Christian Living

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In a national retirement magazine there appeared a full page ad picturing a handsome smiling couple, probably in their late forties or early fifties, on a tennis court. The bold-lettered caption read: "Now Jack and Connie's biggest worry is perfecting their backhand." Twenty or twenty-five years to perfect their tennis backhand! That surely has to be the height of trivializing the miracle of creation! What a sad commentary that that picture and the idea it illustrates look attractive to most of us! All of which calls attention to our national craze to retire. To new, creative enterprise? No--to nothing: not to think, not to contribute, not to produce--just to exist in a sea of self-indulgence, no earthly good to ourselves or anyone else. This is, of course, luxuriously slow death to the best that's in us.

Scripture knows nothing of retirement except as health and physical vigor diminish. (Eccl. 12:1-7) What do you think crusty old Caleb would have said to a retirement condo with every service provided? What he DID say to Joshua on his eithy-fifth birthday was:

"I am as strong this day as I was when Moses sent me to spy out the land (45 years earlier); as my strength was then, so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain...and if so be the Lord will be with me, then shall I be able to drive the enemy out."

And Joshua blessed him and gave him Mount Hebron for his inheritance. (Joshua 14:11ff)

Caleb had better things to do than perfect his tennis backhand. He was caught up in a cause much larger than himself. And that's what we all need: not retirement from life while we are still alive, but involvement in a transcendent cause: love of God and man that results in glory to the One and usefulness to the other.

It is said of Moses that his eyesight was not dimmed nor his strength abated when he died at age one humdred twenty. (Deut. 34:7) He had needed that clear vision and strong body to lead the quarreling, rebellious Israelites for forty years through the wilderness, and because he used them they stayed with him until he died.

To long for freedom from an eight-to-five job is one thing, but to long for twenty-plus years of doing nothing is quite another. It's a dangerous game of trivial pursuit. That kind of retirement carries the seeds of self-destruction within itself. What we cease to use, we lose slowly and surely. We need to invest those years creatively in what's really important: service to God and fellowman. And if we've never before sought first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, now's the time.

American society and business may put the older person out to pasture, but he doesn't have to stay there. To be killed with kindness is to be no less dead. And, in fact, it is no kindness to urge people to cease to live meaningful, effort-filled, productive lives, no matter what age.

"The time has come to talk of many things," as the Walrus said to the Carpenter: imagination and creativity reveal a world full of people to love and serve, so many things to learn, so many ways to grow--enough to engross us all. No one is expendable; everyone is needed and has a place. Life can and ought to be full and exuberant and involved into a good old age. Let's urge all of God's children to stay in a cause bigger than ourselves for as long as possible. We're not finished until God says we're finished. Tennis backhand, indeed!!

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