Siren Songs and Samaritan Struggles

3-19-17 (Lent 3A)

Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42

Siren Songs and Samaritan Struggles

In Homer’s epic greek poem The Odyssey, the hero Odysseus and his men are trying to return home.  A part of their journey takes them past the land of some dangerous creatures called sirens.  The sirens were dangerous because they sang a song that was so alluring, so compelling, that it caused any sailors who passed by them and heard it to go dashing to their deaths on the rocks as they irresistibly tried to follow the sound of the singing.  Odysseus wanted to know what their song sounded like, but at the same time, he didn’t want to risk death, either for himself or for his crew.  So he came up with a pretty clever, though still dangerous, solution: he ordered his crew to tie him to the mast of their ship so that he could hear the sirens singing but not do anything about it, and then the crew were given explicit orders to plug their ears with beeswax and then to focus on their oars with all their might, thinking of nothing else but getting home.  And no matter how much Odysseus might have begged, pleaded, or tried to demand his release in those moments, they were not to listen to him, but to keep on rowing because their lives depended on it.  So while Odysseus was enthralled and tortured by the singing of the sirens, everyone else put their heads down and focused on each stroke, stroke, stroke to get them past the place of the sirens and their beautiful, deadly song.

When you think about it, that sounds an awful lot like the season of Lent, doesn’t it?  You pick something to give up, like chocolate - and then whatever it is you’ve given up becomes a siren of its own to you.  Everywhere you turn now, there’s a candy bar just sitting and practically begging you to pick it up.  The stores have put up all their displays of Easter candy and those chocolate bunnies just need to have their heads nibbled on.  You hear that siren song and all you want is to follow it to the inevitable end, where you’re sitting surrounded by the thick scent of shame, guilt, and the foil remains of the dozen Cadbury creme eggs you just devoured.  And yet the Lent season tells us that we’re supposed to close our eyes to those temptations, put our heads down as we go past the Easter candy displays, say an extra prayer, and just keep on pushing forward, resisting temptation.

It’s this same head-down, keep pushing forward determination that I imagine the Samaritan woman had gotten so good at exhibiting on her journey to the well where she met Jesus that fateful day.  She would have been all too aware of the hushed whispers, the sideways glances and dismissive attitudes of the people in her village - but she kept her jaw set, hands to the oars, went to get her water and take care of her daily tasks, and kept pushing on.  If the history of biblical scholarship is any indication at all, it had to have been a difficult walk for the Samaritan woman - she’s been painted in ten kinds of shame, described in some pretty unforgiving terms, and accused of far more than the text gives anyone the right to accuse her.  Jesus speaks to her situation as he reveals his knowledge of her multiple marriages and of the man she’s not married to at the time but with whom she currently lives, but the Gospels never give us any more of her backstory.  What we do know is that women in her culture were only supposed to come to the well in the morning or in the evening - and yet, knowing what the rules were, whatever her reasons are she comes in the middle of the afternoon.

She’s a woman with a great deal of character - it’s written all throughout her conversation with Jesus - and it’s clear that she’s no stranger to breaking the conventions of her time.  Some have even gone so far to call her a feminist before feminism was even a thing.  But as strong a figure as she is, she’s doing what she can to survive in a world that is less than friendly to her.  She’s focused on sticking to those oars and getting to where she needs to be.

But, as is all too often the case in the Gospels - Jesus has other plans.  He, too, breaks with convention as the woman approaches the well where he is taking his rest and feeling his own thirst.  He speaks to her and asks her to get him a drink.  He evangelizes to her without a second thought as to who she is or what her race is.  And he offers her something more than just trying to make it through another day.  He demonstrates that he knows her, that he understands her, and that he is genuinely interested in her as a person.  He offers her the gift of “living water” and reveals to her that he is the Messiah.  And in just that one conversation her world, her outlook, and her life are completely transformed - she goes from being the woman who comes to the well alone in the middle of the day to the woman who testifies to as many in her village as will listen to her, the woman who brings people to meet this man who knows who she is and everything she has done.

Homer’s Odyssey is probably the most famous of the appearances of the sirens, but there’s another epic Greek poem in which they make another important appearance.  Apollonius’ poem details the adventures of Jason and the Argonauts as they engage in a perilous quest to fetch the Golden Fleece for king Pelias.  On their journey, they encounter the Sirens - but in Apollonius’ poem, rather than stuffing beeswax in their ears, the way they are able to pass by the sirens without succumbing to their enchanting song is to bring along with them a musician named Orpheus.  As soon as Orpheus begins to hear the singing of the sirens, he pulls out his harp and begins to play music that is more beautiful than that of the sirens.  And in the presence of that music, the crew are able to safely pass through the sirens’ territory. 

What Jesus does for the Samaritan woman isn’t necessarily miraculous - his knowledge of the Samaritan woman’s history touches on the divine, but he doesn’t enact any particular exorcism or wondrously heal her of some malady or disability.  But what he does do is to help her hear a song that is far better than what she’s been hearing up until this point.  Jesus listens to her, engages with her in a deeply theological conversation, and doesn’t let the boundaries of their two separate cultures and genders keep him from being able to connect with her.  He sees her and addresses her as a person first, and not as the sum of her labels.  And in seeing her for who she is, he is able to help her discover who God is calling her to be.  He helps her hear the song of her Creator, the song that calls her to something more.

And this is what Jesus offers to each of us, as well.  We tend to view our call to faith, our call of living out the Christian life, as a kind of odyssey of our own - more often than not, we tend to think that it’s up to us, that we just need to keep our nose to the grindstone, keep pushing harder and harder at the oars and using the power of our wills (and perhaps just a little bit of beeswax in our ears) to reach our destination.  We go through the season of Lent making ourselves intentionally miserable by giving up chocolate or whatever else we decide to give up, and we try to convince ourselves that it’s because we’re emulating Jesus’ own misery in the wilderness as he fasted.  But if we see Lent as just making ourselves miserable, just reminding ourselves to keep pushing at the oars that much harder, it’s no wonder that we’re bound to fail.  We set ourselves up for a task that is impossible to accomplish on our own - sure, Paul writes that suffering produces endurance and that endurance produces character, but if we are left to ourselves, that character can never ultimately produce hope in the same way that it can when we entrust ourselves to Christ.  Instead, this season, this practice of fasting and of giving up… these are things to help us take away the distractions of our lives and learn to listen more closely to the song that Jesus plays, the song that fills us and causes us to not even listen to the siren songs of a broken world.  We have to be willing to let go of our need to do it ourselves, to remember Paul’s writing that it was “while we were still weak” that Christ died for us - we have to remember that as Jesus encounters the woman at the well, he doesn’t tell her all the things she needs to change about herself before he will interact with her, but that he already knows who she is and loves her because or even in spite of those things that others in her culture looked down on her for.  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  This is the song of hope God is calling us to hear, the symphony Christ invites us to add our voices to.  This is the song that is so powerful that it drowns out any other competing voices.  May we, like the Samaritan woman, have ears to hear it.  To God be the Glory.  Amen.