Child Watch™ Column
A friend who shared this story described it as “the best sermon” my dear friend and mentor Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., who passed away this year, “never preached.” It was Christmas Eve and the pews at Never mind that no figure of the innkeeper actually appears in scripture. We’ve all imagined him delivering the message of no room, of inhospitality to the baby Jesus and His parents. And it seemed the perfect part for Tim, an earnest youth of the congregation who has Down Syndrome. Only one line to remember: “There’s no room at the inn!” He had practiced it again and again with his parents and with the pageant director. He seemed to have mastered it. So there he stood at the altar of the sanctuary, bathrobe costume firmly belted over his broad stomach, as Mary and Joseph made their way down the center aisle. They approached him, said their lines as rehearsed, and waited for his reply. Tim’s parents, the pageant director, and the whole congregation almost leaned forward as if willing him to remember his line. “There’s no room at the inn!” Tim boomed out, just as rehearsed. But then, as Mary and Joseph turned on cue to travel further, Tim suddenly yelled “Wait!” They turned back, startled, along with the congregation and looked at him in surprise. “You can stay at my house!” he called. Well, Tim had effectively preached the sermon at For Christians, another holy advent season is upon us. People of all faiths are reflecting on things done and left undone during the past year and making resolutions for change in the new one. When, oh when will we individually and collectively as congregations, as communities, and as a nation resolve to stop saying to our children, “There’s no room at the inn”? When will we, like Tim, start saying, “You can stay at my house”? When will we say to poor, hungry, and homeless children, “Wait! We’ll make a place for you at In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also delivered a Christmas Eve sermon. In “A Christmas Sermon on Peace,” given at Is the day of good will toward all still coming? As Christians celebrate the miracle of the incarnation—the belief that God actually came to live among us as a poor baby and child—I also hope we can honor Him by raising a mighty voice for justice and protection for all the poor babies and children who are sacred and made in God’s image but left behind in poverty and hopelessness. As we end the seasons of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, look ahead to Eid al-Adha, and enter the time of year of new beginnings, let us repent and reaffirm our commitment to building a nation where all children find room in our nation’s inn.
Marian Wright Edelman is President and Founder of the Children's Defense Fund and its Action Council whose Leave No Child Behind? mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.
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