Texts: Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50
I must confess that my record as a sensitive new age guy – or at least as a politically correct liberal on gender issues – has one black mark. I'm still not comfortable with women playing rugby; which explains why, of all the many regular columnists in the ODT, the one I have never read is Farah Palmer. Never, that is, until last Thursday, when I felt strangely drawn to it. It was meant to be. She was writing about retirement, albeit under a rather strange heading "All Blacks' trouncing of Wallabies spurs fresh outlook".
Actually, before I go any further with Farah, perhaps I should apologise for using the word "retirement" in a holy place like this. One of the strange things about my present situation is that people keep telling me that that word is no longer acceptable in polite society. I received an email recently in which a friend told me never to use the "R-word" again. Over the years in ministry I have often come across people who wont talk about cancer by name; the nearest they'll get to it is to say the "C-word". Things that frighten us must not be named. Sir Howard Morrison didn't die this week - he passed away.
Well, I understand why any reference to death or to terminal illness might frighten us (even though our faith teaches otherwise); but why does retirement have the same effect? Why is retirement so awful we dare not speak its name? According to a recent report on so-called baby-boomers, they have no intention of retiring until they're eighty, if then. Of course, although we talk of baby-boomers as a generation, they are also a class. We mean people of a certain age and belonging to a certain income group – middle class and upwards, don't we? Tell a fifty-five year-old coal miner that he's a baby-boomer and he'll have no idea what you're talking about. Tell him he now has the right to keep working into his eighties, and you may find he doesn't welcome the news.
So we may be talking only about middle-class, reasonably high income earners. Which gets us back to Farah. Actually, she's a bit of a fraud – she's not nearly old enough to retire properly. What she is doing is leaving her present employment to have a baby, but to her that was traumatic enough. And in writing about it she was honest enough to give us some idea as to why people like her prefer not to think about – you know, the R-word. Here's her opening paragraph: Monday was my last day at work. I struggled to leave, and kept finding last-minute things to do and people to meet. My work-related ego was struggling. How could they cope without me? Would I be missed?
Two or three good strong clues there, aren't there? "My work-related ego" is a revealing phrase in itself. Then she wonders how they'll cope without her – a clear sign of the indispensability self-delusional syndrome. On the other hand, will they even miss her? Notice, she doesn't wonder how she will cope without them, or whether or not she will miss them.
Farah is not alone. A few years ago on a clergy retreat a retired bishop talked to me about how difficult he was finding it to adjust to his new life of retirement: "Suddenly, nobody wants me any more", he told me. And a recently retired priest told me that he was now "unpaid, unlicensed and unwanted".
All of which seems to me to raise some very deep questions in terms of our faith. Last week our theme, interestingly enough, was "Ego-tripping"; and in our gospel passage Jesus told his disciples off for jockeying with each other for positions of power. The greatest among us, he said, must be the servant of all. That bishop and that priest would have experienced many times the frustrations of today's busy world. They would have noted the decrease in the number of people with time to volunteer, in the church or in many other groups and clubs in the community. There would have been many times, especially in the so-called working-life of the Bishop, when he was going from committee meeting to committee meeting, wondering when he would ever have time to pray, to reflect, and to minister to people in need. Now they have that time to be a neighbour, a friend, a visitor, a family member – without all the burdens and constraints of formal office –and they hate it.
Moses would have understood. He suffered from a similar condition: in his case, it was the superman self-delusional syndrome. He was the leader who tried to do it all himself: delegation was not his forte. Eventually his great mental and physical stamina was not enough; and when the people rebelled yet again, he was ready to throw in the towel. God's response was to confer on a team of elders the same Spirit with which he had anointed Moses. Leadership was to be shared with others.
And today's story has a nice little detail. There were 72 elders in those days, but only 70 made it to the meeting: the other two remained behind in camp. Yet all 72 were anointed by God. This infuriated young Joshua, who was P.A. to Moses at the time. Why should those two get the same deal when they hadn't made it to the meeting? But Moses has seen the light. Wouldn't it be wonderful if every one of the people received anointing with the Spirit of God? Professional jealousy has no place in the community of God; nor is it appropriate for us to place limits on whom God may or may not ordain to leadership positions. If true leadership in the community of faith is about servanthood, then the more servants there are, the better it is.
History adds an interesting footnote to this story. God decided that Moses' leadership would end before the people entered the Promised Land; and that he would be succeeded by Joshua. Did they miss Moses? Probably. Did they cope without him? Yes. Was Moses indispensable? No.
Our gospel reading shows our human nature hadn't changed much by the time of Jesus. Last week the disciples were competing with each other. This week we see them outraged because an "outsider" is healing someone in Jesus' name. That's their job, and they don't want anyone else doing it, thank you very much. Turf wars are not unknown within the Church, are they? They should be, of course, but sometimes our human nature doesn't look as transformed as we would like to think.
And always, St James the Blunt has his own take on all this. Related, perhaps, to our fear of retirement, is our unwillingness to accept that sometimes we need the help of others. Long experience in the church tells me that those who are most willing to help others in need are often least able to accept help when they are ill or in need of some kind. Could that be about pride? Do we have this image of ourselves as strong and able to cope in all circumstances? Do we forget that Jesus graciously allowed others to minister to him, so that we should be able to do the same from time to time? Those who give us a glass of water will surely receive their reward, we're told. But what if we refuse the glass of water because we're perfectly capable of getting our own drink, thank you very much?
And talking of water, I want to end with a verse from a poem by Saxon M. Wright, quoted in her column by my new friend, Farah:
Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist
Pull it out and the hole that's remaining
Is a measure of how much you'll be missed.
I'm thinking of having that printed and framed for the 31st October!
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