Gentle reader,
There was once a great sea, wild and deep. And on the sea, were many ships, their brilliant sails dotting the waters like jewels in a crown.
The wise captain steers her ship according to the needs of her people. The wise captain knows those people well; she listens to them and joins them at table and course corrects when they show her she is wrong.
When her passengers grew weak from lack of iodine and iron, the captain of the great ship Sapphire sailed for the seaweed shoals, to let the people dine on fine, green things. And they hauled in the good kelp and were satisfied. But when the people needed protein, and had a surfeit of cocktail sauce, the captain set sail for the temperate waters known to be best for shrimping, and the catch was good, and the feast on deck was merry and went long into the night.
Image by Alfred Grupstra from Pixabay
On the brigantine called Lady of the Lake, the people shivered and grew cold, and the captain hastened to take them to the balmy azure waters of the sunshine coast, where they warmed their bones and were calmed by the beauty of sunlight on the waves. But when the people clamored to stay there forever and threatened to run the ship aground in the shallows, the captain changed course for the deepest of deeps, where her people could remember the beauties of the open sea and sing with the mighty whales at play.
Image by Victoria Watercolor from Pixabay
But the captain of the cruise ship Resplendent had apprenticed under the captain of the Sapphire, and regardless of her own people’s needs, she would only ever steer for seaweed or for shrimp. And the captain of the frigate Nemo was so taken by the merits of the deeps, she refused to bring her people to the sun when they grew cold. She decried that sun and all who would sail there.
“We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love" (Ephesians 4:14-16, NRSVUE).
The sea is lovely, dark, and deep, and it may well be that there are still many miles to go before we can rest, but the sea is by no means endless. It is bounded by the good kingdom in which it is nestled and by the good will of the good King. The good captain knows the sea is the King’s and takes courage to sail through many waters, under many conditions, discerning, always, the needs of her people.
Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay
The good captain takes care lest she shipwreck on the sharp rocks, endangering both herself and her people. She is fluent in the ways of icebergs and krakens and narrow passes.
Now doing theology is like captaining a ship.
The good captain knows the geography.
The good captain looks to the lighthouse to guide her people safely home.
Grace & peace,
BFJ
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No shortage of truth to be netted from that parable!