St Luke St John the Baptist, Eucharist, 6.30pm 18th October
Today the church celebrates the feast of St Luke. Christian tradition identifies Luke as the author not just of the third gospel but also of the Acts of the Apostles. It also identifies this person as the Luke who was a companion of Paul. If this is correct then we know a little more about him than just that. In the epistle to the Colossians, Luke is described as a well-loved healer or physician. One of the odd things, however, is that despite this in neither the gospel that bears his name nor in the Acts of the Apostles does Luke show any especial interest in healing, or in sickness. He uses no technical language for bodies or healing nor does he tell any more stories about healing than Matthew does. It’s a curious anomaly if the tradition is correct that he was indeed a physician.
What Luke is interested in, however, is words. He makes very clear at the start of the gospel – and again at the start of Acts – that what he was doing was carefully and painstakingly sifting words, placing them next to each other, building his story of Jesus block by block, narrative by narrative, section by section so that we who read it ‘might believe’. Luke made it as clear as he could that he believed that words were important, it wasn’t just telling the story of Jesus that mattered but how you told it that was crucial. In the Gospel’s opening verses, he states clearly that he didn’t think that the existing accounts of Jesus did a good enough job so he had crafted his words carefully to do a better one. Whatever Luke’s status as a physician really was, I have long believed in Luke as a wordsmith, as someone who healed through words, however else he healed as well. This may seem an odd thing to say, so let me explain what I mean.
For those of us brought up on the doggerel children’s rhyme ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never harm me’, it can seem as though words are insubstantial and relatively unimportant. They have their place but pale into insignificance alongside the real things of life like sticks and stones. The rhyme has, however, always sat uncomfortably with me. I grew up in a very rough part of Manchester and can tell you from personal experience that sticks and stones really can break your bones, but bones mend, cuts and grazes heal over; words, however, adhere to the soul, undermining your sense of self and your confidence for years after any broken bones have mended. Conversely words – the right words, well-chosen and carefully placed - can bring healing, wholeness and hope.
It is vital that we remember the power of words as we trudge onwards through this seemingly never-ending Covid pandemic. While we cast around for any remaining shreds of resilience and hope that we might be able to locate, Luke, I think, would want to remind us of words and of their significance. It is no mistake, for example, that the most well-known and well-loved of Jesus’ parables are preserved and retold by Luke – the parable of the Good Samaritan and of the Prodigal Son – are parables that speak deeply to us of relationship and compassion, of restoration and forgiveness.
One of the striking features of Luke’s storytelling is that while he is, clearly, very careful in how he chooses words, where he places them and how he links episodes, he leaves many loose threads as well. His stories are spacious and expansive inviting us to enter them, to walk around in them and to use our imagination to fill in the missing details. Luke uses words so carefully in his Gospel to point us to truth.
I have always found stories – whether in the Bible or outside of it – to be profoundly nourishing to my soul. The right story, encountered at the right time, is like a door propped open on a dark cold night through which light streams inviting us to lay down our burdens for a while, to step inside and find a different world where other characters have their own burdens, fears and anxieties. As we walk with them through the story, we learn more about ourselves, about God and about the world around us. Probably most importantly of all, stories give us respite from the wear and tear of our own worries and concerns. When we step back out of the story again, the burdens we left outside can often feel lighter and less cumbersome.
Well placed words and well-crafted stories are, in my view, one of the key tools in the resilience tool box. I may be being fanciful but everything I know about St Luke, evangelist and well-loved physician, suggests to me that he would agree, that the right words carefully chosen and laid down in the right way point onwards to what is true and therefore also to hope. On this St Luke’s day, therefore, I commend to you words, words which stick fast to the soul and provide hope. Whether you read poems or stories, novels or short phrases seek out those words that will nourish and sustain you on the journey ahead.
I would like to leave you with Luke’s own words, the opening four verses to his gospel,
Many people have endeavoured to compose a well ordered account of the things that came to fulfillment in our midst, 2 just as they were passed on to us by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the start, 3 I too decided, after looking into everything carefully from the very beginning, to write a carefully organized account for you, most honorable Theophilus, lover of God, 4 so that you may know the truth about the things you’ve been taught.