A Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
The Rev. Patricia Gillespie

Acts 14:8-18
Revelation 21:22-22:5
John 14:23-29
Psalm 67

When Wendy and I were three years old, she got polio.

When we were old enough for Sunday School, she came in her wheelchair. Together we learned all those Bible stories about healing: blind people see; lame men get up and walk; dead little girls get up and eat. We believed that stuff. We loved Jesus. So my friends and I figured that if we prayed, then Jesus would fix Wendy.

We prayed. Our teachers prayed too. Even our priest prayed. And the wheelchair won.

If Paul and Barnabas had come along and told her to "Stand upright on your feet" and Wendy had done it, we probably would have thought they were gods too.

But no gods came to visit, and Wendy never walked. We thought our prayers for healing were unanswered. I wondered why Jesus didn't send any apostles to us in Neptune Beach. What kind of crummy Father did Jesus have if he didn't heal Wendy?

(I admit that still sometimes today on hospital visits after many prayers for healing I ask that same question: What kind of God is this, who does not heal this brokenness and pain?)

In the sixth grade Wendy was confirmed with the rest of us. We made our promises and said we had faith. We figured Wendy had the faith to be healed and we prayed some more. Each Sunday after that, at Communion time, the priest came outside of the altar rail and down the stairs so Wendy could have Communion in her wheelchair. She looked happy.

In the seventh grade, when appearance is an obsession and most girls live to be popular, the most popular girl was elected class president. Everyone wanted the honor of pushing the president's wheelchair between classes.

Wendy seemed to radiate a kind of peace that we all wanted.

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you."

Shalom. It's a Hebrew word that we often translate as "peace." Although the gospels were written in Greek, it was probably the Hebrew concept of shalom that Jesus was talking about.

And shalom is more than peace; it is more than simply an absence of war or anxiety or other bad stuff. Shalom is positive: It means wholeness, completeness, and healing -- a sense of being just how God wants things to be. Shalom. That's what Wendy had and the rest of us lacked. We spent all our time wanting a different look or to be more popular -- wanting what we didn't have. Wendy thrived with what she had, and she had shalom -- the peace that passes understanding. Perhaps our prayers for Wendy's healing were answered, just not in the way we expected.

Jesus says "I do not give to you as the world gives." God's behavior is not logical. God is not systematic as many theologians would like to make God. God is steadfast and faithful and loving. And God's love passes human understanding -- it makes no sense to us.

It seems crazy not to heal good people who are hurting. It also seems crazy to love people who, as we all have done, betray God's love. God's behavior often makes no sense to us. God says to us, "My ways are not your ways!"

We don't understand. God only knows. God knows us and God knows our prayers. In God's illogical faithfulness, God answers them all, but the answers are not always what we expect. Sometimes the answer sounds like "no."

The summer before eighth grade Wendy died. She had a small pink coffin. What kind of God allows small coffins? I sat with my friends in a front pew and stared blindly out the window. It felt like there was a vacuum cleaner in my chest sucking everything away.

I bet you've been there too. Waiting for Jesus, or Paul or Barnabas, or anyone to come along and say "Stand upright on your feet! -- Be healed" But no one comes.

This week at rogation time we pray for the earth, for the healing of it's brokenness and for it's blessing. Later this week at ascension time we remember that Jesus ascended into heaven and left this earth behind.

I dig my bare toes into the earth by the grave and look up. I remember the pink coffin. I remember the smell of hospitals and the tears. I wonder why Jesus left us behind here on the earth -- grounded and stuck as part of this dirty, messy world. . . . In the dirt at my feet, tiny plants are sprouting.

Even in those broken places of our lives with vacuumed out empty spaces inside God can plant seeds of new life.

At every Eucharist, God's self is broken for us, broken like us. At every Eucharist God's own brokenness is made whole again, made shalom again in us.

Jesus's shalom means that the broken mess of our lives will be made whole. It may not look just as we expect, but our prayers are answered. The blind see. The lame walk. This fragile earth is healed. Jesus has died and is risen! Shalom: "Peace I leave with you always; my healing I give to you."

Once in Sunday school, long before the pink coffin, we planted marigold seeds in paper cups filled with dirt.

It was a dirty messy class. . . . but we had flowers for Easter.

Peace be with you.