Remembering our Lifesaving Mission: A Modern-day Parable by Fr Yanni

On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves, they went out every day or night, tirelessly searching for the lost. This wonderful little station saved many lives, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding areas, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought, and new crews were trained. The little lifesaving station grew.

Some of the new members of the station were unhappy that the building was so crude and so poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in an enlarged building.

Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they redecorated it beautifully and furnished it as a sort of club. Fewer of the members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The mission of lifesaving was still given lip service, but most was too busy or lacked the necessary commitment to take part in the lifesaving activities personally.

About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them had black skin, and some spoke a strange language, and the beautiful new club was considerably messed up. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwrecks could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal life pattern of the club. But some members insisted that lifesaving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. They were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save lives of all various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast.

They did. As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. They evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded. If you visit the seacoast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, only now most of the people drown- this was a 1959 parable by Rev. Theodore Wedel.

With Pascha now here, it is time our own community remembers to keep the main thing as the main thing, and not allow for the peripheral, and the unimportant to occupy the center of our attention and efforts as we struggle to come together and to be Church, and to be active members of Christ’s lifesaving body.

Christ Is Risen!

+Rev Ioannis Michaelidis