The Call of Jesus

When you think of the word retirement, what comes to mind? Florida beaches, cruise ships, smiling grandpas and big cars? Well, think again. How about peace signs, Beatles records and disco balls? Yup, retirement is now a whole lot hipper because baby boomers have begun reaching the retirement age of 65. Your AARP card is about to become a lot cooler. (I just got my AARP card this past year.) The boomers are enjoying their status (that is, if they can afford to, what with the low interest rates on bonds and other fixed income investments). But even if times are still tough for new retirees, they have to keep in mind that hanging up their work clothes at a certain age is a relatively recent phenomenon. For thousands of years, the retirement plan for most senior citizens consisted of working the crops or herding sheep until keeling over or, if you couldn’t quite push the plow or keep up with the flock anymore, moving in with the kids who, by law, had to take you in (“Honor your father and mother,” and all that). The Methuselah-like ages reported in Genesis notwithstanding, the average life expectancy of most people in biblical times was most likely in the 20s due to disease, malnutrition, traumatic childbirth for women and almost constant warfare for men. According to the estate-planning firm E.F. Moody, life-expectancy figures remained virtually unchanged for most of human history. In ancient Greece, for example, life expectancy was 20. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, life expectancy was still just 23; the median age was 16. Even as recently as 1900, most Americans died by age 47. In 1870, only 2.5 percent of all Americans made it to age 65. It’s no wonder that, until relatively recently, retirement was a word mostly associated with going to bed — and hoping one would wake up. 2 Life expectancy has climbed to 76 years, up from 59 in 1930. This number continues to climb. Many of the first baby boomers (those born in 1946) who began their retirements a few years ago may have as much as 20 years or more of living still ahead. If, as some spry retirees claim, 65 is the new 55, then the old paradigm of retirement meaning a move to Florida and eating dinner at 4 p.m. is being blown up by an emerging generation of super seniors who would seem to prefer starting a second career to playing shuffleboard. Retiring boomers will embrace the philosophy about which boomer icon Neil Young once sang — “it’s better to burn out than it is to rust out.” With all these changes in life expectancy — not just the quantity but also the quality of life — perhaps the whole retirement thing needs to be rethought once again. After all, there are some vocations from which you can never really take a permanent vacation. Take parenting, for example. Sure, you raise your kids to be independent, but even when they’re adults, you’re still Mom or Dad for life (even as you pray they won’t move back in with you). Perhaps the most permanent lifelong vocation, however, is being a disciple of Jesus: a vocation from which you never really retire. You have to wonder what Jesus’ first disciples were thinking when he invited them to “Come and see” not only where he was staying but also what he was going to be about (John 1:39). The synoptic gospels are a little more specific about Jesus calling the disciples from one vocation to another: from fishing for fish to fishing for people, and from collecting people’s taxes to collecting their lost souls, for example. “Follow me” and “Come and see” are both commands and invitations to check out a new vocation and lifestyle that would trump the old. Before Simon Peter met Jesus, his previous retirement plan was, statistically, probably more likely to be about drowning before he was 40 than about setting up a fish-funded annuity. 3 Following Jesus offered a different kind of future, though it’s clear that neither Simon nor the others realized where it would lead them in those first heady days. Still, it had to be compelling when Jesus promised them, “You will see greater things than these. … Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (vv. 50-51). The disciples would see many other things as well: people being healed, demons cast out, pompous and pious leaders put in their place and multitudes fed with the equivalent of a Happy Meal. The gospels tell us that the disciples’ association with Jesus and his miraculous road show was leading them to believe that Jesus’ kingdom was becoming a reality — and that they’d likely have a famous supporting role. Jesus kept trying to tell them they were following him to a cross, the ultimate symbol of failure, but they kept hearing about greatness, status and power. Because Roman society valued leisure over work, the disciples may have imagined that once Jesus booted out the Romans, they’d be able to enjoy at least a little of the good life themselves as they sat enthroned next to the new king. Jesus had a longer vocational trajectory in mind, however — one that had eternal significance. Jesus was on his way to a cross, and it was pretty likely that the same fate would await those who followed him. Jesus’ death at roughly the age of 33 was so violent and brutal that it’s hard to imagine one’s life being cut short in that way. People in polite Roman society didn’t even mention crucifixion because of its stigma. And yet, Jesus knew he was going there. There was no plan to preach a few years and then retire quietly to a little village somewhere up in Galilee where he could enjoy sitting on the front porch and chatting with old friends stopping by. Jesus knew that his mission would take him right to the bitter end, but, even then, it would continue with those he had called to follow him. 4 Tradition and the book of Acts both tell us that Jesus’ disciples never got to hang up their sandals and collect a pension. Most of them met pretty horrible fates, dying in some brutally imaginative ways. John himself, if he is the same John who wrote Revelation, had a kind of forced retirement on the island of Patmos but still spent his time writing and working to encourage the next generation of Jesus’ followers. Only death could interrupt the work of these disciples and, because of what happened on Easter, they knew that even that wouldn’t keep them down for long. In most places, 21st-century Christians don’t have quite the same sense of urgency as did those early disciples. Our lives are longer due to better health, and our financial and personal security aren’t threatened on a daily basis. We have the ability to go where we want when we want, and we tend to see retirement as an opportunity to kick back and enjoy the fruits of our labor. Some Christians reach retirement age and think to themselves, “Well, it’s time for the younger generation to take on all these tasks in the church and in the community. I’ve done my time. I’ve graduated from Sunday school.” Problem is, the call of Jesus to follow has no expiration date — and no gold watch as a reward for doing one’s time. The work of the kingdom is ours to do whether we’re 7 or 77. Living life with an eternal perspective means we see our whole lives as belonging to Christ from beginning to end. The retiring baby boomers can begin to reverse the trend of seeing retirement as an end and, instead, teach us how to see it as an opportunity to use newly found free time and disposable income for kingdom purposes. It’s a great time to renew the call of Jesus and invite others to “Come and see!”