Honoring Old Age
Self-Worth
Secularism is a thief that has robbed our parents of the honor of aging. To be honored as they grow old, our parents need to be valued for their past experience, given our unconditional love, and respected for their continuing contribution. How do you assure your aging parents these gifts of self-worth?
The Thief of Eternal Time
With its worship of the "Radical Now," secularism has robbed our aging people of the honor of time. By definition, secularism is "This Age-ism." Neither the past nor the future has value to a secularist. Everything of honor is squeezed into the present moment of time. But what a price is paid for the loss of the past. The perspective of history, which older people alone can bring to a culture, is gone. A "community of memory," which Robert Bellah finds essential to continuity in a culture, no longer exists.1 No wonder the youth of today are condemned to repeat the hard lessons that their fathers and mothers
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learned. No wonder the curriculum in higher education has devalued the history of Western civilization. What good is the past if everything of value and honor can be personally experienced in the present moment of time? At best, the lessons of an older generation are irrelevant; at worst, they are repressive because they restrict the freedom of a younger generation that must experience everything for itself.
Secularists who squeeze time into the "Radical Now" lose the future as well as the past. We see the symptoms of this loss in current attitudes toward children. If the future is in the eyes of the young, the prognosis is poor. From the impulse of pain in the half-formed eyes of an aborted baby to the confusion in the discerning eyes of a child torn between the affections of divorced parents, the future looks bleak. The profile of symptoms could go on and on. Not the least is the evidence that children of single parents, along with elderly people on welfare, constitute the "new poor" among us. All of the facts to support this tragic conclusion are in, but as yet, neither the government nor the church has responded as the "benevolent community" that we claim as our point of pride among the nations of the world.
The loss of a sense of eternity is the greatest loss of all. When time has no past or future in human terms, it certainly cannot have continuity in spiritual terms. To think of time without beginning or end is beyond the comprehension of the secular mind. To think that we are created by an eternal God to live forever in heaven or hell is, to the secular mind, nothing more than a fanciful idea of an outmoded past. Yet this is the concept of time in which the elderly find meaning. As the days of life are shortened, their minds and spirits begin to stretch toward eternity. Whether they lived for good or evil, elderly people find themselves asking the haunting question "Is this all there is?" To answer yes does not satisfy. Eternity is built into our souls, and if we deny our nature we rob ourselves, and especially our older people, of meaning. The anticipation of life after death is absolutely necessary to give old age its value and meaning. Without the anticipation of eternity, there is no hope.
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The Thief of Unconditional Love
Secularism has also robbed us of the unconditional love that our parents need when they grow old. To the "Radical Now" the secularist adds an obsession with the "Radical Self." Love becomes as limited as time. No one counts except the all-consuming self. Self-giving, the very essence of Christian character, is ridiculed, except in one circumstance. If self-giving can be traded for something of self-interest, it will be used in the barter. Skeptics even go so far as to say that self-interest is always the motive behind self-giving. Any act of love, they say, can be explained by the benefit received by the giver. Whether it's relief from guilt, the warm feeling of doing good, the obedience to religious convictions, or the duty to another human being, an act of love is nothing more than another expression of self-interest. Of course, such a jaundiced viewpoint rules out the self-sacrifice that Jesus taught and practiced. To think of dying for an enemy, without a return except the risk of rejection, is inconceivable to the secularist. To the Christian, however, "love is an unlimited warranty."
Aging parents become innocent victims of secular self-interest. We are all aware of the changes in culture that have made the extended family — parents, children, and grandparents living together — a rarity. Career mobility, urban housing, living costs, reduced family size, working couples, and day-care programs have all militated against extended families, which include aging parents in the household. Retirement villages and nursing homes are the substitutes. Not that our parents object. There are compensating values in the independence of parents, grandparents, and grandchildren. But with that independence is the danger of losing the assurance of unconditional love and the "hands-on" care that our aging parents need. What was once an obligation for total life-care of parents can be reduced to an economic expectation. Someone else will provide the care if the sons and daughters (or the State) will pay the bills. One of the sentences
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spoken most often by aging parents to their children may well be, "I don't want to be a burden." The words carry their own pathos.
The Thief of Meaning
Secularism has robbed our aging parents of a third value. With the robbery of time and love goes the theft of meaning. A secularist is a person who seeks meaning in "radical happiness." As we know, happiness depends upon external circumstances, not upon internal quality. Joy is the strong biblical word that captures the quality of life that is independent of circumstances. Jesus is our example. In Hebrews we read of Him who "for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (12:2). To the secularist the "joy of the cross" is an oxymoron. There can be no joy in pain suffering. Certainly there can be no "Radical Happiness" — a feeling of well-being for the "Radical Self" in the "Radical Now." To seek this end of meaning is to be a materialist, a hedonist, and ultimately a nihilist. Even Henry David Thoreau saw the dead end of such pursuit when he advised, "If you want to be rich, make your wants few."
Old age is a time when the meaning of life shifts from external circumstances to internal character. Joy is more important than happiness. Yet the thief of secularism has robbed joy of its meaning, particularly among the young who are laying the foundations upon which old age will rise or fall. An old hippie, or an old yuppie, is one of the saddest sights in our society. Without having laid the moral and spiritual foundations for aging, they dead-end in the pursuit of happiness and become the personification of T.S. Eliot's "hollow men" (or women) "stuffed with straw." The future bodes dark for the secularist whose life will be prolonged by medical advancement, but whose meaning is dependent upon youth, health, money, things, and favorable circumstances. A generation of nihilists — elderly people whose life is without meaning — awaits us.
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The Biblical Corrective
Everything the Bible says about aging contradicts the "Radical Now," the "Radical Self," and the "Radical Happiness" of the secularist. First and foremost is the fifth commandment of the Law of Moses, "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you (Exod. 20:21).
No one can dispute the fact that parents are a priority in the mind of God. Moreover, He will hold us accountable for our attitudes toward our father and mother. Honor is His expectation. Doesn't this mean that we are to show them respect, give them love, value their contribution, affirm the meaning of their life, and take care of them in their need? Because God gave the Ten Commandments as minimum moral standards to sustain human civilization, can we not judge the rise and fall of a nation by its attitude toward its aging people, particularly its fathers and mothers?
The fifth commandment has eternal consequences as well. We can expect one of God's questions for us at the final judgment to be, "Did you honor your father and mother as I commanded you?" There will be no fifth amendment for the fifth commandment. Our answer will be either yes or no.
While God's commandment drops like a plumbline of judgment upon us, it also has a connection with a promise that we must not miss. Honoring our father and mother is the commandment that triggers God's promise of long life in the land that He would give to the Israelites. The connection is natural. In the cycle of generations, the length and quality of life depend upon a three-generational mode of compatible relationships among the young, middle-aged, and young elderly. Or more specifically, we need the vision of the young, the reality of the middle-aged, and the wisdom of the old to keep a nation on even keel. Our long life, then, depends upon the honor we give to our father and mother as they grow old. Otherwise, we will lose what God has given to us. If God's commandment still holds (and there is
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no evidence that it has been cancelled), the storm warnings are up for Western civilization. For us to claim the promise of long life in a good land, we must restore the honor of time, love, and meaning to our fathers and mothers as they grow old.
God's promises begin to multiply with age for the person who obeys His laws and does His will. The promises of honor that are given to the aging person include:
The Gift of Age
Wisdom is the special gift of the aged. An elderly person with the gift of holy intuition and the experience of trial and error is an invaluable asset to any civilization or society, community or church, family or function. Throughout the Bible, the wisdom of the old is honored. Their counsel channels the enthusiasm of the young, and their dreams keep the middle-aged from giving up. But with their wisdom comes
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responsibility. In Paul's letter to Titus, the apostle sets out the expectations that go with wisdom. A separate list is given for men and women. His bias may be showing because the list of expectations for older men is positive, while his list for older women emphasizes negatives. At the same time, Paul may be recognizing the special and complementary facets of wisdom that older men and women bring to the community of faith.
Older men are expected to be "temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance" (Titus 2:2). Older women are expected to be "reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good (Titus 2:3). Immediately following these lists, Titus is urged to teach the young men and women the virtues of Christian character with their elders as examples. Although his gender bias may seem to show in the separate lists, modeling for the young is the common role that Paul identifies for older men and women in the church. Here again is a biblical distinction for aging that separates the body of Christ from the secular culture. While a secular culture casts its older people aside, the church honors them with the role of being spiritual examples for the young. In this light, we must conclude that our aging parents represent an underutilized resource that needs to be tapped for the spiritual life of the church.
I invite you, then, to join me in learning what our parents have to teach us as they grow old. The lessons will come from crisis and conflict, words and examples, laughter and tears, even life and death itself. All make up the wisdom we see when our parents grow old.
Chapter Three || Table of Contents
