GN Commentary: June 26, 2009 - Michael Jackson's Funeral

Having preached a lot of funeral services in my time as a minister, I couldn't help but think this morning—the day after Michael Jackson died—what would I say if I were to conduct his funeral?

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Video Transcript

Having preached a lot of funeral services in my time as a minister, I couldn't help but think this morning—the day after Michael Jackson died—what would I say if I were to conduct his funeral?

Funerals are really for the benefit of the living, and I'd have no interest in rehearsing all of the facts that have been exhaustively dissected by reporters.  No, the real benefit is in what can we, the living, learn?

In watching all the news coverage, what struck me more than anything else were the descriptions of one particular aspect of his life—his childhood. Behind the bright, shiny face of the little kid singing lead vocals with the Jackson 5, real life did not evoke many smiles. 

Fame doesn't come cheaply, and one high price of fame for Michael Jackson was a missed childhood. It's not just that he was abused, but he missed out on a critical part of life.  In one interview he reflected on a childhood of being privately tutored for three hours a day, then going into the studio to record. He said he used to look out the window upon a park filled with children playing, and he would cry, wishing he could just go out and play with the other kids.

Jesus Christ once said, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Matthew 16:26)

Michael Jackson lost out on the "soul" of childhood—carefree playing, going to school, swimming in the summer in the country ponds or city pools, learning the social skills that come from Little League baseball and going to your first school dance.  The normal stuff of childhood is a critically important part of having a normal adulthood.  He as much as admitted so in his autobiographical song, "Childhood."

When you see interview clips of friends, acquaintances, and even Michael himself, stating that so much of his adulthood was lonely and sad, you have to ask, "how much of that sadness, and even suspicion of his controversial adult behaviors, is traceable back to his missed childhood?"

What would I say at Michael Jackson's funeral?  One thing would be to urge the living to not let slip by this lesson of the value of life.  Protect the childhood of the next generation, especially your own children.  I wasn't a big fan of Michael's music, but I always liked his song, "Heal the World."  It was introduced by a child speaking these words, "Think about the generations and say we want to make it a better world for our children and our children's children. So that they know it's a better world for them; and think if they can make it a better place."

I suggest that one of the greatest memories we should carry of Michael Jackson is not the legacy of his music or his money or his fame, but the lesson for the rest of us to give our children what he never had—a healthy, safe, loving…normal…childhood.

For GN Magazine, I'm Clyde Kilough.