MikePaschall.com

Once upon a time I had a young friend named Philip. Philip was born with Downs Syndrome. He was a pleasant child—happy, it seemed—but increasingly aware of the difference between himself and other children. Philip went to Sunday school at the Methodist church. His teacher, also a friend of mine, taught the third-grade class with Philip and nine other eight-year-old boys and girls.

My Sunday school teacher friend is a very creative teacher. Most of you know 8-year-olds. And Philip, with his differences, was not readily accepted as a member of this third-grade Sunday School class. But my teacher friend was a good teacher, and he had helped facilitate a good group of 8-year-old children. They learned and they laughed and they played together. And they really cared about each other even though as you know, 8-year-olds don’t say that they care about each other out loud very often. But my teacher friend could see it. He knew it. He also knew that Philip was not really a part of that group of children. Philip, of course, did not choose nor did he want to be different. He just was. And that was just the way things were.

My Sunday school teacher friend had a marvelous design for his class on the Sunday after Easter last year. You know those things that pantyhose come in—the containers look like great big eggs. My friend had collected ten of these to use on that Sunday. The children loved it when he brought them into the room. Each child was to get a great big egg. It was a beautiful spring day, and the assigned task was for each child to go outside on the church grounds and find a symbol of new life, put it in the egg (the old pantyhose containers), and bring it back to the classroom. They would then mix them all up, and then all open and share their new symbols and surprises together one by one.

Well, they did this, and it was glorious. And it was confusing. And it was wild. They ran all around, gathered their symbols, and returned to the classroom. They put all the big eggs on the table, and then my teacher friend began to open them. All the children were standing around the table.

He opened one, and there was a flower, and they ooh-ed and aah-ed.

He opened another, and there was a little butterfly. “Beautiful,” the girls all said, since it was very hard for 8-year-old boys to say “beautiful.”

He opened another, and there was a rock. And as third graders will, some laughed, and some said, “That’s crazy! How’s a rock supposed to be like new life?” But the smart little boy whose egg they were speaking of spoke up. He said, “That’s mine. And I knew all of you would get flowers, and buds, and leaves, and butterflies, and stuff like that. So I got a rock because I wanted to be different. And for me, that’s new life.”…

He (the teacher) opened the next one, and there was nothing there. The other children, as 8-year-olds will, said, “That’s not fair—that’s stupid!—somebody didn’t do it right.”

About that time my teacher friend felt a tug on his shirt, and he looked down and Philip was standing beside him.

“It’s mine,” Philip said. “It’s mine.” and the children said, “You don’t ever do things right, Phillip. There’s nothing there!”

“I did so do it,” Philip said. “I did do it. It’s empty—the tomb is empty!“

The class was silent, a very full silence. And for you people who don’t believe in miracles, I want to tell you that one happened that day last spring. From that time on, it was different. Philip suddenly became a part of the group of 8-year-old children. They took him in. He entered. He was set free from the tomb of his differentness.

Phillip died last summer. His family had known since the time he was born that he wouldn’t live out a full lifespan. Many other things had been wrong with his tiny, little body. And so, late last July, with an infection that most normal children could have quickly shrugged off, Philip died. Mystery simply enveloped him completely.

He was buried from that church. And on that day at the funeral nine 8-year-olds, with their Sunday school teacher, marched right up to the altar and laid on it an empty egg. An empty, old discarded holder of pantyhose.

           —From “The Story of Philip” by Harry Pritchett, Jr. in St. Luke’s Journal of Theology (June 1976).

This story has been around a long time, and it’s been published in more than a few magazines. Maybe you’ve read it, but forgot it? Maybe you’ve never read it before. Whatever the case, I’m reminded that the first recorded line from the greatest sermon ever given was the perfect opening to a linear progression of theological upheaval and social indictment regarding how God actually sees and relates to us. Who could have—would have—ever guessed that, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (happy are the broken, blessed are those who can’t) would set the tone for the greatest reversal theme of all time? The religious norm never saw it coming.

Pritchett’s story uses the innocence (the natural interaction) of children to teach us a grand lesson. Could it be that the “poor in spirit” (the broken, the challenged, the little ones, the ignored, the minimized, the immigrant, the sex worker, the drunk, the addict, the homeless…) have a better shot at real happiness and heaven’s blessedness? Not because of their brokenness, but because of what they actually have to give away to the world, in spite of that brokenness? I think that is the whole meaning of what Jesus was laying down in his sermon. Our unwillingness to see them… hear them… humanize them… is doing us no favors. I suspect that most of us are on the wrong side of power. I know I am.

Obviously, a challenged child became the real teacher… of everyone. And yes, it’s an old story, but it still preaches.

But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Mike

STAY IN LOVE / LIVE YOUR LOVE / EVERYDAY