Feathers In The Wind

Feathers in the Wind

He was on a business trip when his heart was broken. As he looked across the dining room, he saw his pastor. Why was the good reverend in this restaurant so far from home? As he hurried across the room to greet the pastor, he froze in his tracks. His pastor was with a woman who wasn’t his wife, and they were holding hands by candlelight.

The businessman felt like a bomb had gone off in his face. Then he remembered that he was an elder with an obligation to protect the flock from a wolf in sheep’s clothing. His first reaction was to confront his philandering pastor. But he didn’t want to create a scene. So he fled to his hotel room and called his wife. She was quick with advice. He needed to call an emergency meeting of the elders. He hung up his phone and began to pack. She picked up hers and began to call her friends. The news spread like wildfire. By the next day, the two-timing pastor was the talk of the town. By evening, clergy several states away had heard about the affair. A “concerned” friend informed the pastor’s wife. Her husband returned home to a full-blown scandal. He protested his innocence, but the genie was out of the bottle.

By week’s end the church auditorium was packed for a congregational meeting that was more like a public hanging. Hardly anyone noticed the pretty blonde. They were more captivated by the reverend and his tight-lipped family as they walked down the aisle. A hush fell over the crowd as he stepped into his pulpit. The assembled vultures expected a public confession. Instead, he said, “I have come to tender my resignation. My family is deeply wounded, and my reputation soiled. In choosing to believe the worst, you have done things that cannot be undone.” He then stepped down to the front row and took the hand of the pretty blonde. “I’d like to introduce you to my baby sister. She is the woman who was in the restaurant with me. Her husband had just left her, and I drove three hundred miles to bring comfort.” With that, he and his family walked out past a stunned congregation.

In the days that followed, frantic knocking on his front door went unanswered. Phone calls were not returned. As the movers went about their work, parishioners stood in the driveway and pled with the pastor to stay. He finally picked up a pillow, tore it open, and shook the feathers into the wind. “If you can find and return all these feathers, and if every word of gossip can be returned to your mouths unsaid, then things can be made right again.”

This true account is told with the names of pastor and church kept secret to protect hearts still fragile and broken years later. This story of a rush to judgment should remind all of us to be careful about what we assume to be true. We will be even more careful not to spread gossip or slander if we remember this:

We reveal the most about ourselves when we speak about others.

Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.

Matthew 7:1-2