Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 11, 2025

Sermon

Matt Helms
Associate Pastor

Psalm 23
Acts 9:36–43

Well, I know we’ve already remarked on it, but today truly is a special day in the life of this congregation — from the joy of celebrating God’s love in the Sacrament of Baptism to marking milestone moments for our fifth graders as they transition from Sunday school into the youth program, and certainly for our Confirmation class as they affirm their desire to be members of Christ’s church.

These moments are special not only for them and their families but all of us as a church family, whether in remembering our own experiences in Sunday school or Confirmation or in giving gratitude for all those who help to influence and shape the people we become. Certainly on this day we celebrate one of the most formative relationships that we ever experience — giving thanks for our moms and other maternal figures who were our earliest examples of patience, hard work, dedication, strength, and love. And so Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers in the congregation today, and thanks to God for all those mothers who may no longer be with us but whose witness of love and care continue to live on through us.

No matter what age we are, all of us have had the gift of being shaped by others who have had an impact on who we are, from our parents and other family members to teachers and mentors, to those in our wider community, even if we only intersect for moments or short seasons in our lives. I wouldn’t be standing here today if it wasn’t for my parents, but I also wouldn’t be here today without my third-grade Sunday school teacher, who volunteered to buy every kid in my class a full-size candy bar if we could memorize the Twenty-Third Psalm or the Lord’s Prayer or my preschool teacher, who noticed a painfully shy kid playing by himself, knelt down to look me in the eye, and said, “Matt, I’m really glad that you’re here today.”

I don’t think we fully appreciate or realize the impact those small acts of kindness can have on others or even the ways they’re able to change entire communities. But in our scripture passage today, we get a small window into the transformative power they can have. Acts tells us a short account of a woman named Tabitha from the earliest days of the church.

Tabitha’s story is fascinating for a variety of reasons. She is the only woman to specifically be called a disciple in the biblical text, though Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, Phoebe, Junia, Priscilla, and many others could and should have a bone to pick with that. Peter raising Tabitha from the dead is clearly echoing other passages from the biblical text, from Elijah raising the widow of Nain’s son to Jesus’ resurrection of Lazarus, and so Acts is communicating something about who Peter is and the prophetic succession that he is a part of.

But unlike those other miracle stories, we learn more a bit more about who Tabitha is and why her return is so important beyond the miracle itself. Verse 36 tells us that she was devoted to good works and acts of charity, which qualifies as extravagant praise in Acts, since Luke as a writer is not particularly prone to extolling people’s virtues. And it’s clear that Tabitha’s death had a tremendous impact on those in the community. The text tells us that they cared for her body and laid her to rest in an upstairs room — both signals of honor and reverence — and they sent a few men from their community to bring the Apostle Peter to see her, as a sign of respect for one of the earliest saints among them.

It’s impossible to know exactly why she was so revered within this community, but the text doesn’t say anything about her preaching, teaching, or evangelizing about her faith. Instead we’re told that as Peter came into Joppa to see Tabitha laid to rest, the widows there were showing him tunics and clothes that Tabitha had made for them. Sewing these clothes was likely just one small example of the good works and acts of charity that she had done within her community, but they were a signal of something far deeper: she was letting these widows know that they weren’t forgotten and that she cared for them and their well-being. In that sense, Tabitha was passing on a legacy of love — shaping those whose lives she touched in lasting ways.

Whenever I read Tabitha’s story, I can’t help but feel challenged to reflect on what is it that I am passing on to others — whether that’s here at church or my life outside of it — and I wonder if it invokes those same sorts of reflections for you. It’s easy to get lost in the busyness or routine of our days, but there are times in our lives when we can’t help but step back — whether in some of the milestone moments that we’re celebrating today or in remembering the ways that others have shaped us for the better — and it helps us reflect on the role and responsibility we have in shaping other’s lives.

I’ll never forget the experience of becoming a parent for the first time, of the feeling of responsibility and uncertainty and ultimately hope that what you are passing on to your child is helping to surround them in love and teaching them what it means to love others. You don’t need to be a parent to experience that, of course: from being a teacher or a tutor, being an aunt or uncle or grandparent, a mentor or colleague, a caring neighbor or part of a church family, all of us have had times in our life when we have had a direct role in helping to shape and grow someone in a formative season in life, in many cases echoing the care that had once been passed on to us or that we’ve witnessed someone else show, and those relationships can be such an immense blessing.

But those opportunities to shape others’ lives most often come to us in much smaller ways — from little interactions with those we encounter in our day-to-day lives to the intentional ways we choose to engage in our communities. It’s what my wife, Alison, describes to our kids as “being church, even when we’re not going to church,” whether that’s in sharing meals with those who have lost loved ones or writing messages of care and support when you know someone is struggling. I don’t know about you, but being the recipient of small gestures of love like that have always had a powerful impact on me, because you can feel the heart and spirit behind them; it’s a way of feeling someone else’s love and care brought to life.

Even if our interactions with others are brief or feel insignificant in the moment, they can mean a whole lot more than you realize. I’m sure my preschool Sunday school teacher had no idea that kind word of welcome she offered would contribute to me going into ministry, and yet every act of compassion or kind word has the potential to resonate far beyond that particular moment. And the same is true for all of us; most of us don’t realize how many people we interact with every day and what a difference it can sometimes make to someone else, whether that’s with the person sitting next to you on the pews or all those we’ll encounter in the rest of our days.

But if it’s true that those small interactions we have every day help shape people and our communities far more than we realize, then we also have to acknowledge that the inverse is true as well — that moments of indifference, rudeness, or dismissal can leave others feeling hurt, devalued, or even unloved, even when we don’t intend that to be the case.

A little over a year ago I had gotten home late from a committee meeting here at church, and we had just sat down for a family dinner when our doorbell rang. At this point it was after seven at night — totally dark outside — so I just planned to ignore it. But the doorbell rang again, so I begrudgingly got up and went to the door to find a high school-aged kid, standing there in the dark, holding up a box of candy bars. “Hi, I’m selling these candy bars to raise money for …,” he began, but before he could even finish, I said, “Hey, I’m really sorry, but I’m not interested. I hope you have a good night.” I went back to the table to rejoin my family, glad to move on, only to find Alison giving me a skeptical look from across the table.

“I know it’s late,” she began gently, “but you probably could have been a little kinder there.” My immediate instinct was defensive — I mean, I did tell him I was sorry and to have a good night — but deep down, I knew that what I had just communicated to him was the exact opposite of kindness.

I could have been a whole lot more compassionate. After all, what high school kid wants to be going door-to-door raising money in the dark. I could have been more curious: was this for a team or a club that he cared a lot about, something he dreamed of doing even beyond high school? I could have been a whole lot of things, but what I had actually communicated was that he wasn’t worth my time and that I wanted him to go away. I still really regret that moment and think about it sometimes. I hope that at least some of the other houses he went to that night were much more receptive, that he was able to come across some Tabithas in the wider community who were more “devoted to good works and acts of charity” than I was in that moment.

When we think about what we are passing down and the legacy of love we want to leave behind us, most often we think of our immediate family and those we are closest to. But our faith asks us to think bigger than that, I think. Part of what we are meant to pass on is a legacy of love that not only impacts our families, but that can reshape entire communities, one kindness or one act of love made known at a time. Even when we only cross paths for a moment or two — or perhaps never even meet at all — the way we choose to see and speak and interact with others says everything about what we hope our community can become.

Tabitha knew that, I think. For her, being a disciple was caring for the widows in her community, making sure that no one was forgotten, and being devoted to good works and acts of charity, even among those she barely knew. We tend to think of charity solely as an act of giving, but the root behind the word charity — caritas — actually means “compassion” rather than “generosity.” Tabitha was acting out of compassion for those in her community who were hurting. It was love made known, one act of kindness, one cloak or tunic at a time. And even if those acts of love feel small or insufficient, the community’s response when Tabitha died tell us they are anything but.

Our world needs God’s love made known, perhaps now more than ever. It needs love to be thoughtfully and carefully woven into the fabric of our society one act at a time, looking to build a world where no one is marginalized or minimized but instead one where we proclaim the truth we celebrated in our baptisms — that everyone is a beloved child of God and, because of that, everyone matters.

Making that truth our reality feels daunting and far larger than we could ever hope to do alone, but we are not alone, and the good news is that being intentional about making God’s love known can truly reshape lives and reshape communities for the better, sometimes far more than we even realize. We may not always live out those values we want to pass along to our families and to our communities — I know I certainly haven’t — but like our fifth graders and Confirmands whom we’re celebrating this morning, our faith continues to grow and deepen every time we put it into practice. Every single one of us has been blessed to have been shaped by God’s love and the love of our wider community, and we have been given opportunities to shape others by making that same love known to them. So, what will you do with your opportunity? Amen.

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church