Sailing Home

Remember that old Sunday School chorus, where all the children would slide into and bump against the boy or girl next to them, while singing at the top of their voices, ‘We are Sailing Home’? Great days, but a lesson for us today maybe? As long as we are sailing, we are making progress. However, I can see two different types of damage which can stop a ship from sailing, and each can ultimately result in the ship sinking.

The recent story of the stricken cruise liner, ‘Costa Concordia’ shows the first type of harm clearly. A big rock breaches the hull, which results in the ship taking in water at a fast rate. It is seen immediately, and cannot be ignored. Of course the initial reason for the disaster was the fact that the captain went off course, and did not stick to the map instructions. In any event, there is hardly enough time to abandon ship, and in the process people are injured, and some died. There was hardly any time to react.

Then there is the slow leak which is ignored at first, because there are other more pressing problems on board, so life goes on as usual. In the meantime, while the passengers and staff are partying, the small leak ruptures without warning, and the ship starts to list badly and goes down. The big difference this time, is that there was a warning, but a warning which went unheeded. The end result is the same. The ship founders and goes down, taking some passengers with it.

I wonder if we are good at seeing the warning signs? Are we good at recognising the need to do something? Will we rush to the lifeboats alone, and abandon ship, or will we look for someone else we can save before it is too late? The parallels are uncannily similar between the ‘Costa Concordia’ and some churches. I wonder where we stand, and what kind of passenger we really are? How interested are we that our ‘ship’ stays afloat, and keeps ‘Sailing Home’? I was struck by our Pastor’s Annual Report, and the verse he quoted from the Message translation of Phil 2:1-2:
“If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if His love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care, then do me a favour: agree with each other, love each other, be deep spirited friends”.