A sermon from The Rev. Dr. David A. Marcus, Jr. preached on August 2, 2009. What lessons can we about our spiritual lives from the sinking of the Titanic? Read further to find out
Sermon based on Luke 8:26-39
From our gospel lesson this morning we learn that Gerasenes was a seaport village located six miles northeast of Capernaum, the adopted home city in which Jesus began his ministry. Once the boats reached shore, a man filled with many demons immediately met Jesus and his disciples. He had come from the local cemetery. On several occasions some of the men of the city had gone out to the cemetary and wrestled him to the ground and put chains around him, but because of his strength he would simply break the chains and continue to threaten the lives of all in that district. There is a lot of confusion about the term “demonic possession.” Perhaps the following definition will help clear up some confusion.
In his book, According to Luke, David Gooding writes,
There are spirit powers that seek man’s destruction…The demoniac is an extreme example of what satanic forces can do with a human personality that has come under their complete domination. Unlike the Holy Spirit, who always sets a man free, develops his personality and increases his self-control and dignity, satanic forces seem to strive to overpower a man’s personality, and ultimately to break down his self control and to rob him of self respect…
This man who approached Jesus and his disciples from the cemetery was a perfect description of a demoniac. When asked for his name by Jesus, he responded that his name was “Legion.” A Roman Legion was a regiment of 6,000 soldiers. We are not sure that there were 6,000 demons in the man, but this name is used as a figure of speech to demonstrate that many demons of destruction, corruption and power had possessed him.
If we are honest with one another, we too as Christians can become possessed with a “legion” of all consuming desires. What consumes us? Recent studies done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the government in the area of how Americans spend their time revealed one thing that consumes us, our work. Here are some recent statistics from the Bureau of Labor:
- Employed persons worked an average of 7.9 hours on the days that they worked. They worked longer on weekdays than on weekends
- Self employed workers were more likely than wage and salary workers to have done some work at home. Yet 20% of employed persons did some or all of their work at home on days that they worked.
- On an average day (which includes all 7 days of the week) 83% of women and 66% of men spent some time doing household activities which included financial and other household management.
As these statistics reveal, we Americans work a lot. With our focus and identity often associated with our work, we can fall prey to the lure and temptations of acquiring more wealth. As we talk about wealth, I am reminded of the first words of Christopher Columbus when arriving in the New World. When Columbus first stepped out onto the beaches of what is today known as the Bahaman Islands, he greeted the native people there with words that would forever shape the force and direction of European expansion into all the Americas for the next 400 years. Extending his clenched hand to the curious crowd gathered about, he asked in Portuguese and translated in English as, “You got any of this?” Columbus then opened his fingers to reveal a small variety of gold coins and trinkets. With all the beauty and the wonder of a New World standing right in front of him, Columbus was completely possessed at that moment by a single thought as I borrow a line from the film Jerry McGuire, “Show me the money!”
Speaking of films, earlier this summer I read about the passing of Millvina Dean, who as a baby was wrapped in a sack and lowered into a lifeboat in the frigid North Atlantic. She was last survivor of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic. She was 97 years old, and she died where she had lived — in Southampton, England, the city her family had tried to leave behind when it took the ship’s ill-fated maiden voyage, bound for America. The story of the Titanic is a parable of our modern day experience of being consumed by wealth.
Several years ago in our state capital of Raleigh at the NC Museum there were displays of a variety of artifacts recovered from the Titanic. Upon entering the exhibit you were given a boarding pass and on the back of this pass contained information of a certain passenger and at the end of your tour you discovered whether you survived. When Lee and I attended this exhibit I remember being given the name of Joseph Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line and the driving force behind building the Titanic. While I was happy to learn he survived I later did some research and was shocked to learn about his actions that night. Ismay was one of the first to board a lifeboat, before many women and children I discovered. He believed that his wealth gave him a sense of entitlement to board a rescue boat before others who were poor.
The maiden voyage of the Royal Steamer Titanic was another ocean journey that was met with as much success as Columbus’ quest for gold in the New World. If you remember the Hollywood blockbuster movie from several years ago starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio, it was the most expensive remake of the Titanic disaster. Newsweek Magazine to introduce this movie wrote,
“To talk about Titanic is to talk about money… With fine irony, the director has spent more dollars than any other filmmaker to make a film that denounces the rich; he has employed the most state-of-the-art technology to issue a warning about the dangers of technology.”
The Titanic was sailing on the sea when it struck an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on Saturday, April 14, 1912 and sank early Sunday morning. At the time of her sinking, the Titanic was 882.5 feet long and 93 feet wide. The ship weighed over 103 million pounds. She was the largest moving object in the world. Titanic was a floating city. One could easily become lost on board; she had a swimming pool, gymnasium, squash court, darkroom and a special compartment for storing automobiles. Of course what the Titanic is most remembered for is the fact that more than 1500 people died in the sinking. Only 705 were rescued. As was made clear in the movie, the primary reason for the high number of causalities was the fact there were only enough lifeboats to carry about half the 2,200 people aboard. On the Titanic many famous industrialists of that era died like John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim. However, far more of the sinking victims were found among the lists of second and third class cabin passengers. While the Titanic was happy to carry second and third class cabin passengers and take their money, she was clearly built for the “have” and not the “have-nots” of society.
After the Titanic disaster, there was a tremendous backlash against the inequality of accommodations, the ranking of some people over others. It was for a time, the beginning of the end for privileged luxuriant travel. In the aftermath of the Titanic, travel accommodations became more generalized. Instead of dividing people into first, second and third class, and people were lumped into one category of travelers, tourist class. The Titanic became a popular preaching topic as clergy in the 1920’s and 1930’s interpreted the meaning of the Titanic as a condemnation of the demon of materialism. “It was a huge ocean joy ride,” said the Rev. James O’May of Chicago’s Park Avenue Methodist Church in the early 1920’s. “The Titanic symbolized the ruling ideology of American culture: “Make what you can, can what you make, and sit on the lid.”
The ship’s loss was also viewed as a prime topic for a sermon on the demon of pride. Pride in our technological abilities, coupled with pride in our catering to the wealthy, was seen as the real iceberg that sunk the Titanic. After 97 years, I imagine sermons preached on the Titanic have lost their sting a bit. We are beginning to see a return to old class systems that divided Titanic passengers.
Often as a church, as a community of faith we can be guilty of displaying this sentiment. In the books and video studies The Jesus I Never Knew, and What’s So Amazing About Grace, Phillip Yancey points out that the very people drawn to the ministry of Jesus in the beginning are they very ones the church can shut out today. Those with disabilities, prostitutes, criminals, homeless and the poor are the very people we can often shut out as a church. We want people in our pews that “are like us” and often we shut the door on the very people who need faith the most.
As I think of the voyage of the Titanic what I think about most were those who were not rescued. Over the years I have read stories about those who survived that night in April on the Titanic. One survivor, the late Eva Hart remembered the night of April 15, 1912 very well. “I saw all the horror of its sinking, and I heard, even more dreadful, the cries of drowning people.” Although twenty lifeboats and rafts were launched, many were only partially filled. Lifeboat #14 did row back to the scene of which Eva Hart was on. Alone, it chased cries in the darkness, seeking and saving a precious few. Incredibly no other boat joined in. Some were already overloaded, but in virtually every other boat, those already rescued decided to row their half-filled boats aimlessly in the night, listening to the cries of the lost. Each feared a crush of unknown swimmers would cling to their craft, eventually overturning their own and causing their own deaths.
While people among us are drowning in despair we too are tempted to stay dry and make certain no one rocks the boat of our lives. What consumes us? Have we become possessed by our possessions? Are we too concerned about the neighborhoods we live in, the kind of car we drive, or what new clothes or electronic gadgets that we need? Perhaps we don’t like to admit this but have our desires led us like the swine into a lake of destruction? We must remember the words of Jesus when he says the following:
“Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.”
While our needs in life can be met, sometimes our wants are a never ending vat of quicksand drawing our focus away from God. The late Pope John Paul II once said:
Materialistic concerns and one-sided values are never sufficient to fill the heart and mind of a human person. A life reduced to the sole dimension of possessions, of consumer goods, of temporal concerns will never let you discover and enjoy the full richness of your humanity. It is only in God—in Jesus, God made man—that you will fully understand what you are.
What God gives us is not merely for our consumption, but is also a tool to use to meet the needs of others. As we think of what consumes our lives, I am reminded of the words from the apostle Paul about how each of us must build upon the foundation of our lives. Paul writes for us in 1st Corinthians the 3rd chapter:
9For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.
10According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. 12Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—13the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. 14If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward.
Our foundation in life is not about how much money we earn or what kind of job we have, but this foundation begins with Jesus Christ. To escape being possessed by our possessions, to safely navigate our way through those temptations that wealth can bring us, we must keep our own simple, back to the basics lifeboat always close at hand. Our lifeboat as Christians is constructed out of the rough, splintered, and blood stained wood of the cross. Only by keeping afloat in our faith in Jesus Christ can we escape being possessed by our possessions. Is your life sailing for disaster? Or do you have hold of that old rugged cross that will bring us to safety no matter what perils we face?
Finis
The Rev. Dr. David A. Marcus, Jr.