Sermon for St Luke’s Day 18 October 2020

Today we celebrate St Luke, the Evangelist. Luke has colossal importance in the because, as well as the , he wrote the book of Acts – put together, these two works make up more than a quarter of the New Testament. Luke’s Gospel contains many passages that are not in the other , without which our Christian tradition would be much poorer. Among these stories in Luke are that of the birth of , the story of the , and some of the familiar elements of the Christmas story, such as the appearing to the shepherds. Then there is the story of the presentation of the infant in the temple, and the only story we have of the childhood of Jesus - his visit to at the age of twelve years. Three of our beloved canticles, the ‘Benedictus’, the ‘’ and the ‘’, are found only in Luke, together with some of my favourite parables, that of the Good Samaritan, the Pharisee and the Tax-collector, and the Prodigal Son. Some of the familiar incidents in the passion narrative are unique to Luke, together with some of the post-resurrection appearances, including the Road to , one of the most crucial and the most haunting passages in the gospels to me. And then the book of Acts gives us a detailed picture of how the disciples spread the good news after the death of Jesus, without which our it would be hard to imagine how Christianity grew from a small, fragile movement within Judaism to what would eventually become the largest religion in the world. This is all the more remarkable in that it is clear from what Luke himself writes that he did not actually know Jesus. He never claims to be an eyewitness of events himself, but rather to be a writer of history, of the truth about Jesus’s mission. He claims in the open sentences of his Gospel that he relies on the eyewitness of others, and that he ‘investigated everything from the beginning.’ Scholars believe that Luke heard about Jesus from Paul, who he accompanied on some of his travels, as we can see from the first reading, where Luke speaks of ‘we’ who set sail – one of several passages where Luke writes of ‘we.’ Tradition holds that Luke was a physician, and there is evidence for this in the to the Colossians, where St Paul speaks of him as the ‘beloved physician.’ (Some Biblical scholars have also noted that when Luke describes some of the illnesses which were cured, he does so with a doctor’s eye). Tradition also holds that Luke was born in , that he was a , and that he died in old age. Luke’s Gospel places emphasis on Jesus’s universal message to all people. He shows how Jesus reached out to the despised , as well as to the , and he stresses Jesus’ inclusion of women in his ministry. Our Gospel reading shows how the disciples are sent ahead of Jesus in pairs to prepare the way for his arrival, by staying with the local people, healing their sick and telling them that the kingdom of God is near. And we, two thousand years later, are engaged in the same mission; we are all entrusted as disciples with bringing Jesus’ message of peace, hope and salvation to others, through what we say and what we do. We may not set off on the arduous journeys that Paul and Luke did, we may not travel from place to place without possessions as the disciples were instructed, but we are still part of the same ongoing tradition, which should feel as fresh and new to us as it did to those at the time. Luke’s writings, with their emphasis on discipleship, are a fitting and inspirational companion to us as we travel on our own journey with and towards God. Maggie Hamand LLM