Belatedly

BELATEDLY
Notes from biblrucewords.com
Sunday, June 15, 2008

Text: Genesis 18:1-15, 21: 1-7

I began this Sunday by intoning from Psalm 90:10:

The years of our life are three score and ten,
or even by reason of strength, fourscore

Acknowledging that we usually hear that text at funerals, I added words from Canadian poet Robert Service about the experience of reaching middle age and taking stock:


Three score and ten, the psalmist saith,
And half my course is well-nigh run;
I’ve had my flout at dusty death,
I’ve had my whack of feast and fun.
I’ve mocked at those who prate and preach,
I’ve laughed with any man alive;
But now with sobered heart I reach
The Great Divide of Thirty-five.

And looking back I must confess
I’ve little cause to feel elate.
I’ve played the mummer more or less;
I fumbled fortune, flouted fate.
I’ve vastly dreamed and little done;
I've idly watched my brothers strive:
Oh, I have loitered in the sun
By primrose paths to Thirty-five!

And those who matched me in the race,
Well, some are out and trampled down;
The others jog with sober pace;
Yet one wins delicate renown.
O midnight feast and famished dawn!
O gay, hard life, with hope alive!
O golden youth, forever gone,
How sweet you seem at Thirty-five!

Each of our lives is just a book
As absolute as Holy Writ;
We humbly read, and may not look
Ahead, nor change one word of it.
And here are joys and here are pains;
And here we fail and here we thrive;
O wondrous volume! what remains
When we reach chapter Thirty-five?

The very best, I dare to hope,
Ere Fate writes Finis to the tome;
A wiser head, a wider scope,
And for the gipsy heart, a home;
A songful home, with loved ones near,
With joy, with sunshine all alive:
Watch me grow younger every year --
Old Age! thy name is Thirty-five!

In the 2006 census, the median age in the GTA was a bit over 35, but in Brampton and newer suburbs, under 35. That’s the median age, not only halfway to the biblical span of three score and ten (3X20+10) but also the statistical median, as many people older as younger than 35.

Of course, 1.2 million Canadians over 80 – way up in 2006 from 2001 census numbers - and 42,000 are centenarians. We boomers anticipate swelling the ranks of those retired – but will we be adding years to life, or adding life to years? Are you half over your life, on the downhill slide, as Robert Service has it? Is that all there is, and all you can expect?

Are we degenerating, declining toward oblivion and the grave, individually and institutionally? Shakespeare’s seven ages of man are infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, middle age, old age and dotage. What’s your age, and what would generation or regeneration look like?

35 years ago I was a college kid, when the median age folks of today were born. 30 years ago I was a candidate, and 25 years ago ordained. What’s the outcome, and how has my generation of church leadership fared? Terribly. They call me ‘the terminator’, but it’s not my fault alone that our church is smaller and older than when I began. It’s a bear market for religion like ours. In a culture that worships novelty and youth, we sell tradition to the aged: truly countercultural!

Are we over the hill, on the long slide to the grave? Keynes coined the phrase that “in the long run, we are all dead” Meanwhile, what adds years to life, and what adds life to years? Social scientists assure us that involvement in religious community and behaviour increased quantitative life spans, and reported qualitative happiness. But that’s not because church meets your needs, but because you meet each others’ needs. It’s not self-help, but other-help.

Common sense says we could do better. There’s a conference next week in town touting new fads, “More Franchises than Tim Horton’s”, pointing out that United Churches outnumber Tim’s donut shops across the country. But common sense is not so sensible, nor so widely shared as to be common. We are part of something much older, wider, and deeper than common sense.

Common sense says that secularization is the dominant and inevitable trend: the gradual erosion of the field of the sacred, the power of church, popularity of belief and frequency of practice. See the triumph of reason, enlightenment, economics. Common sense is neither sense, nor common to most people in most ages in our world. Take babies – they are irrational, and to make more and try to raise them is irrational – but you keep doing it, even when they don’t support you, or even show up on Father’s Day! Surely the federal CPP benefit will take care of us… won’t it?

‘Entropy’ is a law of Newtonian physics that resonates with common sense. Things tend to a state of rest, in a Newtonian universe of rules of inertia. But emergent ‘string theory’ suggests that the relationships among particles in motion is more connected. A professor of mine once claimed that for him, God was the principle that resisted entropy. Perhaps such common sense is not sensible or so universally common as we assume in modern cultures.

‘Survival of the fittest’ is a term of Darwinian biology that resonates with common sense. I’m a fan of Darwin, and encouraged you again not to miss the Royal Ontario Museum exhibit celebrating his work, sponsored by the United Church Observer. We are not the crowd that picketed the ROM last week. But when the biological paradigm is extended to a moral generalization, I deny ‘survival of the fittest’ as common sense that is neither sensible, nor common enough over ages.

‘Rules of natural justice’ is a jurisprudential term for proceduralism, popular in the last century. However, I’ve held for decades that they are neither rules, nor natural, nor just, and often created unintended excesses and deficiencies, as Philip Howard wrote in The Death of Common Sense:

…democracy has become a passive caretaker to a huge legal monument. While Americans have always prided themselves on statutes and regulations as a means to creating a better society has in fact created its opposite: a system of regulation that goes too far while it also does too little…

Whether you’re over 35, and running downhill according to Robert Service or over biblical span of three score and ten, or even by reason of strength, fourscore, you’re bucking a trend here, and resisting common sense of entropy, survival of the fittest, and rules of natural justice. Whether you are a father, or have one, however you have generated life or found regeneration in your life, you can either buy the common sense, neither sensible nor common, or you can resist it.

The lesson today from Genesis 18 and 21 is the bread of a sandwich. Torah tells the story of angels visiting Abraham and Sarah (A) to bracket the story of angels visiting Lot and his wife in Sodom (B). The angels make a promise to Abraham and Sarah, and make a threat to Lot and his city and make good on the threat, then make good on the promise. Scholars call it an “ABBA” chiastic structure, but you’ll associate it with the Swedish rock group of “Mamma Mia”.

You know the story. Strangers come to Abraham, 99 years old, sitting in the shade outside his tent. He jumps up to be hospitable, obsequious, excessive in his generosity. They promise him a regeneration – a child. Sarah, who's 75 and used to hearing her jusband talk big with the boys, laughs. Our version on this Sunday was the great United Church version of amen: “Oh, yeah?” The angels say she laughed – she denies it, but they confirm it: “Oh, yeah?”

You know the story we skipped, too. Strangers come to Lot in Sodom. They get a very different reception, which is not about sex, but about inhospitality. They are degenerate, not adding life to years. The angels promise a consequence, and they deliver despite Abraham’s advocacy. Then they deliver on their promise to Sarah, in the second half of today’s lesson.

You want practical advice from scripture? Get friendly, and be hospitable to strangers like Abraham, for ‘some have entertained angels unawares’. Don’t be inhospitable, like Lot, or the consequences will be ‘fire and brimstone’. Immigration is good! New people in church who don't just join us, but change us, are good! I introduced you to two terms for these approaches:

Philoxenia – love of strangers
Xenophobia - fear of strangers

Age is not a diagnosis, and the objective fact of mortality misses the subjective issues of value: what adds years to life, and what addes life to years? What is degenerating, or regenerating? It's attitude, disposition, and action, not just cognitive propositional beliefs. You know it, and Genesis simply confirms it. Now – get on with doing it!

Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7

The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground.

He said, My Lord, if I find favour with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on – since you have come to your servant. And they said, Do as you have said.

And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes. Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk
and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

They said to him, Where is your wife Sarah? And he said, There, in the tent. Then one said, I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age,
it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.

So Sarah laughed to herself, saying,
After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?

The Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, and say, Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old? Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son. But Sarah denied, saying, I did not laugh, for she was afraid. He said, Oh yes, you did laugh!

The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, nd the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him.

Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

Now Sarah said, God has brought laughter to me; Everyone who hears will laugh with me.
And she said, Who would ever had said to Abraham That Sarah would nurse children?
Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.