Sermon for the Feast of Saint Luke
“Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures”
We have had occasion to remark upon the significance of St. Luke as the Church’s spiritual director for over half the year in terms of the quantity of the readings from his Gospel appointed to be read at Holy Communion. We have had occasion, too, to mention the quality of those readings, captured best, perhaps, in Dante’s evocative phrase about St. Luke as scriba mansuetudinis Christi, the scribe of the gentleness of Christ. How wonderful then that his feast day should fall upon a Sunday and command our attention in our weekly celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection. That is, after all, the main focus of each Sunday’s worship. The intent is the deepening of our understanding of that fundamental mystery of Christian faith and identity.
Consider the Gospel reading from St. Luke appointed for today. “He opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures.” But then, what is that understanding? “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day; and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name among the all nations.” Powerful words which provide us with a sense of the tenor of his Gospel. Death and resurrection, repentance and forgiveness. Could anything be more concise, more clear, and more complete?
We know precious little by way of biographical detail about St. Luke. As the Collect notes, his “praise is in the Gospel”, meaning that St. Luke is mentioned in the Scriptures of the New Testament, quite apart from the attribution of the third Gospel and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles to his mind and pen. Our Epistle reading specifically places him in the company of Paul. “Only Luke is with me,” he says in the context of a discourse about evangelism.
The Collect identifies St. Luke as both “an Evangelist, and Physician of the soul”. A healer, to be sure, but by way of something which must strike us as rather strange. The healing is by way of “the wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by him”. Healing by way of teaching? I wonder what sense we can make of that.
