Shipwreck
One of the biggest news stories of 2012 so far, has been the wreck of the cruise liner Costa Concordia off the west coast of Italy. Images of this proud and beautiful vessel, as big as a floating town, lying on its side half-submerged in the waters off the Isola del Giglio, have filled our TV screens for days, as the world waits for news of the missing, and information about how it could have happened.
Comparisons have been made to the Titanic, though in terms of the disaster and loss of life, these are not wholly apt. Still, there is something about the astonishing and unexpected fate of the two ships, that invites us to recall that earlier disaster. The Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable. One reason for the huge loss of life on the night of 15th April 1912, was that there were simply not enough lifeboats. Why would you need lifeboats, on a ship that could not sink? They would be just a waste of space.
Modern ships like the Costa Concordia are also supposed to be built so that they are virtually unsinkable. There probably were enough lifeboats, but many of them could not be launched because of the extreme angle at which the ship was listing. Many of the passengers had to be winched to safety by helicopter, or even swim to the shore. It must have been terrifying to be caught up in the events of that January night, with all its emerging tales of risk and danger, of heroism and of selfish panic.
An event as amazing as this reminds us of the limits of human ability. We take pride in our skill and knowledge and achievement, but even the greatest of human creations can founder on the immovable object of a rocky seabed. We boast about the built-in safety mechanisms of modern technology, but none of them is completely immune to the effects of human error or vanity. In other words, total security is an illusion. Time and chance happen to us all, as the Book of Ecclesiastes tells us. Or, to express that in more theological terms, with Thomas a Kempis: Man proposes, but God disposes.
It’s disappointing to an island race like ours, that there are not many shipwrecks in the Bible. By and large, the ancient Hebrews were not a sea-loving or seafaring people. But St Paul tells us that in the course of his travels he was shipwrecked three times, and was even adrift at sea for a whole night and day (2 Corinthians 11.25). One of those shipwrecks is described dramatically in chapter 27 of the Acts of the Apostles, when the ship carrying Paul and others to Italy, was wrecked on the island of Malta.
So it’s easy to see how shipwreck becomes a powerful metaphor for complete disaster, for the total failure of an enterprise. St Paul uses it that way, when he writes about some people who reject conscience, and so suffer shipwreck of their faith. (1 Timothy 1.19) He doesn’t enlarge on what he means, but it’s a reminder that if we ignore the light we have been given, we will quickly end up in the dark. If we don’t put our faith into practice, it will be no practical use to us. If we carry on most of the time as if there were no God, then when the time comes that we really need God, we won’t know how to find him. It’s true to say of Christian faith, as of so many other human gifts and faculties, “Use it, or lose it.”
It’s unlikely that anyone reading this has made shipwreck of their faith. But there are times in many of our lives when our faith doesn’t seem to be moving anywhere, very much. Could it be that our faith has run aground in the shallows, and that’s why we feel stuck? The remedy is, to get back into the deep waters of God’s reality, greatness and faithfulness. Then we shall find ourselves borne up again, floating, and moving ahead in the voyage of life.