Sermon by Stuart Pike

Photo Credit: Sandy Darling, Diocese of Niagara

Sermon Text:

Today we are celebrating as the Feast day of St. Luke, our Patron Saint. This is the reason we celebrated with some feasting of our own last night.

Besides being our Patron Saint, St. Luke is also the patron of:

artists bachelors

bookbinders brewers

glass makers glassworkers

gold workers goldsmiths

lacemakers notaries

painters butchers

physicians sculptors

stained glass workers surgeons

Capena, Italy Hermersdorf, Germany

Luke is called “the beloved physician” by St. Paul and this is the reason why he is the patron saint of physicians and surgeons. It is also the reason why the order of St. Luke is an international ministry of healers. And that’s why we are doing a healing mass today.

But it is important to note that other than a couple of biblical and historical notes that Luke was a physician, we hear nothing more about his work as a physician.

What he is really known for is his ability to tell the story of Jesus and to communicate that story so effectively that it has changed the lives of countless people.

So how did a physician – a healer – get into the occupation of story-telling? Could there be any connection between his two occupations?

I think that St. Luke thinks like I and many others do about healing: it’s the concept of holistic healing: that you can’t divide a person up into parts and just treat one part of them. A person is physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, social and healing is about the whole person. Healing is about bringing people to wholeness of being in body, mind and spirit.

So this physician, Luke at some point encountered Jesus and was so changed by him that he understood that the best way that he could spend his life was to tell the amazing story of Jesus. Luke knew that people getting to know Jesus would make the biggest impact on their wholeness of being. His storytelling was his greatest healing work.

Today’s Gospel gives us Luke’s account of Jesus’ inaugural address. At least, these are the first public words of Jesus in St. Luke’s account. St. Luke does say that a good report about him had spread throughout Galilee and that he had already begun to teach in their synagogues, but Luke starts his recording of Jesus’ words at this event, when he has returned to his hometown of Nazareth.

He follows the regular liturgy of his time: standing to read the scripture and sitting down to teach.

He stands and reads to them the prophecy from the book of Isaiah. I can imagine how wonderfully he read. It is such a comforting passage. Isaiah prophecies “good news to the poor, release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Doesn’t that sound like a really nice passage? What a lovely image. How could anyone object to such a comforting passage? I can just see everyone nodding their agreement. Won’t that be a wonderful time, they think. Getting back to the idea of holistic healing, they would be thinking, won’t that be such a healing time, when all of this comes to pass. Wont’ it be wonderful when God rescues us from illness, blindness, oppression and poverty?

Isn’t that something that we long for too? Do you ever imagine the coming of God’s kingdom? When there will be peace and justice for all? When every tear will be wiped away? When illness will be no more? When we will be totally, holistically healed?

Like Jesus’ hearers in Nazareth we might think, “What a lovely thought.” It is really something