Celebrating St Luke
This week we are celebrating St. Luke, the man who wrote the Gospel of Luke as well as the Acts of the Apostles, the book that tells of the beginnings of what we now recognise as the church. We call him Luke the Evangelist, and that word “evangelist” brings with it a whole lot of baggage. If you asked most people what an evangelist was, they would most likely tell you of a stranger who knocked on their door at a completely inappropriate time or stopped them in the street to tell them about Jesus.
I feel that there are other ways of sharing your faith. St. Luke didn’t share his faith in a way that was upfront, he left that to St. Paul. Luke was a scholar, a doctor and Greek, an outsider - he used his personal skills to share the message of God’s love in both the Gospel and in the Book of Acts, he addressed them to Theophilus, a good friend of his, someone who he already had a relationship with. He quickly tells Theophilus that he has researched, investigated and is now writing an ordered account of the life of Jesus.
Evangelism has to be founded on truth, what we say has to be true, how we are has to be true. We have to be true to others, true to God and true to ourselves.
So can I ask you, how are you sharing your faith with those around you?
Rev’d Mark
Readings for Sunday 16th Oct
Jeremiah 31:27-34
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. In those days they shall no longer say:
‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Luke 18: 1-8
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” ’ And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’
Readings for the week ahead
Monday 17th – Ephesians 2:1-10, Luke 12: 13-21
Tuesday 18th (Luke the Evangelist) – Acts 16: 6-12, Luke 10: 1-9
Wednesday 19th – Ephesians 3:2-12, Luke 12: 39-48
Thursday 20th – Ephesians 3: 14-end, Luke 12: 49-53
Friday 21st – Ephesians 4: 1-6, Luke 12: 54-end
Saturday – Ephesians 4: 7-16, Luke 13: 1-9
