St. Luke Day Service, Luke 4:14-21 October 18, 2022 St. Mark’s
We celebrate St. Luke’s day as we remember Luke as a physician. But once Luke, like us, is baptized into the body of Christ, he assumes a new identity. Of course, he continues to practice medicine, but chances are when he fills out a form with the line, occupation, that he puts down physician but adds disciple. That is why we know Luke at all, not because he is a good physician, but because he is a disciple and gospel writer. Without Luke, we would not hear Mary sing the Magnificat or know about John the Baptist’s birth, the manger, or the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night. We would know nothing about the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son. Luke includes six miracles and eighteen parables not recorded in the other gospels. Luke’s book of Acts is also our principal source for the history of the early church, Peter’s and Paul’s ministries, and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Of the four evangelists, Frederick Buechner believes that Luke writes the best Greek and, unlike the other three, is almost certainly a Greek-speaking Gentile himself. Luke puts his Gospel together for a Gentile audience (that’s us!), translating Jewish names and explaining Jewish customs when he thinks we won’t understand them./
In his Letter to the Colossians, Paul refers to somebody as “Luke, the beloved physician.” Without stretching things too far, there are three themes in Luke’s Gospel, omitted from the others, that suggest gospeler Luke is this same man.
First of all, there are the three stories only in Luke, the parable of the Prodigal Son, the story of the woman of the street who washes Jesus’ feet and dries them with her hair, and that healing conversation between Jesus and the thief crucified with him.
Smelling of pig and cheap gin, the Prodigal comes home bleary-eyed, and dead broke, but his father is so glad to see him that he almost falls on his face. Jesus next tells Simon, the blue-nosed Pharisee, that the prostitute’s sins are forgiven because, even painted up like a china doll and smelling like the perfume counter at the dollar store, she’s closer to the gospel of love than the whole Ladies’ Missionary Society. Finally, the thief Jesus talks to on the cross may have been a purse snatcher or even a murderer, but when he asks Jesus to remember him when he makes it to where he is going, Jesus tells him they have rooms reserved on the same floor. We can see that all three stories make the same general point: Jesus has a soft spot in his heart for the underprivileged of this earth. We might almost think he considers them the salt of the earth.
Second, Luke is the one who goes out of his way to make it clear that Jesus is strong on prayer. He prays when he is baptized, after he heals the leper, the night before he calls the twelve disciples, and before his arrest. Luke is the only one telling us that Jesus’s last words are a prayer, “Father, into thy hand I commend my spirit.”
Thanks to Luke, there’s a record of the jokes Jesus tells about the man who keeps knocking at his friend’s door until he finally gets out of bed to open it, and the widow who keeps bugging the crooked judge until he finally hears her case, just to get a little peace. Luke wants us to remember that if we don’t think God hears us the first time, don’t give up till we’re hoarse.
Third and last, Luke makes sure nobody misses the point that Jesus is always stewing about the terrible plight of the poor. Luke tells us that when Jesus preaches at Nazareth, he chooses this text from Isaiah, “he has appointed me to preach good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18). In contrast, Matthew says the first Beatitude is “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” According to Luke, it is just plain “Blessed are the poor,” period (Luke 6:20). Luke also records parables, like the one about the rich man and the beggar, that come right out and say that if the haves don’t do their share to help the have-nots, they better watch out. Only Luke quotes the song Mary sings that includes the words, “he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich has sent empty away” (Luke 1:53).
Putting all these things together, Luke tells us Jesus believes that especially those in prison must always be treated like human beings. Second, if we pray hard enough, there’s no telling what might happen. And finally, if we think we’ve got heaven made but aren’t bothered that there are children across the tracks who are half starving to death,/ then we’re kidding ourselves. These characteristics may not prove that Luke is a physician, like the Luke in Paul’s Letter, but if he isn’t, it is a serious loss to our medical profession./
Barbara Brown Taylor writes that Luke never resigns from his job as a healer. He simply adds new medicines. Instead of only prescribing herbs and spices and bed rest, now he tells stories with the power to mend broken lives and revive faint hearts. In addition to carrying pills and potions in his black bag, he also carries words like, “Do not be afraid, I will remember you, you are blessed, your sins are forgiven, stand up and walk, weep no more.” Luke’s medicine is gospel medicine, medicine that works through words.
Luke knows the power of God’s word because he heard about Jesus, and knows there is a whole world waiting to hear the gospel good news. So, Luke starts writing down stories so parents can tell their children, and teachers to their students, and friends can tell strangers the good news. As crazy as the scheme sounds, isn’t it true that each of us arrives at faith because someone tells someone who tells someone who tells us? Maybe all they say is, “Come to church with me, or God bless you, or May I remember you in my prayers?”
This, of course, is called evangelism, and every time we renew the baptismal covenant, we promise we will be evangelists.
“Will you proclaim by word and example the Good news of God in Christ”? When we answer, “I will, with God’s help,” we join ranks with Luke, the Evangelist, Oral Roberts, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Billy Graham, Johann Sebastian Bach, Madeleine L’Engle, as well as the housekeeper who tells Bible stories to children in her care while she does the ironing.
There are a million ways we in the medical profession can proclaim the good news. But, most often, our evangelism will be the quiet kind: reminding a sick friend about a psalm, telling the truth in love to someone who asks for it, ending a quarrel with words of forgiveness, writing a note that restores hope, listening attentively to each patient we meet, especially the young and elderly, laughing at a young girl’s joke, extending hospitality to a stranger.
The wonderful thing about gospel medicine is that it works right away. The gospel words dry tears, quench fears, forgive sins, heal souls every time we speak, “do not be afraid, you are not alone, you are blessed, your sins are forgiven, weep no more.” Every time we practice gospel medicine, we take our places in an ancient relay, passing on the good news we heard from our predecessors. We are never alone as evangelists. A whole host of people before us are with us, as well as Christ beside us, above us, and in us.
Luke tells us that we, like Jesus, “have been anointed to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
This is the gospel/ medicine/ of the Lord that we practice.
Barbara Brown Taylor, “Gospel Medicine,” Gospel Medicine, pp. 3-8.
Frederick Buechner, “Luke,” Beyond Words, p. 233-235.
Joanna Seibert joannaseibert.com