wpc
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Bradenton, Florida
Sermons
Old Souls/New Shoes-Encore
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“Old Souls/New Shoes-Encore!”
Genesis 17:1-8; 17:15-17; 21:1-5
The Reverend Chris Adams
Westminster Presbyterian Church
February 28, 2010
What a great day! This is one of my favorite services of the whole year because we are celebrating today. We are celebrating our Scottish roots. Those roots are obviously the beginnings of the Presbyterian Church, that’s why we do all this; but that history and heritage is also the beginnings of some of the families of this church.
There are many here today who can search the genealogy of their families and find Scotland as the birthplace of their history and heritage. It would be true to many here today to say that the values that undergird their families, both religious and otherwise, are based in the Highlands of Scotland.
Later on this morning, when we pray together, I will invite those with Scottish roots to place a hand on their family tartan and pray for another year of blessings. This is the so-called Kirkin O’ the Tartan.
But first, I want to tell you a story this morning. It’s a story that shares those same Scottish roots, because it is a story about an American with such roots.
Anna Mary Robertson was born on September 7, 1860. She was the child of Scottish immigrant parents and grew up on the family farm in Greenwich, New York. She was one of ten children. It was there in that Scottish family that Anna learned the values that would become the basis of her life; hard work, family, and other such lessons learned by immigrants in rural America one-hundred and fifty years ago.
It was no easy life for Anna. At 12 years old she was hired out to neighboring farm families for extra help, to both those she worked for and also for her own family.
Later, Anna would marry a farm hand from one of those farms and start her own family. In all, Anna and Thomas would have 10 children just like here parents; however only 5 of them lived. As I said, life was hard in those days.
Still Anna and Thomas raised their children, worked their farm and made the best of the life they had. It was in every way we might imagine, a picture of life in America at the turn of the last century.
Then they retired. Last week I shared with you that retirement was kind of invented in this country in 1935 with the passing of the Social Security Act. Anna would have been 75 years old when that happened. She would be the first of her family, the first of her nation to retire.
What would she do? How would she spend her days? Her children now worked the family farm leaving Anna with plenty of time on her hands.
So she stared embroidering; she had done that for years but quickly discovered that the arthritis in her hands made a day of that painful. Her arthritis wasn’t too severe, but was just enough to keep her from her work.
So again, she wondered how she would fill her days. But Anna was Scottish you see. And people with Scottish roots don’t just sit around doing nothing; those aren’t the values they lived by.
So one day, she found some old house paint in the barn. She found an old piece of cardboard and with a brush began to use that old house paint to paint the only thing she really knew about, farms and rural life in America.
After all, she had embroidered that for years and so why not paint? She enjoyed her days painting and remembering the “good-old-days.” It was something she just loved doing.
To bring in a little money, Anna began to sell some of her paintings in the local drugstore in Hoosick, New York. Sometimes she could get as much as $10 for one.
One day, an engineer from New York City who was passing through doing some work in the area, happened on Anna’s paintings. He inquired as to the artist and was surprised to discover that the artist was the now 77-year-old Anna.
Friends, the rest is, as they say, history. This engineer arranged to have Anna’s paintings displayed in a New York Gallery and the art world discovered her work. She was an overnight success.
Over the course of the next 24 years, Anna would travel the world sharing her gift for painting. She always painted the rural scenes of her childhood, and though her art was primitive in style, it captured a part of American life that was being lost quickly with the modernization of America.
Anna became the poster child of that America. She became famous, one of the most famous artists in American history. Now you probably don’t recognize that little Scottish girl Anna, because nobody ever called her that. She took her husband’s name Moses.
And when she became a famous painter, she was known as Grandma; Grandma Moses to be exact. Now you know, as Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story!”
Isn’t that a great story? It’s a great story on a day like today of celebrating life, and history and the blessings of our heritage both as Scotch Presbyterians and also Americans. The paintings of Grandma Moses have come to represent rural life in America to the whole world.
The best part of the story for me however, is not just that Grandma Moses painted late in life. She discovered her gift and decided to share it with the world way beyond her prime; or was that her prime?
The best part of the story is the amazing legacy left behind by Grandma Moses. Even today, folk artists celebrate life in America from 150 years ago with her work. They are a wonderful historic record of life gone by. We are invited into another world by the painting of Grandma Moses.
Grandma Moses gave the world a blessing; a legacy and she did it all after the age of 75. Talk about an old soul wearing new shoes.
How many times have you heard the story of Abraham and Sarah? If you went to Sunday school as a child, or ever participated in much Bible study even as an adult, you know this story we read today.
Abraham and Sarah are the roots of our family of faith. Their family started it all, offering the blessings of God to the world from that day forward.
We talk about the blessing of Abraham in three parts. You will be blessed, those who curse you will be cursed, and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.
This blessing is the root of the covenant to God’s grace we enjoy even today. Abraham’s descendants are the ancestors of our Messiah Jesus Christ, so through Abraham we too are blessed.
All this is not new; it’s a part of our faith. You have heard it many times...
But have you ever considered that all this happened when Abraham and Sarah both were very old? They were well beyond the “age of retirement” when the most significant acts of their lives took place.
They were just like Grandma Moses, or perhaps she was like them. The most meaningful part of their lives came in the period of their lives known as extended middle age. Again, old souls and new shoes.
Last week as we began this sermon series, I introduced you to the work of Dr. Henry Simmons who has researched and written on the subject of aging and spirituality. Extended middle age are the years, according to Dr. Simmons, immediately following retirement.
Last week, we established that staying active even after retirement, is the key to longevity and spiritual growth in the last third of life. Many of you told me stories of people you know, or even of your own experience of staying active to stay healthy.
The question for us today is what are we staying active doing? And maybe more importantly, do we expect life in retirement to be endless days of recreation without purpose, or is there more to it than that?
If we think about people like Grandma Moses, could we ever imagine that something we begin doing in the years following retirement might be our most significant contribution to the world? One that would make us famous?
If we think about the example of Abraham and Sarah, could we ever imagine how others might be blessed by the things that happen to us later in our lives? Things that change the world?
I have a friend that I used to work with in Richmond at Boaz & Ruth. She is actually the founder of that ministry. She is well past retirement age. She was a business owner and a very successful one at that. She could easily live out the rest of her days on her farm in western Virginia, or sitting by the pool there in Richmond. She has a beautiful home.
But Martha has chosen to do something else. She started Boaz & Ruth after she retired. She spends every day in the worst neighborhood in the city, offering love and support to men and women trying to get their lives together. She is using her business experience to teach business owners in that forgotten neighborhood, how to take back their neighborhood from drugs and crime. She even hosts events at Boaz & Ruth on improving race relations in an old southern city.
Martha has become an example for others. A couple years ago, she was awarded a Civic Ventures Purpose Prize. This is an award given to an older adult, that continues to share the gifts and skills worked for over a lifetime with her community and her neighbors. It is an award given to older adults, who in their extended middle age, continue to bless others.
What do all these people, Grandma Moses, Abraham and Sarah and even my friend Martha have in common. Of course they all were active older adults, and as I just said they all blessed others with their work even later in life.
However, look at how much each of these enjoyed the last years of their life. Look at the meaning their extended middle age gave to their lives. Their legacy, the best years of their lives, came when everybody else they knew believed God had nothing else to offer to them. The best years of their lives came when they put their old souls in new shoes.
Friends, what does God have in store for you today, and tomorrow and the rest of your life? What if you are an older adult, past the years of retirement? Can you imagine that the most productive and meaningful years of your life are yet to come? God isn’t done with you just yet; in fact maybe you’re just beginning.
This is a great day! It’s a day of celebrating the history and heritage we share. It’s also a day of celebrating the lives we have to look forward to, no matter how old we are.
Perhaps to sum all this up today, I need a little help. I need help from an old girl from Greenwich New York, by way of Scotland. After all this is Scottish Sunday. You know her as Grandma Moses.
She was once asked about how she was able to do such amazing things so late in life.
And she said, “Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.”
Thanks be to God today for the life we make!
Amen.
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