My wife and I watched Christopher Nolan’s new film The Odyssey last week.
The film is based on Homer’s epic poem of the same name, which was written near 3,000 years ago. As with many cinematic adaptations of books, I was left with the feeling that I prefer the book. The film is almost like a “highlights” that rattle through the main turning points of the story but concentrate on the more dramatic bits. I guess this should not be surprising; it is a film after all.
What is missing? The book has a subtlety that that it is difficult to recapture in a film. For example, as the film draws to a close, the subtle tenderness of homecoming is somewhat muted by a fight scene in which Odysseus deals with the suitors who have tried to persuade his wife Penelope to marry one of them.
It made me think about how preachers try to help their hearers experience the stories of Scripture.
Last week my wife and I were in Keswick during week three of the Keswick Convention. In the seven evening celebrations seven preachers explored the theme of freedom from Exodus chapters 1–15. It was good to hear these great chapters proclaimed but some evenings I had the nagging question: “Am I being helped to experience this chapter of Scripture?” All the preachers saw the trajectory of the stories in Exodus as leading us to Christ and his liberating work for us through his cross and resurrection.
The basic assumption was that the whole Bible is about Jesus. I affirm this assumption as it is articulated by Jesus himself in his post-resurrection appearances in Luke 24. Yet, if we jump too quickly to Jesus we can fail to see how these stories are about people like us who struggle with the challenge to follow Jesus faithfully.
There is also the potential danger of failing to see the persons of Father and Holy Spirit in the Biblical text. For example, in the relating of the story of the bush that burns but is not consumed we hear the Father’s voice, we see a godlike figure in the midst of the burning bush, and we witness a lasting flame. It seems like a beautiful picture of the perpetual motion of the Holy Trinity.
The film also made me think about the enduring power of stories. It is good at emphasising the story as quest and homecoming. The story is a reminder that, like Odysseus, we are all looking for something and we are all trying to get home.
It is important for preachers to tell the story of Scripture because we are shaped by these stories. As Tim Keller put it:
“You are the stories you believe.”
Christian preachers have a better story to tell than The Odyssey. Reading Homer’s epic poem against the backdrop of Paul’s sermon in Athens (Acts 17), we are to be grateful that our God is not like the distant capricious gods depicted there.
Photo by Javier Rincon on Unsplash