Sermon Notes: Tabitha

My pastor is away at the Festival of Homiletics, so he asked me to preach.  I always say yes if I'm going to be in town.  This past Sunday, we looked at the story in Acts about Peter raising Tabitha from the dead.

I don't write out my sermons before the service.  I spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm going to say, and I rehearse it in my mind.  Part of it is laziness.  Part of it is me wanting to give the Holy Spirit room to speak.

I didn't expect the ending that I delivered on Sunday.  I knew I would talk about asking for what we want and need--that God needs us to speak, that in a universe built on the principals of free will, God can't intervene unless we ask.

But then I talked about resurrection, and not the going-to-Heaven kind of resurrection.  I talked about the death-in-life feeling.  I talked about the promise of resurrection not just in the future, but about leaving all in life that makes us dead:  the losses, the grief, the addictions.

I talked about listening for the voice that says, "Get up!"  I talked about needing to hear that voice that calls us to leave our deadening behavior behind.

I said, "God is calling us to get up.  May we have ears to hear."

I heard a few amens, which is always a good sign to me.  I also got an e-mail from a member who had brought her grown daughter to church.  The daughter had never seen a woman preach before, and she was amazed.  Hurrah.

The line from my sermon that most struck the mother of the grown daughter was the need to ask God to be involved in our lives.

My spouse and I have spent some time since the sermon discussing other angles that might have been stressed.  We're both intrigued by the idea of Peter, a regular mortal, being able to resurrect the dead.  Does that mean we should be able to do that too?

Every time I preach I wonder what the congregation has heard. I was glad to get the e-mail and also to hear from my spouse.

I know mine was not the great sermon type that my pastor is hearing at the Festival of Homiletics.  But I'm happy to have had the opportunity.