unexpected ways, but once it comes together, you can’t imagine it any other way. That must be what the kingdom of God is like.
In Acts, the story of Tabitha reminds us about some of the people who stitched it all together, in this case, quite literally. Tabitha was a disciple. This passage is the one and only use in the New Testament of the feminine form of the Greek word for disciple, mathetria. It is a title of honor and a word not used lightly. This woman, a widow who ordinarily might be on the outskirts of society, is presented in a place of honor and leadership within the early church community. In fact, we might even deduce from the sharing of her Greek name, Dorcas, that she was engaged in multiple communities. It wasn’t just about her church where she would have been known as Tabitha, but also in the greater Gentile community where she went by her Greek name. Going further, the text shares that she was devoted to good works and acts of charity. Following her death, other widows gather around, likely sharing stories about her life as they touched the tunics and pieces of fabric she left behind. These were not professional mourners, but friends whose lives she had impacted in real and tangible ways.
The inclusion of Tabitha in the story of Acts, I think, is about more than just some other miracle story. True, the act of resurrection that Peter performs is a pretty big deal, and reveals God’s power and presence in the early church in impressive ways. But, what I think might be more compelling, especially this morning and on this holiday weekend, is the reminder of those people that have been a part of sharing God’s love and God’s story with us. The faithful disciples, the saints, who have accompanied us in faith and inspired us into new life. So this morning, I’d like to share a few of those stories from my own life, and encourage you to consider what stories from your experience you might share.
As I said, I can’t hear this story without thinking about my grandmother. In addition to her drapery business, she was also heavily involved in the Lexington Woman’s Club and her church, serving as Sunday School Superintendent for a time, and generally giving a lot of her time in service to others. She was a true disciple. When I was in elementary school, I participated in a program through Scouting that explored faith foundations: “God and Me,” “God and Family” “God and Church” and “God and Life” were the levels, each exploring different questions. For the “God and Family” stage, we were supposed to interview people in our families about their faith. I remember using a tape recorder to ask the questions on the worksheet of my grandparents, and somewhere in my parent’s attic is the cassette tape of my grandmother sharing the story of her baptism as a teenager in a river at a revival that came to town. It was so far outside of my own experience, but I remember how vividly and excitedly she told me about it, and about her faith in Jesus. When I think to some of my earliest memories of how I learned what it meant to be a Christian, these stories are among the first to come to mind.
I am blessed to have had the opportunity to grow up in many different faith communities where my father was pastor or mother Christian educator. As such, there are a host of women who have been like Tabithas to me as a part of my faith journey. I remember Miss Sarah, in a stuffy upstairs room at Farmville Presbyterian Church, who sat with me and her two children to form the one non-adult Sunday School class, and introduced catechism questions alongside the Bible stories. I remember Margarent Guenther, my piano teacher and church member who taught me to play and love hymns. I remember Judy Tygard, my high school Sunday School teacher, who welcomed me as a new 15 year old and sat beside me at a lock-in stuffing marshmallows in her mouth for a game, helping me laugh at a time when I was pretty angry at having to move. In small, incremental ways, these women (and some men, too) helped me find my place in the crazy quilt of God’s story, growing in faith and into the disciple that I am today.
In semimary, I came to know a pastor named Mary Jane Winter, who was working for our seminary alumni/ae office. Mary Jane led the travel seminar to Central America, and it didn’t take long for her to realize that in the 3 weeks we spent in Guatemala and Costa Rica, something resonated with me deep within my being. She encouraged me to reflect more, and then when an opportunity came for someone to volunteer with the organization we had been partnering with in Guatemala – CEDEPCA – she persisted with me to help make it a work into my final summer schedule. I spent almost 2 months volunteering in Guatemala as a result, in a summer that absolutely changed my life and broadened my understanding of who God is in and how God works in this world. It was amazing.
In the midst of this experience, I got to know some of the women connected with CEDEPCA who were artisans. One of them, whose name is Miriam, worked to make stoles in the traditional Guatemalan style. We got to know each other a little on a few trips to Antigua, and near the end of my time I realized I really wanted one of the things she had made, especially since some of them had the artistry to incorporate the PCUSA seal into them. So, I went to Antigua and looked through her inventory, but all of the ones she had were, well, made for other pastors who are much taller than I am. Not to be discouraged, she insisted that she would make one for me. These, of course, take time, so I actually got it a few months later when one of the CEDEPCA staff members came to the U.S. It is probably my favorite stole, made with love by a woman who when we first met noted that she had only met a few female pastors, and never one as young as I was.
These women, and more, have been Tabithas for me. They have reminded me of God’s love and compassion. They have inspired me to grow in faith. They have drawn me into the kingdom of God in ways that I will never forget. My life is richer because of their presence. The church is as well.
Who are yours?
Sermon preached by Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford
Heritage Presbyterian Church, May 12, 2019
