Pope John Paul II often emphasized that faith is strengthened when shared. This seems simple enough, as well as ecumenical, but how often is faith relegated to one’s doctrinal adherence or experiences of God? Neither of these constitutes a faith strengthened in the same way as faith flowing out of one’s very life in both word and deed. That flow from the heart of the believer into the world around them is indeed the witness, as it is also the mission of the Church.

In his book, The Open Secret, Lesslie Newbigin speaks with a profound authority on this point of mission as the paramount identity of the Church: “The Church is not the purpose of the gospel, but the instrument and first-fruits of God’s purpose. The Church exists by mission, just as fire exists by burning.” He goes further to say that “it is sharing in the mission of the Son and the Spirit from the Father and being taken up into the movement of God’s love toward the world.”

God’s love toward the world is explicit in our gospel reading this Sunday, featuring another Sabbath healing at the hand of Jesus that is perceived as an unthinkable violation by the leaders of the synagogue, and yet received into the life of a woman humbled by a prolonged physical affliction — eighteen years, to be exact. (And don’t think that we won’t attend to the evangelist’s repetitive use of eighteen in this chapter!) The latent detail to ponder in the story is what and who the woman represents: the cosmic battle between the seed of woman and the serpent, God’s fidelity to his covenant (read: daughter of Abraham), the fulfillment of the messianic prophecy (Luke 4:16-19), and the further in-breaking of the kingdom of God. All of these in one: missio Dei, the mission of God.

We can also see ourselves in the bent-over woman of Luke’s gospel, particularly how we’ve been “freed” and “untied” from the power of sin and death to, as Newbigin aptly states, share in the mission of the Son and “taken up into the movement of God’s love toward the world.”

I look forward to being with you Sunday morning!