A Better Covenant

Here is the imperative:

5:1 Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.

I remember when I was a kid. I was lucky enough to meet my great-grandmother on both sides of my family and my great-grandfather on my Mom’s side. I remember when they spoke people listened. My great-grandmother spoke slowly and softly. She was stern but loving, quiet and wise. I remember when age brought with it the privilege to be heard. Why not? A 90 year old in 83 had experienced life in which many of us may never experience. The change in technology, human rights, culture and the growth of America as the known leader of the world was under their belt.

But you know what? I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere age became a disability, instead of something to aspire to. Age and wisdom was synonymous when I was a kid but today, age and static or age and staleness or age and, and, and I can think of the word I am looking for but instead of seeing old age and life experience we see old age and nearly dead, almost like looking at an abandoned building, like there is no life, no vibrant, no vitality. Today old age is looked at as a hindrance or barrier to change and we love change and technology.

This has been the case in this race of elections, which I won’t spend time getting into. But Obama would be Spring and McCain would be slap dead in the middle of winter comparitively. Again I don’t know when there was a switch, but there was and there is and I believe to ignore those with the greatest life experience who knew how to survive in unparallel economic times, those who lived through a few wars, and those who knew what sacrfiice and work ethic meant is idiotic.

It used to be a blessing to take care of your aging parents but now they are getting in the way of us “enjoying life”. It used to be a blessing to sit an elder in the middle of the couch during the holidays to hear what new story they were going to tell us about, but now we visit them for an hour or so at the nursing home so we can get back to our football and basketball games and open our presents and play our video games. Man where have we gone? What have we done? When did we begin to see our elder Americans as a barrier to enjoying life instead of the epitome of life?

We have lost our way! Youth and technology and bunch of fast moving stuff that takes us nowhere has replaced the most valuable voice we have. Our passion has drowned out the voice of those who paved the way for us. As a culture this is devestating. We are eroding wisdom in the name of intelligence. We no longer go to our grandparents for insight because we have so many voices (television, internet, radio, tabloids) figthing for first place.

I have seen this in churches also and I want to spend the last paragraph on this. Paul tells Timothy not to rebuke an elder man but to encourage him. Our churches have split “worship” services in the name of new ideas, and fresh music, and innovative technology. We have the “traditional” and the “contemporary” and the only thing that really separate us is age! Oh what a divisive snake Satan is. It is funny we get a young gun out of seminary and he ignores the voices of those who laid the foundation of the church with their hands, who built the pews with their sweat, and who kept the church going through all of the years of turmoil. Oh how we can benefit from them but their voice is muffled by our passion to want it faster, louder, slicker and now!

We don’t struggle with rebuking our elder men and women we just ignore them. I wonder did Paul have this in mind also, maybe he couldn’t see this far in advance. Lord has mercy on us.