A Survival Guide For Castaways

Sunday, June 11. 2023
The Rev. Dr. Matthew Skinner

Acts 27:1, 6-44

Stable societies like to remind themselves that instability is never that far away. Think of the stories we tell to entertain ourselves. What if we’re just one viral or fungal mutation away from a full-blown zombie apocalypse? What if a lone supervillain could destroy the world’s financial systems? What if a computer couldn’t tell the difference between running military simulations and initiating all-out thermonuclear war? We thrill ourselves with reminders that the boundary between safety and peril is always closer than we let ourselves realize on a daily basis.

The same was true in the ancient societies ruled by the Greeks and Romans. Their epic literature, dramas, and popular novels told stories of awful sea storms and dangerous journeys. The sea was essential to the prosperity of those cultures and the empires they built. The sea was a place for merchants and captains to risk their lives for new knowledge and new wealth. It was also a place where everything could fall apart. Writers set stories on the sea and its foul weather to show their respect for its power and also to celebrate their culture’s mastery over it. The sea was a place where heroes could prove their virtue. The sea was a place where the gods of ancient myths could demonstrate their protection, or their cruelty.

We shouldn’t be surprised to find an adventurous sea story in the Bible, as well. We have other kinds of common ancient literature in our scriptures: genealogies, myths, epistles, songs, histories, accounts of dreams and their interpretations, love poetry, political treaties, sermons, liturgies, and law codes. Why not some high drama that unfolds on the sea as well?

Usually biblical narratives are short on details. They move quickly. Obviously the author of the Acts of the Apostles was enjoying himself here. He could have told the story of Paul’s shipwreck in just a handful of verses, but instead he stretches it out, crafting a narrative crackling with high drama, risk, and suspense. Why devote so much effort on telling the story with relish? What’s the point?

To understand, we need to remember some important details. To most everyone else on the ship, Paul is a nobody. He’s a prisoner among other prisoners, whose guards are hitching rides on merchant vessels to get to Rome, where Paul’s long time in custody looks likely to end with a death sentence from Emperor Nero. From the perspective of the story itself, however, Paul is the centerpiece, and his coming demise is hardly a waste. He has a role to play in the journey, because God has a lesson to teach.

The story is also frankly a little weird. Paul seems to know more than anyone else about sailing, with his “I told you so” attitude as soon as the weather started getting rough. He has the ear of the soldiers, and they follow his commands. He hosts a meal on the ship. He’s convinced God is determined to get him to Rome, come hell or high water, and after a while others seem to believe him.

Furthermore, almost no one else on board knows Paul’s God. There is no evangelism in this account. No desperate conversions. No blame. But the story insists that the God of Jesus Christ ultimately deserves the credit for preserving everyone’s safety.

A couple of weeks ago, a group of us from Westminster were in Greece as part of a travel seminar studying “The Cradles of Christianity.” We learned about the ancient Greeks and their seafaring. Many centuries before Jesus, the Greeks’ willingness to take to the water led not only to prosperity but also to the accumulation of knowledge, the growth of technology, and cultural flourishing. But here, in this story, which is set about three decades after Jesus, when the Romans are in charge, everything on the sea takes on an even grander scale. The ships are larger, the trade routes are longer, the waters are deeper, the cargos are heavier, and the journeys are more perilous. Every last piece of land that the Mediterranean Sea touches belongs to Rome. The whole sea is Rome’s primary trade route, the lifeblood of Rome’s markets, the means of imposing Rome’s culture. To manage the empire, Rome must manage the sea. Most days it does a pretty good job.

As much as we human beings extend our mastery over our environments and work to preserve a stable way of life, we always remain at the mercy of forces beyond our control. A storm seems to lurk behind every horizon.

Paul’s ill-fated sea journey begins in Caesarea Maritima, a shiny new port city built by Herod the Great not too far from Jerusalem. It’s a symbol of innovation in Roman engineering and the power of expanding imperial networks. The soldiers, Paul, and other prisoners find their way onto a large vessel from Alexandria, a ship-building city in northern Egypt, and an emblem of Roman maritime prowess, endless resources, and profitable markets. It’s a grain ship, necessary for keeping a vast empire fed, growing, and compliant.

One of many vessels transporting food and prisoners across the Mediterranean Sea, the ship they ride is a floating collection of what holds Roman society so dominant: with prisoners, grain, and soldiers, there’s economic power on board, political power, technological power, legal power, and military power.i During fair weather, those interests sail in harmony and project the stability of the Roman Empire. But when this ship struggles against the wind to get to the southern side of the island of Crete, we learn that the Fast, the Jewish Day of Atonement, has already come and gone, which means it’s around the beginning of October. That means the end of the sailing season has arrived. No sane person braved the open sea after that. It would be extremely risky to sail for the next few months. Nothing exposes the threats to the stability of the status quo like dangerous weather.

And we know that threats and uncertainty breed anxiety in markets, public squares, families, and even congregations.

Paul urges the sailors to stop where they are for the winter, but the decision is made to sail around fifty miles more, further to the west of Crete, where they can harbor until springtime. But it’s too late. Ancient Greek writers recognize what’s happening: this is hubris! Arrogant pride! It’s dangerous. An extremely strong storm appears and blows this floating collection of imperial power westward, out to sea, leaving the solid ground of Crete behind them. The severe danger is clear from what the sailors must do to preserve the ship: securing the dinghy onboard, reinforcing the hull probably by wrapping it with cables to keep the ship from breaking apart, deploying an anchor or a similar device off the stern to increase drag in the high winds, and jettisoning their supplies and “tackle.” They do whatever it takes to preserve their vessel and all it carries onboard: the rule of law, the reliability of the supply chain, and the unifying force of Roman presence.

Worries about running aground on dangerous sandbars near North Africa go unfulfilled. The large ship full of 276 souls nevertheless drifts “for many days” during a prolonged storm that leaves its crew unable to know where they are; they’re deprived of the ability to see any stars and navigate. The sea appears to have won. So much for the utter stability of the things that make civilization go.

When all hope is lost, Paul addresses his shipmates. He promises that the ship will be lost, but that God has told him that they will all survive as long as they remain together. All else may fail, but their salvation depends on staying together.

No one is saved because Paul is uniquely heroic, or because he is indispensable or some kind of good-luck charm. Paul is simply an “instrument” of God’s power.ii Like the church at large—like this congregation—Paul represents the word of God, the dynamic and irrepressible expression of God’s grace and goodness in the world. The word of God does not depend on the institutions we create and maintain, which all have their breaking points. The word of God will continue its journeys across geography, cultures, and generations, from Paul to us.

What’s striking is that Paul doesn’t use the occasion to tell everyone to repent or to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not a story of growing the church’s numbers. It’s a story about encountering hope when the usual securities fall apart. It’s about the word of God blessing the world, breaking out even beyond the church’s membership. That won’t happen if Paul fails to persuade them to stay together.

But the spirit of “me first” is hard to break. Some sailors hatch a plan to slip away on the dinghy before either the ship breaks apart in shallow water or competition for the smaller boat becomes too fierce. Paul reiterates that everyone must stay together if anyone expects to “be saved.”

Everyone has stopped eating, probably because of despair, and so Paul moves from issuing warnings to building community. Somehow people trust him to manage the food supplies, and he hosts a meal on the storm-tossed ship. When all seems lost, Paul arranges a meal that proclaims a different reality, in the midst of insecurity, rivalry, injury, and fear, he serves up abundance, mutuality, comfort, and selflessness. What the ship can’t provide under the stress of the tempest, the word of God does.

When Paul gives thanks to God and breaks bread, it’s not a group of converts celebrating an exclusive Christian ritual. Paul’s simply feeding them. It’s an example of a belief that propels all of our Christian worship: God blesses the world. The meal is an expression of hospitality, sustenance, and community. Everyone who’s alongside Paul will be delivered, and that’s God’s doing. That divine care creates a new community made up of diverse and desperate people clinging to a disintegrating ship—people who on land might have little reason to interact so closely with each other: mariners, merchants, military, malefactors, and missionaries. Their common predicament is enough to create an alliance. No matter how they got there, now they belong to one another and benefit from one another.

When the ship, that microcosm of Roman dominance, cannot survive the storm, it’s the power of God that holds everything together—not power delivered through a miracle, but power enacted in a community that has little in common except that they ride out the same storm and break bread together, hoping against hope for a blessing to come their way.

Where do we put our trust when our lives are tossed by raging winds of change and rising waters of disappointment? What do we do when the institutions that promise stability begin to splinter under the stress of an unpredictable world? God proves faithful when we, as a church, stick together—both with each other and with our neighbors, committed to a mission of hospitality, belonging, and generosity.

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Here’s an open secret about preaching. Nothing ever happens when a preacher tells a congregation, “Be better at living as a community.” I won’t say that this morning, because people rarely get argued or commanded into being more community-minded. But I can say and I am saying this: “God’s salvation is experienced in community.” Let that truth entice you.

I also urge us to remember that people can be blessed by the grace of communities that they don’t even belong to. The arrival of June and the celebration of Pride is a good occasion for a cisgender straight person like myself to acknowledge and be thankful for the ways I am blessed by vibrant LGBTQIA+ communities, in the many ways those communities commit themselves to fostering a more loving, inclusive society that lifts up everyone’s common human dignity.

Our focus on “community” can become an idol if we aren’t careful. Community in and of itself is not the goal. Community is not God. Some communities—groups, friendships, clubs, families, businesses, and other contexts—are toxic, and remaining in them can be dangerous. Enjoying community is never an end in itself. Rather, community is an expression of the good news about Jesus Christ. To stay together, centered around the hope Christ provides, is to experience divine presence.

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A lot of adventure literature, both ancient and modern, celebrates people who complete round trips. Most characters who set out to sea on epic journeys are expected to come home. To be considered successful or heroic, they must return victorious, richer, or better. It makes a good story. The German theologian Dorothee Sölle has observed that it’s different in the Bible, however.iii The Bible depicts a lot of one-way travel, beginning with Abraham and Sarah called to leave their kindred and set out for a not-yet seen place. Moses and Aaron and Miriam lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt toward Canaan. Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem even though he knows death waits for him there. Paul travels to Rome as a prisoner. Each of us likewise lives on a one-way adventure from birth to death, which requires us to relinquish a measure of control and view life as a journey into death, not as an end but as a destination. We travel as people who have received promises, venturing toward the fulfillment of what God has promised.

For people who travel one-way journeys, our question isn’t “How will you get back?” It’s, “How will you get there?” How will you make it, and adapt to new situations and new environments? What will carry you to where God has called you? How will you navigate the obstacles and threats? What do you need for the journey? Whom will you bring with you? What will get you there safely, ready for what God has called you to experience or contribute?

No one should attempt that kind of journey alone. God has given us one another, and given us to others. In our attempts to stay together, bound together in our common vulnerability and open to the hospitality of others, God keeps promises about our shared salvation. God shows up, precisely when we fear we’ve become castaways. “So it is with the Spirit of God.”

Amen.