It's an off-chance, and you certainly won't be graded on this, but members of the PNC may recall that this was the text for the sermon you asked me to preach when you flew me out here for the pre-candidating interview. Good news: it's a different sermon. This is an important text, because of what it tells us about who God is, and who we are as the church.

Right off the bat, Jesus presents God in a different light than what the people of God had previously understood. Until Jesus showed up, God's holiness was understood in terms of separateness - especially separate from anything that might be impure, like demons that cause bent-ness. He defines the Bent-Over Woman's problem in terms of spiritual warfare - it is Satan who has bound her - but then Jesus confuses and shames the crowd by setting the Bent-Over Woman free on his own say-so. Jesus posts bail for her on the Sabbath, as if he were in charge of deciding what gets done on that day. That's bad enough, this claiming his own authority, but the person he heals is someone of no value. Besides being a woman, she is maimed, which means that truly religious people ought not get too close, for fear of contamination by her demon. To ignore her is the religious thing to do. Who does this Jesus guy think he is? God? Then, when he interprets why he heals her, Jesus includes the woman in the faith family by naming her as daughter of Abraham. Holy is one thing, but Jesus' act radically re-defines God by including mercy in God's holiness. And it's a mercy that includes mission, hospitality and inclusiveness.

When God is redefined, we are automatically redefined. No wonder Jesus' opponents are covered in confusion. If God now includes mercy - mission, hospitality, inclusiveness - then we must be about that, too. Oh, shoot.

In studying for today's sermon, I referred to a paper I'd written in seminary on healing, which in turn led me to a paper written by one my teachers. Claude-Marie Barbour is a French Huegonaut who was tortured by the old apartheid government in South Africa because, as a missionary to the blacks in South Africa, she had had the nerve to think of them as human beings. Claude-Marie's paper defined "mission in reverse" - mission that is with people, not mission that is about doing for them. This put a different twist on the old Presbyterian question. You know, the question that comes after we've asked what the story tells us about God. The next question we ask as Presbyterians is, "What does this ask of me?" Like those bracelets you see - WWJD? What would Jesus do?

Are we supposed to do what Jesus did in this story? Because, what Jesus' did with the Bent-Over Woman is outrageous. It's a lot like mission-in-reverse. Had he followed the old synagogue rules, Jesus would have asked the woman to come see him during office hours on Monday morning. She had been bent over for 18 years - what would one or two more days be to her? Instead, Jesus doesn't make an appointment. He doesn't even just heal the Bent-Over Woman. He enters into her situation. He touches her. The holy-as-separate laws avoid contamination, and when Jesus reaches out and puts his hands on the Bent-Over Woman, he's asking for trouble. He calls this woman over from the edge of the worshiping community and includes her in the very heart of God's people - she is now a daughter of Abraham. Unbound from Satan, she is bound over to the people of God.

If we really believe in the incarnation of God, if we really think the human Jesus was also the divine Jesus, then we have to believe we are called as Christians to be present in the world as Jesus was in the world. If we are to do what Jesus did, what we do has to be about more than holiness. What we do must also be about mercy, which means inclusiveness and hospitality.

At the Christian Education planning meeting this week, we talked about follow up to the Year of the Child classes we ran in adult Sunday School last year. As it turns out, our response to those classes is about mission-in-reverse. Since it is the beginning of the school year, the CE committee thought it might be helpful to talk about how the church can be good news to children in our community - not just our kids, but all of the children in our community. Yes, we are very anxious to be good news to families in our church and to the children in those families. That's one reason why Session authorized Playtime with the Pastor this summer - to be good news to families. But CE wanted practical ways to be good news to children in our community, so we are arranging with teachers in the Estacada schools to come talk to our adult Sunday School class. In other words, one way we can live today's story, is to volunteer in local schools, read to and with kids, be in conversation with children for whom English is a second language. You will hear more about this in Sunday School on September 16 and 23. The church as good news to local families and children - it's a way to bring the incarnation of God into the world.

As you know, though, mission can be done in ways other than with children. I am proud to say that as a congregation we are really good at driving each other to medical appointments. I am so proud of you for volunteering to do that for each other, bringing casseroles to home-bound folks, looking in on each other. But talk with Lloyd Olson about his work with HINT (Hispanic Interagency Networking Team). When my grandmother came to this country, she didn't know English. She only learned English because people talked to her. We now have English/Spanish dictionaries and phrase books. Back then, there were no Norwegian/English dictionaries. When you talk with Lloyd about HINT, find out how you can help someone like my grandmother transition into our culture - maybe something as easy as driving to medical appointments. Or it could be conversations with Estacada school ESL students and their families. That's mission-in-reverse. That's living out God's mercy.

I talked this week with someone who was trying to figure out the difference between Baptists and Presbyterians. As near as she could figure, the difference isn't theology, it's hospitality. She said when she was new in town she had met a Baptist who asked her - a total stranger - if she was a Christian. And when she found out my friend was a Christian, the Baptist invited her to church. "Can you imagine," my Presbyterian friend said, "inviting a total stranger to church?" Are Presbyterians too timid to risk being turned down? I have friends who have the same thing for lunch every Sunday: tuna sandwiches. They never have to decide what they're going to have. It must be Sunday because we're having tuna. So, keep two cans of tuna in your cupboard. Invite someone to church with you and have tuna sandwiches together afterwards. What's the worst that could happen? If they say yes, you're already having tuna and now you've got a new friend besides. If they say no, you were having tuna anyhow.

Mission-in-reverse is a two-way street. To admit that the sick person we visit may give us more than we bring to them--is mission-in-reverse. To know that the person who learns English from you also teaches you Spanish--is mission-in-reverse. To bring someone to a doctor's appointment and make a new friend--is mission-in-reverse. To read with a child and find yourself charmed by your audience--is mission-in-reverse. And then, who is the more blessed - the one doing the ministry or the one receiving the ministry? If God has any say in it, you will be the more blessed.