Why I Cannot Retire

My own conference last June awarded me the pin of a retired minister, and I wear it with pride. Behind me are forty-eight years of active service in the Chris­tian ministry—yet I am not really retired. As long as life lasts and work remains to be done, I am not "through." And I speak for hundreds of other retired ministers.

I believe that Methodism is generous in putting the age of compulsory retirement at seventy-two. A definite time must be set, even though some men are vigorous at that age. All of us have seen men who were broken-hearted when they were compelled to quit, and yet they should have retired long before.

Well-meaning friends may say, "It must be fine to have nothing to do," and there­fore to sit down and enjoy one's self. It is the "quiet evening time" in their thinking, when one can look forward to the sleep of the night.

I cannot settle down to such sitting quietly. And I want to tell you why. I have four good reasons:

1. The first is because of my call to the min­istry.

I started preaching because I believed I had a definite call of God. At the time, I was teaching _,in one of our college prepara­tory schools. Suddenly I was offered a church and, though I was enjoying my work, I was haunted with the idea that God wanted me to preach.

I had already bought a ticket for a trip to Europe. The church was insistent; I had to accept or reject the offer. I prayed ear­nestly, and the result was that I gave up the trip and took the church.

I have never doubted the reality of that call, and I have never regretted my answer. I have thought of God as calling farmers, artists, businessmen, musicians, and teach­ers, but my call into the ministry has seemed to me to be a kind of summons to the supreme calling.

This call was for life. So, it does not stop with the close of a particular pastorate or with a new relationship to a conference. If God spoke to me in the past, he still speaks. I hear him say that he still has work for me to do.

The release of nuclear energy, the un­leashing of forces whose power is beyond our wildest imagination, the appearance of atheistic and utterly unscrupulous despots who have these marvelous forces at their command all present possibilities that fill our souls with horror. But these forces have limitless possibilities for good as well as evil. This generation must make decisions that will determine human destiny. God calls me to be a worker with him.

2. To quit is to die at the top.

How frequently we have seen people, active and efficient, putting their souls into their work, and then suddenly giving up their tasks, only to find that after they have lost their highest incentives for living, they cannot live within a vacuum.

The famous dictum of Descartes comes to mind, "I think, therefore I am." And there are the familiar words of Proverbs, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The old definition of motive is "that which moves the will." These emphases disclose how basic are thinking, motives, and incentives.

To stop thinking with all the strength of our intellectual vigor is not to stand still but to go backwards. That loss is followed by deterioration in all phases of life, often by physical death itself.

Person after person has said to me: "Don't quit. Keep going."

Two familiar scripture texts come to mind: At evening time there shall be light (Zech. 14:7, R.S.V.); The path of the right­eous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day (Prov. 4:18, R.S.V.).

All life is an adventure, as none of us needs to be told. When a man or a woman decides to answer the call of God for the Christian ministry—when he goes to his first charge—he is entering upon a new ad­venture. ^-When the time comes that he is not physically able to carry the terrific re­sponsibilities of the active ministry, he does not quit but enters upon a new phase of continuing adventure.

In many ways I have been struck by the fact that this is particularly a day of ad­venture. And the Bible is a book of ad­venture. You remember Hebrews 11 as a special example, but there are many oth­ers. We live and work in faith. "Through faith" the prophets of God "subdued king­doms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens."

The United States of America is a great adventure in human liberty, and in these days it has opportunities and responsibil­ities of leadership. Today the spirit of liberty, the yearning for its blessings, the demand for a new world adventure in gov­ernment is everywhere.

So retirement, to me, is a stirring ad­venture. My mind must keep awake to the sweeping movements in the world, to the expanding vision of the Church, and to the opportunities of fulfilling my part, no mat­ter how small that part may be. There is a thrilling opportunity of thought in world terms, of prayer that reaches around the world, of doing what my hands can find to do, and doing it with all my might.

4. Retirement is a challenge to greater breadth and greater depth in religion.

Paul Tillich recently wrote on The Lost Dimension in Religion and he called it "depth." He said what all of us are saying, that religion must touch the whole range of life—social, economic, cultural, and politi­cal. It is not something for Sunday, but for everyday. It is not something for ministers only, but also for laymen. And it is not only for active ministers but for retired ministers, too. So, I say with Nehemiah, "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down" (Neh. 6:3).

As I start my retirement, I am more than ever convinced that we must be Christ-seized personalities. The profoundest force in life is Christianity. It demands surrender to Christ and to his way of life.

William T. Harris, United States Com­missioner of Education for the years 1889­1906, has been quoted as defining literature as "vicarious experience." This is su­premely true of preaching. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, "We were willing to have imparted unto you, not the Gospel of God only, but also our own souls."

The true Christian develops through the years in the experience and practice of his religion. This should be true of every min­ister. His religious life should continue to develop in his "retirement." Then his mes­sage and influence should be at the peak.

In the deepest sense he cannot retire. He must continue to give his message in word and deed, or lose his own soul.

Reprinted by permission from the New Christian Advo­cate, May, 1959. Copyright 1959 by Lovick Pierce.