Sermon Illustrations on Aging
Background
God Has a Reason for Keeping Us Here
No, old age is not for sissies. But that isn’t the whole story, nor did God intend for it to be. While the Bible doesn’t gloss over the problems we face as we grow older, neither does it paint old age as a time to be despised or a burden to be endured with gritted teeth (if we still have any).
Nor does it picture us in our latter years as useless and ineffective, condemned to spend our last days in endless boredom or meaningless activity until God finally takes us home. Instead the Bible says that God has a reason for keeping us here; if He didn’t, He would take us to Heaven far sooner.
Questions and Answers for the Second-Half of Life
In his book, Falling Upward, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr describes the need for helpful discussion and direction on the themes that arise in the second-half of life, which, as he notes, presents a whole host of issues quite distinct from those of the first half:
I am driven to write because after forty years as a Franciscan teacher, working in many settings, religions, countries, and institutions, I find that many, if not most, people and institutions remain stymied in the preoccupations of the first half of life. By that I mean that most people’s concerns remain those of establishing their personal (or superior) identity, creating various boundary markers for themselves, seeking security, and perhaps linking to what seem like significant people or projects. These tasks are good to some degree and even necessary.
We are all trying to find what the Greek philosopher Archimedes called a “lever and a place to stand” so that we can move the world just a little bit. The world would be much worse off if we did not do this first and important task.
But, in my opinion, this first-half-of-life task is no more than finding the starting gate. It is merely the warm-up act, not the full journey. It is the raft but not the shore. If you realize that there is a further journey, you might do the warm-up act quite differently, which would better prepare you for what follows. People at any age must know about the whole arc of their life and where it is tending and leading.
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Jossey-Bass, 2011.
Aging is not Diminishment
Speaking on aging, the Catholic nun Joan Chittister has this to say:
One thing this period is not about is diminishment, though physical diminishment is surely a natural part of it. It is, instead, about giving ourselves over to a new kind of development, to the kinds of change that began in us at the time of conception and continue in us still. The truth is that we are a great deal more than our bodies, have always been more than our bodies, but it can take us most of a lifetime to learn that.
Our moral obligation is not, as society might lead us to believe, to ski at sixty and jog at seventy, and bike at eighty. No, our moral obligation is to stay as well as we can, to remain active, to avoid abusing our bodies, to do the things that interest us and to enrich the lives of those around us. Our spiritual obligation is to age well—so that others who meet us may have the courage, the spiritual depth, to do the same. Abandoning life before life is over is not just resignation; it is not trying to reach for God on God’s terms.
Joan Chittister, The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully
The Secret to a Long Healthy Life
The saying used to be that the secret to a long, healthy life was to choose your parents well. But today we know that only about 20 percent of a person’s health is due to genetics, and about 20 percent is due to the medical care we receive. The other 60 percent is due to social, behavioral, and environmental factors, many of which we can and do influence by the choices we make throughout our lives—what we eat, how much and what kinds of exercise we do, where we live, the quality of our relationships, whether we smoke, and our ability to handle stress.
Why Some People Live Longer
Most people who live to old age do so not because they have beaten cancer, heart disease, depression or diabetes. Instead, the long-lived avoid serious ailments altogether through a series of steps that often rely on long-lasting, meaningful connections with others, says University of California, Riverside, psychologist Howard S. Friedman, PhD, co-author with Leslie Martin, PhD, of the 2011 book “The Longevity Project.”
Stories
The Best Thing About Being 104
A reporter interviewing a 104-year-old woman asked, “What is the best thing about being 104?” She simply replied, “No peer pressure.”
Guessing Your Age
Max Lucado shares a funny story about a phone app that was supposed to be able to guess your age. It worked by taking a picture of a person’s face and then spitting out a supposedly accurate result. Lucado’s wife Denalyn tried first, and it guessed her age by fifteen years on the younger side. This made her quite happy. Then Max took the photo and it missed his age by five years on the older side. He tried again. This time it added seven more years. After that, ten. At this point, he figured it best to quit before it told him he was no longer in the land of the living.
Stuart Strachan Jr., Source Material from Max Lucado, Anxious for Nothing, Thomas Nelson.
New Bodies in the New Creation
I love that part in The Silver Chair when old age simply vanishes from frail King Caspian, because age is the unavoidable meltdown, stripping even the bravest and most beautiful of their former glory. Whatever physical affliction you have known, whatever your limitations have been, everything old age will eventually strip you of—it will all be washed away.
Your renewed body will be like the body of Jesus.
We will burst forth into the new creation like children let out for summer break, running, somersaulting, cartwheeling into the meadows of the new earth. Running like the children, “without getting tired . . . faster and faster till it was more like flying than running, and even the Eagle overhead was going no faster than they.”
When We Were Young
An elderly couple lies in bed. She is not satisfied with the distance between them. She reminds him, “When we were young, you used to hold my hand in bed.” He hesitates, but in a few moments a wrinkled hand snakes across the bed and grasps hers. She is not satisfied “When we were young, you used to cuddle right up next to me.” More serious hesitation now. But eventually, with a few groans, he laboriously turns his body and cradles hers as best he can.
She is not satisfied.
“When we were young, you used to nibble on my ear.”
Loud sigh. He throws back the covers and bolts out of bed. She is somewhat hurt by this.
“Where are you going?”
“To get my teeth.”
Taken from John Ortberg, Love Beyond Reason (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998).
Studies
The Healthiest & Happiest People
In recent research by the National Geographic Society and the National Institute on Aging, scientists interviewed some of the oldest and healthiest people on earth and observed where they live. Many of these people live healthy and active lives beyond the age of ninety, and an outrageous percentage of them are still going strong at one hundred.
Here is one of the discoveries they made: none of the people in these cultures did daily exercise. No weight lifting. No jogging. Nada. Don’t close the book! You see, they lived lifestyles where movement was a part of their everyday life. They didn’t have to jog or put on spandex to lift weights. They were in motion from morning till night.
Ken Davis, Fully Alive: A Journey that Will Change Your Life, Thomas Nelson 2012, pp. 34-35.
The Secret to a Long Healthy Life
The saying used to be that the secret to a long, healthy life was to choose your parents well. But today we know that only about 20 percent of a person’s health is due to genetics, and about 20 percent is due to the medical care we receive. The other 60 percent is due to social, behavioral, and environmental factors, many of which we can and do influence by the choices we make throughout our lives—what we eat, how much and what kinds of exercise we do, where we live, the quality of our relationships, whether we smoke, and our ability to handle stress.
Why Some People Live Longer
Most people who live to old age do so not because they have beaten cancer, heart disease, depression or diabetes. Instead, the long-lived avoid serious ailments altogether through a series of steps that often rely on long-lasting, meaningful connections with others, says University of California, Riverside, psychologist Howard S. Friedman, PhD, co-author with Leslie Martin, PhD, of the 2011 book “The Longevity Project.”
Analogies
New Bodies in the New Creation
I love that part in The Silver Chair when old age simply vanishes from frail King Caspian, because age is the unavoidable meltdown, stripping even the bravest and most beautiful of their former glory. Whatever physical affliction you have known, whatever your limitations have been, everything old age will eventually strip you of—it will all be washed away.
Your renewed body will be like the body of Jesus.
We will burst forth into the new creation like children let out for summer break, running, somersaulting, cartwheeling into the meadows of the new earth. Running like the children, “without getting tired . . . faster and faster till it was more like flying than running, and even the Eagle overhead was going no faster than they.”
Humor
The Best Thing About Being 104
A reporter interviewing a 104-year-old woman asked, “What is the best thing about being 104?” She simply replied, “No peer pressure.”
Guessing Your Age
Max Lucado shares a funny story about a phone app that was supposed to be able to guess your age. It worked by taking a picture of a person’s face and then spitting out a supposedly accurate result. Lucado’s wife Denalyn tried first, and it guessed her age by fifteen years on the younger side. This made her quite happy. Then Max took the photo and it missed his age by five years on the older side. He tried again. This time it added seven more years. After that, ten. At this point, he figured it best to quit before it told him he was no longer in the land of the living.
Stuart Strachan Jr., Source Material from Max Lucado, Anxious for Nothing, Thomas Nelson.
A Rationale for Speeding
A police officer pulled over a distinguished-looking woman, the story goes, and asked why she had exceeded the speed limit. The old gentleman sitting in the passenger seat laughed and said, “Well, young man, we were speeding to get to the place before we forget where we’re going!”
Self-Awareness by the Decade
When you are in your twenties, you live to please other people. When you are in your thirties, you are tired of trying to please others, so you get miffed with them for making you worry about it. When you’re in your forties, you realize nobody was thinking about you in the first place.
When We Were Young
An elderly couple lies in bed. She is not satisfied with the distance between them. She reminds him, “When we were young, you used to hold my hand in bed.” He hesitates, but in a few moments a wrinkled hand snakes across the bed and grasps hers. She is not satisfied “When we were young, you used to cuddle right up next to me.” More serious hesitation now. But eventually, with a few groans, he laboriously turns his body and cradles hers as best he can.
She is not satisfied.
“When we were young, you used to nibble on my ear.”
Loud sigh. He throws back the covers and bolts out of bed. She is somewhat hurt by this.
“Where are you going?”
“To get my teeth.”
Taken from John Ortberg, Love Beyond Reason (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998).
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