The Least of These

Tyler Motz

Several years ago, at some function at the Motz house, the discussion turned, as it often does, to our fellow church family. Some children, it seemed, had been loud and lively at whatever function we’d recently been through. The general consensus was that the children should know better and that their parents should make them mind and be still and not be up running about, making noise, laughing and talking. Mary Mays was on the couch with Tyler and ended the discussion by looking down at him and saying, “Isn’t it good to hear children in the church. Oh, how I wish our little boy could be up and running around and talking and laughing like that. We’d give anything if he could misbehave like that.” Over the next few years they would hold out some hope of a breakthrough; a single word, a reaction, some smile or response; but Mary Mays’ prayer went unanswered. “We’d give anything,” she’d said, but did she realize that what they’d have to give is Tyler himself? How high a price for that cure, how bitter a medicine, how difficult a balm to bear.

We realize the pain and grief, perhaps the difficulty of watching it has been what’s kept so many of us away. As difficult as it is to accept, perhaps there is some comfort in three things that it can show us. First, as we have watched this grief unfolding and enveloping, we see something of the love of God for us. He too suffered through the loss of a Son; a cosmic grief that we can only barely comprehend, and a grief that took place because He loved each of us too much to be separated from any of us. Like Mary Mays, He too said “We’d give anything” but unlike us, They willingly gave it.

Second, we see the mercy and grace of God. We see healing, not only of Tyler, but also of Vicie and Nancy and those who surrounded him with their own mercy and grace. We do not grieve as those who have no hope, but we can face even death with a hope and certainty, the blessed assurance that our hymnal speaks of.

Third, we see the childlike dependence, reliance and faith that Tyler had in his parents, grandmother, and caretakers. He had to rely upon them for everything and in that we see the way that we should live in dependence, reliance, and faith on God who wants to adopt us and surround us with his care and love. And we saw that care and love demonstrated in the way that they took care of Tyler. How many times have we watched that and said “I don’t know how they do it” or “I could never do that” or “They must be better people than me;” but in our watching and in our small way getting to share in his care and love, we have gotten to witness and share in a small portion of that supernatural care and love that only God can provide and supply.

Fourth, we see the healing and completion offered by God. Paul said in Corinthians that when he was a child he thought and spoke as a child, but when he became a man he put away childish things. He also said that now he saw through a glass darkly, but one day he would see face to face. That’s what’s happened to Tyler. His present body could never be more than a child, no matter how old he became, but as he’s faced what we consider to be the end, he approached a new beginning when he could become a man and put away childish things. No more will he see through a glass darkly; but he and Ron will be able to run and play and walk together and talk and do all the things that was denied him before. There is something wistful and endearing about babies and small children, but as we mourn their passing into older youth and adulthood and the loss of “how cute” they used to be, we do not hold them back, but encourage their growth and maturity. Could we do any less for Tyler? He has gone to where we all claim to want to go; becoming what we all claim we hope to be; how short-sighted and perhaps even selfish of us to forget this destination and to try to hold him back in a perpetual and helpless childhood.

But there is another side to this; something for us to consider and perhaps look to with dread; something that also shows how short-sighted and perhaps even selfish that we can be. Assuming that we do eventually make it to heaven in spite of ourselves, then will one day Tyler approach us and ask us to account for how we treated him? How easy it was to walk past him

and to not take time to touch him or speak. How simple a matter to forget that he and his mother needed us. “He wouldn’t know it anyway,” we reassure ourselves, but how could we have been so certain? How many other Tylers have there been in our lives; how many overlooked and neglected opportunities? Troubling questions, but even if we can come up with either excuse for what we didn’t do or example of what we did to make ourselves feel better, will it be as easy to overcome that same question when it’s asked not by a heavenly Tyler, but by a heavenly judge who reminds us that when we did things or didn’t do things to the least that we either did them or failed to do them to Him?

Now, that sounded like a conclusion and when I first wrote that it was one, but that’s not the thought I want to leave with us today. As I was thinking about Tyler’s earthly body and its troubles and limitations and then at visitation last night when Tim said that we should be cheerful, not sad, another Bible passage came to mind; and that passage is the thought that I want to leave with you today.

You will recall that when Tyler got tired of being a quiet child, that he would cry out. We gave those cries or calls various meanings: we might think that he was just laughing, or that he felt lonely and wanted attention, or that he was uncomfortable; and those may have been reasons that he would cry out or groan from time to time.

Or maybe there’s another reason. Maybe when Tyler and other children and people like him cry out or groan they’re reminding us to be cheerful, reminding us that there’s a bright future for them and us, reminding us that there’s more to them than people in a wheelchair, reminding us that they’re children of God and heirs to His promises and recipients of His Spirit.

Paul begins the 5th chapter of Second Corinthians this way:

so...we should be cheerful, because God is the one who makes all of this possible and He has given us his Spirit to make certain that he will do it.