She was the local hunchback. Most people had probably forgotten her name, if they ever bothered to learn it. She was simply the hunchback, the cripple. Luke 13 (the gospel reading for this past Sunday) tells how she was healed by Jesus.

I think I have met this woman. She was the little old lady in the cereal aisle at the supermarket, edging along with her walker, as I tried impatiently to get past with my shopping cart. She was in the convenience store, stooped over her coin purse, slowly counting out pennies for the cashier, while I shifted from one foot to the other waiting to pay for my coffee.

Edwina Gately, in her book Soul Sisters, addresses this bent-over woman, who "never saw the sky, or myriad wondrous stars" shuffling along, the brush of other bodies "hurrying past you, preoccupied with the business of the healthy, leaving you behind, (always behind), trailing insignificance."

But she was not insignificant to Jesus. She was a "daughter of Abraham" who deserved to be set free from her bondage. While others saw an inconvenience, Jesus saw a person. While others looked the other way, Jesus stopped and spoke. While others brushed past, Jesus touched with tender hands.

What business, today, so preoccupies us that we brush past the lonely, the hungry, the ill or the disabled? What business, today, so preoccupies us that we fail to recognize each other person as a child of God?