Change

Rev Anne posted a great sermon on change and I have a quick thought. Yesterday I was with a parishioner just after she died. My friends know that the church I pastor is dying and that they are so afraid of change that they have chosen to die. When we stop changing we die. That's it. Every breath we take brings change: new molecules entering our bodies. Every time our hearts beat we change: blood bringing that new oxygen to cells which are dying and are reproducing. The world changes from second to second. So, why are we humans so terrified of change? I know that as we age change brings lessened abilities. I hear that the elderly in our congregation are facing so many changes that they MUST have the same thing they have always had in worship, including the same people. (This from folks near my age: an excuse I am sure for things I do not yet understand) Isn't the answer to accept change, accept that we cannot do what we could when we were 30, that this diminishment is a preparation for the death that is in the future for each of us?

Why chose death for the institution that they profess that they love so much?