tuning out the sirens

Within the annals of Greek mythology, there is an intriguing legend that is pertinent to the interplay between culture and the Church today. As the story goes, fabled creatures known as sirens called to sailors passing by their island. Such was the beauty of their song and the allure of their promises that men would jump overboard or reroute their ships in attempts to reach the source of the sound. Held captive, the unwitting victims then wrecked on treacherous rocks and drowned in the tides.

That storyline sounds all-too familiar.

Sirens, whose name literally translates as “binder” or “entwiner,” are, contrary to popular belief, all-too real. Of course, there are no half-bird, half-woman beings like those of lore. But the bewitching song depicted in myth has haunted us since Eden. Paul warned his young protégé, Timothy, to steer clear of it: “Cling tightly to your faith in Christ, and always keep your conscience clear. For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked” (1 Timothy 1:19, emphasis mine).

This world sings to us as sirens. Its tune enchants, seeking to lull us into a stupor of complacency. Lyrical promises of liberty, gratification, and immortality sound golden in our ears, all the while masking a dirge. Do the sirens themselves – the agents of culture and temporality – know the perils of the shallows to which they call? Perhaps not. But we can be certain that the driving force behind them, the composer of their funeral march, knows full well. His murder is of the premeditated sort.

How, then, do we escape and rescue others from this ruinous fate? Living in this world, staying out of earshot is an impossibility. Rather, the solution lies in hearing a different song. Legend has it that Jason and his Argonaut crew passed by the island of sirens and lived to tell the tale. How did they do it? On board was the poet-musician Orpheus, whose song, synchronized as it was with that of the sirens, was so enthralling that it overpowered the mortal lure. Because these men were captivated by another, they did not succumb to the murderous strains.

This strategy, though fictional, bears our use. Like Orpheus, we have a song of surpassing beauty, a refrain of divine origins: The sonnet of God’s love for us. That melody alone can call endangered souls back from the reef of their destruction. It is not enough for us to criticize the present order of things, pointing our fingers while enumerating dangers; the sirens are too compelling and our fallen nature is too complicit. We must instead offer an alternative of such allure that it drowns out the beckoning voices and rouses the eternity God has planted within our hearts. Perhaps the Psalmist best expressed this rapt sentiment: “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple” (Psalm 27:4).

This, Church, is our call: To silence the sirens with the song of the Kingdom. We must expose the lies for what they are and offer an exchange: community for the streets, freedom for addictions, love for hate, vision for consumerism, purpose for emptiness, beauty for ashes. For when our eyes open wide to the glory of Jesus, the gilding of this world will lose its luster and we will trade all that we may have him.