Isaiah 35.3-6 or Acts 16.6-12a; Psalm 147.1-7; 2 Timothy 4.5-17; Luke 10.1-9
Almighty God, you called Luke the physician, whose praise is in the gospel, to be an evangelist and physician of the soul: by the grace of the Spirit and through the wholesome medicine of the gospel, give your Church the same love and power to heal; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
ONLY principal feast days — red-letter days, as they were once universally known — may displace the normal Sunday provisions in the cycle of the Church’s year, and only when we begin to distinguish them from “lesser commemorations”, which are either passed over or transferred to the next day, might we think about their qualifications for this recognition.
Biographical fact is not a criterion when individuals are involved, but biblical evidence is a sine qua non. Even so, what we know of the four Evangelists is scanty, and Luke eludes discovery in any of the Gospels. “Luke the beloved physician” joins Paul in sending greetings to the Colossians (Colossians 4.14), and he is mentioned among Paul’s companions on two other occasions (2 Timothy 4.11; Philemon 24).
This picture is elaborated by Jerome (c.347-420), writing to Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, who names him as “the physician whose praise is in the gospel”. Jerome is perhaps slightly adjusting the mention of the unnamed brother in 2 Corinthians 8.18, who is famous through the churches for “proclaiming the good news”.
He adds that “all his words are medicine for the sick soul” (Epistle liii). This idea is taken up in the 16th century by Erasmus in his Paraphrases on the New Testament. So we know what the person who composed this week’s collect (which Common Worship inherits from the 1549 Prayer Book) was reading.
Whether or not the Gospel that bears Luke’s name and its second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, can be securely attached to the loyal man who inspired the affection in the Pauline writings, they do reveal the interests and experience of the person who wrote them.
Acts 16.6-12a takes up the story of Paul’s mission after separating from Barnabas (Acts 15.36-41). At verse 10, something new happens: the narrative voice changes to the first person plural, continuing in this way until verse 17. This happens on three further occasions (Acts 20.5-15, 21.1-18, 27.1-28.16), suggesting either that the writer travelled with Paul, or that he had access to the journal of someone who did.
Anyone directly involved in the stages of the journey described in these passages travelled extensively around the eastern Mediterranean, visiting Greece, Jerusalem, and Italy. The party witnessed many conversions among the Gentiles (Acts 21.19), but also suffered adverse sailing conditions and shipwreck (Acts 27). They heard at first hand the prophecy that Paul would die “for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21.10-13).
If the person who travelled with Paul was indeed the author of Luke’s Gospel and Acts, then he knew at first hand the dangers and the challenges of being sent out to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of God. There is nothing romantic about depending entirely on the hospitality and welcome of strangers, of travelling without the means to pay for food or comfortable accommodation, and without a change of clothing or footwear after a day on the road (Luke 10.3-7).
For contemporary readers, accustomed to constant access to communication, the absence of mobile-phone and internet access might be a useful index of the panic that travelling light can induce. It all commands a higher respect for the young Mormon evangelists who dress conspicuously neatly and knock on doors in foreign countries, often to be greeted by rudeness and hostility.
The Seventy were to find security (precarious in the eyes of the world) in the authority of Jesus who sent them out (Luke 10.1); in the unambiguous directness of the single message that they were to convey — “The Kingdom of God has come near to you” (Luke 10.9) — and in one another (Luke 10.1). Their task was to continue the work of John the Baptist (Luke 3.1-6), this time in a highly specific way, as they prepared the way to Jerusalem which would take Jesus to the cross.
The teller of this story knows how it will end, but also understands it as beginning long before Jesus, in the message of the prophets. Already, he has connected Jesus to the liberation announced by Isaiah (Acts 4.16-21; Isaiah 61.1-2, 58.6). Does he compare the sending of the Seventy to sending “lambs into the midst of wolves”, recalling that in the new Kingdom these natural enemies will be friends (Isaiah 11.6)? The announcement that they will make to herald Jesus comprehends both the terror and the joy of salvation (Isaiah 35.3-6).