Second Sunday of Easter (A/RCL)
John 20.19-31
April 3, 2005
Holy Trinity, Manasquan
She was out and about at 2 a.m. because she was having a nicotine fit and wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes. Her name is Ashley Smith and you’ve probably heard of her because she is the woman who was taken hostage on March 12th by Brian Nichols, the fugitive from justice who had shot four people in a courtroom and on the street the day before he captured Ashley, who seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in a big way.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus proclaims “Peace!” to the disciples who gathered behind closed doors on Easter evening and the week following. His benediction of peace echoed the gift He had given the night before His death, when He had said to His friends:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14.27)
Easier said than done when someone has a gun trained on you. And yet, Ashley Smith, by all reports, experienced the peace that passes understanding and served as an amazing channel of grace to the man who held her captive.
Ashley became an unlikely hero, responding in faith and Christian love to the man who held her at gunpoint, tied her up and could have easily hurt or killed her as he had recently hurt and killed others. This wasn’t because Ashley was “perfect,” by any means. Her own pastor commented, “I don’t think this suspect would have responded to someone with a pristine background… I just think the message is that God can use anybody. You don’t have to be Mother Teresa.” Ashley doesn’t bear much resemblance to Mother Teresa. The reporter from Newsweek who wrote about the whole incident said:
Ashley Smith knew plenty about shame and despair, and about grace. As a teenager, she had been arrested for petty crimes. In her early 20s, she was charged with drunk driving and assault. She had held her dying husband in her arms, the victim of a stabbing. She lived apart from her 5-year-old daughter, Paige, who is in the custody of Smith’s aunt. At rock bottom, Smith found help during a two-month stint at a Christian clinic for drug abusers, and worked to get her life together. Then suddenly, she was at the mercy of a suspected killer, Brian Nichols, the man hunted by police for the March 11 shooting spree at a courthouse in Atlanta.
(Dirk Johnson, “In Georgia, A Matter of Faith,” Newsweek, March 28, 2005, p.29.)
In what looked for all the world like a totally “out of control” situation, this young woman took control…. As if the situation were hers to command, she spoke to rather than pleaded with her captor. She related to him as a fellow human being, showed him pictures of her family and talked turkey with him about the consequences of his actions, both real and potential. She pointed out that the 40-year-old Customs agent whose life he had taken was probably a husband and a dad, and that if he took her life, too, her little girl would be left orphaned. She read to him out of The Purpose-Driven Life, witnessing to him about the opportunities God gives us to serve others and glorify God. She told him that the silver lining of the cloud of his violent behavior might be a chance to witness to God’s love to others in prison.
You probably already know the end of the story. Almost inexplicably, except for the powerful movement of the Holy Spirit between them, Nichols let Smith go. Interestingly, given Jesus’ actions in today’s Gospel, an essayist in Time Magazine wrote:
She showed him her wounds as a human being. And she saw in that man his own wounded soul. (Andrew Sullivan, “When Grace Arrives Unannounced,” Time, March 28, 2005, p.80)
Ashley Smith is not Jesus. Ashley Smith is not Mother Teresa. But Jesus used Ashley Smith in an amazing way on March 12th. Mother Teresa probably couldn’t have done what Ashley Smith did, because she was not imperfect enough…. Ashley was just right, in all her brokenness, in all her healing-still-in-progress condition. Andrew Sullivan, the man who wrote the essay in Time, paraphrased many others when he said, “[T]he message of the Gospels is that God works with the crooked timber of human failure.” The way Martin Luther put it is, “God writes straight with crooked lines.”
No, the apostle nicknamed “Doubting Thomas” did not take his friends’ word for it that Jesus had risen from the dead. (Come to think of it, his friends hadn’t taken Mary Magdalene’s word for it either….) They were in good Biblical company, imperfect as they were. Here’s a list of others who didn’t get straight A’s in perfection. (I came across the list on an e-mail forward J.)
Moses stuttered.
David’s armor didn’t fit.
John Mark was rejected by Paul.
Hosea’s wife was a prostitute.
Amos’ only training was in the school of fig-tree pruning.
Jacob was a liar.
David had an affair.
Solomon was too rich.
Abraham was too old.
David was too young.
Timothy had ulcers.
Peter was afraid of death.
Lazarus was dead.
John was self-righteous.
Naomi was a widow.
Paul was a murderer. So was Moses.
Jonah ran from God.
Miriam was a gossip.
Gideon and Thomas both doubted.
Jeremiah was depressed and suicidal.
Elijah was burned out.
John the Baptist was a loudmouth.
Martha was a worry-wart…
Samson had long hair.
Noah got drunk.
Did I mention that Moses had a short fuse?
So did Peter, Paul – well, lots of folks did.
But God doesn’t require a job interview. He doesn’t hire and fire like most bosses, because He’s more our Dad than our Boss. He doesn’t look at financial gain or loss. He’s not prejudiced or partial, not judging, grudging, sassy or brassy, not deaf to our cry, not blind to our need. As much as we try, God’s gifts are free. We could do wonderful things for wonderful people and still not be… wonderful.
We can add our own names to that list, with whatever the personal imperfections are that drive us craziest, that make us feel most unworthy, that nearly convince us we have nothing at all to offer God or anybody else. Henri Nouwen, a Belgian priest who never heard of Ashley Smith, but knew Jesus Christ intimately, says that we are all called to be “wounded healers.” Our life may not be on the line, as Ashley’s was, when we witness to the love of God, but someone else’s life and well-being may very well be…. We just need to be willing to give what we have, imperfect as it is. Sullivan ends his essay with these words from a Leonard Cohen song:
“Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
Amen
Pastor Mary Virginia Olson