Unpacking Sunday's Sermon: God's Calling in our Senior Years
The past two weeks we have encountered two Biblical characters who saw God's purposes for their lives revealed in their senior years. Abram was 75 when he received God's call to leave to a new land, and set out from Harran (Genesis 12:4). Moses was 80 when he encountered God at the burning bush and was called to confront Pharaoh (Acts 7:30ff). While their friends were presumably easing back into early retirement, these men were ramping up to follow God in new directions!
Those who know the Biblical story well, may contest that the Bible also tells us that Moses had 120 candles on his final birthday cake, and Abraham had 175. This suggests either remarkable longevity or a different way of measuring time!
However you make sense of their ages, it seems certainly clear that God's calling and promises can be received later in life. In the case of Abram it comes in the middle of his years, in the case of Moses when he was two-thirds the way through life. The stories also make it clear that while we may 'retire' from our life's economic pursuits God's calling and promises stretch through our entire existence. Both Moses and Abram died without having achieved their final aims.
But while Abram and Moses calling was to a solitary task, I think we can all recognise that a calling from God can change with age. As we get older the frailties of bodily existence become an increasing limitation and concern. It would be remarkable even for today's active 80-year-olds to embark on some sort of national emancipation effort, like Moses. But just because your body cannot endure the abuse you put in through when you were in your twenties doesn't mean that God is finished with you. Just because you find it hard to get out of bed before 11:00 am doesn't mean that God has no more goals or purposes for your life.
An article on vocation and the elderly tells a story about a "frail elderly woman confined to her bed in a nursing home, who found purpose and meaning in being a good listener to nurses’ aides, housekeepers, and others who moved in and out of her room each day to provide care." (Joyce Ann Mercer "What does Christian vocation look like for the elderly?")
I recall how George Barker, recently deceased, saw his visits for chemotherapy treatment as opportunities to talk to others, patients and nurses, about the hope God had given him to sustain him and carry on through his illness.
Maybe you were thinking that your greatest contributions were made in the past. But could it be that your entire life has been leading to this very moment? Could it be that today or tomorrow you will be making your most remarkable contributions to God's kingdom? At the very least we should be open to this possibility.
Photo by Neill Kumar on Unsplash
3 Comments
I will disagree with you on this one Klaas.
The Bible tells us that Methuselah lived 969 years. If we went down Columbia St and asked people what they thought about this, they would likely say that this is hard to believe. Some would likely go further and assert that maybe that longevity was symbolic or metaphoric, like other ancient stories or legends. To insist that 'no', he lived almost one thousand literal years, in my mind will cast doubt on the reliability of the rest of Scripture, the very thing that you are concerned about.
The challenge with Scripture is that it demands a critical reading. It was not written in English and comes from foreign cultures, so we can't assume that what our modern conventions would normally accept as literal, is to be read in that way. A cursory examination of the use of numbers in Scripture will highlight, for example, that the number '40' is used regularly to denote a period of waiting. ie Moses was in Midian for 40 years, during the flood it rained 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness
In all these cases the number '40' is conveying something more that a literal number of days or years.
Asking whether Scripture might be saying more or sometimes less that what a literal plain-sense reading might suggest is hard for some people. They would say that you are trying to squeeze out the miraculous out of Holy Scripture. I disagree again. When something is declared to be a miracle, like one of Jesus' healings, then we should read it as a miracle. But when the story suggests that symbols or metaphors might be at play we should follow this lead.
Thanks for a good explanation of time and years in Biblical settings and how often 40 years is used and can be associated to a period of waiting.v
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It is good to hear that even at a ripe older age there are still opportunities to make contributions or impacts in God's Kingdom work.
I really do not see the need to question the measure mentioned of time! Moses we are told was 120 years old when he died, and Abraham 175. Tthan those were their ages.. Saying that there might be a different way of measuring time in Old Testament times and that it was not that longevity makes us doubt the Bible in many more aspects but especially that God.'s Word rceived though the Bible was no inspired.
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