Expanding our Gifts – October 18, 2023

Today’s Readings for the Feast of St. Luke:
AM: Psalm 103; Ezekiel 47:1-12; Luke 1:1-4
PM: Psalm 67, 96; Isaiah 52:7-10; Acts 1:1-8

I have always been interested in medicine. As a child, I could get splinters out without wincing. I read books about animal care. I wanted to be a large animal veterinarian – for that would mean I could routinely be around horses, my first great love. That passion shifted when my cousin Barton was diagnosed with a rare cancer as a young teenager. Three years my senior, I adored him like an older brother. I was so worried when my parents told me about his illness. My mom and I drove up to Birmingham from Montgomery to see him during one of his stays at Children’s Hospital. Walking down the hallway that afternoon in our Sunday best, I saw lots of sick kids. I remember feeling a blend of anxiety and hopefulness. Barton had lost some of his thick, dark hair and walked with his IV pole as his buddy. We played arcade-style video games Pac Man and Donkey Kong (as this was the mid-1980s). Playing with him helped move this shared time from a fear-filled emergency to a comfortable reunion.

Barton’s medical teams were able to treat his disease through surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, as a five-year study of that pediatric cancer had just been concluded. He was given a five percent chance to live to his 40th birthday. He turned 50 last month, thanks be to God!

In the wake of my cousin’s disease process, I wanted to be able to help other kids get to the other side of cancer – to live fully in remission. My dream and goal of becoming a physician did not come to fruition in the way I expected. And yet, what I get to do as a priest in God’s church is to be with people in tender times, bringing reminders of the grounding peace and healing power of God’s love into those spaces that are complex and messy.

On this day, we celebrate the feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist, who was also a physician (per Colossians 4:14). It is curious to me that, though he was a physician, the Church remembers Saint Luke as the Evangelist, for he helped spread the news of Jesus through writing the Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. Luke paid attention to the details surrounding the ministry and life of Jesus – and shared these details as he told the stories of the Messiah and the early church. He penned in the opening of Acts, “I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.” (1:1-2) Luke continued, “After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This’, he said, ‘is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’” (Acts 1:3-5)

Luke did not speak much about himself, except to give a nod to the miraculous testimonies he saw through the trajectory of Jesus’ ministry and the post-resurrection reactions. He demonstrated his faith by naming who Jesus was and what he did. Luke’s accounts showed his care for the precise details of people and their humanity - the human love of Christ; the downtrodden and lame; the women who supported the ministry of Jesus.

Luke was a powerful witness to Jerusalem and to the world. Jesus changed his life and expanded Luke’s gifts - from being a physician, to being an evangelist for the Good News of the resurrected Christ. Likewise, Jesus expands our lives.

May your eyes be opened to see where the Holy Spirit is giving you courage. May you tell the stories of God breaking into your life. May you continue to lean on Jesus as the Good Shepherd who guides and guards you each day.

Katherine+

Questions for Self-Reflection and Daily Challenge:

Look around you. Reflect on what you love about your workplace or workspace.

What realities suck joy out of that space? Where is God calling you to find fulfillment and peace?