First Congregational Church, UCC

The story of Paul’s shipwreck at sea is filled with highs and lows. We can feel our emotions rising and falling with the crest of each wave. One moment it seems that all is lost, and the next moment deliverance seems at hand. Hope rises as land is spotted, but falls when they are unable to distinguish any familiar landmarks. It rises again as they spot a sandy beach suitable for landing, but falls again when the bow of their ship strikes a reef and the boat begins to break up. It plummets even further as the soldiers plot to kill all the prisoners to prevent their escape, but then rises again when the centurion decides to spare them for Paul’s sake. It falls when everyone is ordered to jump into the tempestuous sea and those who cannot swim are told to grab onto anything that floats, but it finally resolves with a sigh of relief as we are told that Paul’s vision has been fulfilled and everyone is safely on shore.

After these five verses, I am emotionally exhausted. But on a much smaller scale, that is the way life is for us. We move though our days riding the crest of encouraging news when things work out well for us and then drop into troughs of disappointment when unforeseen complications set in. Sometimes the waves are just little ripples, but sometimes they wash over us and leave us feeling as though all is lost.

Paul rarely seems overwhelmed by these highs and lows. As we’ve seen throughout his life and ministry, his strong faith has a leveling effect for him. He doesn’t get too full of himself when something works out well. Instead he gives thanks and praise to God. And he doesn’t get overwhelmed with despair when things don’t go the way he hoped. Instead he turns to God and to the faith community for comfort, support and encouragement.

Today we have grown accustomed to mood leveling pharmaceuticals to level out our highs and lows. But maybe we have underestimated the spiritual dimension of our emotional ups and downs. One of the important lessons that we learn from the first church is the leveling effect of a life rooted in faith and prayer.

Paul’s blessing of the bread during the storm has Eucharistic overtones. They are the same words that Luke used when Jesus broke bread with his disciples in an upper room at the last supper, and they are the words that we use whenever we gather as a faith community at the table of our Lord.

He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, shared it with others, and ate. It is such a simple act. But every time we repeat those words we remember the promise at the heart of our faith. The bread we break sustains and strengthens our bodies, but it also sustains and strengthens our spirits. It reminds us of God’s faithfulness, of God’s presence in the simple and the ordinary affairs of our daily lives, of the victory over sin and death that Christ has already won for us, of the hope for new life that we have through his body broken for us.

Paul’s breaking of the bread satisfied much more than the physical hunger of his shipmates. It was an act of hope. It was not a last supper for them, but a feast of new life: “I urge you to take some food, for it will help you survive; for none of you will lose a hair from your heads.” They ate the bread believing that they would live.

So too, when we break bread at the table of the Lord, it is an act that commits us to living this day for Christ. “Give us this day our daily bread” is the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. Giving thanks and breaking bread at his table reminds us to honor his gift by living faithfully today.

The voyage by sea began well, but the winds shifted and soon Paul and his fellow prisoners found themselves in peril, caught in a violent storm. For three days they fought desperately to keep their ship afloat. They tossed overboard everything they could including cargo, food, and even the ship’s tackle but the storm persisted and by third day, “all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned.”

It is in those moments of desperation when everything we have tried has failed and there is no one we can turn to for help that our faith in God is truly tested. Luke uses this moment in Paul’s life as another teaching moment for the first church by reminding his readers of God’s salvation in the bleakest circumstances.

We can picture Paul standing on the ship's deck calling out to his desperate shipmates over the howling tempest. They probably wanted to strangle him when he reminded them that he told them not to set sail so late in the season. But then Paul shared the reassuring news of an angel who visited him in a dream and said, “Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before the emperor; and indeed, God has granted safety to all those who are sailing with you.”

"Keep courage" is a message that we cannot hear enough. We all have moments of quiet desperation when we feel at our wits end, when there is nothing left for us to do and no one to whom we can turn for help. “Do not be afraid” is the refrain that is repeated over and over in angel visitations. It was the message spoken to Mary when she was found to be with child, it was the message spoken to the disciples by the risen Christ when they were huddled in fear in the upper room, and it was the message spoken to Paul in the midst of a raging tempest. “Do not be afraid…keep courage” is the assurance of God’s salvation that extends to all of us even in the bleakest circumstances.

In today’s reading, Paul begins his long and arduous journey to Rome for his hearing before the emperor. The danger he faced from his Jewish foes is now replaced by the dangers of sailing past the end of the normal shipping season. The fast of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) has passed which is observed in autumn (Lev 16: 29-31), and sea travel on the Mediterranean was usually not undertaken from mid-October until April.

Even though Paul was a prisoner, he was treated kindly by Julius, the Roman centurion who was assigned to accompany him to Rome. They hugged the coast as they began making their way, against the wind, to Crete. We can feel the tension building as the story unfolds. Paul is about to face another life defining crisis. But that will wait for tomorrow.

Paul tried to warn Julius of the perils awaiting them saying, “Sirs, 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.” But Julius ignored him.

It is a dynamic that we all repeat in our own lives. We ignore the warning signs (the late season and Paul’s prediction) and give more attention to the encouraging signs (the captain and owner). Our judgment is often clouded by our reluctance to acknowledge the realities of the circumstances we face.

This week I visited someone in a nursing home who was shocked to discover one day that his family had made arrangements to move him out of his home and into a facility where he could receive the level of support that he needed. Even though he was nearly blind, unable to drive, unsteady on his feet, and often confused from memory loss, he believed that he could continuing living in the home that been such a wonderful place to live for most of his life.

We seem to set sail into a lot of storms that could be avoided if we heeded the warning signs.

Paul seems to expect greater understanding from the Jewish king than from the Roman procurator and so he presses his case more urgently before Aggrippa; so much so that the King wonders out loud if Paul is eager to convert him to Christianity. But for Paul, Christianity and Judaism are not separate or incompatible religions. Throughout his testimony Paul argues that his faith in the resurrection is rooted in the teachings of the prophets.

What drew my attention in this passage is Paul’s declaration, “To this day I have had help from God.” To me that was the most profound part of his testimony before Agrippa.

What would it mean for us to adopt Paul’s testimony? Instead of feeling proud of the things we are able to accomplish, we would be inspired to give thanks to God. Instead of feeling ashamed of our failures, we would acknowledge that our priority might not have been God's priority.

Obviously that perspective can be abused to excuse half hearted efforts on our part, but for most of us that is a fairly insignificant risk The greater risk is that accept too much credit for our successes and too much responsibility for our failures. Instead, perhaps we can look back at our own life experiences and recognize the moments when we “have had help from God.”