“Old Men Talking” by mikecogh is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. (edited)

It’s not just ministers and ministry agents who are called by God. When I applied to the Church to become a minister, great attention was paid to the nature of my Call, but all people of faith from the youngest to the oldest, from every walk of life and state of health, are called to do God’s work.  Jane Marie Thibault writes that each and every one of us is called right into the nursing home bed.  We are all Jesus’ hands and feet throughout our life time.

God has a purpose for us all, and finding what that is helps us to walk the path of light.

However, the Call to Ministry is not a static, unchanging thing.  As we grow older and our circumstances, experiences and bodies change, and so does our particular Call to Ministry.  I discuss this in more detail in my blog post, Turning Ninety: an existential crisis.

In the senior years the nature of God’s call changes.  After all energy levels are not what they once were.  We retire from full time work.  Some of us just want to enjoy ourselves and not work anymore.  However, for churchgoers, there is much to do in the church or in the community.  We volunteer.  We help out in op shops, run drop-in centres for older people, and much more.  As time goes by, we become less and less able to do much, but we still have a Call to Ministry that really matters.

We are called to become agents of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In Galatians 5:22-23 these gifts are listed as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  In a helter-skelter world where so many people are worried and stressed, older people have the time and the wisdom to express these gifts to those who are in need of them.

Some Stories

Called to Listen

I was talking about these ideas with two friends who are in their nineties.  One said, “I was a nurse.  That was my Calling.  I have no Calling now.”  Then she paused, “Maybe my Calling is listening.  When the carer calls in on my husband and me to help us, she starts talking about her problems as soon as I open the door.  I listen as carefully as I can.  She doesn’t stop talking until she is on her way out, feeling much more relaxed.  You’re right: listening is my Calling.”

Then her friend chimed in, “Listening is my Calling too.  When we have family gatherings, I stay out of the kitchen nowadays and leave the work to the younger ones.  I sit on the couch and my little three-year-old great granddaughter comes and sits beside me and tells me all her little stories about kindy and what is happening in her life.  No-one else has the time to really listen to her.  I can see that listening is a Calling to Ministry.”

Called to Kindness

I was talking about ministries of being in my sermon to a small congregation.  I noticed that one elderly man was leaning forward in his seat and listening intently.  At morning tea, he came up to speak to me.  He was very excited.  “I have just moved into residential aged care and have been feeling pretty bad about it and pretty useless. Like it was the end of the road,” he said. “Anyway, we residents have our meals together.  The other day I noticed that my neighbour couldn’t reach her drink.  The carer had placed it in front of her but too far away.  I pushed it closer to her. ‘That was kind,’ she said.  That’s my calling!” he said confidently and happily. “Kindness!”  He had found his Ministry.

Called right up into the Nursing Home Bed

When I worked in aged care as a chaplain, I remember a remarkable woman (let’s call her Mary). She was the pillar of her local church. She was in her eighties and a much-respected leading figure in the congregation. One day Mary had a massive stroke. It was devastating. Suddenly she could neither speak nor understand speech. She was quadriplegic and could only move one arm a little. But she retained her beautiful smile. She was placed in the secular nursing home where I was working and where almost none of the staff attended church. It was a good place and the residents were treated carefully and lovingly.  After a few weeks one of the staff came to me and said, “Mary, is amazing. Most people after such a catastrophic event are angry, and they take it out on the staff.  Lots of resistance, spitting and snarling goes on, but Mary is quite different. Whenever a staff member taps on her door and asks if they can come in to bathe her or dress her, they are greeted with a beautiful smile and a gracious beckoning with the one arm that she can move.  It makes everyone feel better after caring for her.  We think it must be her faith.”

So, even in the most extreme circumstances of disability and frailty, this woman was called to Ministry and she ministered to that aged care facility in a wonderful way.

Listening, praying, kindness and wisdom are all gifts of Ministry that are sorely needed in the Church and in our everyday lives. When the gifts of doing are no longer available to us, the gifts of being can be celebrated and used to further the reign of God within the Church and in the wider community. This enables us to continue walking the path of light.

For more posts on walking the path of light, read:

Walking the Path of Light or Darkness in the Senior Years Part 1

Is an Easy, Happy Life a Requirement for a Peaceful Old Age? Walking the Path of Light Part 2

How to Find Gratitude in the Darkness? Walking the Path of Light Part 3

Internalised Ageism and the Wheel of Life: Walking the Path of Light Part 4

Forgiveness: A One-sided Affair? Walking the Path of Light Part 5A

Forgiveness and Walking the Path of Light Part 5B