MCC Podcasts
Working It Out - Multigenerationalism Matters
The last couple of weeks got a chance to go to Washington, D.C., one of our friends had a daughter that was getting married, and we're close to this family, so we planned a week of vacation, and went to our nation's capital, and just had a great time, visited some old friends, and then went to this wedding, and while we were there, she wanted to make sure that we got to see some of the museum, some of the Mistonian. We've done it before, but we wanted to go look again. So I was interested in going into the art museum, and we did that, and she was interested in going to the Natural History Museum, especially the section where the gems are, because one of her ancestors was named, was a general in the Civil War named Logan, and his family is responsible for the donation of the Logan Sapphire. You ever seen that big, big, big, huge Logan Sapphire? She goes, "I want to go see what my family gave you." So we went and saw the Logan Sapphire. But you know what the first thing you see is when you're going to that part of the Smithsonian? The Hope Diamond. Anybody, how many of you have seen the Hope Diamond? Is it not astounding? Sort of a blue hue to it? It's about literally, I think the diamond itself is about size of a golf ball or bigger. But I was taken by this. I saw that, but I was amazed by how beautiful the whole piece was. The setting, the complementary diamonds around it, which, next to the Hope Diamond, seemed like they're just irrelevant, sort of just there as a throw-in. The fact is, they're impressive without the Hope Diamond in the middle. And this, it was the whole thing together, all of those stones in their setting, in addition to the history of it and the things you can read about it, and it's been, you know, made smaller, actually, over the centuries that we've had this. Where it comes from, found in India, I believe it, India is Sri Lanka, I don't remember, but, you know, you can read all the history about the Hope Diamond, and there it is. But the setting, you could overlook the setting and the complementary stones just for the one diamond and miss a lot. All of it is valuable. I got the thinking, you know how you can buy those policies when you buy a wedding ring or you buy a diamond ring? You can buy a policy, so that says, if the stone ever comes out, as long as you have it checked every once in a while, make sure the setting is good and firm and healthy, if the stone ever comes out, will replace the stone. Anybody, you don't have to raise your hand, because it may still be a secret. But some of us have actually had the stone come out. My wife has had a stone come out of a diamond ring or a diamond bracelet or something, setting, and been really bummed about it. I was equally bummed about it, because we got to go rock shopping, and I'm not talking about gravel, you know, but you buy these policies so that if the setting gets loose, that we place the stone, why? Because that whole ring, no matter how many, Brenda's was a little side stone, you know, but it just didn't look right. Everything else was intact, one was missing, it bothered her, it didn't really look as beautiful as the whole thing in the whole setting would look. I bring that up because there is one text that we're going to, one verse that we're going to primarily look at this morning. In this series, working things out, making things work, lessons for church living. And not only is there just one verse that's prompting a wider study, it's a verse, Pastor Jeff, already introduced to us. So I'm coming and picking up on actually his last three messages. He's taken three messages and built three messages off of this idea that was launched with this text really, that you get the privilege, we get the privilege of being the example. If you haven't heard those three messages, please go online and re-familiarize yourself with them. But in the first of those messages, he pulled from one of the texts in 1 Timothy that said, and remember, if you were here, you remember this, he talked about not having any excuses for not being the example. But the excuse that he pulled from was one that Timothy could have fallen back on. When Paul says to Timothy, don't let anybody look down on your leadership or inhibit your leadership because of your young age. In the case that you could use your age as an excuse for lightening up and not being the example, I want to go back to that. Now Jeff went much further than that in these messages and do. Please go back and listen to them, especially if you haven't already. But I want to go back to 1 Timothy chapter 4 and dwell on that. Keep in mind what Paul says to Timothy on the one hand, and this imagery of the whole setting, all of the pieces in a stone, a formation being valuable, how marred the hope diamond would appear to be if you went to look at it one day and even one of those hundreds of diamonds that are placed around it that are smaller, they seem tiny by comparison. They're probably all bigger than the stone Brenda has in her ring. But if even one is missing, that would be the talk of the day around the hope diamond, not how beautiful was that. Did you see that there was one missing out of those hundreds of small diamonds that are there? Keep those two things in mind together. Because here's what I'm thinking when I look back at that verse. I'm asking the question, that could have been an excuse. What was Paul dealing with when he challenged Timothy not to allow himself to be discarded, minimalized, or thrown away simply because of his age? And I wondered, would Paul come today and say, now listen, don't think less of yourself because you're younger, don't let you being younger be an excuse for not shining in this great setting called the church. I think he would be concerned with the same issue, the idea that the generations mean the groupings of people who are in various life experience, usually represented by various ages, us together were like a big setting. And every one of the stones that Christ has placed in this setting plays a part in contributing to the beauty of the whole, are you with me on that illustration? And in Timothy's time, Paul had to say, don't let your stone be removed simply because you're so young. Today I think he would deal with the same issue, except he would have a completely opposite application. That's not where we are today, we're obsessed with you. Today Paul might have to say to the Christians of the church, don't let your stone be removed, don't let yourself be minimized because you're not young. We don't throw away the young, we throw away the seasoned and the elderly. My point isn't to say never dye your hair, so don't hear me wrong. But this billion dollar, multi-billion dollar, whatever it might be, industry of trying to continue to look young, there's nothing wrong with any of that, okay? We look like the old preacher used to say a little new paint never hurt an old barn, you know? I mean, go ahead and do what you need to do. But I'm looking philosophically at that and I'm thinking, you know what's driving us? It's what's driving us that concerns me. Not looking good. It's this devaluing of anything old. We don't value our old buildings, we don't value our old redwoods, we don't value our older people in our lives and our congregation. It's as though being young is everything, just the opposite of Timothy's challenge. To the point where we don't even want to look 58, we're not even willing to look old. To where a compliment is, it's so hard to make this point because it's refined. I've got nothing against anybody looking young. But the philosophy behind it, it's a compliment to say you look younger than your age. Somebody came to me one time and said, "You know, you don't need to have that old gray beard. It makes you look older than you are." And I'm thinking the logic of that is flawed. It's not possible for me to look older than I am. It's possible for me to look younger. I'm 58. I have a gray beard and gray curly hair. This is what 58 looks like. The logic of saying you look older than you are is flawed, you know, and it's just that because old is not valuable. Paul would say today, don't let anybody demean your leadership or remove you from the setting because of your age. Here's the bigger point though. But Paul seems to be consumed with because this idea of the value of the different generations and them working together as one piece of jewelry together in this beautiful setting is all over Scripture. And it's throughout the writings of Paul. The application here is to those who devalue youth. And Timothy had a hurdle to get over because he was so young and given such great leadership. Hey, we have a hurdle to get over if we're not young or don't look young. I mean, people tell me, look, in the real world art and the business world, man, if you let yourself look too old, you can't even compete for jobs. And that's just, that breaks my heart because we devalue some of the most precious diamonds in the setting when we devalue our older folks. So I want to look at that, that theme, that picture, that illustration and just look at from front to back of Scripture, the idea of the value of all the generations shining to maximum brilliance in the setting called the church. And how we are actually better and healthier when we facilitate that than when we try to minimize that and make ourselves mono-generational, either really, literally or effectively. Okay? Right? Ready? You're not too mad at me? My wife and I get in a regular argument. I think she's beautiful just like she is. But she comes home every once in a while, a little rinse in her hair, you know what I mean? Man, I want a 58 year old, 57 year old woman hanging on my arm and I love the way you look. Every piece of gray hair to me is gorgeous because I value the wisdom you're gaining when you get older. That makes for very interesting date nights, I tell you that right now. In all expressions and styles of biblical literature, you have the authors of Scripture saying the generations are good for each other, good to be together. In wisdom literature, for instance, here's an example, Job 12, it says, "Is not wisdom found among the aged does not long life bring understanding and what's implied there is if you don't have that particular gift to you, the gift of age, get yourself around those who are aged, who have had long life, who therefore can offer understanding?" In 1 Samuel 17, you have the hero of the story being an adolescent. David comes to slagalaya. He says to the king when he says, "I'm going to go take this dude on." The king says, I'm going to take him on, the king says, King Saul says, "You can't do that. You are not much more than a youth, you're just through youth to adolescence in effect. You're not a man of war. He's been a man of war since his youth. How are you going to pull that off?" David offers himself that service in the midst of an entire seasoned army of Israeli soldiers who were following Saul for three days, remember the story, for three days. They've been putting on their gear, coming to the top of the hill, yelling out the battle crack, and taking trash talking, banging their swords against their shields. The text is all up here, but I'm running through it here. Taking their swords against their shields, knowing full well, they're going to run back to camp that day again, just like they did the day before. David, a youth, an adolescent, a student comes and says, "I heard they're going to give a big reward to anybody who will fight that giant." Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should be allowed to taunt the armies of the living God? And he goes down, and most of us know the rest of the story, slays Goliath without armor. To be a man of war in Saul's armor, you had to be about 20 years old. We know that David's probably not even 20 years old yet. He's so young that when he shows up, his brother ridicules him for showing up, and in effect says, "What are you doing here, you little puke? Aren't you? Where are those two or three sheep you're supposed to be taken care of?" Like, "You don't even qualify to be here. I know you. I know your heart." You just came to watch this battle, didn't you? It's probably a little bit embarrassed by what David's going to see when he watches. So David is a student. He's a teenager. He's that age where you haven't yet learned what you can't do, and that's a valuable message. I have not yet learned. I haven't learned how to be a real Christian, I haven't learned yet that all the stuff we preach and talk and sing about isn't actually true. I still dare to believe that when I take a risk, God walks with me. I still dare to believe that my faith should be measured by some expression, some activity. I still believe that if I forgive, I'm going to see some power show up in my life. I still believe I can do a somersault off of that stack of bricks out there in front and not land on my head in the asphalt. I mean, some decisions that go along with that kind of belief can be destructive, but not most of them. And when we're living in the midst of our students and allowing our students to teach us, they become our prophets because they've not forgotten how to live and how to risk and how to take things on. They haven't learned yet how to be benign Christians and excuse, please, the redundancy. Value there, all the diamonds. David, the adolescent is the hero of that story. Get elderly who have wisdom for life. That's their place in the setting. Students, young people who have passion for life, that's their place in the setting. And Jesus understood this in the gospels, they make this pretty clear. We need the innocence and the trust of children as we see that. People are bringing their little children to Jesus, Mark chapter 10, there are several places where this is mentioned. I like the way they verbalize it in Mark chapter 10. People are bringing children to Jesus, Jesus, he's too important for the children. That's what the apostles think. Don't bother the Savior now, he's got more important things than to take children and bounce him on his knee. Jesus, the Bible says, is incensed by that when he hears it. People were bringing Mark chapter 10, 13. Little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. All they're saying is, "Touch my child and bless my child." The disciples rebuked these folks and when Jesus saw this, he was indignant, Mark says, and he said to them, "In effect, stop hintering, stop blocking those children. I don't need handlers. Let the little children come to me, stop hintering them." He says this, "For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." He says that to people who are thinking they've got the kingdom of God figured out. Remember the kingdom of God when you enter your kingdom, Jesus, may I be your first lieutenant? That's for adults. He says, "Unless you enter it like one of these, these kids that were running around and making a mess, such a nuisance like gnats trying to get in through the screen door, if you enter it like one of these, you are clueless. You can't inherit it all." He says these little children that are in the front row and the little infants that we carry that still look up to their mutt, like we had the stouts over our house yesterday and they had brand new baby over there and they commented, Rebecca was commenting on, "Look how uncomfortable she must be with her feet hanging down here in her face looking up and she's plastered to my chest and she's just sleeping," hadn't learned yet that she needs anything but the warm loving arms of her parents to be content. And I saw that and I thought, "That's how I look to God on a good day, like an infant who hasn't learned yet that I need anything other than what he can give me. The children become prophets and prophecies for us." Jesus says, "Look at them and you see the keys to the kingdom. Look at them and learn what it was like. Remember what it was like to be able to go to Nordstrom's with very short shorts on and a shirt that doesn't match and two different kinds of rain boots in your short shorts and not care what anybody thinks. No, I get to be here with Mom and Dad. Look at the children and remember what it's like to dance in the front of everybody and not even realize you're in front of everybody, to be so self-absorbed. Look to the children and find freedom again. Quit hindering them from coming to me. That's a part of the generation. You cannot remove one of the generations. You cannot remove from yourselves or from me and behold," he says. That's a diamond out of place when you sort of discount them and wait until they get to a certain age before you think they have anything to offer. They are offering plenty now. And in this text that Jesus is presenting here is the idea that when you're multi-generational and you're expression of faith in the family of God, you are healthier than if you're mono-generational. You learn from those who are older. You learn from those who are still excited about life and have so much to look forward to. You learn from the children who remind you what you need to be like, look like an act like to enter the kingdom of God. The whole thing together is the best thing of all. And then of course in the text that we have that launched all of this thinking in my mind, this text in first Timothy, which is the foundational text for the series. In the apostles, as they wrote in the epistles, you have a lot of thought going into an attention being given to this idea of all of the ages being valued, all the life levels of experience being valued. Now in, as I said earlier, in Paul's context he's saying don't throw away the generation that's young adult. Today, I think he would say you're foolish and you're burning your bridges and killing yourself if you throw away the generation that's oldest among you. You are crazy, instead attached yourself to their wisdom. But you have this example and he's dealing with it throughout the epistles. So in first Timothy in Titus, not only do we have it in wisdom literature, in Old Testament, historical literature, in the, in the, in the gospels and the teachings of Jesus. We've got it with the apostles as they write the epistles too. Paul knew the problem of a missing generation and he makes multi-generationalism a major issue and a major expression of wisdom he's saying I want to come and see the whole setting. I want to come and see the hope diamond in all of its beauty and that means all of the surrounding diamonds as well. I don't want to see the whole thing marred because of one missing stone. All of us together are the best expression of this journey with Jesus. In 412, this is that text that started this. Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but instead set an example for the believers even though you're young, even though they would say what right do you have to speak? You haven't become an elder yet. Go back and listen to Jeff's message to see that expanded more. Set an example for all the believers, all the generations, all the ages in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. In 5, 1 through 2 in the next chapter we'll get to that eventually in our messages, do not rebuke an older man harshly. Here just see the example of, see what Paul's doing is he's assuming that the healthy church has all this whole spread of generations, all these different stones in the setting. And so now in working things out he has to come to Timothy and he says here's all you make that work because we're just assuming that the church is including everybody. And leadership is including everybody, everybody's learning from everybody, here's how you make that work. And so he has to go into this kind of detail. Don't rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Listen, could I just take a second and stop, I have one minute left, I'm almost going to finish on time. That's a text, that's a text for some of us to remember. And you disagree with an older, I had one of our older folks come in this week and ask and need a pastoral visit, just wanted to share some of this stuff on his heart. And he asked me to give him advice. And I'm happy to function as a pastor, but you know I was aware of this very text, thinking me give you advice, I should be asking advice from you. And I said to him, I have the highest respect for you and you are a teacher to me. I'm happy to tell you what I think, but I do it with great respect for you. Because this text reminded me, I'm not young enough to be Timothy, but I was younger than this man. And I remember, you deal, the older folks in this church give you the privilege of being a pastor in their lives, you treat them with respect, especially when they're really great people. Even when you disagree with them, even when they're talking nonsense, you still go with kind of this attitude, because we respect people who get older. Do not rebuke an older man harshly, exhort him as if he were your brother, treat younger men, so now the other, the people younger than Timothy. As brothers, older women, as mothers, younger women, as sisters, keep everything pure. You've got all this interaction and teaching about it between the generations. It even goes over into Titus, we're not in the book of Titus, but that's another, that's a parallel epistle, a pastoral epistle, epistle. Speak in chapter 2 of Titus, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine, older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love and perseverance. Older women, likewise, are to do this. Younger women are to act like this. But all this interaction that assumes a healthy merging and participation with all the generations, a multi-generational church, that's a normal church, that's a healthy church. So we don't see when we're being fully biblical and living into this, the children as a great big budget drain. We don't see the children as anchors. We don't see the children as a worthy investment because someday they're going to be part of the church. No. We see the children as a generation that speaks something to us, that teaches us, that reminds us, here's what it's like to have wide eyes when it comes to faith. Have them. We're the example of that. Here's what it's like to care more about what God thinks of you than everybody else, what everybody else thinks of you. Here's what it's like to be excited. Here's what it's like to be fully dependent and therefore fully human. And to separate ourselves from that message is to cut our own throats. You're not a budget drain, you're a ministry to me. We see students, not as, okay, we have a group of students, we have a youth group and a group of students, we get involved in young life, we do all this other stuff, why? So that we can have someone to blame when there's a new hole in the roof or a broken window. I've had people come to me, maybe you've been among them and this is a good correction, say well, you know, the students don't produce revenue for the church, they take revenue, so you know, why are we putting so much money into students? Why are we building a student wing? And it breaks my heart. People say the students, they're the future of the church, that's what we're building, that breaks my heart as much. Students are not the future of the church, students are the presence of the church. They're part of the whole setting that holds beautiful diamonds and they teach us. I told Brenda the other day, when I really get old and you have to wipe my drool and everything, please make sure that whatever I do, I get to be around some students, always have me around students because they give me life. They remind me of daring faith. They help me stay relevant. They ask questions I can't answer and so they force me to think theologically, they will not let you off the hook with sloppy thinking because they haven't yet learned to be that painfully and begrudgingly polite. They are the master of yes, but and how come? And because of that, they keep the church alive, amen? They keep the church alive. You guys are not the leftovers or the future. You're today and you're as powerful and needy and needed as any other generation in this room. You're ministers to us. I go after Alpha almost every Wednesday night and I go downstairs just to hang out in the student room for 10 or 15 minutes. They probably think, "Oh, look at all these trying to be a good pastor." I think I'm trying to catch my breath and I need to be around some people who breathe. They give me life. We don't look at them any other way. And folks who are young in their adulthood or even middle age, they're not just the primary revenue source for the church's ministries. They are reminder to every one of us of how exciting it was to raise children or how exciting it was to work through the sort of middle years of marriage. They're reminder to us of what God brought us through because we sometimes forget that. They're reminder to us of how to stay in love and how to be in love or how to work through it through when we don't feel like we're still in love, yet we're still married. And the older folks, they're sort of the main diamonds, the big diamonds in the setting. They're not just the anchor that keeps us from having loud music. They are the foundation upon which we get to have any music. They're the ones who years and years ago when so many of us were not even born and certainly not watching, stood the test. So the 25 years, 30 years, 40 years down the road, there is still a ministry called Marin Covenant Church that's part of all the congregations in the county and it's faithful and it's contributing and it's making great decisions and great impact. Anything this church does, into the future or even now, they own a part of whether they're still alive or not. You never stop being part of the church. I mean, you're a child speaking about what where to be, you're a student reminding people about life. You're in sort of your middle years reminding folks and speaking to folks about marriage and making it work. And remember what God brought you through? You're older saying we've got some wisdom and some years now and so we can give a little something to you and that's our part that we play or you die and you're part of the great cloud of witnesses but you are always an involved generation and the church that separates up, dissects herself so much that those generations are not commingling is a church that is killing herself. Jesus knew it, the apostles knew it, the writers of the Old Testament knew it, the wisdom literature reminds us of it. I'm tender about this, in part because this is also a season where for some of our folks who are beautiful diamonds and have been for a long time, the setting has worn loose and they're about to be separated from the setting, not because of neglect, just because of years of faithful beauty and settings worn loose. It's that time where in their lives when you take it to the jewel of the jeweler says, we can't fix these prongs anymore, it's time for this stone to find a new setting. We're getting ready in the near future to bury some of the great ones in our church, it's part of the deal. My haunting question is, have we involved ourselves with them in such a way that we ever enriched our lives? Have we availed ourselves of the wealth and the beauty they bring? When I ask the same question for all of the generations, are we learning from our children? Are we staying intellectually sharp as a result of being around our students? Are we remembering what God has brought us through in some of the crazy years of a young family or beginning of Middle Ages, multi-generationalism? It sounds sort of flippant and easily discarded, but to not have it is like displaying the hope diamond with a broken, incomplete setting, one scar can ruin enormous beauty. [BLANK_AUDIO]