2022.05.08 | Living Legacies
“Living Legacies”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Eden United Church of Christ
Hayward, California
Fourth Sunday after Easter
May 8, 2022
The other day a friend and I were reflecting on the coping strategies that we have used to survive the pandemic. We pondered whether these strategies would be sufficient for the duration, or whether we might need to acquire more — since only God knows when this nightmare will truly end.
My friend and I each rattled off a half-dozen coping strategies that we were relying on. Most were tried and true. In the course of our reflection, I realized that one of my reliable strategies has taken a new twist — I started listening to country music again.
I’ve always considered music a nurturing spiritual practice, but prior to going away to college, my knowledge of music didn’t extend beyond traditional church music and Billboard’s top 100 on the pop and country charts.
My awareness and interest in other musical genres grew quickly in early adulthood as I met and befriended people from a wide array of cultures. Meanwhile, my interest and opportunity to enjoy country music waned considerably, because I had moved out of the range of country stations, and tried to assimilate into the “blue-blooded” societies in Boston, New York, and Cleveland.
It took the hardships of the pandemic and the tech advances of the 21st century to reconnect me with my country music roots.
II
One point of reconnection has been country music feeds on AppleMusic. Just this past week, for example, a playlist titled “What Would Dolly Do?” popped up in my AppleMusic feed. (Don’t be jealous.)
The playlist icon for this feed contains a silhouette of — you guessed it — Dolly’s big hair. The marketer’s description of this feed credits Dolly with inspiring and helping the women who are featured in it to advance in the business.
The opening song on the playlist, “Coat of Many Colors,” was written and performed by Dolly Parton, and by her account, it is her favorite song that she ever wrote. The lyrics describe how Dolly’s mother (Avie Lee Owens) made Dolly a coat from fabric scraps given to her mother by a family friend. Dolly treasured that coat, because it was stitched together with her mother’s love.
Hop over to Xfinity on your favorite media screen and you’ll find two recent tributes to Dolly Parton. One featuring her musical colleagues is titled Dolly Parton: 50 Years at the Opry. The other is an historical review of Dolly’s performance career including the several lumps and bumps she encountered along the way. This film is titled Here She Comes Again.
Like many rags to riches stars, Dolly has used her success to help to improve the community where she grew up. For example, in 1995, her Dollywood Foundation launched the Imagination Library, which was initially intended to promote illiteracy in the East Tennessee area where she was born and raised. Her literacy effort has since spread to four other countries, and has provided millions of children with a free book every month for their personal libraries.
Dolly Parton is a brilliant artist, a successful business woman, and a generous philanthropist. I have mad respect for her and the success that she has achieved in each of these areas. But what impresses me most about Dolly Parton is her capacity to serve as a cultural bridge builder.
Pay close attention to how Dolly interacts with her fans and you will see that she has a unique capacity to reach disparate audiences, from good ol’ boys to progressive feminists. Who else has that much reach? Seriously. Not many. So far as I can see, just Dolly Parton and the early church apostle, Tabitha, described in today's scripture reading.
III
Who was Tabitha? According to Luke, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, Tabitha was a widow, seamstress, philanthropist, cultural bridge-builder, woman of faith, and an inspiration to others.
Tabitha resided in an ancient seaport city named Joppa (now known as Jaffa) which was located near modern day Tel Aviv, about midway between the northern and southern borders of Israel on the Mediterranean coast.
Because of its seaport setting, Tabitha encountered people in Joppa from all over the world and she had access to textiles from near and far. She bought and sold textiles, and she made beautiful clothing and household items from them for her family and friends.
According to Luke, Tabitha was a very productive seamstress. Virtually everyone who gathered around her bedside at the time of her demise possessed a garment that Tabitha had made.
These garments were special to their wearers, not only because of their fine quality, but because Tabitha — -like Dolly Parton’s mother — had stitched in lots of love as she made them.
Any of us who has had a gifted seamstress in our family or any of us who know members in Eden Crafters small group can likely appreciate what a blessing Tabitha’s textile gifts were to those who received them.
IV
From studying the book of Acts, we learn that Tabitha was a productive seamstress, but that is not all. We also learn that she was a woman of means. The fact is significant because Tabitha was a widow, and those who had lost their husband were often doomed to a life of poverty. But Tabitha was able to support herself and other widows, and other destitute people in her community, because (according to Luke) she was a successful business woman. Her success gave her the means to function as a generous philanthropist.
The thought of mourners gathered around Tabitha’s bedside may give us pause. Critics might even accuse her mourners of being more upset that their economic well being was in question than that their benefactress had died.
While there may be some truth in this hypothesis, Tabitha’s death is a reminder that most of us have dependents. We have relatives and friends, and groups and organizations that depend on us for their wellbeing.
So Tabitha's death begs the question, “What would happen if we had a health crisis on the way home from church today? Have we prepared our advance directives? Are they notorized? Do our loved ones have a copy? Do we have a will? Is it up to date? Who would we want to care for our children if we were unable to do so? If we don’t have solid answers to these questions, now would be a good time to get our affairs in order.
Some other questions that are worthy of our reflection include the following: what would happen to the organizations that we care about, the institutions that reflect our faith values, and the missions that we have persued throughout our lives? Would they advance? Would we simply leave an empty pew?
In the past 26 months, the mission of Eden Church has never been more important to the Eden Area. We have been a lifeboat for the Eden Area, and we have been able to serve in this way, in part, because our forebears “paid it forward.”
They left us a living legacy so that Eden Church hasn’t had to pay mortgage payments on this campus since the late 19th century, and we’ve had money in the bank and could cover payroll when Alameda County didn’t reimburse us on time for the work that we had completed on their behalf.
V
To be sure, the property and the financial gifts that we and the organizations that are near and dear to us have received have been vital to our wellbeing and the wellbeing of others, especially in hard times. But that is not all.
Luke shows us that there are other types of legacies that we have received from people like Tabitha that have sustained us in the past and that are vital to our future. Forebears like Tabitha have been successful multi-lingual, cross-cultural navigators and bridge builders. They have helped us survive and thrive to this day, and these gifts are needed to insure that we and the work of Christ have a future.
Notice that unlike most biblical characters, Tabitha has two names in the New Testament. One is her Hebrew name, Tabitha, and the other is Dorcas, which was her Greek name. The fact that this apostle was known by two names suggests that she spoke both languages, Hebrew and Greek, and that she moved comfortably among and between Jewish and Gentile circles.
Surely Tabitha’s linguistic and cross-cultural skills contributed to her ability to make many and varied friendships and to reach more customers and to close more deals than her competitors. But these skill sets had additional value. They also contributed to her ability to advance the mission of Christ, because she was linguistically and culturally competent to share the gospel with Jews and Gentiles, alike.
It is no accident, then, that Tabitha/Dorcus is remembered in the Acts of the Apostles, and that her death caused such grief among her people. Without her witness and her legacy, we probably wouldn’t be here celebrating the Festival of the Christian home today.
Were it not for Tabitha, and others like her, who believed that the gospel was intended for the whole people of God, AND who had the linguistic and cultural competencies to share her faith with others, Christianity would have probably remained an obscure Jewish sect and died by the end of the second century AD.
VI
Today as we celebrate the Festival of the Christian home, and reflect on the life and witness of Tabitha/Dorcas and Dolly Parton, we have an opportunity to consider what legacies we will leave our loved ones.
Will we merely pass on family heirlooms or leave a living legacy that addresses the root causes of poverty, that promotes child and adult literacy, and that communicates the good news of God’s love to every nation, in every tongue?
My prayer for us and our posterity is that we will learn from Tabitha's/Dorcas’ example and Dolly’s example and emulate their behavior. Amen.