Being now among their number, I am nevertheless not especially fond of old people. That is, I object mightily to church activities that separate the old from the young, the married from the single, the male from the female. Naturally, if the church camp has only one shower, segregation delivers the U.S. Male from strain to eye and whiplash to the neck. However, in general segregation is a bad idea because families, including the family of God, are by nature multigenerational.
The great philosopher, Hegel, thought life was a dialectical process. In opposition, the Scandinavian theologian and trapeze artist, “Soaring” Kierkegaard, emphasized stages along life’s way. Kierkegaard was a great Dane who led a dog’s life because he was always barking his shin up the wrong tree. Human beings, Willy-Nelly, all get older, process or stage. “The sixth age [of man] shifts/ Into the lean and slippered Pantaloon/ With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,/ His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide/ For his shrunk shank, and his big, manly voice,/ Turning again toward childish treble, pipes/ And whistles in his sound” (As You Like It, II, 7, 157-163).
I think we can presume that God made the generations overlap for useful purposes. One of them is certainly theological instruction. I learned something very important about grace from my dear mother. As the only delicate eater in a household of slobbering fudge hounds, on homemade candy day Mother quietly hid a few pieces where we could not find them to devour. I can still taste that fudge garnished, of course (since this was the deep South) with pecans.
One Christmas when everyone else was out of the house, to my surprise, Mother placed her last two pieces of chocolate on the table and offered me a choice. I studied the matter carefully, struggled with my conscience for a nanosecond, and then took the larger piece. My mother, unlike God, was not omniscient, or perhaps was looking at this situation from a different angle. In any case, she decided to reward me with the second piece as well. I thought she had mistakenly concluded that I generously chose the smaller piece of fudge. Afraid I might choke on false pretense, I immediately confessed my sin. Mother listened patiently to my confession, but she had made her decision on the basis of her love for her child and my unworthiness did not cancel her gift. Presbyterians call this amazing grace eternal selection or predestination. I have never needed a better example of the relation of unaccountable love issuing an undeserved favor.
I learned something very important about love from a dear friend, who like my mother, was many years older than I. On leaving our first pastorate, Hortense presented us with a silver sugar and creamer, slightly dented. I was not much impressed and complained to my wife about a hand-me-down. “Of course the gift is not new,” said Margaret, “but very old and very beautiful. We will cherish it as long as we live. Hortense has loved this silver set for many years. She could not present you with a finer gift than to ask you to remember her by keeping something she has loved because she has loved you.” There is an immense difference between a hand-me-up and a hand-me-down.
Older people make a tremendous contribution to our lives. I now resent that Christmas so often celebrates the young to the neglect of the old. According to Roman Catholic tradition, Joseph was a very old man, a conviction designed to protect the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, but an older Christmas presence does not depend on Joseph. Sadly, many people stop reading Luke’s infancy narrative before he stops writing it. Luke wants us to know that Jesus was subject to the rules of his community of faith, including circumcision on the eighth day and presentation on the 41st. In the Temple on that day was a devout old man who had been promised that he would not die until he had seen the consolation of Israel. Doubtless over the years Simeon’s eyes had grown dim, but when he saw the unpampered baby Jesus, he said, “Behold this child is set for the fall and rising of many.” Luke turns immediately from the old man to the old woman. Anna was the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher, descended from the eighth son of Jacob by Leah’s maid, Zilpah. The women of the tribe of Asher were greatly celebrated for their beauty. After seven years of marriage, her husband died and Anna in her dark mourning clothes was a black widow as one spied her. She spent the rest of her life worshiping in the Temple. In her 84th year she saw the Lord. The Scripture does not tell us that she reached for him, but if not, Anna must have been the only woman in the world who did not want to hold the baby. In my imagination, the baby is always cradled in her withered arms when she gives heartfelt thanks for the redemption he brings.
Most of our friends in graduate school were relatively young. Thus, when my by-then-quite-old mother paid us a visit, my just-then-very-young son spent an entire meal staring at her in stupefied fascination. Mother was much amused when she realized that our Charlie-boy had never before seen a facial wrinkle up close and personal. The truth is we should wear them proudly because “every wrinkle [is] but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life” (Barnaby Rudge, Ch. 2).
Charles Partee is P.C. Rossin Professor of Church History at Pittsburgh Seminary.
