Thank you, Sam, for your invitation to be here today. I bring warm greetings from your cathedral to all of you and, of course, wish you a very happy feast day. Luke is SUCH a great patron to have. May you all be blessed as you celebrate.
But, I want to start today with Paul, who is in anything but festive mode.
It's kind of comforting, I think, to realise that even he had his “Eeyore” days, wasn’t always a shiny Christian, full of joy..
To be honest he sounds pretty miserable...even self-pitying
“I'm already being poured out as a libation...Everyone has gone away and left me. I'm cold (I left my cloak in Troas…) and worse still I’ve run out of things to read. For heavens sake bring me books (I suddenly feel a great rush of empathy here!)
I've been picked on by Alexander the coppersmith....(I’d love to hear the story behind that)
Only Luke is with me”
You see what I mean, don’t you. This is Paul’s pity party...and some of his woes are real I’m sure, and even saints and apostles have their bad days...
And yet...
ONLY LUKE...
Is that fair?
Only Luke…!!!!
Only the man who wrote what amounts to 28% of the New Testament
The one who gives us the birth narratives (without Luke, our carol services would be very short indeed)
The writer who spends time listening to the Virgin Mary, and who focusses, again and again, on those women whom other writers might choose to leave on the sidelines, if they mentioned them at all.
ONLY LUKE – one of the 4 evangelists whose words we continue to read week by week almost 2000 years after they were first penned...ONLY Luke – whose praise in in the gospels”
The problem is, of course, that we dont' know much about him.
I guess he'd say that this means he got things right.
Because he didn't intend to write about himself.
Not for one moment.
He has a very clear agenda when he begins his gospel...
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things thathave been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
He wants us to KNOW the truth...the eye witness evidence of the gospel...so that we, like Theophilus, may be set free
Luke might perhaps, to have preferred to remain anonymous, though I'm glad we do know his name because it's so apt for the man.
It probably comes from the Greek “Lucanus” the light giver...Isn't that wonderful, for someone whose time was devoted to showing the light of Christ to a world that needed it badly?
So...we have someone with a longing to share the truth of the gospel. A non Jew, writing in beautiful, stylish Greek, sometime around 75 AD, or thereabouts.
Someone who takes his research seriously.
And who travels.
Alot.
Caught up in Paul's missionary journeys – and with a clear mission of his own as well.
The stories that Luke shares give us a very particular understanding of Jesus...
Only in his gospel do we find The Good Samaritan, Martha and Mary, the Rich Fool, the Prodigal Son, Dives and Lazarus, the Pharisee and the Publican, the Good Thief, and the Disciples on the road to Emmaus.
Imagine a Bible that didn't include those.
Only in Luke do we get a sense of the kingdom's bias to the poor – from the moment that Mary prophecies the world turned upside down in the Magnificat, Luke’s world is one that is shaped byt the prophecies of Isaiah, as he sees in Christ the restoration and healing of all that is broken in the world.
Only in Luke – those wonderful words, stories that go to the heart of the gospel...Stories with the power to change hearts, minds, lives.
Later, as his narrative in Acts changes from 3rd to 1st person, he becomes part of the stories he is sharing. Perhaps he was travelling with Paul as his personal physician...
We know, after all, that Paul had a long-standing medical condition, and, I'd guess, an uncertain temper too. Think of the assorted disagreements and divisions that we hear about as he travels about the Mediterrannean....all those others who have decided to go their separate ways...But Luke, compassionate Luke, stays with him...caring, not critical
He's the kind of doctor, then, who cares about the whole person...Who sees not just the broken pelvis in bed 3 but the scared teenager who is trying so hard to play it cool.
I think I'd have liked to receive care from Luke....for he understands the needs of the soul as well as the body.
Bodies, after all, are quite good at mending themselves of many of the everyday wounds that life affords.
Souls find that harder...they need to be loved back to health..
They did when Luke was writing
They still do.
Too many people travel through life damaged by hurts and losses,believing the voices of the past that have left hidden wounds...
Believing themselves unloveable, untouchable, deserving neither help nor pity.
And Luke recognises that these people in particular need the assurance of God's love and searches for medicine for them. As our Collect reminded us,he sets aside his calling to heal bodies in favour of a calling to be “and evangelist and physician of the soul”
Think of the way he describes Jesus healing those possessed. While we no longer use the language of possession by demons, we've surely we all encountered, perhaps at first hand, the unwelcome legion of voices that tell us that we're not worth bothering with, a waste of space, a disappointment to any and everyone who has ever invested in us.
Voices that are so compelling that they all but eat up the sense of self...warping it beyond recognition.
THESE are some of the people whom Jesus encounters – the people whom Jesus heals.
Instead of the clamour of negativity he asks them to listen to another voice, to imagine another viewpoint...the viewpoint of the One who sees each of us as infinitely loveable...
And, warmed into new life by those words, the hearers are healed.
And Dr Luke gets to tell these stories as his two vocations combine to make him the kind of evangelist who not only TELLS good news – but IS good news himself.
Which bring us neatly to our gospel...and the mission that Jesus gives to the seventy as he sends them out...encouraging them to take nothing but the message of peace with God which is the hallmark of the Kingdom.
These missionaries go out in pairs – not alone.
They are to equip themselves not with an exhaustive kit-list but with faith in the God who, as Paul discovered for himself, stands by us and give us strength.
They are encouraged to settle in to the local community – to make friends and join in with ordinary life.
To speak peace, without labouring the point (if the response is poor, save your breath)
And – they are to heal the sick.
In other words – those 70 are to be signs of the Kingdom themselves.
And so are we.
“Give your whole Church the same love and power to heal” says the Collect...dwelling on the way the gospel can transform even the most broken heart and soul
Luke knew this – for he had seen its power at work again and again as he journeyed with Paul
He knew it – and wanted others to know it too.
He was not there when Jesus sent out the 70 – but his own journeys mirrored theirs.
And his words, reporting those of the One whom he followed, still have the power to heal lives.
“Only Luke” - “Only Jean” “Only Sam” only you...even while you sit here thinking that call is for somebody else. Only ordinary people who become extra-ordinary, because they have experienced for themselves the impact of the Good News and are fired up to share it with others.
Only people like you...doctors and teachers, drivers and office staff mums, grandpas...The Body of Christ in Woodside today.
People on a mission to BE good news here and now – to love and to heal in the name of Christ.
Never believe that you're “only” small, inadequate, bound to fail. God's grace is sufficient, now as then, so follow your patron and live so that others can see Gods power at work in you, as you live as a sign of God's kingdom.
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