The local paper recently ran a piece which included some comments about the former pastor of a church in our community. His friends and family talked about how he had “retired” several years ago. Scare quotes in the original. Webster tells us that scare quotes are “quotation marks used to express especially skepticism or derision.” Apparently, the former pastor’s friends and family are skeptical as to his actual retirement.
This summer will mark the fifth anniversary of my – no scare quotes – retirement. Also, the fiftieth anniversary of my entry into full-time ministry. I’ve been thinking about retirement, its meaning and its purpose. Today I continue with Part III of a four-part series:
- Retirement as a gift from God
- Retirement as a gift for others
- Retirement as a call to look forward
- Retirement as a time to look back
As I wrote in the first post week, I should acknowledge that my retirement is pretty traditional. Five years ago, I quit receiving a paycheck, moved out of my office, and was no longer bound to a position description and job expectations. In those five years our retirement income has proven to be more than adequate, my health is good, and my energy level is high. We also moved 600 miles from the place we had called home to a new house and home we enjoy greatly. I understand that some people cannot afford to retire, and others enter retirement with regrets and worries of different sorts. So, as I think about retirement, most of the data comes from my own good experience and from conversations and observations from those around me. I will cite no studies and offer no footnotes.
III. RETIREMENT AS A CALL TO LOOK FORWARD
Becky and I are planning a trip to Brazil this fall. We are looking forward to it. We look forward to times with our children and grandchildren. We look forward to the next meeting of our small group Bible study and the next worship service at our church. I look forward to phone calls with friends far away and tomorrow morning’s run through the neighborhood. This is a wonderful season of retirement. As the psalmist writes, “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.” Psalm 16:6.
No apologies for having so much to look forward to. Our retirement as a gift from God is a gift of looking forward to good things.
If retirement is only looking forward to the next long trip or good times with family and friends, however, we are most likely to be disappointed. Retirements end at death. We might be like amateur golfer Emil Kijek. Emil was 79 years old and feeling good. One Thursday at Sun Valley Golf Course near his home in Massachusetts, Emil hit his first ever hole-in-one and then dropped dead. But we may not be like Emil Kijek. We do not always go so gently into that good night.
Because our retirements will end in death, we look forward not just to vacations and holes-in-one, but to wills and trusts, advance directives, and burial requests. Not morbid. Wise.
So, retirement is a call to look forward – yes, to plan that next trip or family event or the opportunity to volunteer, and, yes, to look forward to retirement’s sure end. But for the Christian, retirement is a call to look beyond dinner at a good restaurant, the next Habitat for Humanity work day, or rebalancing of the asset allocation in your retirement account. Retirement is a call to look forward to the reality of death and to the reality of life beyond death.
Henry Francis Lyte took what we might call early retirement. Just before he left his home and pastorate near Brixham on the south coast of England for a warmer climate in the south of France, an already-ailing Lyte wrote the poem which has become our hymn “Abide With Me.” He died three months later.
With Henry Francis Lyte, the wise retiree sings,
I fear no foe with thee at hand to bless,
ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.
Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes.
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee;
in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
Enjoying the pleasant places where our lines have fallen, still we remember the words of a more recent hymn, “When the race is complete, still my lips shall repeat: Yet not I, but through Christ in me!”
Retirement is a call to look forward.