It's the Little Things . . . (Part One)

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR Luke 12:1–3 ESV In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.” CONSIDER “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." They called it the Unsinkable Ship. The once famous (now infamous) Titanic—the largest ship in the world at its launch—left port on April 10, 1912. A short five luxurious days later it lay at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean—leaving more than 1,500 souls lost at sea. By all appearances, the ship was among the most impressive structures ever built on sea or land. Everything was state of the art, first of its kind, best in class. For its maiden and final voyage it boasted a passenger list made up of the wealthiest, most famous, and important people in the world.  “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." For the next eighty-six years the official story was the ship hit an iceberg which tore a massive gash in the ship's starboard side causing it to take on water at a rapid rate. Less than three hours later the ship disappeared under the surface of the frigid Atlantic.  "Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known." In 1998, Tim Foecke, a metallurgist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, uncovered the reason the Titanic sank. As they examined the high resolution video and images of the sunken ship, they could not find the large breach allegedly caused by the iceberg. Instead they found only six small, thin tears in the metal (with a combined damage to one square meter of the side) which could not possibly explain the catastrophic failure of the ship. As Tim continued the search, he uncovered the secret flaw of the doomed ship. It turns out the fatal flaw of the mighty Titanic were its tiniest pieces—the rivets.  "Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known." As they recovered and studied a sample of the three million rivets that literally held the ship together, they made a devastating discovery. The wrought iron in the rivets contained three times the allowable amount of slag. (Slag is the glassy residue left behind after the smelting of the iron ore.) When combined with the icy water of the North Atlantic, the slag made the rivets brittle. And when the ship abruptly crashed into the iceberg, the heads of the brittle rivets around and adjacent to the impact zone broke off allowing water to rush in through the once-riveted-now-separated hull plates of the ship. From there it was like a domino tipping chain reaction leading to the sinking of the unsinkable ship.  "Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.” It turns out they were behind schedule on construction and rather than tell the truth and delay the departure, they sped up production, turning up the furnaces of the smelters, overheating the iron, concentrating the increased measures of slag in the heads of the rivets . . . and now you know the rest of the story.  As much as I want to make all the riveting connections between this story, today's text, and most imporantly—our lives— I'm going to do you a favor and leave this essential work with you. I'll just say, "It's the little things," and leave you with this:  “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." PRAY Lord Jesus, thank you that in the face of the largest crowds you choose to focus on the smallest things, like yeast. Thank you for calling us to surface the hidden things in our lives that threaten to undo us. Come, Holy Spirit, and search the ship of our lives, exposing the hidden hypocrisy and the unseen fatal flaws and re-rivet our lives together by the power of the unsinkable Word of God. It will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for our good—and in your name, Jesus, amen.