Why it's cool to care - Brian Edwards explains our responsibility to the elderly

Today, there are more 80-year-olds than 18-year-olds in our nation. By 2020 5% of the population will be over 80.

A couple of decades ago the St. Paul’s Methodist Seminary in Kansas established a professorship in gerontology — the study of old age. The reason for this was that some students found themselves pastoring churches where 100% of the congregation are over 65.

Old age is a blessing to all because it is a reminder of the frailty of life and it is intended to awaken us to what Sir Walter Scott once called ‘the long halt which arrives at last and ends all’.

Ageing is supposed to act as an aide memoir. Ageing says: ‘you are moving daily closer to accountability to your Creator’.

State care

Psalm 68.4-6 describes for us an important characteristic of God: ‘Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds — his name is the LORD — and rejoice before him. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.’

That family may be the local fellowship of Christians. Because of our sun-scorched land the care of the elderly by the state will not get better. Why?

* Because of the scattered nature of our families.

* Because too few want the job of caring, except the poorly paid immigrant who often can barely speak the language.

* Because the relentless pressure of the euthanasia lobby will convince us that the elderly ill are not worth their space.

* Because a society driven by economic value will conclude that caring for the elderly is not productive.

* Because evolutionary philosophy persuades society that you do not care for the old, worn out and disabled nag, but send it to the knackers’ yard. Is that too strong? But that is precisely what the popular eugenics lobby argued in the early part of the 20th century until a German dictator logically applied it to a whole race that he considered inferior.

Christian care

Evangelical Christians have consistently shown the way for compassionate care. In the 18th century it was largely, though not exclusively, evangelical Christians who drove forward the abolition of the slave trade here in Britain. Among the Victorians, three-quarters of all philanthropic work was undertaken by evangelicals. In our own generation Christians are leading the way in care for those with serious learning disabilities. And we have a magnificent opportunity to show that, once again, evangelical Christians can be significant in caring for the elderly.

According to Psalm 68.5, God is, ‘A father to the fatherless. A defender of widows… God sets the lonely in families’. God is all that — through his people. With this challenge in mind, let me give a few pointers for today.

Dignity

First, there is dignity in growing old.

In old age there are the creaking joints, the aching muscles, the breathlessness, embarrassing problems, deafness, poor eyesight. Or we become mentally confused, forgetful and slow. And our longstanding friends and loved ones fall off as leaves from the trees in autumn. But the dignity of old age is as great as the value of a new-born child.

Romans 14.8: ‘If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.’

It is an utterly false argument to say that we should care for the elderly because of their long and valued service to their country, many of whom fought for our freedom. That is a utilitarian argument. What then is the value of those who seem to have achieved very little in their life? No! The elderly deserve to be cared for with dignity simply because they have the value and dignity of a human being.

Of course there is often a loss of dignity with the paraphernalia of old age, as with any serious illness. The Christian church must demonstrate the value of life in a society that, for all its pretence, has steadily devalued life. Surely the medic who can deal with the fully-formed unborn child as if it were a piece of unwanted vestigial meat cannot be trusted to believe in the value and dignity of the 96-year-old who is feeble in mind and body. We must show that we are guardians of that dignity: our churches must develop a programme of caring for the carers.

Teach the young

Secondly, churches must teach their young people that there is dignity in growing old.

Are we going to wait until someone is old before we start preparing that person for ‘old age’? Caring churches must attract young people to the task. We must teach a new generation that there is a theology of old age — or, in its own jargon, that it’s biblically cool to care for old people.

Of course it’s exciting to work among children and young people and do missions and camps. But do our young people know what old age is like, or even who are the older people in the church?

Are they aware of James 1.27? ‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.’

When have any of us preachers taken Leviticus 19.32 as our text on a Sunday morning? ‘Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the LORD.’

Teach the elderly

Third, we must teach all our people to grow old with dignity.

Women can expect to live to 82, but they will spend the last 11 years or so in poor health. Men will die on average at 76, but spend about the last nine years in poor health.

Queen Elizabeth I did not sensibly face the reality of growing old. As she neared 70, shortly before her death in 1603, she started dressing like a fashion model, attending parties, flirting with much younger men. When she could no longer continue in this way, she lost her appetite, and became melancholy, suspicious, and fearful.

There has to be a realistic approach to old age. ‘The righteous… will still bear fruit in old age’ (Psalm 92.14).

On this Psalm, Spurgeon says: ‘Nature decays, but grace thrives’. Now if that is not true of the majority of older folk in our churches, it is the fault of our leaders. We are not teaching our people how to grow old. Why have so many of our older people little else to talk about when we visit them than their arthritis and grandchildren? Because we have allowed them to close down their vision with their bifocals.

Age with purpose

Fourth, we must teach our people to grow old with purpose.

The Bible has a realism about age. In the OT the very young and the old are not so valuable in economic terms to the hard life of a largely agricultural nation. Thus, in Leviticus 27, we have a list of the redemption price of those dedicated to the Lord’s service at the tabernacle: the value of a child under five is five shekels of silver, the value of a young person aged five to 20 years is 20 shekels of silver, the value of those in the prime of life from 20 to 60 years is 50 shekels of silver, and then it decreases to 15 shekels for those over 60. That is biblical realism.

But nevertheless great things can be achieved by the elderly:

* John Wesley claimed he was far more able to preach at 73 than when he was 23.

* John Newton, in spite of claiming that he was ‘packed and sealed and ready for the post’, was still preaching at 80.

* We are not all so able? No, but at 84 and 82 respectively, Peggy and Christine Smith, one blind and the other crippled with arthritis, prayed for revival on the Isle of Lewis in the 1940s — and it came.

We must continually work, not merely at maintenance mode for older people, but for the provision of positive activity and fulfilment for those who are capable of much more than sitting and dreaming all day. What a powerhouse of prayer and positive interest in the Lord’s work our older people could be.

Age with hope

Fifth, we must teach our people to grow old with hope.

Eight years ago Time magazine ran an article suggesting we may soon be living to 125! The writer, having outlined the mental and physical problems of his elderly mother, commented: ‘Do we have to grow old so sadly?’ The Christian answer is most definitely not.

‘We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal’
(2 Corinthians 4.16Ð17).

Paul claims that our ultimate prospect is ‘eternal glory’ and that is best understood as the full character of God in all his beauty, holiness and love — everything that God is. In other words: we will enjoy all that God is.

The phrase ‘far outweighs them all’ is better translated ‘beyond all comparison’.

Nearly the holidays

Because I was recently preaching at a different church in the evening, I had arranged to go straight from my morning service for lunch with the pastor of the church where I would preach in the evening. Actually I arrived before all the congregation had left their morning service and standing on the steps were two small boys who had found a couple of handbells inside. They were ringing them loudly and calling, ‘Come in. Play time is ended. Come in. Play time is ended.’ Ah, but when our elderly saints arrive in glory, they will hear the rich welcome, ‘Come in. Play time is just beginning!’

What is deliciously attractive for those who will arrive in heaven from a weary life? C.S. Lewis referred to heaven with the simple expression: ‘Term time is over, the holidays have begun’, and, meanwhile, this is term time, and we all have a lot to do — even in older age.