Dionysus on a Bike

Acts 27:13-38 – 5/8/2026

Today’s New Testament Lectionary reading tells of Paul’s perilous sea voyage around the Island of Crete on his way to Rome to stand in judgment before the Emperor. As the ship Paul is on passes around Crete, a violent storm drives the ship off course with such furry that the crew believes they are going to die. In their fear they do not eat for two weeks. Paul, refusing to give up hope, has faith that they will reach their destination because he believes he has been called by God to go all the way to Rome. In their uncertainty, Paul encourages the crew to eat. The crew needs their strength for the remaining voyage until they reach the safety of land. To eat in this situation is to have hope. Eating when the danger is sustained and great is the recognition that if life is to continue, we must continue to live, even in the face of the terrifying, overwhelming danger.

What strikes me the most about this story is not the fear of the ships’ passengers and crew. It is not Paul’s faith in the success of the voyage or even in his taking food and encouraging others to do the same when all hope appeared to be lost. What strikes me most about this story is the wisdom of eating first in order to sustain one’s strength for the remainder of the trial and then of throwing the remaining food into the sea. Paul recognized that their cargo and supplies weighted the ship down, making its peril greater. The lighter the ship, the easier it might survive being tossed in the waves. Paul also recognized that they would need their strength, that they need the sustenance that the supplies provide. Supplies then are both a hope of continued life and the peril of a burden to heavy to bear in crisis.

That is what I take from this story in Acts, we need our savings, our storeroom of necessities for life in order to make it through to the next waypoint on our journeys. Paul is right, we are not going to survive unless we eat. However once we have eaten, the extra, the store that we reserve for an uncertain future, for a rainy day, can weight us down and even put us in greater peril. Being tied to wealth we do not currently need, that we are simply holding just in case times of lack come along, can be dangerous, both bad for the self and bad for the others with whom we journey in community. While we meet our immediate need and then set aside a store for those “just in case” moments that might never come, others have their needs unmet. To let food and resources sit in our bank account and storage spaces when others in our community go without is perverse. Allowing it to happen is as damaging to the soul as being driven by a storm across the Aegean Sea.

The lesson I learn from Paul here is to eat what one needs for fuel for the journey and then lighten the load. Do not try to store up safety in hoarded resources. Eat as much as you need and no more and then throw the extra overboard, trusting that it is not in hoarded wealth or a safety net of our own making that will secure our future. These stores of resources kept for some future need that isn’t here yet when there are others in immediate need is a danger to one’s soul. Lighten your load. Give thanks for what you have and use it. From what is left, give generously so that others may find in it the sustenance that you have received. Then the journey can continue without the burden of unnecessary heavy cargo. Then the journey can continue with each and every stomach full and without the extra burden to carry.

Further Reading: The Rich Young Man (Matthew 19:16-26) is another example of this lesson. In this case, Jesus explicitly tells a rich person to give away all they have in order to follow him. Paul throwing the extra wheat overboard in a storm is an example of following Jesus’s teachings about wealth even when Jesus isn’t there in person to tell us to do so.

Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary.