Sermon of May 15, 2005
Presented by Rev. Chuck Ericson
Scripture lesson: Acts 27:1-44

“When the Wind Is Against You”

Wind plays a prominent part in today’s worship service. It’s the day of Pentecost, and as we read earlier in the responsive reading that Julia led, the wind was part of the activity of the day of Pentecost when the wind of God’s Spirit blew into Jerusalem and awakened the disciples to a new faith and helped to give birth to the church; a very positive, powerful flow of wind. Well, once again in this passage which is at the very end of Acts, we have the wind again coming into play. But the wind here is working negatively; the wind is blowing against the ship and making their journey difficult. I think images like this of a ship’s journey are very, very powerful for us and can be translated into something about our lives; about how our lives and the journeys of our lives can be like the journey of a ship metaphorically.  So I want to take that image of Paul’s journey on that ship today, and help us think about what that might teach us about our own lives when the winds are against us, spiritually and emotionally. 

When the winds are against us in our lives, the first lesson we get from this passage in this journey of Paul’s, is to seek shelter; is to find a place that’s safe.  Early on in the passage the first time it says that the winds were against the boat. It says that they sought the lee side, or the shelter side of the island of Cypress, and waited there until the storm was over; a very simple act but something that’s very natural for people who sail. When things get rough and storms arise and tempests come from out of nowhere, the first thing to do is to try to seek shelter, to seek a safe spot. It’s a great lesson for us in our lives, when some sort of emotional or a spiritual tempest starts to arise up in our lives, a good thing to do is to seek shelter somewhere.  (Now Julia did start to tell you about this… going on a day retreat is a great way to seek shelter from the difficulties you’re going through). Go somewhere else, somewhere that’s safe and nourishing.

Besides places though there are also people. Sometimes family, or a small circle of close friends, can be that shelter as well. When you’re going through a difficult time, go and be with them, with people who are supportive and loving and can listen to you and help you through that difficult time. The safe place, the shelter, may not be a physical place, it may be a group of people who love you and care for you. And I always hope that for people that church is a shelter, a safe place to go when things are difficult. Sometimes I know that’s not true. In a couple of different places lately, in church meetings and even in informal discussions, people have said “I miss somebody who I don’t see very often; I wonder where they are”. Oftentimes I know and I can’t talk about it (it may be confidential) but I know it’s because somebody is going through a difficult time. What happens very often is that people withdraw during a difficult time. I always hope people can come into, and immerse themselves more in the Christian community when it’s a difficult time and not withdraw. To let church be the shelter, the safe place to go to, to find calm amidst the storm. Not just physically the building again, but the people, the congregation. That means also that all of us have to work harder and harder all the time to try to be a place that comes across to others as a safe place, a place for shelter and a place for peace, to others who seek that at a difficult time. So that’s one thing to do is to try and find that good place of shelter and to be that place of shelter.

A second thing I learned from this passage to help us through the difficult times in our lives is to jettison the junk when the winds are against us.  You notice in the passage the people on the boat threw stuff over; they threw cargo over, and threw tackle over, and eventually threw the wheat over. That again is a common thing for people on ships and boats to do when things get rough is to stabilize the craft by getting extraneous, unnecessary materials overboard. Good metaphor; when life gets difficult, when there’s stress, when things are out of sorts for us and we’re going through turmoil ourselves, try to have as less junk in your life as possible. Sometimes those are the things I harp about, like getting rid of the cable TV and the satellite TV, or at least ignoring them for awhile. Or the cell phones that we really don’t need; we all think we need them. We don’t need to have them on all the time, right? There’s an off button on all of them. You can also get rid of the junk around you. I’m preaching to myself especially here, because I have clutter in my life. It’s worse if I’m going through a difficult time to be faced with all that. The more of that junk and clutter and unnecessary papers and stuff in the garage and the shed and the basement you can get rid of, all that physical junk you can jettison out of your life, the better. It’s one less thing you’re confronted with that can bring you down at a time that feels unusually demanding. Jettison the junk. Now, I got a little bit of resistance to this at the first service but, do not include golf clubs, tennis racquets, chocolate, fishing rods. We need to have fun during difficult times. The last thing to jettison is the stuff that brings us fun and delight in life. Don’t get rid of those things; let those things be a way for you to seek a shelter or a happy place. So hang onto those things; you know what they are. That’s a few of them, but you all have those tennis racquets and golf clubs and you know what they are. Jettison the junk but keep the things that are fun.

The third thing to do when the winds are rising up against you in a storm of life is to evaluate the situation.   I learned a little something about sailing from this passage where it says when they got to a certain point and they sounded for fathoms; one translation said they “took soundings”.  I knew that meant something because my father-in-law used to get a magazine up in Maine and it was called Soundings, and I knew it meant something. I had to go to another translation of the Bible that says, and they had to put a weight on a rope and threw it overboard. They actually explained what taking soundings was; they had to find out what the depth was at a certain point. They went a little further and they found the depth was decreasing so they felt they were getting a little closer to a place where they could land, or at least anchor the boat. They evaluated their situation in the middle of all these storms, to see where they were, to know what was going on, and to see if they were getting close to their destination. Another great metaphor is to evaluate our situations, sometimes to seek help for those things, help from somebody else or at least do some self-evaluation. There are lots of stories about people like us in New England; Yankees don’t like to ask for help. We can do it on our own. Especially men don’t like to ask for directions, we can drive for hours and hours instead of stopping at the gas station and asking for directions.  But we really should, especially during difficult times, to really stop and just assess the situation and ask someone else for help every once in awhile. You know, we do that with everything else. If the car isn’t running right, we go to the car mechanic and evaluate the car and ask what to do. If the computer crashes, we call technical support, and spend hours using control-alt-delete – but at least we ask for help, we don’t just give up.  How much more important our emotional and spiritual lives are than a car or a computer, yet we’re so resistant to ask for someone to help evaluate how we’re doing, and what we need to do to get ourselves out of the storm.

So, talking to a counselor, or a pastor, or a Stephen minister or, once again, going on a retreat or doing something like that, where you can take time to evaluate where you are and have somebody guide you through it – is an important part of getting out of a storm and getting to our final destination.

And one last thing. When it’s a situation where you feel like the storms are rising against you and the wind is rising up against you, stop and take nourishment along the way.   Paul noticed this again with the people on the ship with him.  It’s amazing how Paul cared for these people, because Paul is on his way to Rome, after having been accused of being a nuisance and a troublemaker back in Palestine. He’s making his way to Rome to appeal to the Emperor as a last resort to get these charges dropped, so he’s on this important journey hopefully save his life and yet he’s caring for all these people on board who are taking him to this difficult destination. And he tells them at the end, make sure you take nourishment because they haven’t eaten in awhile. If they’re going to make it they need to take nourishment.

Again a great metaphor, for spiritual and emotional turmoil. To get out of that you need spiritual and emotional nourishment.  Go to the beach; go fishing; read a good book; something that nourishes your soul and inspires you.  Go to a concert and take in the kind of music you love and let that nourish your soul and build you up again; read the Bible! At one meeting recently, someone said I don’t feel as passionate about the Bible as Julia and Chuck seem to. That’s because we (Church & Julia) read other stuff with the Bible that explains what the situation is about. It helps us to understand the people and the environment and it makes it more inspiring when you understand what people in the Bible are going through, and the challenges they’re really going through – and it’s not just words on a page. You know the people, you know the environment and you know the situation and you see people rising up; it just amazes you (as Paul does here). So read the Bible, but read something that comments on it for you. There’s lots of great commentary. We have some here in the Church library; I have some and Julia has some. You can find it. Nourish your soul; take in nourishment.

So, it is true that sailing on a journey on a boat towards Rome can bring great guidance to us, about how we manage the storms in our lives when the winds rise against us. The good news today is not that you will be saved from any storm or trouble your life. That’s not the good news; that won’t happen. You and I, we will all have storms during our life. It happened to Paul; it happened to Noah, it happened to Jesus. It happens to every great person in our faith. It is not easy, but there is a way to get through, to sail through the journeys of our lives. To do things much as Paul and his cohorts on that boat did; they found the right place for shelter when they needed it, they jettisoned the junk, they evaluated the situation and took in nourishment. The good news today is that Paul also taught everyone that in all things God was with them; God doesn’t abandon us during the storms in our lives. God is right there reminding us what we need to do and urging us through.

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