good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral to the deanery garden here on monday the 18th of october as we gather to say our morning prayers please feel welcome wherever you are in the world this is a day when in the house of commons the members of parliament here in the united kingdom will assemble for the first time following the tragedy of the murder of sir david amis at his member of parliament surgery at leon sea on friday afternoon and we of course continue to remember david's family and give thanks for him but we remember each of us are our own members of parliament so if you are in the united kingdom say a prayer for your own member of parliament today because it will be an extraordinary thing for them and a very moving thing to come together on this particular morning we we're praying here for our own member of parliament for this constituency of canterbury rosie duffield who's a close friend of ours of course and she she was speaking about her own friendship with david amos and the sense that he was one of those people that um cheered you up when you saw him so that if you saw him getting to the lift and the doors were about to close you would run to be in there with him i thought that a lovely image and we all know folk like that when we see them coming we think oh yes they're going to cheer me up there's also people who come who tend always to offload onto you and and maybe then your steps are a bit slower as the lift doors are closing but but rosie was talking about david and remembering that that moving memory of of how much he gave in his 40 years of service to the house of commons and public service well at the same time we've come on this monday morning into the meadow garden we weren't here last week it was canadian thanksgiving last week so you will have seen a change because the autumn has set in and the vegetation in this what was the beautiful wildflower garden which you saw grow from bare earth to tiny seedlings and then a succession of flowering plants as we we watched it monday by monday by monday in in the meadow the flowering meadow here and now everything is now dying down the weather the the rain the storms and now also we have our own little composting machines uh winnie and and kemi helping along to make everything rot down eventually into the earth to act as a wonderful fertilizer without any kind of sprays or machinery they will do the job magnificently and for a long time now we've kept the chickens inside because chickens aren't very helpful to flowering plants especially when they're growing uh and now we've let them out because we very much want them now to help clemmy and winnie in their work this is saint luke's day the feast of saint luke the evangelist no more joyful festival in the whole of the year for st luke has given us i think 27 or just a bit more of the whole of the new testament his two books the gospel of saint luke and the acts of the apostles are are really important as a foundation block in the new testament and you could say that they're the only ones written by someone who is commonly held to be greek rather than of jewish origin and so luke is a gentile writing for gentiles the rest of the new testament is written by those of the jewish faith who've embraced the new covenant but luke is is different in this and so the way in which he tells his story and the way in which he gives the good news has a different flavor as one culture would from another and we shall look a little bit of that in in our reflection as we think of st luke see luke's day is always thought to be a day when we get a little splash of summer since luke's summer is called here in the united kingdom well it began well uh although if you read the signs and and our lord mentions that in in the scriptures as you know in the in the morning if you see a red sky you say there will be rain well there was a very red sky this morning and fisher went up onto the the tower here and captured that from the deanery tower across the cathedral a beautifully colored red sky but it's a warning there is rain on the way for this afternoon and quite heavy rain throughout this week from time to time so that will all help what we're doing here in terms of things dying down ready for a new planting season but still providing food uh for creatures which um you'll see there's still cabbages here for on a sunny day with any butterflies which is still around and any creatures still have a little bit of cover here but the orchard is very much the place for creatures of that sort with water there in in great quantity for them but uh clemmy and winnie are seeing to all of this this morning so we give great thanks on this day forcing luke as a doctor in his time he would have known the herbs and read the seasons but his compassion for people shines through in all his writing and so we give thanks for that this morning as we say our morning prayers together oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your faithful servants bless you they make known the glory of your kingdom blessed are you sovereign god ruler and judge of all to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of this age that is passing away may the light of your presence which sin luke and all the saints enjoy surround our steps as we journey on may we reflect your glory this day and so be made ready to see your face in the heavenly city where night shall be no more blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever are men we turn to our psalm and uh it's the 18th morning of the month and that gives us according to the sequence of mornings and evenings three beautiful psalms each one worthy of reading the majestic psalm 90 beginning lord you have been our refuge from one generation to another and from that the metrical hymn oh god our help in ages past our hope for years to come has been derived isaac what's his great hymn or there's psalm 91 probably best known to us as a compline hymn with some beautiful sentences in it and uh perhaps for us at the moment with what we've been thinking of with the chicks and our lord's statement about gathering jerusalem under his feathers like a hen gathering her chicks psalm 91 has verse 4 he shall cover you with his wings and you shall be safe under his feathers maybe our lord was thinking of that when he he used that particular image but at the same time there are um lovely sentences in it like he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways and i i was tempted to read those normally we read one of those two but in fact i'm going to read psalm 92 because it seems to me to speak much more of sin luke's day so it's a shorter psalm but the 15 verses of psalm 92 are our psalm for this 18th morning of the month it is a good thing to give thanks to the lord and to sing praises to your name almost high to tell of your love early in the morning and of your faithfulness in the night time upon the ten-stringed instrument upon the harp and to the melody of the liar for you lord have made me glad by your axe and i sing aloud at the works of your hands oh lord how glorious are your works your thoughts are very deep the senseless do not know nor do fools understand that though the wicked sprout like grass and all the workers of iniquity flourish it is only to be destroyed forever but you o lord shall be exalted forevermore follow your enemies o lord thou your enemies shall perish and all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered but my horn you have exalted like the horns of wild oxen i am anointed with fresh oil my eyes will look down on my foes my ears shall hear the ruin of the evildoers who rise up against me the righteous the righteous shall flourish like a palm tree and shall spread abroad like a cedar of lebanon such as are planted in the house of the lord shall flourish in the courts of our god they shall still bear fruit in old age they shall be vigorous and in full leaf that they may show that the lord is true he is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him well many wonderful sentences in that and very applicable to this day of saint luke i'm not using any other dates today for this much to say about st luke but you will remember that if you were part of the garten congregation last summer then you will remember that all through that summer late spring and summer we were given from the lectionary and on into the later summer the totality of luke's work starting with the gospel of saint luke and day by day going through saint luke and then into the acts of the apostles and on this year we're doing something quite different but this day is given to us to remember saint luke because this is his feast day luke the evangelist the bringer of the evangel so i'm going to read first of all the four verses that were given i've already said matins early in the cathedral and four verses of saint luke were given to us as the lesson for this morning and also the magnificent chapter of isaiah 55 where the trees of the woods are clapping their hands and shouting for joy and it gives another flavor of saint luke's day but here's the the lesson we read from the gospel of saint luke is the beginning of the gospel i was just given four verses as the new testament lesson at morning prayer this is luke writing inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us it seemed good to me also having followed all things closely for some time past to write an orderly account for you most excellent theophilus that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught we have no idea whether theophilus which means lover of god was a real person or whether the um tradition which was handed on into all kinds of writers in english literature later on in the centuries uh i'd say that one one quite often reads a book which is written so say for someone but the someone is you whoever is reading it so theophilus could actually be just a a a a person representing with a name all of us hearing and reading this at this time and just as people have enjoyed the gospel of cindy throughout history then they have become theophilus as he sets out his account notice too how he um sets things out in the way he would want it this is this gives us a clue to his mind and it's a wonderful one he's come to this new and we learn that from the acts of the apostles so everything that he knows he's he himself is not an eyewitness but he's saying he is relying on the accounts of those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers servants of the word they've delivered them to us those words and now having an orderly mind he wants to set everything that he has collected and heard out in an order which not only makes sense but gives you his good news his evangel in terms which will be as our colleague says wholesome medicine the wholesome medicine of the gospel and here's the doctor speaking of course he would have had huge knowledge of and we learned that luke was a physician from the the epistles um actually written down earlier than the gospels but he wouldn't have known all about the the herbs and medicines which were necessary for healing and the way in which uh physical anointings and massages and all of those things which doctors used at that time to help people get become supple again or to to attempt as best they could with fairly primitive medicines as we would know it now but at the same time the same care of people and the same striving for knowledge of healing well i didn't want just to leave it at those four verses because sin luke's first chapter which is 80 verses long and his second chapter which is 52 verses long are crucial chapters to all of us not only in the story that luke sets out but in our constant worship for luke was clearly a poet he sought also to have been an artist but in in words he can draw wonderful pictures and the lovely thing is that in the gospels which said augustine brought here as a gift when he came as they still exist in in they have illustrations in them and the picture of saint luke at the beginning of his gospel is one of the best preserved and it shows uh certainly someone from a very different culture sitting there about to tell his story now that's a wonderful thing because that came all those years ago long after st luke of course so it's an imaginary picture of saint luke but it gives all the clarity and the desire to give good news in in in that with its colors still very much evident uh and uh that gospel there's those gospels which came across here in 597 that have been carbon tested uh to to be absolutely sure and they came from tuscany in the middle of the sixth century so there's there's little doubt but those are the gospels that were brought here and we give thanks for that but we give thanks for the fact that luke's picture is so clear there because the clarity that he gives to his his his gospel is like painting in words pictures come up which we don't get from the other gospels and our gratitude for them is immense but at the same time songs come up which we use all the time as we shall see but i wanted just to read a little bit of luke's narrative and no better than starting in chapter 1 verse 26 and then i'm going to go through to verse 47 48 of uh that chapter of 80 verses so here is saint luke writing to you and think of yourself as theophilus the lover of god this is written down for you and ordered for your best understanding by our physician of the soul saint luke in the six months the angel gabriel was sent from god to a city of galilee named nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was joseph of the house of david and the virgin's name was mary and the angel came to her and said greetings oh favored one the lord is with you but she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be and the angel said to her do not be afraid mary for you had found favor with god and behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name jesus he will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the lord god will give to him the throne of his father david and he will reign over the house of jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end and mary said to the angel how will this be since i am a virgin and the angel answered her the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you therefore the child to be born will be called holy the son of god and behold your relative elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son and this is the sixth month with her who was called baron for nothing will be impossible with god and mary said behold i am the servant of the lord let it be to me according to your word and the angel departed from her so in those days mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in judah and she entered the house of zechariah and greeted elizabeth and when elizabeth heard the greeting of mary the baby in her womb leapt and elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb and why is this granted to me that the mother of my lord should come to me for behold when the sound of your greeting came to my ears the baby in my womb leapt for joy and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the lord and mary said my soul magnifies the lord and my spirit rejoices in god my savior for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant for behold from now on all generations will call me blessed for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name thanks be to god for saint luke for that story and the way it's told is only in his gospel and there are so many signs of the compassion of the character who is writing yes he's writing everything down in an orderly way but as he writes he is giving us pictures which stay in our minds but words also that have stayed in the worship of the church day by day from then on and our our lady's own response to the the message of the angel behold the handmaid of the lord be it unto me according to thy word the old traditional words and that embracing of vocation but at that time also her desire to share the news and she goes to find the one whom the angel has mentioned her kinswom woman elizabeth in old age she travels and elizabeth instinctively knows and the child within her who is to be john the baptist when he is born uh leaps for joy and the the uh shall we say that the support that these two women give to each other in their huge vocation in the way that the good news of heaven's gift is going to be shared their support for each other is one of the most touching scenes in all the gospels but at the same time it gives us a clue to the way in which luke is drawn as a doctor and his compassion for people and his desire to find this medicine for the soul in that particular way luke is drawn to characters who have a great humility attached to them so when we begin to think of saint luke and i i mustn't go on too long because we could be all mourning with this we not only think of his ordered way of thinking and the fact that he is a gentile writing for gentiles so has an understanding of those who won't know the old testament inside out and won't know all the things which jewish christians would know he is learning as he goes along and then he begins to set it down we don't know in what stage of his life he began to set it down but clearly this has happened after he has been with saint paul to jerusalem and spent time there in the holy land and we can only guess at these things but we do know many things about luke from the epistles for his name comes up on several occasions and we also notice that he notices the unnoticed he's telling us about the singularity of mary's vocation and then he gives a song for mary as she ends her time of greeting elizabeth she says my soul that magnify the lord and my spirit has rejoiced in god my savior for he has regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden well what would we do without that first chapter of saint luke for morning and evening and it's compliment night the canticles the song for each daily office the one that is always said always said at morning prayer as we say it in the cathedral the canticle is always the song of zechariah the benedictus as we call it blessed be the lord god of israel for he has visited and redeemed his people or it's even song always and here nearly always sung the magnificat in so many different ways sung but the music given to us the from from people setting the words which luke's gospel has given to us and then if compline is said separately from the way in which the nung dimitris is put into even song itself then that is the canticle for complin the song of simeon which comes in luke's chapter 2 that 52 verses of chapter 2 and the 80 verses of chapter 1 giving us not only magnificat benedictus nunc demittis but also the gloria of the holy angels he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep the in all all highways says the psalmist in psalm 91 one of the three morning sounds for today we didn't read this morning but they're there for you to read 90 91 92 and all of that we give thanks for almost the liturgical musicianship and policy of st luke no wonder the tradition grew up that he was an artist it's a very early tradition and he is certainly the patron saint of artists as well as patron saint of physicians and doctors and all working for people's health the noticing of simeon and anna in their very old age waiting waiting for the lord and then simeon's song speaking for them both really and then in the same way as you go through his gospel it's luke who notices and is rejoicing over the way in which we say foreigners samaritans and and and centurions from completely different cultures are noticed and spoken of and any compliment that jesus gives of one of these is always a compliment which is noted down we remember when he is at the house of simon the pharisee and this is a luken story um and he is eating with simon and luke describes how the the woman who is whose whole life and let's be absolutely clear this is not mary magdalene uh the woman who has has lived what is is called as a a sinful life in the city and jesus later on just refers to that briefly but she comes in and anoints not the head of jesus the feet of jesus he would have been reclining and also wipes his feet with her hair and her many tears and jesus looks at his host and sees the contempt with which the host views the woman and then he tells that parable about so many sins and the the debt that was remitted to one who owed an enormous amount of money to his master and then the moment the master says you're forgiven this debt he goes off and tries to get a much smaller debt from one of his his fellow servants and it then jesus says to his host her sins her many sins have been completely wiped out by this act of penitence the absolute showing intuitively of penitence following the receiving the medicine of the gospel from the lips of jesus himself no doubt she has heard his teaching and been moved by that she like so many nameless and walks out of the gospel healed and forgiven by luke's joy in the the the wholesome medicine of the gospel or the leper who returned was there not one who um was it was there no one who was going to give praise and thanks to god save save this one and he a samaritan so then we go to parables like the good samaritan only in luke's gospel and once again the lawyer confronted by jesus's question which one of these the priest the levite or the samaritan was a neighbor a fulfilling the law love your neighbor as yourself was a neighbor to the one who fell among thieves and the lawyer can't the the word samaritan sticks in his throat he says the one who showed him mercy no doubt about who that was who bound up his wounds taking him to the inn and so on only in luke's gospel and the words very definite words go and do likewise it's like a doctor's instruction for the medicine of the soul and in the same way uh it's luke who gives us the wonderful story of jesus coming into his own synagogue in galilee surrounded by the people who knew him and he chooses to read part of not isaiah 55 but isaiah 61 the spirit of the lord is upon me because he has anointed me to give good news to proclaim the release of captive to let broken victims go free the recovery of sight to the blind the year of the lord's favor all those words would have pleased luke immensely but it's luke who gives us that scene in the synagogue in nazareth jesus his own synagogue as he speaks to his own people and reads them the scroll from isaiah 61 and at the end of that the year of the lord's favor he says to them all today in your very hearing this scripture has been fulfilled was there ever a moment when the medicine of the gospel was dispensed but at the same time and so often happens it can be received the medicine can be taken and healing takes place or it can be rejected and then it will be presented again and again and again and until when it's embraced then healing begins to take place but notice in that and it interests me jesus calls himself by a word that no one else uses of him he's called rabbi and teacher and lord and master all sorts of things in the gospel but of himself in luke 4 he uses the word doctor yatre the vocative of the greek word for doctor no doubt you will say to me doctor heal yourself it's interesting that luke fixes on that for that's how he saw jesus someone with healing in his very being and the healing comes from the divine gifts that he has brought from that mingling of earth and heaven which the angels of the first two chapters are signs of all of those things we give thanks for for without luke we certainly wouldn't have them and also his wonderful description of the way in which jesus is accompanied accompanied he says by the twelve but also accompanied by those women from galilee who came with him and provided for them all out of their own resources now there we do have mary magdalene who was clearly a woman of means and a faithful follower amongst those who came with jesus and susanna and joanna were told she was the wife of the king steward in galilee these are women of means and also it's luke who gives us the lovely story of mary and martha two who are choosing to serve in completely different ways and jesus always looks towards the one who at that moment is being assailed by criticism from another i know that in john's gospel we learn that jesus is is respectful and loving towards the vocation of mary and martha and lazarus and all those three in sin john's gospel become a homestead where jesus can feel if anywhere safely at home and looked after but it's in luke that we get the little story of martha saying to jesus do not care that i'm doing all the work in the kitchen and she is just kneeling here at your feet and listening and and and jesus and martha and i i always feel he's smiling as he says it because here is jesus once again that lifting the vocation of mary but honoring the vocation of martha because as we know at that supper as described in sin john's gospel after the raising of lazarus and and just before jesus goes to jerusalem for those last days we know that at the supper martha served and mary um anointed jesus with the costly ointment as in preparation for for what's just about to happen to him in his own vocation but at the same time lazarus is sitting and reclining by him in complete companionship for the sisters when they sent for jesus says lord he whom you love is ill and then when jesus arrived he has died so all these things for which we give thanks to uh saint luke on this day how much farther we could go of course and i often wonder whether having written luke the gospel and then the acts of the apostles with another message for theophilus at the beginning whether luke had begun to pen another a trilogy which would have taken things on because he leaves saint paul there from um having arrived in rome and he's writing at that point in the uh third third person uh sorry the first person plural we we so we came to rome um and there's much more to tell but if there is a trilogy well maybe someday it will be discovered but it will be a lovely thing to read the continuation of luke's own story but for the moment thanks be to god on this day for all of st luke's writings in his gospel and the acts of the apostles and the witness that in the epistle is given to him as the beloved physician and that those words of sin pauline imprisonment only luke is with me now lovely sentence so we're in a moment going to say the special prayer for us in luke's day and uh we're praying in the the anglican communion today for the diocese of gomer in the anglican church of the congo and praying for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover emma bishop at lambeth and today as we pray for healing and wholeness and all those who work in health services the world over combating not only the pandemic but all things which threaten life on this in luke's day here we're praying for the ministry of lorraine apps huggins the lead chaplain at the living well at nornington which is a holy place set there for healing so let's say the the prayer of sin dukes day and as i say have in mind if you're in the united kingdom your own member of parliament today but throughout the world have in mind also the safety of public servants as they give themselves to the service of others 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 are men so together in whichever language you like to use we say the prayer our savior taught us our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever amen moment of silence now for your own prayers on this still autumn morning in england [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] christ give you grace to follow sin luke and all his saints in faith and hope and love and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always are men well you're doing good work here this is a this is a wild garden and so all these seeds which have fallen from the plants into the ground will reappear and grow fruitful next year but meanwhile that will be helped by our lovely engines of compost here which are much more pleasant to be with than noisy machines and no need for sprays and things of that sort with you two around ah you