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Mary Winkler made the first of what will be many appearances in court on March 27. She is the woman who is charged with shooting her husband, Matthew Winkler, a Church of Christ pastor. The judge entered a plea of not guilty on her behalf.
I cannot imagine the anguish and emotional trauma and turmoil that life is for Ms. Winkler. To lose a husband is tragic. For one’s pastor to be killed is not an easy situation to face. What must it be like when you are the one that caused the death?
The day after Mary Winkler appeared in court, Dan Winkler presided at his son’s funeral at Fourth Street Church of Christ. What was it like for him to stand over his son’s casket and speak words of comfort and solace to over 800 mourners? What thoughts and memories were running through his mind? How great was his hurt, his pain?
This awful situation captures our attention because of its context. It happened in a church family. Matthew Winkler was a pastor. Mary Winkler was a pastor’s wife. Something went very, very wrong. This sort of thing is not supposed to happen in church.
Church is supposed to be a place where we go to get help with our problems and relief from our burdens. That obviously did not happen for Ms. Winkler. For what hurt was she unable to get help? What story did she need to tell?
The families of ministers in particular, and church folks in general, are always potential victims of unfair expectations and pretentiousness. How great a burden it is to have to pretend that everything is just fine when it is not. How cruel a circumstance it is to be carrying that burden every day in a place and among a people who follow the One who said, “Come to me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
I pray that none of us are carrying burdens so great that we might feel that violence is our only recourse. I hope that none of us is so isolated and alone that lethal force seems to be our only way to find relief. Yet I know that we each have our burdens to bear.
We as people of God have limitations. There are some situations that are beyond our power to address. All that we might try to do would not be enough to make a difference. Sometimes the only way to make peace with a situation is to acknowledge the ways in which we are powerless to act toward it.
One burden that none of us should have to bear is that of having to act like everything is just fine when in reality it is not. Church does that to people; and it never ceases to amaze me. There is this notion that only good people who have it all together go to church. They are people who place those kinds of conditions on their church involvement. “If I am going to church, I have to get it together.” I am not sure if there is a more un-Biblical, un-Christlike notion afloat in our society today.
All of God’s children have burdens. Some of those burdens are downright embarrassing, even humiliating. Church should never add to those burdens by forcing a person to pretend they do not exist. Church is a place where we find grace and acceptance, not because we deserve it, but because God freely offers it to us. As God’s people, we freely offer it as well.
How do we offer grace to one another and share it freely:
We listen to each other, both for what is being said and what is not. We say things to each other in a way that can be heard. We say things in a way that is helpful and not hurtful. We see in each other the image of God. While we are looking at each other, we might wonder who it is that we are really seeing. The hungry, the hurting, the thirsty, the alone, the naked, the isolated, the imprisoned, the worn-out. When you’ve done it unto the least of these my brothers and sisters, you have done it unto me. Yes, may others see Jesus in us, but may we also see Jesus in them.
Joy and Peace,
Ed
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