This article was published in Australian Presbyterian here.…
“If you don’t have a computer you don’t exist in the eyes of the church”. It was a stunning statement from a ‘mature’ woman in her eighties. Devastating. But it got me thinking about what is important for us as Christians – and whether our priorities are more determined by the culture around rather than the Christ within.
We live in a society which is dominated by numbers, algorithms, charts, and statistics. Policy is determined by flow charts, political numbers and ‘modelling’. We are everyday told some statistics – but not others. Some of us know by heart the number of cases of Covid 19 and deaths. For example, yesterday I heard the BBC tell us that the WHO had stated that over 5,000 people had died with Covid in the previous day. What they didn’t tell us was that another 150,000 people had died that day – including around 45,000 from cardiac disease, and 27,000 from cancer. Some statistics grab headlines. Others disappear without a trace. I know a care home manager who told me that a couple of years ago she had 11 of her clients die in November. Not a word of press coverage. But if that had happened today – it would be headline news in all the papers.
In terms of statistics I was shocked to read this week that the nursing home death toll in Australia this year is down by over 1,000. Yes, you read that right. Down. Despite the hundreds dying in Victoria and the 17 in NSW, the overall total is down. Every year between 40,000 and 50,000 elderly people die in Australia’s nursing homes. That itself is an astonishing figure – almost one third of the total deaths every year. When we are given the impression that our nursing homes are just death traps, bear in mind that many people in nursing homes are there precisely because they are nearing the end of their lives and need special care. Should that not be one area of social care where the Church has a particular interest and involvement?
We need to remember that the elderly are not mere statistics. They are human beings made in the image of God and as such, deserve to be treated with special dignity and respect. We once had an elderly couple come to us because the church they had been in for many years had suggested to them that they move on. Why? they did not fit that church’s ‘demographic’. I doubt that many of our churches would be that crass or cruel – but perhaps sometimes we do not value the elderly as much as Christ would want us to.
James tell us that “religions that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world’ (James 1:27). Is that the criteria by which we judge ourselves? I don’t think the Lord cares two hoots about how many ‘views’ or ‘clicks’ we have. He is not into data mining. He is into people mining. So, let’s make sure that visiting the elderly – especially at a time of pandemic is our priority. I think of my elderly parents – the thought of them being left alone and isolated ‘for their own good’ is a sickening one to me. My mother and father want to see people. They don’t want people to stay away from them as though they themselves have the plague!
Many years ago, my two oldest children were in a horrific accident at a youth camp in the United States. Thankfully they did not suffer long term harm – but it could have been very serious. When the executive minister came to express concern, the senior minister told me that whilst his colleague was genuinely concerned, he was also deeply worried that we were going to sue the church for what happened. I told him that that was not what we did and was the last thing on my mind. I found the whole incident somewhat sad. It seemed as though there was more concern over a potential million-dollar lawsuit, than there was over the two children. Sometimes I fear that we are more concerned about our ‘reputations’ – we don’t want to be known as the ‘Covid’ church – than we are about the people we are supposed to be protecting. Don’t misunderstand me – we must take all suitable precautions – but we also always need to bear in mind other factors. Our older people have emotional and spiritual health needs – as well as physical. The church, of all organisations, should have a wider and more wholistic perspective.
The elderly are not statistics. They are not burdens. They are not lesser members of the Church. They are precious, respected and even revered. Let’s treat them like the treasures they are. Not least because one day we too will be in their ranks.
The Elderly and Covid 19 – Our Daily Bread
PS. I should also add that as well as politics (how will my ‘Covid’ figures look) far too many are concerned with law rather than people. “Will we be sued’ is more relevant than how will this affect people.
God does have a sense of humor. Satan has his workers lock up the elderly with a contagious disease to watch them die. God says check-mate and doesn’t take them home.
This is a very timely article. I live in the UK where the elderly have been locked in their homes or care facilities since March. My 91 year old neighbour had not seen her husband in his care home since then until August. She has now been refused entry twice. How is she of any risk to him when she is not allowed to get within 2 metres and she has not been anywhere but at home?
Why is the Govt not testing relatives weekly just as care workers are tested, then they could get close and hold their hand or hug them. It’s no good testing young people, they need to be out and about getting on with life. Life needs to be worth living.
To the world (and that includes the professing Christians whose faith is dead) the elderly are a financial and demanding burden. We cannot – yet – kill them by euthanasia, although GP’s can put DNR orders on their patients notes, resulting in patient death, without consulting with either the patient or their family – is this not manslaughter/murder? We simply want to lock them “out of sight, out of mind” and get on with our lives free from hassle of caring, let alone loving them.
As Christians we are wholly responsible for sacrificially loving our parents – as Christ loved us (i.e. unto death). We miss out on so much from avoiding a multigenerational household. We also run a very real risk of hearing “Away from me you evildoers, I never knew you” on the day of judgement. As James says “Faith without deeds is DEAD” – and we all know that a dead faith does not save us. I can only conclude, therefore, that we do not truly believe in God or in Christ , nor in his promises, warnings, blessings or curses.
Our so-called “churches” are nothing more than worldly social clubs that love to feel morally superior to the rest of the world yet, as Christ said, they are “white-washed tombs” full of dead mens bones. Christ warned in Revelations that, if we do not repent and return to our first love, then he will remove our lampstand – the light from which went out a long time ago.
Even while he hung on the cross, in excruciating agony, Jesus was still able to attend to the care of his own Mother – because he came to obey God the Father and t glorify him in all things. We, on the other hand, seek mainly to glorify ourselves. Christ warned that the judgement would begin with the church – it has already begun. I beg you all to repent and return to our Lord, Master and Saviour, in dependence and obedience, in love and joy, in humility and sacrificial love – to glorify him alone – for his names sake, and for your good.
“They shall not grow old as we ……”
The director of Tolkien’s masterpiece , Peter Jackson :
It is always a challenge to a writer, far less an actor , to sum up Death.
Here the Scottish actor , Nicol Williamson, makes a reasonable fist of Samuel Beckett’s vision.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LNs8HuFw3M
Of course , Beckett admirers will know that , when the playwright was asked if he ever contemplated suicide , he replied : ” Oh no , it’s simply that I’d rather have not been born.”