ERNIE, PAUL, & KEN

"But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine:  
that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience;"  (Titus 2:1-2 New King James Version)

In roughly three months I will celebrate my sixtieth birthday.  This is an occasion of great stress and sadness for many people.  Most of my cousins are anywhere from two to eighteen years older than I am, and I've heard many of them say they were very depressed turning sixty.  A guy I know has told me several times this year that turning sixty will be very difficult and will greatly bother me.  

This may surprise you, but I don't expect turning sixty to bother me very much at all.  I've never been shy at stating my date of birth nor of revealing my age.  It's a personal choice, but I don't color my hair.  I'm one of those who believes I've earned every one of these gray hairs and I want to display them proudly!  It's no surprise that so many folks have major problems with turning sixty, however.  This is a youth culture.   Seemingly "everything" is geared for people in their teens, twenties, and thirties.  No matter what they say, forty is not the "new thirty"; and sixty is not the "new forty"!  People in their forties are made to feel a bit too old to be "cool"; then at fifty you qualify for A.A.R.P.; at fifty-five you qualify for private senior-citizen housing; and at sixty-two you qualify for public senior-citizen housing.  Companies find all sorts of excused to "get rid of" employees who are over age fifty-five.  Sadly, many of today's "Bible based" churches are almost totally geared to the young.  Let's face it, the "emergent" and "cutting edge" churches don't gear their services to anyone over age sixty!  The trend in many quarters is very loud rockin' music, along with super casual dress, and the feeling that if you're over fifty you'd probably better find somewhere else to worship.

Despite the trends, I'm not upset or ashamed about soon turning sixty.  And, I think we need to re-think how we treat and view our senior-citizens.  For some reason today, I've found myself thinking of three "seniors" who attended the church in Framingham, MA that I once pastored.  All have now "gone home to glory"; but our church was a richer place because of their presence and I was blessed and truly benefited from knowing these three older gentlemen.  Their names were Ernie, Paul, and Ken.

Ernie attended our church regularly for about seven or eight years until his death in the late summer of 2004.  He was eighty-three and just about three weeks shy of his eighty-fourth birthday when he died.  He'd be ninety-three today!  Ernie was a retired prison guard.  That was hard to believe, because he was just not a guy you'd picture being a prison guard!  Somehow, I just can't see him in a uniform ordering guys to line up, but I guess he did all that kind of stuff.  As far as I know, Ernie never married.  He lived in the same residence for his entire life!  In fact, the old house in Norfolk, Massachusetts had been in his family for well over a hundred years.  I knew each of Ernie's sisters previously as they'd attended the church in Walpole where I'd served as an assistant pastor in the 1980s.  Ernie had been on the periphery of evangelical Christianity for years- watching Oral Roberts regularly- and owning an impressive leather-bound King James Bible.  But Ernie was well into his seventies when he made the decision to personally receive Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and follow Him as a disciple.  Ernie was very sincere about this.  He drove an old light green compact Chevy station wagon and he was at church every Sunday unless he was very ill.  He loved to study his Bible, and he would make it a point to focus on certain things.  For instance, one Christmas, he took some time to make sure I understood that the baby Jesus was wrapped in "swaddling cloths" and not "swaddling clothes"!  Ernie was never rude or disrespectful, however.  Never.  He always treated me and everyone in the church with kindness, respect, and dignity.  He never raised his voice in church, and he never caused or participated in any trouble or controversy at church.  We all remember where we were on 9/11/2001, but I also remember where I was on 9/10/2001.  It was a Monday, and Ernie was spending a couple of months in a rehabilitation facility in Franklin, Mass.  He'd undergone a very serious operation.  Ernie knew he could have died, but he enthusiastically stated that he had seen Moses who had told him, "It's not your time".  My wife and I along with several others visited Ernie on the morning of Monday, September 10, 2001.  I remember us going into a community room and watching "Unsolved Mysteries".  We had no idea what was about to befall our nation on that beautiful Monday.  Just a few weeks later, Ernie returned to church and we were all delighted.

Paul died in 2011.  I think he was also eighty-three at the time of his death.  Paul was retired from the I.R.S.  I could no more picture Paul working for the I.R.S. than I could picture Ernie being a prison guard!  Paul was like Ernie in that he was never rude, nor disrespectful, nor impolite at church.  Every Sunday morning, Paul brought in doughnuts for our early morning fellowship time.  They were usually Hostess brand doughnuts or something similar.  Honestly, they were not very good, but I knew that it was the thought that counted, and I appreciated those doughnuts and the love behind them every week.  Paul drove a black, compact pickup truck.  He (and all these older men) had difficulty parking within the lines of the parking lot, and I used to chuckle about that.  Sometimes, Paul would help usher.  On those occasions, I'd ask him to pray over the offering.  Paul was not much of a public speaker at all, but I always remember he'd pray very earnest prayers on behalf of our church and its people.  If you could hear the love and faith in his prayers, it would move you to tears.  Paul was like Ernie in that he very seldom missed church unless he was very ill.  And, he was a regular at our monthly Saturday morning men's fellowship time.

Paul died just a few days after Ken did.  Paul and Ken had each attended a large church in Wayland, Mass. prior to coming to the little church in Framingham.  I forgot to mention that Paul was married as was Ken.  Ken was truly a character.  He was also very faithful to attend church and men's fellowship.  I think  Ken and his wife must have signed up to purchase a "time share" at every presentation they'd ever attended, because they owned a few "time share" properties.  They'd miss church when it was time to go to western Massachusetts or New Hampshire or wherever the other time share was, but otherwise they were very faithful to church attendance.  I remember that when I was growing up in the Catholic Church, many times elderly people would come to mass but spend the time saying their rosaries.  Sometimes the priests would get angry about that.  Well, similarly, Ken liked to read our denominational magazine, the Pentecostal Evangel during the services and especially during my sermons.  For awhile it bothered me, but often after the service  Ken would come up to me sporting a big smile and saying, "You did WELL!"  I realized the matter of reading during the sermons was just a quirk of his.  Ken also was famous for asking everyone and I mean everyone their age.  Following that, he'd proclaim, "Just a YOUNG man!" or "Just a YOUNG woman!"   It did get a little awkward when he'd pull a first-time visitor aside and ask their age, but I think most people understood he was just a friendly old man and took it in stride.  That word is a key to who and what Ken was:  friendly.   He was very friendly.  Ken would like to stay after church and just talk.  Sometimes, it seemed like he talked a little too much, but I always knew he was friendly and that he cared.  Ken also never was disrespectful to anyone at church and never was part of any controversy or problem.  I attended Ken's funeral at First Baptist Church of Sudbury three years ago.  Many in the audience were pupils of Ken's Sunday School classes from the 1970s and 1980s who testified of the impact he'd had on their lives.

Yes, as I'm approaching sixty, I'm thinking of these three guys, all over age eighty.  I'm thinking of their faithfulness, kindness, and support.  They're all in Heaven now.  Yes, we so often want to be "cool" and want to be "young" but I think it would behoove all of us to take a good hard look at faithful senior citizens like these men and (frankly) be more like them!