‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever’ - The Shorter Catechism
The Good News of Jesus Christ wins the heart and has no need to bind your hands and feet.
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has returned an ancient story to the modern imagination, reminding us that life’s greatest dangers do not always roar like monsters or rise like storms.
Sometimes, they sing seductive songs, promising satisfaction, giving us destruction. [1]
In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus knows his ship must pass the island of the Sirens, whose enchanting voices draw sailors toward a shore from which they never return. The Sirens, beautiful, naked women, sing seductive songs, enticing sailors to the island, where they transform into cannibalistic monsters that kill and eat the men.
To avoid this Sirenic danger, Odysseus commands his men to press wax into their ears. However, because he wishes to hear the songs himself, he then orders his men to bind him upright against the mast, tightening the ropes even more were he to frantically motion, begging for his release. [2]
‘Bind me and ignore my desires,’ says Odysseus, ‘and I will survive.’
The plan succeeds. You can see this scene in Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey.
Odysseus hears the Sirens’ music, longs to follow it, struggles against his bindings, and survives because his body is restrained by ropes and his conduct is controlled by others with wax in their ears. Odysseus remains captivated by the Sirens, ends up being scarred physically, but he survives.
Odysseus bears the lifelong scars of his inner struggle. Were his ‘accountability’ ever to be removed from Odysseus’s life, he would never be able to successfully pass the island of the Sirens.
The Sirens possessed Odysseus’ heart, but ropes and wax entirely bound him.
The battle between Odysseus and the Sirens was brutal. The exhausted sailors felt successful.
But the scars on Odysseus became a permanent reminder of the ropes.
Odysseus’s battle with the Sirens vividly illustrates modern evangelical legalism.
Ropes (law), masts (control), wax (pretension), screams (desire), battles (accountability), and success (remaining on the ship, that is, in church) are the marks of institutional religion.
Jason and the Argonauts
There is, however, another ancient Greek voyage in literature that few know about.
