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Thought for the Week Sunday
18 October – Trinity 19
Luke the Evangelist. “Omnia Gallia in tres
partes divisa est” and so begins Caesar’s Gallic
Wars. And everybody believes every word he wrote, and yet these words were written
some 2060 years ago. Luke is a hero for me. The gospels are dismissed, by the
very same people who believe Caesar, as mere myth written by people who had
an agenda … Caesar, didn’t he have an agenda too? Of course he did; to
influence the people back home in his favour. So why is Luke a hero? Because he is the answer to
the sceptics, to the doubters. Luke was a trained doctor, used to enquiry,
analysing and reasoning his way to conclusions. Now, just look at what he has
to say at the beginning of his Gospel. Chapter 1 verse 3 “therefore since I
myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed
good also to me to write an orderly account for you, so that you may know the
certainty of the things you have been taught.". Several things stand out
from that verse “carefully investigated” “everything” “orderly account”
“certainty” ---a scientist, a doctor has put his trained mind to the things
he writes about. His feast day is today. Not surprisingly he is the
patron saint of physicians and surgeons…but, peculiarly, also of butchers …
as well as students and artists. He was a Greek citizen, probably from
Antioch but Philippi is a thin possibility, remained unmarried and died a
bachelor at the age of 84. The early church fathers such as Eusebius and
Jerome ascribe the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles to him. Since
then learned minds have applied themselves to the problem and have come up
with the same answer. Luke was a Gentile, and therefore is separated from
those who have been circumcised by Paul when writing to the Colossians,
although he is referred to as “Our dear friend Luke, the doctor…”. Indeed
Luke was a stalwart supporter of Paul and travelled a lot with him. We find
references to Luke in other writings by Paul, he is referred to in the letter
to Philemon at verse 24 as well as in the second letter to Timothy, our New
Testament reading for today. He was not an Apostle but a close follower of
Paul who refers to him as a fellow labourer for Christ. He was an evangelist
and accompanied Paul on several of his journeys. In fact we know nothing of
Luke’s conversion to Christianity, but we do know that he joined with Paul in
51 AD at Troas, accompanied him in to Macedonia visiting Samothrace, Neapolis
and finally Philippi where he stayed for the next 8 years. He then joined
Paul again at Troas and travelled through Miletus, Tyre, Caesarea and on to Jerusalem
We know he stays with Paul when Paul was imprisoned in Rome, and seems to be
the only one to remain with him, as we learn from 2 Timothy 4 vs.11. Luke wrote his Gospel somewhere between 63 and 70 AD,
and the Acts of the Apostles somewhere in the same sort of period. There can
be no doubt that his inspiration came from his travels and close association
with Paul. His gospel manifests itself as the gospel of the poor and of
social justice and distinguishes itself from the other synoptic gospels by
the inclusion of the story of Lazarus and the rich man, and “Blessed are the
poor” instead of “Blessed are the poor in spirit” in the Beatitudes. Also it
is only in Luke that we have the Annunciation, Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, the
Magnificat, the Presentation and the story of Jesus’ disappearance in
Jerusalem. All that we know about Luke comes only from his
Gospel and the Acts in what have become known as the “we” sections. Luke
writes the Acts of the Apostles in the third person but at chapter 16 verse
10 the “they” becomes “we” until chapter 21 verse 18. The “we” begins again
at chapter 27 verse 1 until the end, at chapter 28. The “we” indicating that
Luke was with Paul at these times And so we have our gospel reading for today of the 72
sent out to spread the good news… If you have ever felt alone in your own
endeavours in spreading the good news of Jesus Christ, of telling people of
your own experience of him and what he has done for you, then turn to these
verses. Here we have a group of followers of Jesus who had never been
involved in evangelism before and who are sent out by Jesus to do just that.
Not to friends or acquaintances or even people in their own town, they were
sent out to evangelise complete strangers. They are to preach, teach or
evangelise a message of peace --- just the opposite to what people wanted to
hear. You will remember that even the disciples were for the whole of Jesus
ministry anticipating a Messiah who was to lead the Jewish nation in revolt
against their oppressors –the Romans and the Samaritans – a revolt that was
expected to be by force. But what was Luke about here? His is the only Gospel
in which we read of the sending out of the 72 … or was it 70? We read in the
other gospels of the sending out of the disciples in a similar manner but
there were only twelve of them. To Luke Jesus was to lead the new Exodus,
Jesus was to lead his people out of a life of sin back to their God, the God
of love and of peace. And there is an urgency about this Exodus, because if
the people didn’t respond to the appeal Jesus was making to them then it was
going to be too late. The kingdom of heaven was not something in the dim and
distant future, it was in the here and now. Luke was anxious to portray Jesus
as the new Moses heralding in the new Exodus, away from a legalistic
interpretation of the Law but to an interpretation tempered with love and
compassion. Away from sin and toward a
relationship with the Father through the sacrifice that he, Jesus, was to
make on the cross. So like Moses as he worked to move the people of Israel
out of Egypt to the promised land so with Christ as he moved to get the
people of Israel back into a relationship with God that he, the Father,
wanted. Moses you may remember enlisted the aid of 70
helpers - 72 if you count Eldad and Medad . You can read about it in the Book
of Numbers chapter 11. Thus Luke had Jesus enlist the help of seventy/
seventy-two disciples whom he sent ahead to work the towns and villages and
broadcast the message of peace. The message that was foreign to the people,
but the message of peace and servanthood that would change the world. So Jesus sends the seventy two ahead of him to be a
vanguard of his message the urgency being that if they do not accept the
message then it would be too late and the people would have missed the boat.
Such is the urgency that they the seventy-two are not to encumber themselves
in any way. No purse, no bag, no sandals, no stopping to pass the time of day
on the road. Wherever they find peace they are to stay and not waste time by
moving around. In towns where their message is accepted they are to stay and
heal but towns where they are rejected are damned.. Jesus ministry was to the
lost house of Israel and he knew that he was now heading for Jerusalem and
that time was not on the side of the Jews. Either they now accepted his
message of peace and the presence of the Kingdom of God or they were going to
be in no better position than the gentiles, which as we know is where they
ended up. Why does Jesus say to the group “I am sending you
out like lambs among wolves”? Because of the nature of his message, it was
the same message that he himself was going to deliver and for which he ended
up being crucified. It was not a message that was welcome ---peace and
servanthood--- was not what the Jews wanted to hear. In fact it was just the
opposite that the people wanted to hear and believe in and therefore the
seventy odd were likely to be ridiculed and ostracised for their message. What they found was that where the message they had
was accepted they were able to carry out healing. They exclaimed that “Lord,
even the demons submit to us in your name” ---- the secret there is of course
“in your name”……. no point in trying to do things in our own name. The lesson
in that for us is that evangelisation is up to us, conviction and conversion
are the prerogative of the Holy Spirit. We tell the story we are not
responsible for whether or not that story is accepted. Mel
Fancy: Reader, Anglican Chaplaincy of Midi-Pyrénées & Aude To return to main Thought for
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