August 11, 2024
Bread in the Storm
Acts 27:1, 18-25
The psalmist tells us that everything in creation is bent in the will of God toward God’s purpose. The Apostle Paul found this when he boarded a ship and tried to get to Rome. Listen to part of the story from Acts 27:
“When it was decided that we were to sail for Italy, they transferred Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan cohort named Julius. Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul then stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not set sail from Crete and thereby avoided this damage and loss. I urge you now to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For last night there stood by me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, and the angel said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before the emperor. Indeed, God has granted safety to all those who are sailing with you.’ So keep up your courage, folks, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. But we will have to run aground on some island.”
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
We’re ending a summer sermon series called “The Good Book,” in which we have studied Old and New Testament stories. We’ve realized that these are not just dusty stories from long ago but ones that brim with divine possibility and meaning for our lives. I wish I could get a few of you together in small groups to study this story because it is one of the best seafaring stories in scripture, bar none. If you like Horatio Hornblower, this story is for you. If you like the movie The Perfect Storm, this story is for you.
But we don’t have time to do all of that today. In fact, I hardly have time for an introduction in this sermon because we have so much to get through. So, would you join me in prayer?
Oh God, as we turn our attention to Acts 27 and to this marvelous story, speak in between these words. Speak through my preaching and our listening, a word that each one of us needs to hear, whatever age or stage we are. Give us grace to listen for these next minutes. In Christ, we pray. Amen.
I want to think with you through this story about how the church accompanies a world in crisis. How does the church accompany a world in crisis? And you might also think about how we accompany one another in crisis as well.
The word “crisis” is a little overused sometimes. It’s hard for me to say because I don’t want to overstate it. There have always been crises in the world. I pulled down a classic volume of sermons this week to look for a sermon on this text. I found one by Billy Graham written during World War II. He started out by saying, “The world is in crisis.” The world was definitely in crisis in World War II. But the world always has crises, and the call of every generation, the call for us, is to face the crisis, the challenges of our time.
So it’s right for every preacher in every age to be able to stand and say, “There are crises in the world.” We give different issues in our world the name of a crisis. There is a climate change crisis. We talk of a migration crisis that is linked to an economic crisis. We talk of a Middle East crisis and war. In our community, we talk of an affordable housing crisis. I could go on, but you get the picture. Whenever we have a problem that is too big for us to solve or where we can’t see the consequences of where it’s going, we call it a crisis.
And we do the same thing in our lives. All of us, if you’ve lived very long, have been through some period of crisis. And if you are not in a crisis now, the bad news is you probably will be at some point. When a marriage is unraveling or when a child is in trouble, it’s a crisis. As pastors, we say that family is in crisis, and our attention goes there. When you have a health diagnosis that seems to not be easily solvable, that’s a crisis. To use the language of this story, there are storms in life, and there are storms in the world. Sometimes we feel like we’re sailing in pretty calm seas with a light breeze in our sails and sunny skies. Those are good days, and we should give thanks to God for those days because sometimes the seas can get really rough. The wind blows hard, the skies are full of clouds, and we’re barely hanging on to our boat.
How can the church accompany a world in crisis? What good news does the church, as the people of God shaped by the gospel, have to accompany a world in crisis, or for that matter, to walk with each other?
This story in Acts 27, I think, gives us a few key insights into how the church can walk with the world in crisis. If I were to stop and ask you one-on-one, “How do you think a church can help a world in crisis?” Many of us would say, “Well, the call of the church is to be a place of solace, a place of peace.” The responsibility of the church is to be a shelter in the storm. In a stormy world, folks come into the church, and they feel safe. That’s partly true, but that’s not all of the story. And I think in this story, we’re going to see how that’s not all of the story.
A little bit of context: The Apostle Paul is a prisoner. He was arrested for being a Christian preacher, and he was on trial. At some point in his trial, he said, “I appeal to the emperor.” Now, Paul was a Roman citizen, which meant that was his right. So what they did was they took Paul and said, “Well, fine, we will ship you to Rome.” He was in Caesarea. “We’ll ship you across the Mediterranean to Rome to appeal to the emperor.”
So our story begins with Paul being put on a ship with other prisoners, cargo, business people, and soldiers to begin making his way to Rome. The first part of their travel was kind of quiet down the coast. Then they stopped at a port called Myra, where they boarded an Alexandrian ship bound for Italy. This is where it all went wrong.
This was a cargo ship. The owner was on board, the pilot was obviously on board, there were business folks on board, there were sailors, there were soldiers, and there were prisoners, all wanting to go to Rome. Well, they left from Myra, and they began to get some hard winds against them, which slowed them down. The trip was taking a lot longer, and Paul began to realize that this was going to be too late in the season for them to sail.
We would call it a nor’easter. There was a season in the Mediterranean where nor’easters would blow through and make it really dangerous for a sailing ship. They called it this wonderful word, a “Euroclydon.” It was a season where Euroclydons might come up and swamp their vessel. You can tell me on the way out today, “Patrick, I’m in a Euroclydon right now,” and we’ll go and be one-on-one and talk about it in prayer.
A Euroclydon came up to swamp their vessel, and Paul saw this happening. So he said to the leaders in charge of the boat, “Men, I can see that the voyage will be with danger and much heavy loss, not only of the cargo and the ship but also of our lives.”
I want to stop here because there’s something we can learn from Paul. We can accompany a world in crisis by bringing the focus onto the flourishing of human life. Let me say that again: We can help accompany a world in crisis by bringing the focus on human life. Look at who the characters are on this ship. There’s the owner, who has an economic interest in this ship making as many trips around the Mediterranean as possible. There’s the pilot, who works for the owner and has an interest in keeping his boss happy and in making this trip successful so he can do a good job at his work. There’s the centurion soldier, who’s in charge of the prisoners. He probably has family back in Italy that he wants to see and get back to. He wants to do his duty and deliver them safely. Everyone has a different piece of this pie.
What Paul sees is that no one has the piece of the pie of what’s good for all the souls on board, for all of these people made in the image of God. This is the role that he takes: to focus on human life, at great risk to the lives involved.
So in the crisis of the world, what does that mean for the church? Our calling is always to train the lens on the human person. There will always be voices who can make the economic argument: “It’s good for business,” “It’s bad for business,” “It’s expensive,” “It’s too expensive.” There will always be those who can look at the policy problems and what might be at stake in any number of issues. It is the calling of the church to say, “What is good for human life? What is good for those made in the image of God? How will they flourish?”
Let me give you an example that’s more of a personal example of how it might help you in your life. Let’s say you have a friend who’s in crisis, and you don’t really know how to help them. They’ve got the right doctors, they have meals and a safe, warm place, but you know they’re in crisis, and you just say, “I don’t know how to help them.” You’re tempted to just go on and keep going because you don’t know what to do. But the ministry of accompaniment calls you to ask, “How can I focus on this person’s life and walk with them?”
My family has benefited from a simple ministry that many of you practice when we’re in crisis. You all have learned to say, “I’ll come and sit with you. I’ll just sit with you in the waiting room, or I’ll walk with you to the doctor, or I’ll just check in with you every couple of days.” That is walking with somebody through a crisis, focusing on their life.
So, the storm comes, and Paul tries to tell them, “Don’t go into the storm.” But they press on, and the storm is so strong that they have to lash ropes around the ship to try to keep it together. They jettison the cargo to lighten the ship. They are in the storm for days and days, and things are getting really dire. They were hoping to be saved.
And this is the next way the church can walk with the world in crisis. Paul stands up at that moment, with his arms stretched out, and says, “Men, you should have listened to me.” I think that’s a great word. “You should have listened to me.” You should have listened to me. I have that on my mental list of things to say to my kids when they come back and talk to me about something. I’m going to say, “You should have listened to me.”
But Paul stands up and says, “Take heart. There will be no loss of life. The ship will go down, but last night, an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship stood beside me and said, ‘Don’t be afraid. You must stand before the emperor, and God will grant safety to all of those sailing with you.'”
How do we walk with the world in crisis? The church tells the truth. The church tells the truth to the world about our hope, about our hope for life. We tell the truth about how we see things. The world needs our perspective on what God is doing.
It is so tempting to be quiet when things are tough or to get into a crisis and not say anything, but the church is called to step up and bear witness to what we believe is true. I think that’s often what the church does. At our best, we say to the world, “We’re not going to lose hope. We have this story to tell. We believe God has shown us through Jesus Christ what love and hope look like.” This is what we are doing.
So Paul says to them, “Keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told.”
We know what happens next. The ship crashes. The ship crashes on the shore of Malta, and every one of them makes it out alive. And what I find really fascinating about this story is what happens next. When they wash up on the shore, the Maltese people see this shipwrecked group and say, “Let’s go help them.” These Maltese people don’t even know who they are. They just say, “Let’s go help them.” So they start making a fire to warm them and dry their clothes, showing kindness.
What happens next in the story is that Paul and his shipwrecked group are welcomed into the homes of the people of Malta. Paul goes on to do what Paul does: he starts healing people. He starts teaching and preaching the good news of the gospel. He was delayed by a shipwreck, but he continues his ministry.
How do we walk with the world in crisis? We extend kindness to one another. You see, the story starts with Paul offering care to others on the boat, and it ends with him receiving care from the people of Malta. The church is called to both extend and receive care, to show kindness in a world in crisis. We bear each other’s burdens.
Sometimes we think, “Oh, we’re the church. We’re the ones with the truth. We have to go out and fix everything.” But this story shows us that the church also needs to be a place that receives care, that knows how to let others in the world care for us when we are shipwrecked, too.
There are crises, and there will be more crises. There will be challenges ahead for us individually and together as a community of faith. But God is in the midst of it. So as we accompany one another and this world, let us do so with love, with truth, and with kindness. Let us pray.
Gracious God, we give thanks for the way you walk with us in the storms of life. Help us to be the people who accompany others, showing love, speaking truth, and extending kindness. Strengthen us in our work, in our care, and in our mission to share your good news with a world in need. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
Rev. Patrick W. T. Johnson, Ph.D.
First Presbyterian Church
Asheville, NC