I recently read a book on spiritual formation, and a particular quote captured my attention. On page 454 Kenneth Boa says, “. . . in our later years, our great challenge is teachability” (Conformed to His Image, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001).
While this is not true for everyone, I have noted over the years that some older people do tend to have a know-it-all attitude.
I remember as a young man (late 20's), I worked as an associate pastor with an older man Chuck, (late 40's). He was the senior pastor. Now, Chuck was one of the kindest men I'd ever met and he displayed a Christ-like attitude of love to all people like few I ever met before or after. If you were lying in a hospital bed at 3 in the morning and needed someone to come pray with you and just sit with you through a rough night, Chuck was your man. If your heart was broken due to some disaster in your life, Chuck would comfort you by truly feeling your pain and weeping with you in prayer. In short, Chuck was a pastor with a pastor's heart. Everything about him said, “shepherd.” Chuck's formal education was in music while mine was in theology and Bible. So, we had this odd situation where the senior pastor would often come to me, his associate, and ask me theological questions that church members had asked him. They would not come to me because I was “just the associate” minister, and I was also just a pup. When Chuck moved to a different state, I was voted in as the senior pastor. I think I was 28 at the time.
I'm older than you, so I know more
What I found was that most of the older people in the church (i.e., 50+, which I no longer consider old) almost always fought against me in various issues. While younger people in the church would come and ask my opinion about theological issues or exegetical questions about the Bible, the older folks rarely asked me my opinion about anything, and in some cases openly disagreed with things I said or taught. Now, I've never been the kind of person who says everyone should agree with me, so this never bothered me, but I did find it curious. On one such occasion during a Wednesday night Bible study, one older man disagreed with a certain thing I was teaching and he blurted out that he disagreed. So, I opened the floor to him and asked him to share exactly what it was that he disagreed with and why he saw it differently. He then turned the tables on me and demanded that I be the one to defend my position. So, I did. After my explanation of why I believed as I did, I invited him to reciprocate and share with the study members why he believed as he did. I'll never forget his answer. He said, “I'm older than you, so I know more.”
My friend is not teachable
I presently have an older minister friend (in his 60's) with whom I love to have lunch or dinner, or just a cup of coffee together, but I do not like talking to him about theology because his attitude is much the same as the older man mentioned above. On more than one occasion, my friend has asked me about a certain theological point. In fact, we come from different denominational backgrounds, and he once proceeded to tell me what my denomination believed about a certain aspect of theology. And, he could not have been more wrong. In fact, I found what he said very offensive. So, I attempted to explain to him that neither the denomination nor any minister that I had ever known within the denomination believed what he said we believed. Instead of hearing the truth from the “horse's mouth,” he said something to the effect that he knows that it is true because he had known someone from my denomination who had said that! Of course, I shared with him that someone who is a lay-member of the church cannot speak for the entire church and that I would be happy to supply him with official denominational documents that clearly shows that what he thought we believed was not what we believed at all. He declined my offer.
About a month later, I was visiting his church and he was preaching. That morning, he stood up and talked about the very topic that we had just discussed. I was wondering if he was going to share how he had been straightened out on this topic about what his brothers in my denomination believed. To my shock and disappointment, he repeated the same error to his congregation that he had said to me a month earlier, even though I had clearly explained to him that it was not true. My friend is not teachable.
Hardening of the Categories
All of that to say that I've noted a similar “hardening of the categories” in my own life from time to time. Sometimes I just feel exhausted with some folks, and I want to say, “Hey, look, I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt.” But, to do that is to do the very thing that I have seen in others that I find so offensive.
Boa says:
Those who maintain a childlike sense of wonder, surprise, and awe do not succumb to rigidity and hardening of the categories. Such people who continue to grow in grace "will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still yield fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and very green" (Psalm 92:13-14) (454).
We can grow older gracefully
All of this brings me to a friend named Jim Phelps. Jim was 30+ years older than me, and he was one of my elders in the church I pastored. Jim was a wonderful man who was always open to others and what they might have to teach him. Jim was a solid family man whose lifestyle reflected the glory of God to all he met. Jim was both my father in the faith and my student. He was one of my best friends and one of my teachers. Jim has since gone on to be with the Lord. So, not all older people have the “hardening of the categories" nor do we have to. We can grow older gracefully.
This is my prayer Lord . . .
That I will continue to grow in grace and flourish in Your courts.
That I will still yield fruit in my old age.
That I will reflect Your glory.
