The Fourth Sunday of Easter, 11 May 2025, Austwick, Keasden
Tabitha was a maker. Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas, was devoted to good works and acts of charity. She made tunics and other clothing for the widows of Joppa. When she died, the widows of that port town turned out in numbers, in grief. And their menfolk set out in search of a healer.
So Peter the fisherman-disciple knelt down and prayed beside her. He turned to her 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 to her feet. Tabitha was a maker reborn. She continued to make clothes for the widows of Joppa.
And because of Tabitha, today let us celebrate those who make things with others in mind; let us give thanks for those who use their creative gifts for the wellbeing of others. For the knitters of tiny hats for newborn babies; for the embroiderers of quilts for the homeless; for the cross-stitchers and the watercolour painters whose gifts adorn the living-room walls of friends and loved ones’ homes - we give thanks.
This week Diana and I have been delighted to become grandparents again, twice: to one boy in Ormskirk on Tuesday and to another in Airedale on Wednesday: and in the first photos of them which pinged onto our phones on each of those days both infants were wearing woolly hats, knitted gifts of love from someone’s home, passed on to them by the hospital. Their tiny exposed heads kept warm through the kindness of strangers.
You may recall the last time I preached about Tabitha, also called Dorcas, the maker of clothes, [1] I mentioned the so-called Dorcas Clubs or Dorcas Societies, which began in the 19th century in the front rooms of middle-class women, meeting to make textiles to distribute to the poor in the parish, the materials paid for with money they'd each raised themselves. Later, Christian missionary women introduced Dorcas groups to the Caribbean, and then as women from the Caribbean moved to the UK in the 1950s and ‘60s, the clubs moved with them, and they continue in various forms today. [2]
I also recalled a woman I know who lost her son in a road crash some years back and who now devotes time to knitting shawls to give to other mothers who have been through the same sort of bereavement. Praying blessings as she knits, and offering the shawl as a gift, is her way of reaching out to those in need of comfort and solace, with empathy and in celebration and joy. [3]
Like so many New Testament stories, the raising of Tabitha is a tale of ordinary people so enthralled by their newly-found understanding that in Jesus they are valued and loved, that they respond in acts of grace and generosity towards others. Peter the humble fisherman here recalling the day he saw Jesus heal Jairus’s daughter in similar circumstances, and from that memory finding the prayers and the words and the way to lift Tabitha from her death-bed. Simon the tanner, here opening his home to the travelling missionary disciples. And Tabitha, the maker so beloved of her community - why? Because this disciple devoted her time and talents to making gifts for the widows: an act of compassion towards some of her poorest, most vulnerable neighbours.
Her handicrafts aren’t to be sentimentalised - in a society which generally ignored women and abandoned widows to poverty, Tabitha’s tunics were a radical act of righteous grace towards them.
In our throwaway society handicrafts tend to be looked down on somewhat, if they’re the sorts of things that grannies make out of love for the embarrassed teenagers in their family; or they’re the sorts of things only available as high-end designer goods in rather niche - by which I mean, expensive, exclusive - outlets. But if they’re made with love, and if they’re created with skill, then they have a value beyond money. And if they’re made with justice in mind, justice for the workers who create them and for those who will receive them, that increases their value once again.
Our local resident and campaigning clothes designer Patrick Grant has published a book called ‘Less: Stop Buying So Much Rubbish’, in which he says that “Thirty per cent of all clothes made are never sold, two-thirds of the clothes we own we never wear, and new clothes are now so cheap they’re often thrown away rather than being washed and worn again.”
In a world where “the equivalent of one bin lorry full of clothing is dumped in landfill or burned every single second,” in our fast-fashion world which exploits those who produce the clothes we buy but never wear, Grant takes time to ask, “why do we keep buying more?” and considers “how we might make ourselves happier by rediscovering the joy of living with fewer, better-quality things”. [4]
And so today we can give thanks for Community Clothing, Patrick Grant’s business which began in 2015 when he bought out Cookson & Clegg, a Blackburn clothing manufacturing established in 1860, and one of his most valued suppliers, which was going to be shut for good, thus saving it from closure, saving 60 people’s jobs, and taking a stand against social and economic decline in that textile community. Now working with over 45 partner factories, employing a total of almost two thousand staff, Community Clothing offers good quality clothes, keeps great manufacturing businesses alive, and sees more skilled jobs created in often struggling post-industrial towns. [5]
And we can also give thanks for the project called Bag2School, which Austwick School are inviting you and me to take part in this month - as you’ll read in your Newsletter.
Bag2School takes the clothes collected from your school “to be baled into big ‘botany bales’ and then loaded onto trucks for export. The clothing will make journeys all over the world starting their new life. This can be a purpose built second hand store in Eastern Europe or South America, or a market stall in East or West Africa, providing valuable employment for importers, warehouse staff, transport companies and stall holders as well as affordable clothes for local people. And back here, the school benefits from a payment based on the weight of the clothes they’ve donated, at the best market price available.” [6]
I would say that all of these activities channel the generous spirit of Tabitha, who made things with others in mind; that all this is an encouragement for any of us who want to use our creative gifts for the wellbeing of others.
Notes
[1] My 2019 talk The fisherman, the tanner and the garment-maker - being ourselves with God.
[2] Rose Sinclair, New research explores how women used textile clubs as networks for social and economic change. Goldsmiths, University of London, 11 November 2015.
[3] Meet Anna Briggs: hymn writer and knitter (Part 2). Methodst Church Resource Hub; also see the Prayer Shawl Ministry Home Page.
[4] Patrick Grant, Less: Stop Buying So Much Rubbish: How Having Fewer, Better Things Can Make Us Happier.
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