Hilton Head Island, SC – October 16, 2022
The Chapel Without Walls
Luke 12:35-40; Luke 12:41-48
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – “Everyone to whom much is given, of him will much be required, and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more.” – Luke 12:48b
This sermon is directed to everyone in this congregation who is entirely or semi-retired, and that’s every one of us, except one. However, the one of us who is still working full-time is encouraged to listen, because at some point he too will be retired, and then he can heed the advice being given herein, if he happens to remember it.
Hilton Head Island has a much higher percentage of retirees than most communities. And whether people here retired early (whatever that means) or late (whatever that means), when they do retire, most people experience a major life change. When they were working, their employment was their major non-family focus in life. When they retired, retirement became their major focus. On Hilton Head, that means the beach, the bike paths, golf, tennis, pickleball (a new retirement pursuit), boating, bridge or other games, walking, Lifelong Learning, book clubs, or a host of other enjoyable and pleasurable retirement activities.
During the lifetime of Jesus, almost nobody lived long enough to retire, at least in the sense that we understand retirement. Nearly everyone lived a subsistence existence. Few people grew old, and those who did get old still worked at whatever they were able to do to keep the three-generation-family-all-living-in-one-place operating at optimal capacity. Whether young or old, talented or limited in ability, everyone was expected to pull his or her weight to keep the wolf away from the door.
That is not the expectation of most people who retire today, either for themselves or for anyone else. That is especially true in places like Hilton Head Island. Most people who come here in retirement have sufficient assets that they don’t need to continue working, although some retirees work part-time to supplement their income. In order to sustain a marriage of forty-plus years, others work part-time to maintain a healthy relationship – and distance for a few hours each day, since retirement is a new situation – from their spouse. Nevertheless, the great majority of retired people on “this sceptered isle,/ this earth of majesty,…this other Eden, demi-paradise,/ this fortress built by Nature for herself/ Against infection and the hand of war,/ this happy breed of men, this little world,/ this precious stone in the silver sea,/ this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this” (Shakespeare, King Richard II, Act II, sc. 1) --- Hilton Head, find themselves free to do whatever they want to do, and whenever they want to do it.
Listen to this, Christian people: Jesus doesn’t give us that independence, nor does God. For Jesus, we are all servants of God as long as we live, and we must also carve out new avenues of service for ourselves in the kingdom of God, after we retire. In God’s kingdom, nobody can retire, at least not as Americans and other people from other wealthy nations perceive their “golden years” after they cease working full-time and start that new and final chapter of their lives that we describe as “retirement.” All of us have things we can always accomplish for God’s kingdom.
It is never good to spend one’s life pursuing only pleasure, not even after we stop working. God wants us always to do the most we can with whatever skills and energy we have, and for us that means whatever time we have left. Once we were much more productive than we are now, because we were younger. Now we’re older, and we can’t do what we once did, but that doesn’t mean we are free to do nothing. We can and should still do many productive things.
In first-century Judea, life was much more stratified than in 21st-century-America, particularly in places like this place. There were shepherds and small farmers, and there were shopkeepers and artisans: people who spun wool into yarn, carpenters, furniture makers, and so on. Apparently much of the land was owned by large landowners, and they employed stewards, or foremen, who saw to it that the farm workers were kept busy and productive. The stewards were second only to the landowners in the societal pecking order. Big-farm stewards were really bigshots.
Jesus has a few parables, all of which have more or less the same message: the parable of the workers in the vineyard, the parable of the talents, and the two you heard earlier from Luke 12, the parable of the master who comes home early from the marriage feast, and the parable of the wise and the unwise stewards. Each of these parables warns against laxity. Somebody in a position of responsibility relaxes when the master is away. The master returns early, and finds that the steward also has allowed the workers to relax. He, the steward, is not doing what he should be doing. In these different parables with different story lines, the moral of the story is more or less the text for this sermon: “Everyone to whom much is given, of him will much be required, and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48b).
So who, in these two parables in Luke, is the master? The master is God. It is God who has given every steward the abilities and responsibilities they have. Some are capable of doing only very limited things. They are, to use other biblical terminology, the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. Some can take on enormous tasks, like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, the entrepreneurs of huge technological businesses. And in between are the rest of humanity, people such as ourselves, most of whom came to a semi-tropical island in retirement.
In none of these parables is anyone allowed to loaf in perpetuity. In God’s kingdom, everyone is expected to do something on behalf of God, no matter how menial it may be. Physically, nearly everybody is more productive in their early rather than their later years. Nonetheless, even in retirement, God expects everyone to do something to solidify and strengthen the kingdom of God on earth. You can retire from your occupation or profession, but you can’t retire from being a servant in God’s kingdom. Our Master, Jesus, and our Master, God, are counting on you!
Little actions can have big results. In an interview, Paul McCartney referred to how four young men from Liverpool in their late teens and early twenties received great assistance from others in becoming who the Beatles became. He said, “All these small coincidences had to happen to make the Beatles happen, and it does feel like some kind of magic. It’s one of the wonderful lessons about saying yes when life presents these opportunities to us.”
Doing the most with what we have means using whatever talents we still have left on behalf of family, friends, and neighbors. There are situations where we alone can make a big difference in small ways to other people. Like those who helped launch the Beatles by their own small acts of encouragement or support, we can assist people we see frequently to have better, more fulfilling lives because we took a special interest in them.
I want to suggest four things retirees can do to improve the existence of the people living on this semi-sceptered sandpile in the sea. First, we can volunteer at any of the many volunteer organizations on the island. Several of them were instituted by retirees for retirees. The Bargain Box was founded by three ladies from First Presbyterian Church as a thrift store to benefit primarily island workers. It was never officially associated with the church, but the church provided land and financial support to help get the Bargain Box started. They and all the other thrift shops need volunteer workers. The Deep Well Project was started by Charlotte Heinrichs nearly fifty years ago to drill deep wells for islanders not on public water lines, and to give free food and clothing to island residents who temporarily couldn’t afford such items. Volunteers in Medicine was started by Dr. Jack McConnell to provide medical services to anyone who lacks medical insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, or sufficient funds to pay for medical services. Second Helpings was inaugurated by a retired couple who got the idea of collecting restaurant food which had not been eaten to give to hungry local people in Beaufort County who had no money for food. (This isn’t half-eaten food which would be thrown away; it is prepared food which was never eaten and was going to be thrown away.) Other organizations needing volunteers are Habitat for Humanity, the Boys and Girls Club, the library, and so on.
If you are still physically able to serve in a volunteer group on the island, I urge you to do so. The day may come, and it may not be too far away, when you can no longer be counted on as a volunteer. The kingdom of God requires able-bodied and not-so-able-bodied volunteer workers.
Second, befriend the socially isolated. Wherever you live, you have neighbors close by who once were out and about, but now are housebound. Some of them have no one close by to assist them by running errands for them or just sitting and talking to them.
The kind of people in those circumstances are sometimes the most difficult to help, because often they don’t want any help, even though they desperately need it. They may be ornery old coots, and you may be an old coot yourself, but not necessarily ornery. These folks need the tender care and concern that only you are likely to provide. If anyone else had done it, they don’t need you, but if they have no one, you may be the only volunteer in God’s kingdom who is willing and able to help them. This advice is particularly apropos for those of you who live in retirement homes. There are many old folks in old folks’ homes who need help from their fellow old folks.
Third, you could take someone who is disabled under your wing. What do I mean by disabled? I mean some of the people in the second category, but also others. We have oodles of oldsters here, some of them years older than you are, who can’t do a thing for themselves. And there are more and more such people all the time, because we are living longer.
People who are disabled and know they are disabled may be too proud to seek someone to help them. Their pride need not be a barrier to your humble offer to be their neighbor-caregiver. Some people need to be saved from their own stubbornness. If there is someone you know who needs you, don’t take no for an answer. Without you, that person may die feeling unloved and unaided. In a way that is their fault, but in another way it’s your fault if you can be their new friend and you don’t avail yourself of that opportunity on behalf of the kingdom of God. Some individuals are blind or completely deaf or can’t take a step without assistance or are so irascible that no previous servant of God has been able to do anything for this crotchety codger. Take him or her on as a project. If you’re retired and you’re not doing anything to help anybody, you need a project. You’ve been enjoying your retirement too much and doing too little with it in your spare time, of which you may have an unlimited amount.
Fourth, become a lifeline to someone who needs one. You may be the only lifeline that will be extended to that person. If you don’t know anybody who might be such a somebody, ask somebody who knows of such people, and get going. Some elderly people have children who live elsewhere and never come to see their parents. The parents may be lonely and neglected. If nobody connects with them, they may die disconnected, and that’s an indictment on all of us.
John Keats was one of England’s greatest poets. He was potentially a supernova of poetry, but he died at age 26. One of his poems perhaps voiced his subconscious concern that he might die young, “When I have fears that I may cease to be before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain.” What if there is someone whose life you alone can ignite once again, but you cease to be before you make it happen? You can’t be a good steward of your life if you don’t offer someone your life to one degree or another. Jesus is very clear about that discipleship requirement.
Dr. Joseph I. Kramer was a character. New York magazine did a story about him, as did The New Yorker, the New York Times, and 60 Minutes. He was a pediatrician who started his practice in Bergen County, New Jersey, a wealthy suburban area in northeastern New Jersey. In his early forties, he left for Avenue D in Brooklyn, where he had grown up. He said there were not enough children who were sick enough to challenge him in Bergen County, so he went back to his old neighborhood. By then it had deteriorated, and there were myriads of poor people, drug addicts, and prostitutes. His practice was a “pay what you can” service, with a ground floor office in a public housing project. He became known as “the Country Doctor of Avenue D.”
Dr. Kramer retired in 1996, when he was 71. He didn’t quit because he was tired or disgusted or dismayed. He retired because he was no longer willing to do the necessary paperwork to stay in practice. Thousands of other doctors have retired for the same reason. He died a couple of years ago at age 96. Jesus would have been pleased with Joseph Kramer, who was a fellow Jew. Like Jesus, Joseph Kramer was also an iconoclast, a troublemaker, and a man beloved by thousands of people and patients through the years, of whom he typically saw 40 a day.
In these two parables, Jesus is not asking us to become extraordinary stewards. He is simply urging us to be watchful, dedicated, humanitarian stewards of our remaining time and talents.
I remember the lyrics to songs and hymns better than anything else. A hymn that has particular relevance for this sermon sprang into mind as I was writing it. It is called, “Work for the night is coming.” It is based on the parable of Jesus about the workers in the vineyard. The hymn text was written in 1854 by a woman named Anna Coghill, about whom I could find no information.
I thought the hymn was in the old 1933 green Presbyterian Hymnal, but I located it only in the maroon 1955 Presbyterian Hymnbook, which First Presbyterian Church used before it acquired the blue 1990 The Presbyterian Hymnbook. It has three stanzas, but I want to highlight the first. The words are sentimental, feminine, and mid-nineteenth century-ish, but they suit our purpose well.
Work, for the night is coming, Work through the morning hours;
Work, while the dew is sparkling, Work ‘mid springing flowers;
Work, when the day grows brighter, Work in the glowing sun;
Work, for the night is coming, when man’s work is done.
Don’t retire from life. The kingdom of God needs you, as do your fellow residents on this, our semi-sceptered isle. Work, for the night is coming.