After Retirement
When as a child I first learned about the idea of “retirement,” I thought of it as a finish line. It meant you had “made it.” I thought of it as the bell on the last day of school. It meant work was over and the fun could begin.
Now, I’m nowhere near that bell. My race is not even halfway run. But many of
you have crossed that fabled finish line. And from what I’ve heard, retirement
is not at all what I as a child had thought it would be. You have discovered
(or perhaps you already knew) the work is never over. Whether it’s caring for
grandchildren, checking on your neighbors, building ramps for others, going on
trips and learning something new—whatever it is that brought you life before
retirement, is what still brings you life after retirement. When my dad
retired, it was not long before he had found himself enlisted again in doing
the same kind of work he had done, which was event planning. Secretly, I think,
he was happy to be working again. What gave him life before, still gives him
life now. (Of course, it is more enjoyable when you can work on your terms.)
We’ve all heard stories of people who worked their entire lives, and then
shortly into a full-fledged retirement, in which they have absolutely nothing
to do, they die. I wonder if part of the reason is because they have lost a
reason for living. Our work—whether it’s our employment or other meaningful
tasks that we take on in our adult lives—is fundamentally about being in
community and sharing our gifts with others. Apparently this is a need for us
as humans. It’s part of the fabric of life. It doesn’t change at retirement.
Choosing God When
You’ve Made It
In today’s scripture, God addresses the people of Israel after they have come into the Promised Land and begun to settle there. Our lectionary selection only features the beginning of God’s address (in verses two and three), in which God reminds the people of their origin story. Their ancestor Abraham had once served other gods in a land beyond the Euphrates, but then God chose him to be the start of a new people and new way of life. The point of God’s speech is to remind the people of Israel that they have not made it into the Promised Land on their own. From the very beginning, God has been with them, guiding them, teaching them, doing for them what they could not do on their own. God has chosen the people of Israel. The question is, Will the people of Israel choose God?
When God finishes God’s speech, the leader Joshua turns to the people of Israel and invites them to respond in kind. “Choose this day whom you will serve” (Josh 24:15). I hear a special emphasis on the phrase “this day.” Because for Israel, “this day” is the day when they have finally settled in the Promised Land. “This day” is the finish line. “This day” is the bell on the last day of school. They have made it. Now they will live in houses instead of tents. Now they will have land and their herds and flocks will multiply. Gone is the wilderness. Now they are living in the land of milk and honey.
It is one thing to choose God when you are enslaved and desperate. When God first made God’s covenant with Israel, they had just been liberated from a lifetime of slavery in Egypt. Their covenant with God was arguably more of a foxhole prayer than a deliberated decision. Of course, they would take God as their God. Next to slavery, just about anything looked better.
It is one thing to choose God when you’ve got nothing else to lose. It is another thing entirely to choose God when you’ve made it. When you’re living securely in the land, happy and healthy. When you’ve got a roof over your head and a barn filled with plenty and your past suffering and desperation is a distant dream. In the wilderness, Moses warned the people about this day. He said, “When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery… Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth’” (Deut 8:12-14, 17).
“Put Away the Foreign
Gods”
According to Moses, the danger of having “made it” is the illusion of self-sufficiency. When things are going well, it is easy to think I’m in control. It is easy to think I have brought this about by my own hand, through my own power.
Twice in today’s scripture, Joshua tells the people, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel” (Josh 24:23; cf. 24:14). The implication is that, at least in their hearts, the people are still serving other gods. Serving other gods—which is elsewhere called idolatry—is in fact a self-serving behavior. It is a sort of deal or trade-off that we make for our own benefit. It gives us the illusion that we have a handle on things. These gods we serve are actually meant to serve us.
Think about the foreign gods we serve today. What are their temples? Where do people turn their eyes? Where do people flock? I think of Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the Capitol. Are they not temples to money, appearance, technology, and power? We serve these other gods thinking that they will secure the good life for us. (That they have secured the good life for us.) We serve them thinking they will help us get the things we want, the attention we want, the control we want.
Nothing Has Changed
I think back to the experience of retirement. Some of you are experts in this matter of life, so it really should be you talking and not me. But my observation is that in the later years of a person’s life, the road diverges in one of two directions. And I’m going to paint here with very broad strokes.
In one direction, the person looks back upon their life and sees with pride all that they have accomplished and built. “My kingdom,” they think. And then as their age slowly takes its toll, they begin to feel their kingdom crumbling around them. And they become bitter and resentful and grasping. It turns out that the foreign gods we serve will always disappoint us in the end. They do not secure us life. Rather, they disorient us, disconnecting us from God and others; and so when their short-lived treasures begin to slip through our fingers, we find ourselves as we really are, incredibly isolated and alone.
In the other direction, and perhaps this is the road less traveled, the person looks back upon their life and sees with gratitude all the gifts they have been given. They see the hard times not as obstacles that they had to mount, but as moments when God came to their side. They see the good times as God’s grace, doing for them what they could never have done for themselves. “This is my Father’s world,” they might think. God’s kingdom—right here, on earth as it is in heaven. And they realize that, post-retirement, after the finish line, after the bell has rung, after the River has been crossed, nothing has changed. God is still here, still our Help. Life is still a gift to be received in community with others and in meaningful work shared with them. And so they can do now what they did before. They can choose “this day” to serve God. When their life is going well, they can choose to serve God. When all that they had gained in life is lost, they can choose still to serve God.
Because in the end, nothing has changed. All of life is a gift. Not to be grasped and accumulated, but to be received, shared, and celebrated.
Prayer
Who is the same on both sides of the River,
In times of difficulty and times of ease—
This day we choose to serve you.
We look back on our lives
And we see your help,
Not magic or instant fixes
But steadfast presence and care
…
Make us servants of this love
That has brought us life.
In Christ, our companion and guide: Amen.
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