Anyway, a survey this week revealed that most people consider middle-age to only begin at the age of 55 and continue until age 70. The survey was conducted among people in their 50’s and so suggests to me a denial of reality. “Middle-age is a state of mind” was a frequent survey response; so is self-delusion.

This is all very interesting from an anthropological, sociological and theological perspective. One observation is almost too obvious to state – people don’t like the idea of growing old, and that implies a fear of death, and the answer to that fear is hope in a redeemer who has destroyed death.
 
A wider issue it reveals is the extent to which modern western society differs from traditional societies where the old are revered. Our cult of youth makes us fearful of ageing. Old age represents the opposite of everything we value as a culture – sexual vigour, physical attractiveness, being cool. We don’t really know what to do with the elderly, because they are an affront to our core values, so we pretend to be younger than we actually are, and hide away those who are genuinely old in nursing homes, rather as previous generations did with the disabled.

A challenge for Christians, and the churches we make up, is to resist the pressure of our culture and offer a better appraisal of ageing and a greater appreciation of the old. Those of us in churches that (rightly) focus on mission, church planting, and so on, easily fall prey to the cult of youth as we imagine it is young people we need to be reaching, and who will then have the energy to do the work we think we should be doing. In part this is correct. Any church that neglects to reach the young is signing its own ‘do not resuscitate’ order. But in a nation where there are more people aged over 65 than there are under 16 we are missiologically crazy to ignore the old. And there is also the rather inconvenient gospel fact of the “first being last” to consider. This tends to turn everything upside down and require of us that attention be given to the weak and sick and poor in preference to the strong and healthy and rich.

Another gospel challenge is for us to think about how we get a self-delusional people to face the realities of life, to see that acting like an 18 year-old when you are 45 is undignified and silly, and that clinging to youth cannot save us.

Next week we have the funerals of two elderly people from my church. One was the last surviving ‘original’ who had been at the church when it was started in 1925. Her service has been long and faithful. In the four years I have been here she was certainly never cool, or strong, or productive in any measureable way. But she was a saint, and it was a privilege to know her. As the leader of our old people’s work (himself in his late 70’s) put it on Sunday, “When you’re looking at me, you’re looking at your future!” He was being funny and ironic, but you know what, being like him – old but faithful – isn’t such a bad destination.

And if I needed any further evidence that I am indisputably middle-aged it came yesterday when I went for a run with my not-quite-13-year-old and she took me to school. Yep, it was pretty obvious who was middle-aged in that little scenario.