AGING

Will Willimon is a retired Methodist bishop, a former Dean of the chapel at Duke University, and is now professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School. He is the author of many valuable books on the Christian faith. His AGING: Growing Old in the Church, was written in his seventies and covers aging in the Scriptures, the storm of aging which is realistic, retirement with God, successful aging, and ending in God. He brings together the vast literature on aging research and quotes abundantly on them. Let me share with you some of his wisdom.

“Churches in North America are graying even faster than the general American population. Though there are few explicit resources in Scripture for aging, the Christian faith has the capacity to find fresh meaning in the last decades of our life cycle. I believe that Christians can prepare for the predictable crises of aging and that congregational leaders can be key to that preparation.

The Christian is commissioned to give testimony throughout the entire life cycle – including retirement, aging, sickness, and death – that God is faithful all the days of our lives. We can retire from our careers but not from discipleship; the church has a responsibility to equip us for discipleship in the last years of our lives. Even though growing old usually includes some painful events, the Christian faith can enable us to live through both the joys and anguish of aging with confidence and hope.

Martha Nussbaum, one of our greatest living philosophers, says that in a culture that adulates youth, bodily perfection, potency, and independence, is it a wonder that the aged are the subject of ‘widespread, indeed virtually universal, social stigma’?”

He cites examples of retired people who, after fulfilling careers when they drifted away from church and became focused on other matters found that they had time to think more deeply about life and want to know more about the Bible and are looking for resources to help them. There is a vast population that is seeking for answers in their old age that is a missionary field.

“Mary Pipher says in the opening of her book Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders, ‘Aging in America is harder than it needs to be.’ Aging is difficult in a culture that is obsessed with autonomy and self-construction. (No wonder we are a society of widespread loneliness.) The dependence that usually comes with aging and terminal illness can be a Christian witness to the mutual dependence that God intends for us throughout the Christian life. The fond fantasy of the elderly is to remain independent. Yet networks of interdependence (like the local congregation) sustain human usefulness and purpose. To be elderly and alone does not automatically mean that one is lonely. Sometimes loneliness can be experienced as grace-filled solitude, a gift, a privilege. The move from loneliness to softer, kinder solitude can be a learned skill of the aged.

Here are some ways to make a church elder-friendly. Designate a trained coordinator of older adult ministry to organize and deploy people of all ages in ministry to and with older adults. Recognize, affirm and support caregivers (e.g. spouses).Have regular luncheons for older adults and their caregivers.

Death denial is widespread; our rituals for dying are in disarray. The traditional Christian Service of Death and Resurrection is replaced with a bouncy, upbeat Celebration of Life where we are urged to laugh about the foibles of the deceased, an exercise that all too easily degenerates into corporate make-believe that death has not really occurred. If we are to have life beyond the limits of this passing, earthly life, our hope is that the God who raised Jesus will bring us along with him into eternity. Our hope is that Jesus Christ not only is raised to everlasting life but also in an amazing act of love, reaches out to us in our mortality and takes us along for the ride.