Ships of Pain 7-13-08
In the 2006 movie Amazing Grace, the lead character William Wilberforce is given a tour of a slave trading vessel by a former slave-turned-writer named Olaudah Equiano. Down in the belly of the ship, Equiano shows Wilberforce the 16-inch wide berths wherein shackled slaves were forced to remain for the entirety of the three to six week voyage. Equiano describes how hips and shoulders are commonly pulled out of joint, resulting in constant pain (this being the kindest of treatments endured on the voyage…others were worse). In another scene, Equiano shows the branding mark made on him to “show that you no longer belong to God, but to a man.”
This movie illustrates the faith, courage, and persistence that was needed to legally abolish slavery. The movie, refreshingly, does not shrink away from acknowledging that the faith of these men and women was the Christian faith. That is important for all of us to remember, because just as the story of the Israelites acts as a mirror to the condition of mankind, so the slavery of Africans in the 18th and 19th centuries acts as a mirror to the slavery that all mankind has been sold into.
Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? … I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:16, 19-23)
All mankind has sold itself into a bondage more cruel and savage than the worst journey suffered by those African slaves – I say this not to mitigate their suffering, but to cast into the proper light what it is to be a slave to sin. Those Africans were dehumanized and brutalized – one infamous ship’s captain threw his cargo (133 people) overboard to collect the insurance for “lost cargo”! So, how can our lives possibly compare with the kidnapping, rapes, tortures, and murders of the slave trade? In order to see, you have to look beyond the flesh.
We are not a mass of cells, but rather are spiritual beings. As such, much of our existence (and our worth) is spiritual in nature, and is seen most vividly in our relationships. But look at what sin does to us! An artist in Australia is defending his magazine cover nude pictures of his six-year-old daughter as an artistic way to demonstrate the sensuality of children. It is fairly common for fathers in India, China, and elsewhere to sell their daughters (as young as 5 years old) into prostitution in order to pay off gambling debts and bar tabs! Look at how many people use the high price of gasoline as an excuse to steal and cheat (such as driving away without paying); how many federal employees have “leaked” classified information because of their own political agendas (that crime is called espionage, treason, and/or theft); and how many mothers will kill their own unborn babies this year – 1.5 million? More?
Our life here is filled with pain, despair, and death – spiritual ships of pain. But Jesus died to give us another way! The path of the Christian is that of leaving behind the life of sin and following Christ’s pattern in our new life. It was this transformation that led John Newton to write “Amazing Grace”. If Jesus could do that with a slave ship captain, what do you think he can do with your life?
-Charles Peterson