"Fifty is the New Thirty"

Luke 10:38-42 and15:11-32

Clayton Valley Presbyterian Church

Rev. Timothy J. Mooney

July 22, 2007

       So, Clayton Valley Presbyterian Church, I've heard you've just turned the big five-O.  Fifty smackers.  Half a century.  Fifty years old.  That's 18,262 days old, including leap years.  How do you feel about that?  Can you say, "Mid-life crisis?"  People have had a lot of fun with that term, "mid-life crisis."  And a lot of money has been spent on red convertibles and Harley Davidson's, face-lifts and tummy tucks, all justified with the words, "I'm having a mid-life crisis." 

But a mid-life crisis is real.  A mid-life crisis is a natural, predictable and observable phenomenon just like adolescence, and is as intense as adolescence though in a very different way.  And it's a mid-life crisis because something vital is at stake.  The Chinese symbol for crisis depicts what's at stake well.  It takes the symbol for opportunity and the symbol for danger and puts them together: crisis.  At fifty, you are facing a dangerous time, and a great opportunity.  I know this without a doubt because I just recently turned fifty and I'm now an expert on mid-life crisis.

       In the middle of January's cold, rainy, drab weather, a fitting prelude to my fast-approaching fiftieth birthday, we were driving somewhere and Deborah asked me if I wanted to have a quiet, personal 50^th, you know, something where I could feel sorry for myself, lick my wounds, and enter old age with a whimper; or did I want a big party to mark this right of passage and launch myself into the next 50 with a bang?  "A big party," I said.  She said, "We need a theme."  A couple of themes immediately came to mind: "I'm over the hill, when's my next pill," or "What's that you say?" or "Party ?til you drop unless it's 8 o'clock because that's when I stop," or my personal favorite, "AARP: A 1001 uses."  It was all so depressing.  Then Deborah said, "How about this: You're never too old to be a rock star!"  It was the perfect theme.  Yes I was getting older, but I could still pursue dreams, I could still become.  Isn't that what becoming an artist was all about anyway?  And so at my 50^th birthday celebration, with a professional sound system, I performed a 10-song set of music, some old, some new, for close family and friends.  I rocked.  You know, it wasn't the best performance, and I botched some words and some of the chords.  And the closest I came to being a rock star was when Deborah's mom made me wear a rock star wig and a fish-net rock star t-shirt - I looked like Rod Stewart.  Pictures are NOT available.

But something happened to me.  I realized that I could try something I hadn't tried before, I had more resources and energy than I knew, and my sense of the future became that much more hope-filled.  Less about age, less about losing what I once had, and more about choice and intention.  Frankly, I felt like a 30 year old again, but with more clarity and wisdom.

       There's nothing special about the year fifty in and of itself.  But it does seem to coincide with the arcs and trajectories of our lives, arcs and trajectories of ways of being and living and working that have run their course.  Careers, relationships, marriages, ways of being, and communities of faith arrive at a crisis: On one hand the danger is falling into stagnation, becoming too comfortable with the familiar, and living in nostalgia for the glory days of the past.  Bruce Springsteen captures this part of the danger in his song Glory Days when he sings, just sitting back trying to recapture, a little of the glory of, well time slips away and leaves you with nothing mister but boring stories of, glory days.  On the other hand the danger is falling into church fads, becoming enamored with every latest thing, and throwing out anything that is 30 years or older.  But in between these dangers, there is the very real and necessary opportunity to re-invigorate and re-create your life, your ministry, your community of faith.

       The main characters in our scripture texts today are faced with the dynamics of a mid-life crisis.  Things have run their course, their ways of being in the world are being challenged, and choices are at hand that will impact the community they are a part of.  How will they navigate this crisis?  How will they choose to move into the next part of life?  The questions facing these main characters are also the questions you face as you turn fifty. 

       Mary and the Prodigal Son are praised and valued.  Conversely, Martha and the Eldest Son are criticized or are asked to learn from the situation.  This perspective comes through in Rembrandt's painting titled, The Prodigal Son.  Most of the light in the painting is on the father embracing the prodigal.  The love, acceptance and grace expressed here is the focal point.  But a very bright light shines on the Eldest son's face, as if to suggest that he is the one who needs to understand and learn and change.  The lesson is for him, which is to say the lesson is for those who identify with and are represented by the Eldest Son.  The same is true for Martha.  The lesson is for her, but really for those who identify with and are represented by her. 

       So who are the ones who identify with Martha and the Eldest Son?  When these stories were first told by Jesus, the Martha's and the Eldest Son's were those who held to traditional Judaism.  They were the Pharisees, Sadducees, priests, they were the religious establishment.  When these stories were heard in the first and second century church, the Martha's and Eldest Son's were those who tried to keep the faith within the community of the Jewish; they were having trouble accepting Gentiles.  In my experience as a pastor in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, the Martha's and Eldest Son's are the long-time sons and daughters of the church, who have given much of their life and worked very hard as SS teachers, Elders, Deacons, and committee members, doing all kinds of behind-the-scenes things to keep things going.  My guess is that it is Martha and the Eldest Son most of us here identify with.  And that's why these stories can be hard to hear because the lesson seems to be for us.

       And so here are some questions this mid-life crisis asks.  Like Martha, what are you overly distracted by, concerned with, and anxious about?  What overly consumes your attention and energy?  This is the hard part: It's something you think is very important to the faith, to the tradition, and to you, and so it's going to feel to you like something essential!  So essential that you want Jesus to get Mary (others) to help you with your concern.  But Jesus suggests that it's not as important as you think; that it's distracting you from something more essential.  Jesus asks you to take a look at Mary.  She has found the "better part."  Discovering what is more essential takes a certain type of listening, the kind of listening that Mary engages in.  In this time of mid-life crisis, are you willing to listen like that?  Is it possible that you have become too distracted with things that are not as important as they seem?

       What about the Eldest Son?  He was dutiful and loyal and obedient, he was a good son!  But on some level he was not as home as he thought, or home had deeper dimensions to it than he realized.  He has something to learn about celebration, joy and dancing that is not accessed through obedience, duty and perfection.  How are you being asked to be more deeply at home in God's grace?  You hear the father say that all he has is yours, but for some reason you've not been able to access it.  You see the prodigals experience grace deeply, and can even be resentful of them.  You are invited to celebrate with them.  How can you find a way to come to the party?  And not just come to the party.  These prodigals that come home are going to be around now.  How will you relate to them?  They are the next generation, what gift can you give them?

       For you Mary's and Prodigal Son's, if you think you're off the hook, think again.  This mid-life crisis is also yours.  You may be younger, you may have only been here a few short years, but you too have important choices to make.  If you identify with Mary, do you think you'll be praised by Jesus day after day if all you do is to sit at his feet and listen?  You may have chosen the better part, but now what do you do with it?  Do you use it to feel superior?  How might you honor and help Martha?  How might you share her burden, so she's less distracted?

       If you identify with the prodigal son you've had a major change of heart and have experienced the grace of God in a wonderful way.  And the coming home is always a wonderful time.  But after a while, the coming home turns into being at home, staying at home.  The party is over, the high wears off, and the rhythm of life and work in this community becomes an essential thing to be a part of.  There are many around you that have been around here a lot longer than you, have sacrificed in so many ways and they are a bit jealous and envious and mistrustful of you.  You've run off doing your thing and then get to come home and enjoy all the things they've worked so hard to sustain and develop!?  Your experiences out there in other parts of the world, have given you a different perspective and you have a lot to offer, but how do you honor the ones who've given so much to this community?  How might you let the Eldest son and daughter know that you want them to be at the party as much as you want to be there?  How do you throw a party for the Eldest sons and daughters?

       This church is a home, it has Mary and Martha in it, it has prodigal son and elder son in it.  You've been through a lot of change in the past couple of years, and now you're fifty.  You need a party.  You need a theme.  You are called to answer some tough questions about how you are going to be as you face the future.  It is a crisis: it's dangerous.  But it's also truly an opportunity to reinvigorate, and recreate who you will be for the future.  It will take prodigal and elder together, it will take Mary and Martha together.  You need each other.

       As I was approaching fifty, I felt as if there was a struggle going on inside me.  Well it's been going on for longer than that, but turning fifty made me more aware of it.  The internal struggle had to do with the new rearrangements of my internal Mary and Martha, my internal prodigal son and Eldest son.  I had to listen to what was deeply within and essential, I had to become aware of what distracted me.  I discovered that what was good could often get in the way of what was better.  I knew that once I listened deeply, I needed the Martha in me to put what I heard into action.  As I found a way to come more home to myself and to my deepest sense of God, I needed the Eldest son in me to be loyal and faithful to this new way.  I needed to find the new balance between celebration and duty, between developing the new and finding a way to deeply honor the tradition.  "It's never too late to be a Rock Star" was a silly and fun theme, but I'm dead serious when I say it helped me navigate my own ongoing mid-life crisis.  It helped me see it much more as an opportunity than something to be feared and dreaded.  The opportunity to reinvigorate and recreate your life, ministry and community together lies before you.  Fifty can be the new thirty.  May it be life-giving celebration for many, many years to come.  Amen.