S is for Shipwreck

I'd been married for 13 years, and my wife decided monogamy was not for her [so we divorced]. And about the same time the company I was working for was starting to go down. I was with one of my customers one day, and I said, “Would you be interested in hiring me?” Two weeks later, I'd sold a house, bought a house, moved and started.

In that process I dated this one woman for probably a year. We were driving down the road one day and we went past this Catholic church. And she said, “You know, I'm thinking of going back to church,” and something in me- the light just went on. A week later, she was killed in a car accident. It took me about a month or so and then I started going [to] [Church].

Are you familiar with the movie “The Green Mile”? You remember that [scene when the] black bugs came out of his mouth? I felt I was the black bugs. When I first started going to church, I didn't do communion because I didn't think I deserved it.

I noticed one woman in church, and I noticed she kind of noticed me. We dated for quite a while, got married, and were married for 14 years. The last year and a half of that I was unemployed. The recession hit. Okay, well, I have to find another job. It was a year and a half of looking every day, resumes every day. And we never fought or anything, [but] I realized that the stress I was under she felt. And I had closed myself off.

She flew to California [to visit her daughter] because she was having a baby. When she came back, I picked her up from the airport. We got home and she said, “I want a divorce.”

I felt I had failed. And so I attempted suicide. [It didn’t work, and the reason it didn’t work] didn’t make sense. [I was alive, although injured.] My doctor sent me to a physical therapist. It was getting a little bit better, but not really great.

And my wife at that time said, “hey, you know, it's been a month. Time to move on.” But the doctor said, “You need surgery.” I still haven’t had the surgery [all these] years later.

So then it's been about six weeks, and I'm just getting where you know, I can move fairly good. And all of a sudden, I got a call from a boss I'd had many years before I hadn't talked to in years. He said “I hear you're looking for a job.” “Yeah.” “Well, how'd you like to come work for me?”

“Yeah, I'd be very happy to do that.” “And oh, by the way, if you start within a week you can get in our pension plan because they're doing away with it at the end of the month.”

“I'll be there.” Drove up, got a hotel room, started work next day. Rented an apartment. And then within three or four months, I met [my current wife]. A year later we got married. We’re still [like] newlyweds. It’s unbelievable. We have never had a fight.

There's a quote from Richard Halverson I have on my desk. “Wherever you go, God is sending you. Wherever you are, God has a purpose in you being there. Christ who indwells in you has something he wants to do through you where you are! Believe it and go in his grace and power.”

Looking back, I really think it was a miracle. I really think God directed me why I had to change. But wow, am I in a great place?! I feel extremely lucky. And because of that experience, I think that helped me [care for others] and dealing with people.

In our text today from the book of Acts we hear about the incredible variety of disasters faced by the apostle Paul. Paul had been arrested in Jerusalem and then bounced around political leaders who didn’t quite know what to do with him. He appealed to the emperor for relief, which was his right as a Roman citizen. It also meant that he would be imprisoned for longer and would need to sail to Rome, which is where our story picks up.

Although they were past the season for safe sailing, the pilot, the owner of the ship, and the centurion in charge of the prisoners decided they must journey towards Rome. They can’t afford to miss out on the profits to be made. But, as expected (and as Paul foretold) the storm comes. Winds and waves buffet the ship. The sailors do everything in their power to maintain control of the ship. I got a bit of an education this week as I studied this passage. Ships are top heavy when the sails and the rigging are up high. It helps them to catch the wind and move quickly, of course, but in the high winds of a storm, everything must be moved lower to create a lower center of gravity and reduce the risk of being blown over. They also undergirded the ship, meaning they wrapped ropes around the hull of the ship to hold the individual boards tightly in place and prevent leaking. And the storm rages on. The sailors throw their cargo off and then later their tackle in an attempt to lighten the weight on the ship. But the storm rages on. Worse and worse it gets and “when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest raged, all hope of being saved was at last abandoned” we read in verse 20. They’ve lost all hope of profits, and quite possibly losing the ship itself was a foregone conclusion. The only remaining question was if they could survive? How much longer until they themselves drowned?

Paul, however, has a divine visitor, an angel who ensures him that everyone will survive. The ship won’t and the stuff won’t, but the people will. It’s 14 days of battling the storm, trying to stay upright and watertight, of drifting and being driven by the wind. Fourteen days of being utterly out of control. Some sailors try to escape on a smaller boat, and it results in even that smaller boat being lost. And then just before daybreak on that 14th day, Paul tells everyone to eat. “Take some food, for it will help you survive; for none of you will lose a hair from your heads,” he says. And then he takes bread and gives thanks to God, and broke it. They eat together and are encouraged.

The next day they run the ship aground and it is ripped apart by the waves. Everyone on the ship either swims for shore or floats in on debris broken off the ship. All is lost, but they are alive.

Certainly, it’s an easier story to tell than it is to survive. I’m not prone to seasickness, but this far exceeds queasiness. This is weeks of being tossed about, on the brink of death, out of control, and afraid. This is unimaginable to most of us. But maybe you’ve had your own version of a shipwreck. Perhaps you have a story of the day, the month, the season of suffering. And if you haven’t… well, it’s a part of life, so you should know that it can come. It will come. Maybe it is a natural disaster, a health crisis, a divorce, an addiction, a job loss, the death of a loved one. The storms do come.

So, what do you do when you’re imprisoned and in a hurricane and starving and ship wrecked? And then a viper bites you? (Because that’s actually what comes next for Paul. His crisis isn’t exactly over when they get back on dry land.) What do you do when the hits are coming so quickly you don’t have time to adjust or recover before you’re knocked back down?

I’ve told you before my deep frustration with the pat answers Christians so often offer. You know what I mean; things like “just have faith,” or “God doesn’t close a door without opening a window.” It’s not that these kinds of sentiments are wrong, and if they help you, that’s wonderful. It’s just that to me, to many of us, I suspect, they are cold comfort as you sit in a doctor’s office listening to your treatment plan, or your house is destroyed in a disaster, or your child is dying, or your heart is breaking with loneliness. So, what then, when all seems lost and the simple answers will not suffice?

It is in those moments that you learn what matters most. Early in the storm, these sailors undergird the ship to help hold it together. It’s an attempt to reinforce the structure of the ship. It’s finding and creating a network of support for each plank. I don’t want to put too fine a point on it- this is a history, not an allegory, but I think this can be a reminder to us to find and create our network of support when we find ourselves in crisis. You don’t have to sail in the storm without help or reinforcement. It looks like reaching out to friends and family, to prayer warriors and your church family. It’s asking for help with whatever you know you’ll need- meals, cleaning, rides, a request for jokes and memes, whatever. It’s letting yourself be helped- saying yes to the people who want to be with you. For some of us, that’s the hardest part. The storms will come, but you don’t have to face it alone. You can be held together by the people who love you.

It’s also notable that the sailors start throwing off the ship everything that is not absolutely vital to their survival. After they have breakfast at Paul’s encouragement, they even throw the grain off. When we find ourselves in crisis, we start to learn what we really need and what we really don’t. The crisis is a time to let go of things that are not giving us life, not helping us make it through. We may have to let go of material objects- maybe moving houses is in order, cleaning out the closets of the deceased, consolidating our possessions. Sometimes the storm forces us to let go of relationships with other people. People whose influence is unhealthy, people who cannot be part of your support network, people who will keep you in the storm rather than help you survive it, people who need to be free. We may also have to let go of our expectations, our hopes, our plans. We might have to let go of our reputations, our ideas about ourselves, our pride.

Ask anyone who has experienced a significant health crisis- their ideas about their body likely changed. Or someone whose family fell apart- their ideas about their future are different. Someone who has experienced the loss of property- they know what they miss the most. In the crisis, you learn that a lot of what seemed so important before is worthless in the after.

But what we don’t let go of: the people we love. The people who are with us in the storm. The people who we can help. As the sailors and prisoners alike gather together for breakfast on that 14th morning, they become a community. They are held together in this moment that very much points back to the Lord’s Supper- another meal that takes place right in the middle of crisis. Paul knows that everything else is going to be destroyed- and it’s all expendable. What he doesn’t let go of is his receptiveness to God’s intervention. He doesn’t let go of his faith. He believes in the angel’s message. And he also takes the opportunity to be an encourager and support to everyone else. Even in the storm, we have choices and opportunities.

In this passage, we really don’t hear much about God or faith. This is a story about sailing in storms, not so much a theological treatise. But in Paul’s experience and in the way he gathers everyone for a meal, we are reminded that there is the opportunity to pause, to give thanks, to share, and to remember. And in so doing, this does become a moment of learning to find connection and faith and encouragement even in the worst moments.

This summer we’ve heard so many wonderful stories from people in our congregation and beyond (and we will hear two more before we leave this series). I was thinking this week about how these stories, these testimonies have been food for me and for you too, I pray. When we gather together to give thanks for our stories and break down the walls that divide us and the walls that we hide behind, when we share our stories, and remember, we feed one another. We are fed. When we give ourselves to one another in real and meaningful ways, we often give what is needed to survive one more day in the storm. What a gift it has been to share in these stories and be fed by one another.

Friends, the storms have come, they are here now for some of us, and they will continue to come. And even then, even in starless night of a cloudy sky, when the wind throws us around and the rain lashes across our faces, when the waves threaten to topple us, we are not alone. Even then, we trust just as Paul came to trust, that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us. May it be so. Amen.