The fabric of life: Easter 4

 

There’s an odd little detail in today’s first reading which I really love. It’s the reaction of those weeping widows in Joppa, when their friend Tabitha dies. Peter gets an urgent summons to come to her house, and when he gets there, he is met by her friends, clutching the clothes she has made. That’s the bit that gets me. The first thing they want to do is show him her needlework. We aren’t told what they said, but I can imagine it. “She can’t be dead – look at the beautiful clothes she makes!! Who’s going to knit baby clothes for the children without parents to care for them? Who’s going to make warm blankets for those who are living rough? Who’s going to rustle up something new, or mend something old for someone that only has rags to wear? Who’s going to do all that if Tabitha isn’t here?”

 

Tabitha is their go-to person for “make do and mend”, and in a society where there was no such thing as fast fashion, that mattered. It’s no surprise that all sorts of crafts have had a resurgence during the pandemic, and that desire to recycle, repair and reuse will be even more important as the cost of living and environmental crises really start to bite. We need our Tabithas, people who can make and remake things not just for themselves but for others who may be more in need. We need our Tabithas to pass on those skills to the next generation too. We need our Tabithas – and so did her first century friends.

 

Maybe it’s because I like to sew and knit, and make a lot of my own clothes, that Tabitha has a special place in my heart. I can understand how precious those clothes she had made would have been to those who’d received them, and how they would, in a sense, have felt like an extension of Tabitha herself, a sign of her love. Whether we make things for ourselves or not, though, clothing can carry powerful memories, reminding us of special people, places and times. We may remember something we wore many years ago. We may even have clothes tucked away somewhere which we don’t want to throw away, even when they are well beyond wearing or we have no chance of fitting into anymore; the clothes we dressed our new-born children in – yes, I still have the little Babygro I brought both of mine home from hospital in – or an old jumper, knitted with love, and worn for comfort even when it’s grown baggy and the moths have been at it; or the ancestral Christening Gown, or the wedding dress that we only wore for a few hours. Clothes speak to us and of us. People often keep clothes belonging to those they’ve loved who have died too. They hold the smell and the shape of the person who wore them.  

 

This week there’s been a furore over Kim Kardashian wearing to the Met Gala the evening gown Marilyn Monroe wore to sing Happy Birthday to John F Kennedy 60 years ago. Conservators of historical clothing were appalled at the potential damage this historical artefact might suffer, but whether it was a good idea or not, it showed the power of a piece of cloth to stir up memories and debate. Would it have mattered if it was just a replica? It would seem so, at least to Kim Kardashian.

 

The clothes Tabitha made were, I suspect, far less costly than that dress, but they were priceless to those who received them. The Bible tells us that Tabitha “was devoted to good works and charity” and clothing people was obviously at the heart of this for her. This is what she was famous for, if only among her friends. It was unthinkable that she was gone.

 

They don’t actually ask for her to be restored to life, and I am sure they are as surprised as we would be when that happens, and of course, one day Tabitha will die again; death is a part of life, and this story isn’t about avoiding it. But in restoring Tabitha to life, even if only for a while, God affirms the value of an apparently ordinary woman, who would otherwise have been forgotten by history. He brings her into the spotlight for probably the first and only time in her life.

 

The early Christian community was disproportionately made up of people who were marginalised – enslaved or poor people, women and children, people without status or value in the eyes of their society, people who would normally expect to live largely anonymous, unrecorded lives. Most would have no memorial, other than in the hearts of those who they loved and who loved them. But the message this story gives us is that we are all known and loved by God, of infinite value to him. Tabitha may be invisible to the world, but God sees her, knows her, and values her. She stands for all those who, like most of us, will never do great things, but are called to do small things with great love. Tabitha’s gift to the world was to pay attention to that call, to hear the voice of God and to recognise his presence in those who needed the kind of undramatic everyday help that came in the form of a length of fabric, a needle and thread.  

 

In the Gospel reading, Jesus also celebrates those who listen to God faithfully. He uses the imagery of sheep and shepherds. In his world, sheep weren’t penned in fields. They roamed free across the wilderness. It was easy for them to get lost. But the shepherds – often young children like the shepherd boy, David, who grew up from obscurity to become a great king – roamed with them, looking out for good pasture and water, as well as guarding them against danger. The shepherds knew the sheep and cared for them. And because of that the sheep came to know and trust their shepherds too. They might not have known where they were going, but they knew who they were going with, whose voice they needed to listen out for, and that was what really mattered.

 

There’s a lovely verse in Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians, (3.3), which says “your life is hid with Christ in God.” I’ve always rather treasured that. Whether anyone else see or notices us, God does. If everyone else forgets us God will not.  We may even forget ourselves, if dementia takes hold of us, but God won’t lose track of us or value us any less. I suspect that this was what Tabitha’s friends most needed to know, that she mattered to God as much as she mattered to them, that she was loved by the shepherd who had always known her, named her and called her.  And that if she mattered, so do we all.

Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fabric of life: Easter 4

 

There’s an odd little detail in today’s first reading which I really love. It’s the reaction of those weeping widows in Joppa, when their friend Tabitha dies. Peter gets an urgent summons to come to her house, and when he gets there, he is met by her friends, clutching the clothes she has made. That’s the bit that gets me. The first thing they want to do is show him her needlework. We aren’t told what they said, but I can imagine it. “She can’t be dead – look at the beautiful clothes she makes!! Who’s going to knit baby clothes for the children without parents to care for them? Who’s going to make warm blankets for those who are living rough? Who’s going to rustle up something new, or mend something old for someone that only has rags to wear? Who’s going to do all that if Tabitha isn’t here?”

 

Tabitha is their go-to person for “make do and mend”, and in a society where there was no such thing as fast fashion, that mattered. It’s no surprise that all sorts of crafts have had a resurgence during the pandemic, and that desire to recycle, repair and reuse will be even more important as the cost of living and environmental crises really start to bite. We need our Tabithas, people who can make and remake things not just for themselves but for others who may be more in need. We need our Tabithas to pass on those skills to the next generation too. We need our Tabithas – and so did her first century friends.

 

Maybe it’s because I like to sew and knit, and make a lot of my own clothes, that Tabitha has a special place in my heart. I can understand how precious those clothes she had made would have been to those who’d received them, and how they would, in a sense, have felt like an extension of Tabitha herself, a sign of her love. Whether we make things for ourselves or not, though, clothing can carry powerful memories, reminding us of special people, places and times. We may remember something we wore many years ago. We may even have clothes tucked away somewhere which we don’t want to throw away, even when they are well beyond wearing or we have no chance of fitting into anymore; the clothes we dressed our new-born children in – yes, I still have the little Babygro I brought both of mine home from hospital in – or an old jumper, knitted with love, and worn for comfort even when it’s grown baggy and the moths have been at it; or the ancestral Christening Gown, or the wedding dress that we only wore for a few hours. Clothes speak to us and of us. People often keep clothes belonging to those they’ve loved who have died too. They hold the smell and the shape of the person who wore them.  

 

This week there’s been a furore over Kim Kardashian wearing to the Met Gala the evening gown Marilyn Monroe wore to sing Happy Birthday to John F Kennedy 60 years ago. Conservators of historical clothing were appalled at the potential damage this historical artefact might suffer, but whether it was a good idea or not, it showed the power of a piece of cloth to stir up memories and debate. Would it have mattered if it was just a replica? It would seem so, at least to Kim Kardashian.

 

The clothes Tabitha made were, I suspect, far less costly than that dress, but they were priceless to those who received them. The Bible tells us that Tabitha “was devoted to good works and charity” and clothing people was obviously at the heart of this for her. This is what she was famous for, if only among her friends. It was unthinkable that she was gone.

 

They don’t actually ask for her to be restored to life, and I am sure they are as surprised as we would be when that happens, and of course, one day Tabitha will die again; death is a part of life, and this story isn’t about avoiding it. But in restoring Tabitha to life, even if only for a while, God affirms the value of an apparently ordinary woman, who would otherwise have been forgotten by history. He brings her into the spotlight for probably the first and only time in her life.

 

The early Christian community was disproportionately made up of people who were marginalised – enslaved or poor people, women and children, people without status or value in the eyes of their society, people who would normally expect to live largely anonymous, unrecorded lives. Most would have no memorial, other than in the hearts of those who they loved and who loved them. But the message this story gives us is that we are all known and loved by God, of infinite value to him. Tabitha may be invisible to the world, but God sees her, knows her, and values her. She stands for all those who, like most of us, will never do great things, but are called to do small things with great love. Tabitha’s gift to the world was to pay attention to that call, to hear the voice of God and to recognise his presence in those who needed the kind of undramatic everyday help that came in the form of a length of fabric, a needle and thread.  

 

In the Gospel reading, Jesus also celebrates those who listen to God faithfully. He uses the imagery of sheep and shepherds. In his world, sheep weren’t penned in fields. They roamed free across the wilderness. It was easy for them to get lost. But the shepherds – often young children like the shepherd boy, David, who grew up from obscurity to become a great king – roamed with them, looking out for good pasture and water, as well as guarding them against danger. The shepherds knew the sheep and cared for them. And because of that the sheep came to know and trust their shepherds too. They might not have known where they were going, but they knew who they were going with, whose voice they needed to listen out for, and that was what really mattered.

 

There’s a lovely verse in Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians, (3.3), which says “your life is hid with Christ in God.” I’ve always rather treasured that. Whether anyone else see or notices us, God does. If everyone else forgets us God will not.  We may even forget ourselves, if dementia takes hold of us, but God won’t lose track of us or value us any less. I suspect that this was what Tabitha’s friends most needed to know, that she mattered to God as much as she mattered to them, that she was loved by the shepherd who had always known her, named her and called her.  And that if she mattered, so do we all.

Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The untorn net: Easter 3

 

John 21.1-19

 

Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn.

 

153 fish. It’s one of those details in the Bible that makes you sit up and take notice. What is so special about 153? It’s not an approximation. It’s not a round number. But it hardly seems likely, either, that anyone would have sat down on the beach and counted, and then felt it important enough to keep a record of exactly how large this catch was. Yet the Bible is specific. 153 fish.

 

St Jerome, in the fourth century, suggested that this was the total number of species of fish known to exist at the time, and so it symbolised the completeness of this catch, though there’s no foundation for it in ancient literature. Other people have pointed out that if you add up all the numbers from 1 to 17 you get 153 – I’ve tried it; it works – and 17, as these theorists say, is the sum of 10 and 7, both numbers which in the ancient world also suggested perfection and wholeness. The truth is that we don’t know where this number comes from. I am sure that Dan Brown could make a blockbuster novel out of it. But in the Gospel writer’s mind it probably does have something to do with totality. We can tell that not only from the context, but also from other references in the Bible to nets and fishing. In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus tells a sort of mini-parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind,” he says (Matthew 13.47). In the Old Testament too, the prophet Ezekiel has a vision of his nation as God wants it to be. Central to that vision is a great river, flowing down to the sea, making stagnant waters fresh, bringing life to all that is in it. “People will stand fishing beside the sea* from En-gedi to En-eglaim; it will be a place for the spreading of nets; its fish will be of a great many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea.”

 

John echoes that vision in this story. Here is God’s kingdom, coming to birth among you, he says, a vision of abundance and plenty, a kingdom which is for all.  That fits with everything else we see Jesus saying.

 

The early church struggled with that, just as we still do. We set limits. We make conditions. For the early church the tensions were between Jews and Gentiles. For us they may be different. We might find ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, saying “you’re welcome if you think like I do, if you worship like I do, if you behave in ways that I approve of, if you are prepared to fit in to the way we already do things, if you go through the right rituals.”

 

But I don’t think this is just about the boundaries we set between people – those who are in and those who are out. It’s also about the inner boundaries we create as we try to keep parts of ourselves from God. The disciples in this story – and Simon Peter especially – knew that they had failed Jesus when they ran from him as he was arrested. They couldn’t turn the clock back. That failure is a part of them, a part of their life stories. What are they going to do with it? They go fishing to remind themselves that this, at least, they can do – to try to kid themselves that that bad stuff never really happened. But even in this, they fail. There are no fish - until Jesus comes along.  It is only then that they get the point. They are accepted as they are, in their wholeness, good and bad.

 

I think that is a message most people need to hear. We often expend a great deal of effort covering up those things we are ashamed of in our lives. We try to look good, but in order to do so we have to cut off bits of ourselves, leave them at the door of the church. But God wants us to come to him as whole people. If we don’t come like that, we might as well not come at all. 

 

There were 153 fish in the net, and the net was not torn, says the Gospel. How far do we think we can stretch the love of God before it breaks? Are we anxiously trying to protect him from being overloaded, cautiously sidling up to him, and trying to stop others doing things which we fear will offend his delicate sensibilities. It sounds daft when I put it like that, but I think that is sometimes what we are trying to do. Of course, it is daft. God can cope with us, and with others. The net of his love, the net of his kingdom is big and strong enough for the whole catch, for whatever we put into it. It won’t break. Whoever we are, and whatever we’ve done, he can hold us securely. 

Amen

The untorn net: Easter 3

 

John 21.1-19

 

Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn.

 

153 fish. It’s one of those details in the Bible that makes you sit up and take notice. What is so special about 153? It’s not an approximation. It’s not a round number. But it hardly seems likely, either, that anyone would have sat down on the beach and counted, and then felt it important enough to keep a record of exactly how large this catch was. Yet the Bible is specific. 153 fish.

 

St Jerome, in the fourth century, suggested that this was the total number of species of fish known to exist at the time, and so it symbolised the completeness of this catch, though there’s no foundation for it in ancient literature. Other people have pointed out that if you add up all the numbers from 1 to 17 you get 153 – I’ve tried it; it works – and 17, as these theorists say, is the sum of 10 and 7, both numbers which in the ancient world also suggested perfection and wholeness. The truth is that we don’t know where this number comes from. I am sure that Dan Brown could make a blockbuster novel out of it. But in the Gospel writer’s mind it probably does have something to do with totality. We can tell that not only from the context, but also from other references in the Bible to nets and fishing. In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus tells a sort of mini-parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind,” he says (Matthew 13.47). In the Old Testament too, the prophet Ezekiel has a vision of his nation as God wants it to be. Central to that vision is a great river, flowing down to the sea, making stagnant waters fresh, bringing life to all that is in it. “People will stand fishing beside the sea* from En-gedi to En-eglaim; it will be a place for the spreading of nets; its fish will be of a great many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea.”

 

John echoes that vision in this story. Here is God’s kingdom, coming to birth among you, he says, a vision of abundance and plenty, a kingdom which is for all.  That fits with everything else we see Jesus saying.

 

The early church struggled with that, just as we still do. We set limits. We make conditions. For the early church the tensions were between Jews and Gentiles. For us they may be different. We might find ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, saying “you’re welcome if you think like I do, if you worship like I do, if you behave in ways that I approve of, if you are prepared to fit in to the way we already do things, if you go through the right rituals.”

 

But I don’t think this is just about the boundaries we set between people – those who are in and those who are out. It’s also about the inner boundaries we create as we try to keep parts of ourselves from God. The disciples in this story – and Simon Peter especially – knew that they had failed Jesus when they ran from him as he was arrested. They couldn’t turn the clock back. That failure is a part of them, a part of their life stories. What are they going to do with it? They go fishing to remind themselves that this, at least, they can do – to try to kid themselves that that bad stuff never really happened. But even in this, they fail. There are no fish - until Jesus comes along.  It is only then that they get the point. They are accepted as they are, in their wholeness, good and bad.

 

I think that is a message most people need to hear. We often expend a great deal of effort covering up those things we are ashamed of in our lives. We try to look good, but in order to do so we have to cut off bits of ourselves, leave them at the door of the church. But God wants us to come to him as whole people. If we don’t come like that, we might as well not come at all. 

 

There were 153 fish in the net, and the net was not torn, says the Gospel. How far do we think we can stretch the love of God before it breaks? Are we anxiously trying to protect him from being overloaded, cautiously sidling up to him, and trying to stop others doing things which we fear will offend his delicate sensibilities. It sounds daft when I put it like that, but I think that is sometimes what we are trying to do. Of course, it is daft. God can cope with us, and with others. The net of his love, the net of his kingdom is big and strong enough for the whole catch, for whatever we put into it. It won’t break. Whoever we are, and whatever we’ve done, he can hold us securely. 

Amen