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Moving Into the Third Age
The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (Year A, RCL)
February 1, 2009
The Reverend Benjamin Pratt
Grace and Peace…Prayer: My eyes are squinting, Lord…I’m looking for you in the restaurant, in a Drs. office and at the (communion) supper table. Are
you looking at me…through the eyes of the waiter…through the frown of the nurse…in the smile of my wife? Illumine our squinting and inward eyes, O Lord!
So, to briefly introduce myself: I’m a retired pastoral counselor who worked for thirty years in the basement of your church. In the mid 90’s you
called me out of the basement to preach on sin (I guess you assumed that living in the basement all those years would give me wisdom on that subject).
Then you called me up here to preach homage to a crab (that was apparently a step up)… Such is life in this exceptional congregation.
Now you have called me out of retirement to speak on behalf of the third graders…no, wait, I read that wrong…on behalf of the third agers…those of us
who are 60 years and older…You know…the people who can turn a dinner party into an organ recital…
And, if that is not enough, With typical St. Mark’s irony, you have asked me to speak about the third stage of life from the Gospel story of Jesus
being presented to the Temple as a young boy. How good it is to be back in your midst!
Fortunately, in the 36th verse of that chapter, there is a reference to the prophet, Anna, who lived with her husband for seven years and then as
a widow to the age of eighty-four. She visited the Temple daily for worship, prayer and fasting. At the moment that Jesus was presented to the
temple, our text tells us she “Began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” That
will preach…to all ages…for all of us who are baptized are called to witness our lives for this child!
When I was in Seminary I was taught that a Sermon always had three points and a poem. This sermon will have three points based on a poem.
In Blackwater Woods: last two stanzas…
Every year…everything I ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this:
The fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation,
Whose meaning none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
You must be able to
Do three things:
To love what is mortal;
To hold it against your bones
Knowing your life depends upon it;
And when the time comes to let it go,
To let it go.
Mary Oliver, American Primitive
To live in this world
You must be able to
Do three things:
To love what is mortal…
Oh, we are flesh and we will die…this we 3rd Agers know!
…Zachary, our four year old grandson living in Laredo, TX, said, “PopPop, I want you to live closer so I can see you every day.” With a sigh, I said,
“That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it!” Without missing a beat he said, “PopPop, are you going to die tomorrow? You are already a grandpa and I don’t
want you to die. I want you to be here when I get married.” (Pause…looking away with tear in eye) “I sure hope I will be at your wedding.” …To love
what is mortal.
A number of years ago, I know I marked a crucial turning point in my emotional and spiritual life. It was as if my head turned from marking my life
from my birth date to marking my life by my death date. My mother died when I was 40 and my father died when I was 45. I was then… the older generation.
I did one thing immediately upon their deaths which helped me spiritually and emotionally. I chose to assist in dressing my mother and father and
placing them in their caskets. The last act with each of them when they were alive was feeding them and caressing their hands. They who had fed me,
nurtured me, washed my bottom and clothed me, cared for me when I needed to rest…it felt only right that the last thing I should do was dress them
and prepare their bodies for rest. …To love what is mortal.
For a number of years after Verna Dozier’s sister died, I visited her on a regular basis. We developed a deep love and respect for each other. I
cherish those moments with Verna. A few weeks before Verna died, Jan Hoffman and I visited her. She was totally bed ridden and we were not sure
Verna knew us or what we were saying to her. Near the end of our time there, I bent over and kissed her forehead and I offered a blessing that
God would cradle her to God’s bosom. Immediately, Verna’s eyes opened and her mouth smiled, her hands and arms raised… and her head lifted slightly
off her pillow. Jan and I were both startled and aghast. Once again, Verna blessed us, as we came to bless her. …To love what is mortal.
It is a moral decision for we can choose to be bitter and fearful when we face our mortality…Each of us, whether we are 3rd Agers or younger, who
reside on the other side of “the black river of loss,” but are baptized to follow Jesus, are called to claim the joy of loving and caring for
what is mortal…
To live in this world
You must be able to
Do three things:
To love what is mortal;
To hold it against your bones
Knowing your life depends upon it;
Once again, it is a moral decision. For those of us who are retired, there are two crucial issues: money and meaning. Do we have enough money to
feel safe and secure? Do we have enough meaning to sustain our viability, integrity and dignity?
Richard Nash’s play “The Rainmaker” has a wonderful exchange relevant to this moral issue of choosing enough meaning to sustain our viability and
dignity. It’s an exchange between Starbuck, a dreamer of dreams that seldom come true and Lizzie:
Starbuck: …Nothing’s as pretty in your hands as it was in your head. There ain’t no world near as good as the world I got up here. (tapping head)
Why?
Lizzie: I don’t know…maybe it’s because you don’t take time to see it. Always on the go—here, there, nowhere. Running away…keeping your own
company. Maybe you could keep company with the world…
Starbuck: I’d learn to love it? No way…
Lizzie You might—if you saw it real! Some nights I’m in the kitchen washing the dishes. And Pop’s playing poker with the boys. Well, I’ll
watch him real close. And at first I’ll just see an ordinary middle-aged man—not very interesting to look at. And then, minute by minute, I’ll see
little things in him I never saw before. Good things and bad things – queer little habits I never noticed he had – and ways of talking I never
paid any mind to. And suddenly I know who he is – and I love him so much I could cry! And I want to thank God I took the time to see him real
…to hold it against your bones knowing your life depends upon it.
I was recently in contact with a former colleague of mine. John and his wife Barbara have had a tough year. Both have had serious medical problems…he
has been battling cancer and she has been restricted by heart issues. But they have been living in this world….holding it against their frail
bones…determined to maintain a sense of purpose and a life of service….knowing that their lives depend upon it. They are both offering grace and
receiving grace by serving at the Greenhaven Maximum Security Prison above New York City. There they lead/teach classes with lifers to offer a
deeper sense of spirituality and purpose for the prisoners as well as for themselves.
A few weeks ago Barbara, who, because of her damaged heart, must use a scooter to get to her class room which is 1/4 mile from the Prison entrance.
She was going to the elevator with the librarian and 4 of her students as her escorts. Unexpectedly, the librarian had to leave her to repair the
elevator. Her students continued to escort her…then Barbara realized she was in a dark hallway in a prison surrounded by four inmates all in for
murder or selling drugs -- but one had his hand holding hers, one had his hand on her shoulder, and the other two were standing guard!! John said,
“This is what feeds us while we are teaching them!” Grace shared and grace received!! …to hold it against your bones knowing your life depends
upon it.
To live in this world
You must be able to
Do three things:
To love what is mortal;
To hold it against your bones
Knowing your life depends upon it;
And when the time comes to let it go,
To let it go.
I am a recovering burnout survivor. My primary way of sustaining my recovery is by the regular practice of the basic spiritual disciplines of
Prayer, Singing, Manual Labor and Community. Because I have lived through the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation,
I have added three other spiritual disciplines: Sense of Humor, Grieving and Gratitude. Salvation is what heals and redeems the wounds we
experience in the fires and the black river of loss…and in the healing we can make the moral choice to become the singers of life to all whom
we encounter… And when the time comes to let it go…
To let it go.
One day Loren Eisley, anthropologist, leaned against a stump at the edge of a small glade and fell asleep. "When I awoke, dimly aware of some
commotion and outcry in the clearing, the light was slanting down through the pines in such a way that the glade was lit like some vast
cathedral. I could see the dust motes of wood pollen in the long shaft of light, and there on the extended branch sat an enormous raven with
a red and squirming nestling in his beak. The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the nestling's parents, who flew helplessly in
circles about the clearing. The sleek black monster was indifferent to them. He gulped, whetted his beak on the dead branch and sat still.
Up to that point the little tragedy had followed the usual pattern. But suddenly, out of all that area of woodland, a soft sound of complaint
began to rise. Into the glade fluttered small birds of half a dozen varieties drawn by the anguished outcries of the tiny parents.
“No one dared to attack the raven. But they cried there in some instinctive common misery…The bereaved and the unbereaved. The glade filled
with their soft rustling and their cries. They fluttered as though to point their wings at the murderer. There was a dim intangible ethic he
had violated, that they knew. He was a bird of death. And he, the murderer, the black bird at the heart of life, sat on there, glistening
in the common light, formidable, unmoving, unperturbed, untouchable.
“The sighing died. It was then I saw the judgment. It was the judgment of life against death. I will never see it again so forcefully presented.
I will never hear it again in notes so tragically prolonged. For in the midst of the protest, they forgot the violence. There, in that clearing,
the crystal note of a song sparrow lifted hesitantly in the hush. And finally, after painful fluttering, another took the song, and then another,
the song passing from one bird to another, doubtfully at first, as though some evil thing were being slowly forgotten. Till suddenly they took
heart and sang from many throats joyously together as birds are known to sing. They sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful. They sang
under the brooding shadow of the raven. In simple truth they had forgotten the raven, for they were the singers of life, and not of death.”
This is the gospel: God so loves you that he has given you a reason for hope. Your deepest sighs … the fires and the black river of loss
can be turned to Songs of Life.”
Dylan Thomas got it a wee bit wrong when he wrote “rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light!” Instead, we can sing, sing, sing until the
coming of the night… and then we can let it go, perhaps even with a great shout…
Alleluja…Praise God…That all of us…Even beyond age 60…Can be singers of life and love and grace…As we…
… love what is mortal;
Holding it against our bones
Knowing our life depends upon it;
And when the time comes to let it go,
We let it go.
Amen
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