In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

“From the day we are born we are aging. Today we are older than we were yesterday. Today we are younger than we are going to be tomorrow. To live well is to age well. To age well is to live well.
What shall we do with our aging?”

Over the past couple of months I have been spending a great deal of time visiting older members of this congregation who are either in hospital or in nursing homes. And this question, what shall we do with our aging, has preoccupied my thoughts over this time. Accompanying this question are others.

What is it to age well or gracefully? If loss and limitations are part of the human condition how can I weave these things into the pattern of my life? How can I be realistic about death and still be a person of hope? Each of these questions are deeply personal and perhaps you share them.

Certainly each of us will answer them differently. Whether you are considered young or old, you are at this moment aging. Sooner or later these questions will impact your life. For the evidence of decay of the outer self come in many shapes, sizes, ways and degrees: stiffness of joints, forgetting names, the feeling of being less and less with it. But all is not negative with the aging process.

The philosopher Plato wrote in “the Republic”: Old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then we are freed from the grasp not of one bad master only, but of many.
Many people beyond middle age would agree with Plato’s observation. On his 90th birthday, the Supreme court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, saw a beautiful woman and remarked with a sigh, “Oh to be 70 again.”

Unfortunately, in my experience as a minister I have seen too many people avoid the questions that I asked earlier. They have not wanted to acknowledge the physical and mental limitations that come with age, refusing to ask for help they  draw no Christian wisdom that comes with the aging process. Perhaps part of the reason for this is the fact that we live in a society that celebrates youthfulness. To age is regarded not as a blessing to be savored but rather is a curse to be avoided.

But perhaps more importantly is the fact we are raised from a very early age to be independent people. We are a nation of fiercely independent people who view neediness as a “less-than” position. Acknowledging physical and mental limitations and having to ask for help makes us feel ashamed or guilty that we cannot meet our needs on our own. It is an attitude that affects even our relationship with God. So how good are you at asking for help?
How good are you at accepting help?

Let us turn now to the reading from Matthew. Our Gospel reading this morning is one of the more difficult passages in the New Testament. It is one of those passages that we might be tempted to skip over for the picture of Jesus that it presents doesn’t jive very well with our sentimental images of gentle Jesus meek and mild.

Certainly the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Cannanite woman is perplexing. For she bursts into the Gospel story like a sudden storm-seeking help for her daughter who is ill. Jesus’ initial response to her cries is a silence so complete that it makes his disciples embarrassed and uncomfortable. They feel no compassion for her situation. In fact they urge Jesus to send her away because she is causing such a scene.

Maybe Jesus was hoping that if he kept his eyes straight ahead and ignored this woman’s cries for mercy she would get the message and go away. Even when he finally speaks to her, his rejection seems to hinge on the fact that she is not part of the lost sheep of Israel.

For Jesus, this withdrawal into the region of Tyre and Sidon was deliberate. His horrible end was coming near he needed to prepare his disciples for the way of the cross. And finally when he makes a connection with a person who does understand, ironically it is  a woman who is a non-Jew, a gentile, one who is unclean.

To Jesus there was problem here and hence the struggle. There are more Jews in need of his message than he can begin to help. He has got to draw the line somewhere. There just isn’t enough time or resources to go around-the spiritual food should not be wasted on the dogs.

So Jesus drew the line, the social and religious boundaries that separated them were reinforced. But this women because of the love for her daughter stepped right over the line, right over the boundaries until she was in his face. And she knelt before him saying, “Lord, help me!

And yet she utters these three words not in a spirit of shame. She acknowledges her limitations in helping her daughter not in a spirit of guilt. She acknowledges her dependence on Christ. And it is through her humility, notice that she knelt,  that she utters the words, “Lord, help me.” This is the prayer the mystic Meister Eckhart says pierces the heavens. Jesus acknowledges her faith and her daughter is healed.

And it is in these three words and actions of the Canaanite woman that perhaps we can draw some answer to our questions concerning aging well. In her dependence she is not diminished, in her acknowledgment of limitations she is not shamed, in her humility we see a level of wisdom concerning our human condition.

For I believe that God is present in the experiences of not only joy, growth and becoming but also in the experiences of loss, adversity, diminishment and death. In the words of the Psalmist, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.” And it is by God’s grace alone that we strengthened and sustained in the midst of each of these experiences.

Someone once wrote, “God gave me the grace to look at my life as it had been and was and is becoming, and as a debtor: as one to whom God owes nothing whatsoever, Instantly, I began to find growing old and everything else-more interesting than they had ever been before.”

We come to God as the One who cares about the burdens that threaten to wear us down. We lift up to God our questions, our struggles, our confusion, our joys trusting that even in our process of aging God will act so that his will may be done. Ultimately, when overwhelmed with the limitations of age we are not left with our own wisdom or energy. God is with us, God saves.
THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN.