I finally am someone. I finally have an identity. I had one for most of my life, but then I lost it. Now I have it again. I finally have a box into which I can be fit.

Growing up I had several identities—an infant, a child, a youth and, for many years, a student. Then I joined the ranks of the employed—I was a pastor. And by that people understood that I served in a particular church, doing a ministry that could be to some degree defined. At least it had an official, written and approved job description and I was on the payroll.

But in 2006 I felt called to leave that official role, to step out of the formalized pastoral function. And at that point my identity became confused. Categories based on age have blurred these days, and in any case I did not yet fit the category commonly referred to as senior, as I was not 65. Some agencies begin that designation at an earlier age (McDonalds gives senior coffee to anyone over 55 and AARP starts sending invitations to join at something like 50), but longevity and health in our culture could argue for a later age. And Social Security has delayed the target date for reception of benefits. So, on leaving the active pastoral leadership role I did not do so as a senior.



Then there is the word retired. People naturally assumed that if I were not serving on the staff of a particular church, that is if I were not on the payroll of such, I would be retired. And being retired I would be a recipient of retirement benefits. However, that is not what Nancy and I chose. I neither applied for benefits nor sought gainful employment. In fact our prayer was that the gifts we have could be used in places that could not generally afford to pay someone to do what we would be doing. We just wanted to volunteer and to be helpful to the kingdom. But there was no category for this.

I was asked on many occasions, while filling out forms or responding to innocent queries, to indicate my occupation, and it was difficult. If I were given multiple choices, one would almost always be Retired, but none fit. I was active in ministry but not gainfully employed in ministry, a situation that seemed not to fit in any box. People would ask me what I was doing, and as soon as I said that I had moved out of the pastoral leadership role, they would assume I was retired. And the church bureaucracy assumed the same. While my home presbytery had given me the title Minister at Large, the categories recognized at the higher levels did not seem to include this. When it came to filling out certain pension-medical forms there were two options: Active or Inactive. When I inquired about the definitions of these two options the answer was simple: are you getting a paycheck from a church? If not, Inactive is the right form for you. And this despite the active ministry I am involved in while in the US, in Mexico, Ireland and Albania, plus the clear definition in our Book of Order that Inactive is a status reserved for those who have ceased to participate in the life and work of the church.

So, I was left with trying to invent a way to describe my situation, since Minister at Large carried no content to acquaintances, interested persons, or the board of the denomination. And my attempts generally made little sense to anyone. I was a person without a box to be fit into.

But all that has changed because now I am officially Retired. I have been granted that title by my presbytery and I have the evidence to prove it—a monthly pension check. I also received my first Social Security benefit check this month (I am taking it a year before officially reaching maximum benefit age) and my Medicare card says that as of February 1 I am under that umbrella. I now have a label I can be identified by—I am back in the world of the defined.

However, the curious thing is that this does not change what I am doing or why I am doing it--it is a box and a label that really does not fit me. Nor, if you look at it, does it have a place in the Christian life… For some time I would tell people who said that I must be retired that the word retire does not appear anywhere in the Bible. This is true in some English translations, but in reading Numbers in my NIV I found the word. And I checked and found that it does occur, but only once in the Scriptures. The citation is Numbers 8:25, which says about the Levites, the attendants of the Temple, at the age of fifty, they must retire from their regular service and work no longer. Now to some that may be a comfort—lower the pension age to 50! And work no longer. But I would not like that, and many others would share in my dislike. And there is more to the story in the text, for it continues in the next verse, They may assist their brothers in performing their duties at the Tent of Meeting… And this I like, probably primarily because it defines this stage of life for me—a stage of helping.

One of the great challenges America is facing now and will increasingly face in the years ahead is the demographic reality of aging. People are living longer and are healthier for longer than ever before in the history of humanity. But systems are not in place to maximize the positive potentials of that change—for society, for the church or for the individuals. And part of the reason is the lack of words to describe the options of this stage. Retired has specific connotations, and those connotations are neither accurate nor helpful for many who are fit into that category. In fact the word is so misleading that I am afraid that now that I have the title I will have to spend as much time disclaiming its connotations as I did trying to explain who I was before I had it. And I know I am not alone in this quandary, as some of the people I look up to most have been retired but continue energetically to assist their brothers… That is what I am seeking to do, and while it does not provide a paycheck and is not easily defined, it is a wonderful job to have!

I have always believed that the compensation of a pastor is not pay for work done but a way of freeing someone to do what God has called and gifted him or her to do. If such is the case then Active in the pastoral ministry does not stop with and is not defined by a paycheck. And taking it one step further it is not even defined by a position in a church or an arbitrary age. The apostle Paul knew that his identity was as a servant of Christ Jesus, and I wish there were some way in which that identity could be understood and communicated today because it fits who I would like to be and who I pray I have been. And it fits not only me but countless men and women, lay and clergy, paid or volunteer, of all ages. Vocational options in many people’s minds are limited to three: Employed, Unemployed or Retired. But for the believer they are limited to one overarching and all-inclusive option: a servant of Christ Jesus. That option is the only one which accurately describes who the believer is, and it provides flexibility to accommodate all who claim the name of Christ. It is who we are to be whether we are pastors, businessmen or women, stay-at-home parents, or church office volunteers. The box is the same for all, the form it takes is what changes. It is a title that gives significance to all who bear it, and it is not a title that anyone will ever outgrow, nor a work to which we can ever apply the title Retired.

There is an old trite but amusing saying that goes, Working for the Lord may not pay much, but the retirement benefits are out of this world. Maybe the word Retired could be applied in this sense, but I doubt that it should be since while the work of eternity may not look like the work of today, it will fulfill in the grandest way the God-given need for something significant to do. And it is a work that will go on forever.

I have now reached that point in life where I am Retired. But please do me the favor of not putting me into that box, and I promise you I will do my best to keep you from doing just that. I do not receive a paycheck from anyone, but I am doing what I always have sought to do, and enjoyed doing. That work is not focused in one place with one people anymore, but the work is the same. It is rewarding and exciting, and it is something I thank God for…

I was wandering through the South Terminal at SeaTac airport, just passing the time before boarding a plane to Greensboro, when I saw it. At first I walked right past, certain that I had missed part of the message. But then I looked again and there it was—unmistakable, clear and startling. I had glanced at it because I was considering buying something to drink, but dismissed it as my choice. That is until I realized what it I was seeing.

There in front of me was a bright, shiny vending machine. Situated between the Pepsi machine and the snack dispenser it was exactly where it would be expected to be. It was a coffee dispensing vending machine. I don’t suppose that such an offering would compete with the many Starbucks counters just a few feet away, but for someone not wanting to wait in a line it could offer a desired commodity. The machine was attractive and new—that was to be expected. But what was not expected, and what I could hardly believe to be true, was the message that silently scrolled by in a red-orange LED display just above the slot designed to receive the necessary coins to complete the purchase. That sign read All beverages from this machine are free…


Free it read—at least that is what I thought it read. I waited for the words to come around again, and they did. All beverages from this machine are free…

That made no sense. Next to the machine that would dispense a small bottle of water for two dollars or the one offering approximately a dozen potato chips for the same price it was impossible to have a cup of coffee for the price of zero…There must be some gimmick I thought—some trick to get me to commit to something that would cost me as much as the neighbors were charging. Maybe the coffee was free but there would be a charge for the cup. A little far-fetched thinking, but at this point far-fetched seemed closer to reality than acceptance of the words that kept coming around, All beverages from this machine are free…

Now I cannot say that a cup of coffee was my first choice as I wandered the terminal, but this message made it so. And not just a cup of coffee but a cup of coffee from this machine. So I pushed the buttons and waited. Sure enough, a cup dropped and coffee poured into it. And when it stopped pouring I took it out and tasted it—not great but good and hot. And as I stood there in amazement, tasting what had been given me, the message changed on the machine. No longer did it say All beverages from this machine are free… Instead it read, This is cup number 8,231 from this machine. This second message circulated once or twice, then the original reappeared for others to see, All beverages from this machine are free…

To this day I do not know what this was all about. I do not know if the machine is still there. I will check the next time I am at SeaTac, but I do not know. What I do know is that it seemed so out of place that I could not believe it at first. Nothing is free, so they say—there is no such thing as a free lunch so goes the axim. Certainly in an airport where products sell for twice their price just outside the doors, the message was startling. But because I tried it, I do know that the message was true. And while I was the only one accessing the machine at the time, I guess I was not the first to find out that indeed, All beverages from this machine are free…

This little encounter with a machine and a message made me pause. It made me think about all sorts of mundane things—but also about one that is the center of the Christian faith. All other religions, philosophies and ways of life charge something up front to receive what they claim to give. That charge may be money, it may be a sacrifice, it may be a life worthy of receiving what is offered. But, as the Apostle Paul says, the Christian faith says that what we as humans pay for, that is what we deserve, is death, while what we are offered—freely and without charge—is life. When Jesus said, I came that you may have life, he did not mean I came that you may buy life but I came that I may give you life.

Now I know that someone had to have paid something to place the coffee machine in the airport, and someone had to have paid to purchase the coffee, supply the electricity and provide the cup. The coffee was not free—but it was free to me. And the message of God’s love is that He has paid the price for what we need, and because that price has been paid the message that now scrolls across the heavens for us to read is All that is in God’s heart is free…It is a message that is so out of line with all other messages that we are taught that it makes no sense. It is a message that seems out of place and unbelievable. It is a message that is so strange that many will simply dismiss it as a mistake or a trap. But to those who receive it, who believe in its truth, it gives the power to become children of God. An unbelievable message on one hand, but the hope of the world on the other. Thanks be to God!

Greensboro, North Carolina, is different from Seattle, Washington. And the Piedmont is not the Puget Sound. Some would compare the two and declare one better than the other, but to me that is not an issue. Each has its own character, personality and beauty.

To equal the grandeur of the Olympics and Cascades would be difficult. To have something as picturesque as a ferry gliding across the Sound towards the city of Seattle as the sun is setting to the west and lighting the skyline in front of you would be hard to duplicate. To compete with the panoramas from Hurricane Ridge or the homes of Innis Arden would be nearly futile. So for me where we live now does not try.

Instead, our back yard today has historic reminders of the American Revolution, the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. It has rolling hills with small towns and scarcely used rural roads. It has lots of sunshine in the summer and in the winter. It has lots of small lakes and ponds, and it has deciduous forests. The forests of the Northwest are primarily evergreen, which creates a certain feeling. But the forests here have a distinct look and a unique beauty. In the summer the different species of trees creates a diversity of size and shape and color that makes individual trees stand out as individuals, not just one of a mass. While I can not name most of what I see, at times I gaze in awe at a magnificent specimen of something—massive in size and old in years, standing tall with branches waving in the wind.

In the fall, of course, the colors are breathtaking. Reds and yellows and oranges explode everywhere. You do not have to drive to a particular place to see the display, it is all around you. Everywhere you go the heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)

And then fall mellows and the leaves lose their grip, falling to the ground. When they land in a yard or on a street the job of raking or blowing and sweeping and gathering is a job that everyone around here knows all too well. But no one gathers them in the woods, instead they create a brown carpet that covers the ground until spring. And this carpet, blanketing the earth beneath the tall and now bare trees, creates its own world. It is a world for walking.

Some years ago Nancy and I were in the King’s Forest of England. We stopped the car just to get out and walk in the woods. It was an experience that we had read about in books by various British authors and poets, but that we, as westerners, had not had. This experience is now one we can have daily—at least until the green of spring starts the cycle all over again. I just have to step out our back door and I am in the woods—woods that extend for miles and miles. And when I do it, I am translated into a different world. It is a world of stark beauty and solitude. It is usually quiet, except for the crunch of the leaves as each foot falls with each step, the rustle of the occasional squirrel as it scurries past or the unexpected flight of a bird. Even the owl whose head turned to carefully follow me as I walked by, did so in silence. Walks in the woods in the winter are designed for meditation, thought, and prayer. When the sun shines through the bare limbs of the towering trees, it creates an ethereal sense that is almost like the world of a gothic cathedral. It is a special place and a special time.

So, when people ask me which I like best, the west or the south, I can not say. Each is a part of the grand and multi-faceted world that God created, and that when done, he pronounced very good. Each has a uniqueness that I see and appreciate, a uniqueness that I thank the One who created all for giving me the privilege of knowing.