What is the “Fourth Age”? This stage of life is often described as the point following the Third Age. If the Third Age includes the earlier years of old age (perhaps 60s and 70s), then the Fourth Age reaches into the later late years (80s and 90s). More crucially however, whilst the Third Age is understood as a time of independence, activity, health and engagement in society, the Fourth Age is one where frailty and dependence increases, withdrawal happens and passivity is inevitable due to disability and decline. All well and good, one might think. But when we consider this term in more detail, it begins to reveal some unsettling truths about what we really think about old age.

The “Fourth Age” concept is one which has been discussed extensively by two gerontologists called Gilleard and Higgs. They suggest that the Fourth Age actually bears little resemblance to the lived experience of older people, but is more akin to the concept of a ‘Social Imaginary’, a phrase borrowed from philosopher Charles Taylor. A ‘Social Imaginary’ describes a society’s expectation of what should be the norm or an accepted truth to which all people should adhere. For our current purposes, in modern European societies, we have come to expect that at some point in life (barring premature death), as we move into old age, we will all have a time of fruitfulness and peace, a rest following a busy middle age filled with responsibilities of children and work. Post-retirement life will be full of activity and enjoyment. But then as frailty increases and death approaches, we all at some point will tip over into an “abyss”, and one which none of us want to enter – the Fourth Age. The Third Age becomes the hope of old age, whilst the Fourth Age becomes the dark reality which none of us want to live through. As Gilleard and Higgs write, “The brighter the lights of the third age, the darker the shadows they cast over this underbelly of aging — the fourth age.” Independence and dependence, success and failure, activity and passivity, health and frailty, ability and disability are contrasted and held at arm’s length from one another.

There are two problems with this concept of the “Fourth Age”. Firstly, it is rarely the experienced reality of individuals in old age. Instead of there being a distinct turning point where we transfer from Third to Fourth Age (on one’s 80th birthday, for example), the reality is more fluid and unfathomable. Loss of capacity happens gradually, and in different ways at different times. If we simply classify someone as being in the “Fourth Age” and therefore expect them to behave or be unable to behave in certain ways, we miss a huge amount of what it means to be a person with a variety of experiences of living each day. But more worryingly, this concept of the “Fourth Age” creates a huge amount of fear surrounding old age. Our society’s primary values exist around the human right for “choice, autonomy, self-expression and pleasure”, and the implicit assumption is that when those elements of living are lost, we simply find ourselves waiting to die. This is what many of us expect the “Fourth Age” to be like. As a result, institutions and attitudes develop in society to define this apparent group of people and in the process many people experience what theologian Josh Hordern describes as a “social death” before biological death. As people who apparently can no longer contribute anything useful or meaningful they can simply be described as a burden. They are ostracised and categorised in a way that creates an unrealistic and unhealthy picture of what it means to live in the later years of old age.

In reality, research shows that for many the reality of increasing frailty is often better than many old people fear. Because we so value all of the things that we find in the “third age” (a functional mind and body, youthfulness and so on), the fourth age is deeply feared. The anticipation of what is to come, or indeed the dissonance between our expectations of who we should be or what society expects from us, and the reality of our experience is too much to bear.  As one old man says in an interview with a researcher, “You have no effect on anything, you know. The ship sets sail and everyone has a job, but you just sail along. (…) I am cargo to them. That’s not easy. Not easy. No, no, no. That’s not me! No, no, no, no, no!… I have no idea in which area someone my age is able to seriously participate.”

If we were able to see individuals for who they are, and the gifts they have to offer, rather than those who fit a pre-determined understanding of what it means to be old, their experience might be better. If we were able to discover means by which those in their final years can and do exist as gifts to those around them rather than just burdens, growing old in society may be easier. Perhaps if we just stop talking about the “Fourth Age” and see the people rather than the label, we may all be better off in our ability to embrace and engage with the realities of all stages of old age, no matter what they bring.

One of the aims of Faith in Later Life is to enable and mobilise older people to minister meaningfully for the whole of their lives. What does this mean? It’s easy to imagine the kind of ministry that some older people could engage in. We might jump straight to those of us who have just retired, who still have a good degree of physical and mental capacity and suddenly have a lot of spare time on our hands. The likes of these are gold dust to many church ministries; the toddler group struggling to find enough young-mum or dad volunteers who are run off their feet chasing after their two-year-olds will be delighted to have an influx of men and women who can sort logistics, look out for those who are struggling and pray for others without a toddler hanging onto their legs. Or perhaps even those of us who are growing older into our 80s and 90s yet still demonstrate a remarkable ability to continue to “do” things as though we were still young; those of us who still turn up, still offer wisdom, advice, kindness, love and hospitality to the younger generations despite their age. Or those of us who can still make it to the older people’s teas, even if it means just showing up and chatting to people. These people are a gift in their ability to minister to others who may not find church the most comfortable place to be, or who might be looking for hope beyond what this world can offer.

But what happens when older people can’t minister meaningfully in these specific kinds of ways? When dementia sets in and we no longer have physical or mental capacity to offer as we might once have done? Or when we are nearing the end of life and we can do little more than lie in a bed and receive the care of others? Or when we can no longer make it to church in our own capacity to volunteer through providing physical or moral support to others in the way we once did? How do we minister meaningfully then? Or perhaps instead, at that point do we simply become receivers of the ministry of others?

In our society we have a significantly limited understanding of what it means to be a human being who is able to “act” in a meaningful way. We live in a world shaped by the idea that before we exist in community with others, we are individuals with our own inner source of identity and our own internal driver for our ability to “do” things – and that is where our value comes from. As a result, when we get to a stage of life where we can no longer do things on our own, because of age-related decline, and increased incapacity, we are quick to assume that we have little to offer meaningfully. In church circles, you hear it often said that the little old lady who is housebound can only do one thing that is meaningful, and that is to sit at home and pray. Now this is not to limit or question the power of prayer and the legitimacy of that as a fundamental calling. But prayer should not be limited to those who cannot “do” other things, and nor should the limits of old age preclude us from being able to minister meaningfully in other ways. In fact, those of us who display significant limits to their physical and mental capacity, be it through dementia, loss of mobility due to arthritis, or simply being in the stage of life which is approaching death quickly, perhaps in our final days can minister just as meaningfully as those who do not share those same characteristics. Sometimes, because of what our society values, we just need to look a little harder to discover how.

Take one example, in my last church there was a lady in her 90s named Lilian (name changed for privacy purposes). Lilian suffered from crippling anxiety as a result of increasing frailty and struggled to leave the house. She lived alone and was estranged from her only son. She had a deep faith in Jesus and loved to come to church but needed an army of people who would volunteer to pick her up and drive her each Sunday, and during the week for other events. Lilian could do very little on her own and didn’t really spend a lot of time passing on the wisdom she had accumulated throughout her life, nor did she pray very much for us, as far as I could tell. Many would describe Lilian as a burden; she certainly took up a lot of time and effort on my part and others from the church to help her. when sometimes I could have done without the extra trip on the way to church, and when my children wanted my full attention. But what she did offer me, and the others who got to know her, was the chance to be a person who cared. Lilian was always open to being loved, always received our care with great gratitude and whilst not always being in a good mood or a particularly easy person to be around, was always available and welcomed us in when we showed up.

Eventually, Lilian died following a particularly bad fall. And it was only in the days following Lilian’s death, when I realised that she wouldn’t be there any more for me to go and collect and take to church, that I understood that far from me having spent all those months giving to Lilian, actually Lilian had been giving a gift to me. In Matthew 25 Jesus says these words: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”. In being someone who allowed us to care for them when they were sick, in being someone who was once a stranger who allowed us to invite her in, Lilian let us meet with Jesus, in herself. And what a precious gift this was. In the absence of apparently being able to “do” anything meaningful in the world’s eyes, Lilian was able to give us the most precious gift of all, the gift of being Jesus to us in this way.

So next time you are looking to discover a way for older people to minister in your church, don’t forget those who look as though they have nothing to offer. Perhaps simply by their very presence they might have a huge amount to offer. In the dependence, in the need, in the fragility it is here where we find Jesus. If we only believe it is the young and able who are offering something to them, we will miss something crucial about what it means to be human in interdependence with each other. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, ‘Christians must bear the burden of one another. … Only as a burden is the other really a brother or sister and not just an object to be controlled.’. In a world which struggles to see this, let’s make sure that our churches are not void of those who society might deem to be a burden, but bring them into the centre, so that many more might meet Jesus in this way.