Sermon 92
Sermon by Rev Alex Wedderspoon at Wonersh July 1st 2007.
Growing Old Gracefully
Job
29:2-4; King
James Version
“O That I were as in the past, as I was in the days of
my youth”.
Reading Job Chapter 29
There was a retired Bishop who, amongst other worthy activities, used to visit a number of elderly ladies who all lived in various circumstances in the area. These ladies were all in good health and all over the age of 100 and one day the Bishop sat down to think what was keeping them all going. Was it devotion to the Lord? Or regular reception of the Sacrament? Or sweetness of nature? Or was their good health and great age the just reward for a virtuous life spent in the service of others? But after a while and rather to his dismay, he concluded that what actually kept hem going was irritation. They were all mad about something. They were either mad at their flighty and unreliable daughters of 75 and their disappointing and undesirable husbands, or they were mad at the Inland Revenue, or they were mad at the Government, or , not infrequently, mad at the Vicar. But they all seemed to have some powerful inner provocations which helped to provide the stimulus for living.
Learning to live well and creatively into old age is becoming one of the greatest challenges of our time.
Professor Grimley
Evans, Professor of Geriatric medicine at the
On a warm afternoon in September a group of small children from a primary school; were being taken out for a nature walk. They were mostly 6 year olds and their cheerful noisy progress along the pavement was being watched by two elderly ladies. I could not help overhear one say to the other “ What a pity it is that they ever have to grow up”. We can understand some of the feelings she was trying to express. She was comparing the cheerfulness, good health, abundant energy, freedom from responsibility and innocence of youth with the frailties, responsibilities, frustrations, anxieties and griefs of later life. Implicit in her remark seemed to be the idea that, after the flowering of youth, our human life in this world is a process of sad, steady decline.
A retired clergyman was once asked how he was feeling and he replied “ Older, poorer, balder, wiser and worse.”
But does it have to be downhill all the way? Is it the purpose of God who revealed himself in Jesus Christ that our life in this world should grow progressively downhill until we all end up in the geriatric ward of some hospital; self-centered, crocherty and garrulous; a pain in the neck to all who know us, visited by our relatives and friends as infrequently as possible and only under the strongest compulsions of Christian duty?
Is that the purpose of God for human life?
A negative attitude to old age and the process of ageing is very much a feature of our Western World which glorifies youth and technological skill rather than wisdom and experience. This has never been so, to the same degree, in the East and it most certainly not so in Biblical times.
In his justly famous and often
reprinted book “The Importance of Living”, the Chinese scholar Lin Yutang wrote, “In my efforts to compare and contrast
Eastern and Western life I have found no differences that are absolute except
one… in the matter of our attitude to getting older; The difference is absolute and the
East and West take exactly opposite points of view. This is the clearest in the matter of asking
about a persons age.
In
Later in the book he continues, “ We in the Western World love old furniture, old silver, old books and old prints, but we have entirely forgotten about the beauty of old people. Yet an appreciation of that kind of beauty is essential to our life, for beauty it seems to me , is what is old and mellow and well smoked.”
The positive attitude to old age and to the process of ageing which we find in the east is also a feature of the ancient world of the Bible.
In the Old Testament, the story of Job is that of an elderly man who suffers every kind of conceivable misfortune. He loses his sons and daughters; he loses all his wealth and property; he loses his health. He is portrayed sitting on a heap of ashes, covered with festering sores, scratching himself with a broken piece of pottery. Three of his friends come to visit him to try and console him. In the speech which Job makes to them, and which was read in he lesson, he is reported as saying, “ O that I were in the days of my youth”. A very understandable sentiment, under the circumstances. But that is not what the original Hebrew text of the Bible actually says. The Hebrew word which is translated as “youth” actually means “autumn”. We can easily imagine the 17th century translators of the Bible saying to each other “this must be an error in the text”. But what the writer of the Book of Job actually wrote was “O that I were in my autumn years”. And the context of the rest of the speech makes it quite clear that is what it means.
In the extremity of personal misfortune and in the abyss of misery, Job does not look back wistfully to the joys of his youth. He looks back to the years of his maturity as the time of greatest happiness and fulfilment. And this exactly illustrates the Biblical view of old age and of the process of ageing. In the Biblical world, the elderly were regarded with honour. At the time when written records were few and perishable the elderly passed on by word-of-mouth the legends, beliefs, customs and laws of the community. They had their oun special place and purpose in life. The idea that our life is downhill all the way is not part of the Biblical vision of human life.
Nor is it true to the experience of many in our own times. As has often been said, it is quite possible to grow older without growing old, and this has been amply demonstrated.; The architect Frank Lloyd Wright was still designing buildings at the age of 96; Picasso was still painting at the age of 90; Verdi was composing at 85; at the age of 83 Pope John Paul XXII began to attempt his transformation of the Roman Catholic Church; Michaelangelo completed some of his finest paintings when he was well over 80; the inventor Thomas Edison was still at work in his laboratory when he was 90; and Com. Bramwell Booth of the Salvation Army preached at Guildford at some length, at 96. The idea that our human life in this world must necessarily always be downhill all the way is simply not true to the reality of experience.
A study was undertaken recently on the lives of 450 people who had lived happily and creatively to be over 90. Certain of the characteristics they had in common were not at all suprising: they had been spared serious accident or disabling illnesses: they had all taken reasonable care of their nutrition and health; but three qualities stood out above all, they had all:=
A PURPOSE TO LIVE FOR
A SELF TO LIVE WITH
A FAITH TO LIVE BY
A PURPOSE TO LIVE FOR - some significant activity which kept them busy; it was not just that they had something to do; rather they had some task worth doing.
A SELF TO LIVE WITH - over the years, and in the course of their Christian living, they had freed themselves from resentments, anger, bitterness, regret, unkindness and guilt – those great poisons.
A FAITH TO LIVE BY - A Christian faith which gave meaning, principle, perspective and hope to their lives.
They had all experienced the gradual decline of their physical powers but they had gone on growing in the things of the spirit – courage, faith, hope, love, humour, patience and kindliness – which is what matters. For it is the things which are seen that are temporal but the things which are not seen - the inner things of the spirit – that are eternal.
Some years ago a clergyman was
visiting the old people’s ward in one of those immeasurably depressing
hospitals in
It need not be downhill all the way; it is NOT meant to be downhill all the way. It is possible to grow older without growing old. Even in the extremities of frailty of old age, courage remains, and faith and hope and love and caring and humour and kindness, which is what matters. For these are the only treasures which we carry with us into that life which is to come.