The Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist
Sirach 38: 1-4, 6-10, 12-14
Psalm 147
2 Timothy 4:5-13
Luke 4:14-21
As you’ve no doubt observed this morning, our sanctuary looks a bit different than it would for an ordinary 22nd Sunday After Pentecost. This is because today we are celebrating the feast day of our namesake, St. Luke the Evangelist. Luke’s feast day is observed on October 18th, but we have transferred the observation of this feast to the closest Sunday. This is something a bit special, I might add. The order of precedence of holy days set out in the calendar of the Book of Common Prayer gives priority to the observation of seven principal feasts—Easter, Ascension Day, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, All Saints’ Day, Christmas, and Epiphany; nothing else on our calendar takes precedence over the observation of these days. Next in the order, however, are our regular Sunday observances, which is why most Episcopal churches this Sunday will be celebrating the 22nd Sunday After Pentecost today. Sundays are so high in our list of observances because every Sunday is a feast of our Lord Jesus Christ. After these are what are called Holy Days, which include commemorations such as the Annunciation, the Visitation, and the Transfiguration. They also include the feasts of evangelists, like Luke. So then, if Luke’s feast day is in a lesser tier of observance than our regular Sunday, why are we observing it today? Well, a special exception in the prayer book allows the feast day of a church’s patron saint to take precedence on a Sunday.
As I was preparing my sermon for this morning, I kept coming back to this question of why we often name our churches after saints. The practice itself is a very ancient one. Many early churches, particularly in the British Isles, were named after their founders, who were often eventually canonized and naturally became the patron saint of that church. Some were built over the tombs of martyrs or contained relics of their namesake saints. Others are named for the patron saint of a region or country, such as St. George, the patron saint of England, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Ethiopia, and of course, the country of Georgia. Still others are named after whichever saint has a feast day on the same day as that church’s consecration. To be totally candid, I don’t know how we ultimately settled on Luke as our patron 123 years ago, but I can think of a few reasons why that patronage is meaningful to us today.
Our readings this morning each shed some light on who Luke was, but more importantly, on why we should care about him and how we might strive to be a little more like him.
In Western Christianity, Luke’s patronage is linked most popularly with physicians and hospitals. Luke is traditionally believed to have been a physician himself, based on Paul’s description of him in Colossians. Our reading this morning from Sirach—something like a love letter to physicians—is perhaps a bit on the nose, but it is a reminder that all our skill and capacity to heal the wounded is a gift of the Lord. “Honor physicians for their services, for the Lord created them; for their gift of healing comes from the Most High, and they are rewarded by the king.” God wields the healer the same way a healer wields a scalpel or a medicinal remedy. Luke, a well-educated Greek speaker, may have had some familiarity with this text. Might it have impacted how he approached his profession and, more importantly, his decision to follow Christ, the Great Physicia? How might words like these, applied to our own professions or talents, show us how God guides our hand to use those talents to do his work in the world?
Our Gospel reading gives us some insight through Luke’s own hand into what about Jesus’ ministry inspired him. Each of the four Gospels has a unique voice that emphasizes different themes of Jesus’ life and work. Today’s reading from chapter 4 perfectly summarizes one theme that sets Luke apart: when Jesus effectively announces the beginning of his public ministry. Jesus is in his hometown synagogue and begins to read a poignant passage from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release of the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus announces his purpose to the world as one of liberation and restoration. Luke uses the Greek word aphesis, literally meaning “release,” in reference to the ancient Jewish practice of the year of Jubilee, which included among other things the release of enslaved people and the forgiveness of debts. This liberation and restoration is also particularly targeted to the “poor.” This category of “the poor” in Jesus’ time would have included not just those with little money but also those who lived with disabilities, those who came from other ethnic groups, divorced women, and anyone else who was in poor financial or social standing. If you examine some of the parables and miracles that are unique to Luke’s Gospel, you will find a continuation of this theme. Luke alone gives us the parables of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and the Lazarus and the Rich Man. Luke also shares several encounters between Jesus and the outcasts or uniquely vulnerable—widows and women of ill-repute, Samaritans, and even Zaccheus, the tax collector, who, despite not being materially poor, was shunned by his community. The other theme emphasized throughout Luke’s Gospel is joy, which we see from the beginning, when angels announce to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.” In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father meets his wayward son with joy and celebration. This same theme is echoed in the parables of the Lost Coin and the Lost Sheep. A gospel of healing for the most wounded is being proclaimed, what had been lost and forgotten for so long has now been found, and that is a cause for joy.
However, what struck me as the most powerful of today’s readings was one seemingly off-the-cuff sentence from Paul in his second letter to Timothy. Much of what we know about Luke comes from mentions throughout Paul’s letters, and we know from Luke’s descriptive accounts of Paul’s travels in Acts that Luke was a frequent companion on Paul’s missionary journeys, helping in the work of planting and nurturing new churches throughout the Mediterranean world. Paul’s second letter to Timothy is his last. He is languishing in prison in Rome, and his trial is going poorly. In his most candidly personal account, he shares with his dear friend Timothy that he doesn’t expect to survive. He shares that all his companions in Rome have left him, all but one. “Only Luke is with me,” he writes. Only Luke, who proclaimed joy in the cold, dark night, who proclaimed that Christ had come to break the chains of oppression and heal the hurting.
As we work together to craft a vision for how we want to proclaim the Gospel in the world, I hope that we’ll take Luke’s example to heart. In the 2000 years since Christ walked the earth, many things have not changed in the kingdom of this world. Oppression, poverty, discrimination, and inequality haunt us now as much as it did then. In the dark and challenging hour, will we be like Demas, “in love with the present world” and abandoning his friend and companion in Christ? Or will we, like Luke, remain to see the night through, offering comfort and care to those who need it most? Many things have not changed in the kingdom of the world, but the kingdom of God is active and alive, transforming to meet the needs of believers in this day and this hour. That is good news, and may it continue to fill us and all whom we meet with the great joy of Jesus Christ. Amen.