If it’s old, it has to go. That used to be the message. In the years after World War II, once we got our economy back on a peacetime basis, we all wanted only new things. Bright, shiny, new. And so, if it’s old, it has to go. Do you remember?
Do you remember, if you go back that far, how, during the war years, you had to make do with your old car or in many cases no car? All the motor vehicles went into the war effort, and so you had to patch up the old one and keep it going the best way you could. My father drove a 1937 Ford until it just absolutely died. We did without for quite a while until the dollars were scraped together for something new. What a wonderful phrase! Something new! Everybody wanted something new. And so if it’s old, it has to go. Throw it away; send it to the landfill. Do you remember?
Do you remember the fifties and sixties, when the automakers discovered something called "planned obsolescence", meaning, "We’re going to bring out a new gadget every year and make you want it, so you will buy the new model and throw away the old." So this year’s taillights became next year’s fins, and you had to have them. This year’s colors, limited to black, blue, and brown, became next year’s rainbow of chartreuse, fire engine red, and passionate pink, and you wanted it. Somewhere in the sixties I remember my father saying, “There’s nothing much wrong with this car; but, the truth is, I just want a new one." Everybody wanted something new. And so if it’s old, it has to go. Throw it away; send it to the landfill. Do you remember?
Do you remember, in those consumption years, throwing away clothes because the lapels were too wide, the fabric was too polyester, and they had been seen too many times? If it’s old, it has to go. To the dump, the landfill. Do you remember?
If it was on your plate and you didn’t feel like eating it, out it went. No leftovers at this house. We didn’t have to save food any more in the consumption years. We did that during the war. Why, you know, as a child I spent the war years cleaning up my plate because there were starving children in Europe. How my eating helped them I never could figure out. But when I grew up I married one of the starving children of Europe and could afford to throw away food. If it’s old, it has to go. That’s what we thought during the fifties, the sixties, the seventies, the consumption years. If you don’t want it, throw it away; send it to the landfill.
But, to tell the truth, we began to think that way about people too, that you could throw them away. We invented forced retirement, so that when you hit the totally arbitrary age of 65, out you went, ready or not. Never mind that people differ widely in their abilities; never mind that some can produce more at 65 than others can at 45. The calendar said go, for, if it’s old, it has to go.
And we created the expectation that grandma and grandpa would live out their older years away from us, out of sight and out of mind. We got our own homes and careers far away from the family home. We let it be known that we did not expect them to follow us as we moved and moved and moved again, the most mobile society the world has seen. We invented leisure worlds, retirement centers, RV parks, to which they were expected to go. We said, whatever you do, don’t come live with us. If you’re old, you have to go.
We even invented some landfills called Florida and Arizona and sort of fenced them off from the rest of the world and suggested that if you’re old, you really do want to go!
But now in the eighties and nineties some things are changing. We have discovered recycling. We’ve found out that our resources are not unlimited. We’ve learned that we really cannot afford just to discard everything and buy, buy, buy. And so, where things are concerned, we started to deal with something other than the landfill. We started working with thrift shops and recycling centers. Where our material possessions are concerned, we found out that one person’s garbage is another person’s treasure, and so we began to think about how our old things can be reused.
I don’t know about you, but my wife and I like thrift shops, yard sales, and library book clearances. We hit them regularly. We browse for books when the library sells them for a quarter; we must have a dozen solid brass candlesticks that cost almost nothing except the elbow grease to clean them up. And my wife has a sweater which gets rave reviews every time she wears it; guess what? It came from a thrift shop; it came from some place like Value Village over here on the Avenue.
Recycling and reusing. That’s where the world is headed where things are concerned. No longer the landfill, but now Value Village. No longer, if it’s old, it has to go. Now, if it’s old, how can it find a new use?
So, I have a question. If we can do that with things, can we also do it with people? If we can change our attitude about older possessions, can we change our feelings about older people? If we can determine that material goods can be reused, can we also determine that people, once they get along in years, can find new directions? No longer the landfill, but now maybe Value Village for people?
My premise is very simple. My affirmation is crystal clear. As I read the Scripture, God operates Value Village, not the landfill. As I understand God’s word, our God recycles, reuses, renews, and revives His children. He does not throw them away. He does not discard them just because they are growing older.
God operates Value Village, not the landfill. The singer of Psalm 71 gets us in touch with that truth in some beautiful and remarkable ways.
I
First, the psalmist acknowledges that old age does produce a set of threatening feelings. He admits that the senior years generate feelings of distress and anxiety. There is a certain panic in his voice as he cries out, "Rescue me, 0 my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the cruel.” There is fear in his heart as he pleads, “Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength is spent.” This man is afraid that he will be sent to the landfill, discarded, passed over and thrown away. He admits his feelings, he voices the threat that he feels.
There’s something else remarkable in this Scripture. It is not only that the psalmist himself feels threatened by his aging, but it is also that his aging threatens other, younger people. Old age, you see, worries not only those whose hair is gray; it troubles the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as well.
The psalmist notes: ”I have been like a warning signal to many.” “I have been like a warning signal to many." His very presence as an older person scares the insecure. He frightens some people, for if your life is empty now, you know good and well it is going to be very, very empty years down the road. If you are in your twenties now and you act as though you are indestructible, but you look at an older person whose energies have been destroyed by abuse of the body, well, that is threatening. If you are in your thirties and forties now and you are spending money as if there were no tomorrow, and you turn around and see an impoverished senior adult, that’s a warning signal, that’s a signal you don’t want to see.
Folks, that’s why we have avoided old age, that’s why we have sent them into exile. We didn’t want to see the frailties of aging. We didn’t want to be confronted with our own vulnerability. Old age threatens us. The psalmist has the good sense to point that out. "I have become like a warning signal to many." And the things that threaten us we avoid, we throwaway, we pack off to the landfill. But remember the premise: God operates Value Village, not the landfill. God keeps and affirms and does not throwaway.
II
But now watch; the psalmist does see that the issues involved are more than just feelings. Not only does the psalmist see that we have to confront our feelings about aging, whether we are old or young; the psalmist also sees that there are some real threats, there are real problems for older people. He sees that those threats come from those who look for the weak and the vulnerable and who exploit them. God’s word is painfully clear: there really are those who would like to throw away and damage God’s older children.
Says the psalmist, "My enemies speak concerning me, and those who watch for my life consult together. They say, ’Pursue and seize that person whom God has forsaken, for there is no one to deliver.’" As he found his powers declining; as he felt his energies diminishing; he also found around him a flock of vultures ready to pick at his flesh. The threat to the elderly is not only the feelings some have of wanting to avoid them; the threat is also the absolute malice and evil others bring.
I assume you all know that there are street criminals who specialize in the elderly. There are the thugs who hang out around the banks on Social Security day or who rob mailboxes on that certain day of the month. The psalmist is right up to date; there are some special problems that older people face with those who are ready to pounce on them.
But it goes deeper than street crime. It is more than violence. I cannot spend enough time this morning, but I can certainly point out that there are unscrupulous merchants who prey on the fears of the elderly and take them. There are those who, if you let them, will sell you every home security device the mind of man can invent, from bars on the door to double-duty deadbolt locks to warning bells to armed guards, at premium prices, knowing that older people need safety. There are those who sell phony stocks and securities and overpriced and unnecessary insurance, telling you that you are going to run out of money if you do not buy. There are those who traffic in supposedly miracle drugs and unproven cures, promising to stop the ravages of time. Too many would put you on the landfill; they have said, as the psalmist’s enemies did, “Pursue and seize that person; there is no one to deliver."
But again I say, God operates Value Village, not the landfill. God wants His older children to be safe. That says to me that the church of Jesus Christ needs to act to protect senior citizens. If we are to value and to recycle and renew our seniors, I see the church, this church, taking an active role to protect them from things that destroy.
That’s part of the motive behind the Emergency Information Form I’m going to be circulating in a few moments. It’s a first step in helping to protect because it will give the leaders of the church information we need in order to be there for our seniors.
But we can dream of much, much more than that. We can dream of a senior citizen program that would provide education and information on all kinds of issues that older people need to know about. We can imagine a program that offers financial advice and medical counsel and all sorts of things that are not readily available to senior citizens in our community.
And more even than that. Some of us met this week with representatives of Baptist Senior Adult Ministries, which is an agency related to the D. C. Baptist Convention. They laid out in front of us several pages listing the senior adult facilities which exist in the city of Washington. Did you know that not one, not one such facility is in our immediate community?
Friends, as a church of Jesus Christ, we need to do something about that. Maybe we need to dream a senior adult facility here on our properties. As the psalmist saw, there are those who say, ’Pursue and seize that person .. for there is no one to deliver.’ We the church ought to help protect our seniors, and value them, because our God operates Value Village, not the landfill.
III
Now, finally, the psalmist helps us again to get in touch with what it is like to be older. He helps us understand again how God values and cherishes the elderly. And he does it just by opening his heart and pleading his case before God. He does it just by voicing his hope that even if everybody else fails and forsakes him, at least God will not.
He says to his God, “Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength is spent.” I hear that as the ultimate cry of the human heart ... we want to be known, we need to be understood, we thirst to be cared for, not only by other people, but most of all by our God. When the specter of death dances before our eyes, then most of all we are afraid that we may be put on the ash heap, cast out to the landfill. Facing the last enemy and wondering whether we are going to be discarded.
The poet advises, “Do not go gentle into that good night." And many do not. Many do not face their deaths with any kind of calm. I have a friend whose mother-in-law is 96 years old, a Chinese lady living in Hong Kong. He and his wife, her daughter, recently went to visit. He tells me that his mother-in-law is nothing but demand, imperious, impossible demands. Nothing that they would suggest would she hear. No compromise with age or infirmity. She will not hear of nursing care, she will not accept her condition. In fact, says my friend, if you dare to refuse her demands, even simple ones, she folds her arms and announces, "Well, then, I’ll just die. If you don’t do what I want, I’ll just sit here and die. Maybe I’ll throw myself out of the window." And so they end up doing what mama wants. Clearly mama is afraid to be old, she is afraid of losing control, she uses death as a weapon rather than embracing it as part of the love of God. My friend’s mother feels that they only way she can be valued is to be demanding and impossible.
But, you see, our God gives us another way. Our God provides a living presence and a love that never vanishes. Our God has heard us when we cry, "Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength is spent." He has heard.
I’ve had the opportunity just in the last week to work with three persons who know that they are dying. None of them are certain how long it will be, but all of them know that their diseases are fatal. And in one way or another each of them wants to be reassured that God has not cast them off.
One of them asked that the Lord’s Supper be brought to the home. We talked a while first about life and death, about salvation and eternity. Then we shared together in the bread and in the cup and we prayed; when we finished praying every person in the room felt deeply moved by the presence of a living Spirit. Our God had offered His assurance, for even when the visage of death appears, God operates Value Village, not the landfill. He holds on to His own; He does not throw them away.
In another home I sat for a while by the bedside of a man whose disease has now spread to the extent that he cannot walk. The entire lower half of his body is virtually paralyzed. Although his body has confined him to one small room, his heart and his mind are turned toward another place, a place where they shall soar with eagles, where they shall walk and not faint, where they shall run and not be weary.
So he pointed to his useless legs and said to me, "I have learned that there is a lot I have to let go of before I am fully prepared to receive the gift of eternal life." Hear that again. "I have learned that there is a lot I have to let go of before I am fully prepared to receive the gift of eternal life.”
Great God! Did I say useless legs? Did I presume to apply the term "useless" to a man like that? No, he is not useless. He has not been discarded. He has not been thrown away by his God, nor has he been forgotten.
“You, 0 Lord, are my hope, my trust, 0 Lord, from my youth. Upon you I have learned from my birth ... my mouth is filed with your praise, and with your glory all the day long ... do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength is spent.”
O amazing grace, how sweet the sound! ’Tis grace has brought us safe thus far, and grace will lead us home.
For our God, our gracious God, even when the last enemy, death itself, is dancing around us … our God operates Value Village, not the landfill.
