Sermon for Sunday 18th October 2009

The week before last I was on retreat at a Franciscan monastery at Glasshampton, near Worcester. The monastery is a quiet house. The brothers live a life of prayer – looking after the monastery and offering hospitality to a small number of guests who come for individual silent retreats. Outside the daily rhythm of monastic offices (services in the chapel). But apart from that the only time you talk each day is when the brothers and the guests meet for tea for about half an hour in the afternoon. To be in continual silence for three days is a tremendous release, an extraordinary separation from our usual, word filled, lives. No conversations, no radio or TV, no telephone or e-mail. Sustained silence allows us to rest in the presence of God. To ponder our faith and how we respond to Jesus Christ. To find refreshment in the release from our almost constant streams of communication.

It is surprising how many people find the prospect of enforced silence daunting. Lots of people say to me how difficult they would find it to be completely silent for a few hours, let alone a number of days. We often find sitting in silence in church, or any where else quite difficult. The natural inclination to speak is very strong, as is the temptation to listen to the radio or television or to surf the net.

It is strange we have this natural drive to communicate. But when it comes to speaking about our faith, we are not so talkative. Ask most of us to pray aloud in a group, or to pray privately with someone, and we suddenly crave to be silent!

Ask our pastoral assistants about their training for their ministry. You’ll discover that for most of them a big hurdle was being brave enough to pray aloud in a group or with an individual. We all have our inhibitions. I am terrified of speaking at large meetings with people I don’t know. Or of asking questions when it comes to a Q&A session at a conference.

I think the reason for our fear is that it takes us outside our comfort zone. We are concerned that we’ll get it wrong and be embarrassed. So it is always with some awe that we read of the accounts of those first disciples. In our Gospel reading today, the feast day of St Luke, seventy disciples were sent out by Jesus to cure the sick and say to them, the kingdom of God has come near. Sent out to do those two things that for so many of us are difficult. To speak about our faith in Jesus Christ, and to pray with people.

St Luke himself combines those two fundamental aspects of Christian discipleship. First he has an extraordinary ability to tell the story of Jesus Christ and what it means to be a Christian in the most beautiful and engaging way. It’s from Luke that we get the wonderful nativity stories that capture our imagination. And in his gospel we read the most moving parables such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. Explore the word of God in Luke and we find the foundations of our own faith. Alongside this we are told by St Paul in Colossians 4 that Luke was his good friend and a physician. Alongside Luke’s evangelism went his work as a doctor. He was someone who brought both wholeness and healing to people’s lives.

On Wednesday evening last week James Porter was inducted as the new Rector of West Horsley by the Bishop of Guildford. Both James and his wife Katie used to practice as medical doctors. In his sermon the Bishop remarked on how appropriate it was that James was to receive the cure of souls, the traditional description of the role of the parish priest. The Bishop went on to say that the role of the doctor used to be to diagnose and provide a remedy wherever possible for their patients. But that in our modern world medicine is as much about preventative care to build and sustain healthy lives as it is about making sick people better.

So it is interesting that the Bishop did not tell us to understand ‘cure of souls’ as ‘care of souls’, which is a more modern translation of the Latin cura animarum from which the term derives. He wanted us to think of our role as disciples being to cure spiritually in the way that the modern doctor might cure medically. By working to shape spiritually healthy lives rooted in Jesus Christ and filled with the energy of the Holy Spirit.

Our gospel reading tells us that the disciples were sent out to cure the sick and to say to them that the kingdom of God has come near you. In this service of Wholeness and Healing our worship brings us into the presence of God, who cures our souls. Through our holy communion we share in the body and blood of Jesus Christ, drawing us to be united in his love. In the words of our Eucharistic prayer, he ‘pours out for our healing the oil of consolation and the wine of renewed hope, turning the darkness of our pain into the dawning light of his kingdom.’

This service is a time for us to offer to God the need we all have for healing, for cure. Because his promise to us is that we will be made whole through Jesus Christ. And so whether we feel healthy or not so healthy we place our lives before God. We think not just of our physical wellbeing but of all that is wounded or marred in our lives. And the lives of those we love. We have been given pieces of paper so that we can write down our individual petitions – the names of people who are in need, our concern for situations that need healing. We can lay before God our own failings that we would like redeemed. On Thursday evening we will gather for prayer in the church and offer everything that has been written on the pieces of paper in prayer to God.

Also this morning our prayer for healing team will be in the chapel during communion. Do have the boldness to ask them to pray for you. Or for people you are worried about. Or for a situation that needs God’s healing love.

And on this St Luke’s day let’s remember that Jesus calls each and every one of us to be his disciples. We are sent out to bring God’s cure and his kingdom to others, to share our wholeness. Florence Nightingale wrote - So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.

Being a disciple is not always easy – like lambs into the midst of wolves was Luke’s description. But have courage, because it is not just you, but God’s Holy Spirit working within you, that moulds the follower of Christ into a disciple of Christ.

© Revd Robert Jenkins October 2009