{"id":4342,"date":"2025-01-14T09:04:02","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T14:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4342"},"modified":"2025-01-14T09:04:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T14:04:02","slug":"high-noon-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/14\/high-noon-2\/","title":{"rendered":"High Noon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

Schools are constantly changing.

Every few years kids are drawn to new fashions, new pop stars, and new definitions of what is cool. Old Math gives way to New Math which ultimately reverts to Old Math. Educators adjust what rightfully belongs to the core curriculum, and school board members adjust to the latest budget shortfalls.

But one reality never changes.

In the cruel subculture of most schools, there are always kids who are relegated to the social periphery.

You can see it at recess. Or in the locker room. Or at high noon during lunch. For many kids, those are the loneliest hours of the day \u2013 the moments when you find out if you have friends. And everybody else finds out if you have friends, too.\u00a0

But every now and then something miraculous happens.

Someone from an established circle of friends approaches someone who has been left out and says, \u201cMay I sit down?\u201d

Somewhere in the background, the friends of that brave person are whispering:\u00a0Don\u2019t do it.\u00a0She\u2019s not worth it.\u00a0She\u2019s beneath you.<\/em> Yet it happens anyway.\u00a0And a moment like that may save the entire semester for a lonely kid.

But make no mistake:\u00a0It costs something for the person who has friends to lose.

During most of its history, the Middle East has been an honor-based culture.\u00a0Honor is everything.\u00a0It\u2019s better to die than to lose your honor, or to cost your family its public standing.

Honor was a limited commodity in the time of Jesus.\u00a0There was only so much to go around. If one person gained honor, somebody else had to lose theirs in order to balance the accounts.

In the Gospels, Jesus seems oblivious to such unwritten rules.\u00a0At the beginning of an extended conversation in John 4:1-26, he sits down<\/em> in the presence of a Samaritan woman who has come to fill her empty bucket at the local well.\u00a0He even initiates a conversation with her.\u00a0What is he thinking?

The religious establishment considered Samaritans racial half-breeds and theological heretics.\u00a0The dirt of Samaria was deemed unworthy for the soles of righteous feet.

Furthermore, this woman has been married five times \u2013 and five times her name has appeared in the newspaper under Filed for Divorce.\u00a0<\/em>Now she\u2019s got a live-in lover.\u00a0Her neighbors apparently treat her like trailer trash.\u00a0No rabbi comforts her.\u00a0According to the theology of the day, she is unworthy of God\u2019s kindness.

According to John, Jesus meets her at \u201cthe sixth hour.\u201d That\u2019s high noon.\u00a0She\u2019s come to draw water at the hottest time of the day, which is almost certainly the hour when she\u2019s least likely to experience the judgmental stares of her neighbors.

Her public\u00a0honor savings account is bankrupt.\u00a0She has nothing <\/em>to give Jesus.\u00a0But he has a lot to lose.\u00a0Every time Jesus goes into the house of a tax collector, or touches a leper, or pays attention to a prostitute as if she is a real person and not just a dirty object, honor flows from his account to their accounts.\u00a0The most amazing thing about the Gospels is that God drops his stock in order to raise ours.

Notice how the scriptwriters of the Jesus bio series The Chosen<\/em> depict this scene: Jesus and the Woman at the Well (John 4)<\/a>

They have chosen to fill in the blanks with dialogue that doesn\u2019t appear in John\u2019s account, but which helps us comprehend the woman\u2019s transformation. She says, from the depths of her unworthiness, \u201cYou picked the wrong person.\u201d Jesus replies, \u201cI came to Samaria just to meet you<\/em>. Do you think it\u2019s an accident that I\u2019m here in the middle of the day?\u201d

I once heard a teacher provide this summary of the Samaritan woman\u2019s experience:\u00a0

She had come with a bucket.\u00a0He sent her back with a spring of living water.\u00a0She had come as a reject. He sent her back being accepted by God himself.\u00a0She came wounded.\u00a0He sent her back whole.\u00a0She came laden with questions.\u00a0He sent her back as a source for answers.\u00a0She came living a life of quiet desperation.\u00a0She ran back overflowing with hope.<\/em>

Every now and then something miraculous happens.\u00a0

A brave person whose bucket is full chooses to bless someone whose bucket is empty.\u00a0And the world becomes a little more whole.

You can be that person today.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Schools are constantly changing. Every few years kids are drawn to new fashions, new pop stars, and new definitions of what is cool. Old Math gives way to New Math which ultimately reverts to Old Math. Educators adjust what rightfully belongs to the core curriculum, and school board members adjust to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[157,429],"class_list":["post-4342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-compassion","tag-honor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4344,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4342\/revisions\/4344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}