Across the years the elder brother never married, stayed an old bachelor. The younger brother did marry and had eight wonderful children. Some years later when they were having a wonderful harvest, the old bachelor brother thought to himself one night, "My brother has ten mouths to feed. I only have one. He really needs more of his harvest than I do, but I know he is much too fair to renegotiate. I know what I'll do. In the dead of the night when he is already asleep, I'll take some of what I have put in my barn and I'll slip it over into his barn to help him feed his children.”

At the very time he was thinking down that line, the younger brother was thinking to himself, "God has given me these wonderful children. My brother hasn't been so fortunate. He really needs more of this harvest for his old age than I do, but I know him. He's much too fair. He'll never renegotiate. I know what I'll do. In the dead of the night when he's asleep, I'll take some of what I've put in my barn and slip it over into his barn."

This parable – I’ll come back to it in a bit -- came to mind as I reread the passage about Tabitha. For this little story of an ordinary woman is rooted in generosity, in a spirit of sharing and empowerment that not even death can overcome.

In her life, Tabitha was an exemplar of faithful discipleship. In fact, this is the only occasion in the Acts of the Apostles where a woman is explicitly called a disciple – indeed, nowhere else in the entire New Testament in the feminine form of disciple to be found. Tabitha, Luke wants to emphasize, is not just a good person – she is a faithful disciple, in the truest sense a follower of Jesus Christ.

Tabitha, Luke tells us, was devoted to good works and acts of charity. So much so that when she dies, all the widows – among the most vulnerable members of society – gather around to mourn her loss. They mourn her not because she was a fantastic entertainer, not because she had best-selling record albums, not because she had impressive dance moves or music videos. No, they mourn her loss because Tabitha was life itself to these women, to these widows. Being a widow is never an easy matter – losing a husband, being deprived of the love and companionship of a partner, has always been difficult, to say the least.. But in Tabitha’s day, widows were among the most vulnerable members of society. The inheritance, if there was one, went to the children, who often neglected to support their mother; worse still, women were not permitted to speak publically on their own behalf, and so if they were mistreated, they were without legal recourse. But Tabitha was their ally, their advocate, and their sustenance, even so far as to making clothes for them. For Tabitha, faith was not just a matter of the heart, it was a matter of hands and feet and pocketbook as well. A disciple of the one who said the greatest commandment included loving one’s neighbor as oneself, Tabitha’s love was lived out in acts of generosity and caring.

And then she died. It seems so unfair. But we know this is how life is.

But no, Luke tells us, that is not how life really is. What life is like, after Easter, is about God’s overflowing generosity to us. Easter means that death will not have the final word; Easter means that scarcity will not trump abundance; Easter means that weeping will not vanquish laughter; Easter means even death itself cannot stand in the way of God’s overflowing generosity to us.

I can’t explain how Tabitha was raised from the dead any more than I can explain how Jesus was raised from the tomb – but neither can I explain the generosity of God which overflows to us, and which allows us to be overflowing with generosity to each other.

And neither can I explain how it is that in a time of great economic uncertainty and challenge – in a time that will go down in the history books as a time rivaling what we call the Great Depression – this congregation, you, answered the summons to step out in faith, to share of your limited financial resources so that the work of this church might be unhindered, to in many cases increase your giving significantly, to in other cases find a way to continue to give even as it has gotten tougher to do so.

And neither can I explain how in a time when we are feeling that there is more and more to do and less and less time to do it, this congregation, you, answered the gospel call to reach out in mission to the world, giving a day to hammering nails at a Habitat for Humanity build, volunteering to staff a Day of Hospitality for folk with no place to call home, doing the decidedly unglamorous work of leading a project or committee or board here at the church, taking part in a mission trip to Chile, and on and on.

I can’t explain it, and maybe no one else can, but I think the closing of the parable of the two sons, each independently deciding to share with the other, might give us a clue.

And so one night when the moon was full, as you may have already anticipated, those two brothers came face to face, each on a mission of generosity. The old rabbi said that although there wasn't a cloud in the sky, a gentle rain began to fall. You know what it was? God weeping for joy because two of his children had gotten the point. Two of his children had come to realize that generosity is the deepest characteristic of the holy and because we are made in God's image, our being generous is the secret to our joy as well.

Let us pray. Gifting God, we thank you that we, created in your image, have been gifted with the divine ability to be givers and gifters as well. May we always be thankful for the gifts you share with us, and may we, in our turn, rejoice at the opportunities that come our way to share our gifts with others. Amen.