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Introduction: Rev Leah Vasey-Saunders

Music
My eyes for beauty pine - Elizabeth and Thomas Coxhead (v2)

Good morning and welcome to Lancaster Priory.Ìý My name is Leah Vasey-Saunders and I’m the Vicar of Lancaster Priory, where we gather to meet with God through word and music.

Music
My eyes for beauty pine - Elizabeth and Thomas Coxhead (v2)

In a few days time on the 18th of October, the church will celebrate the feast of St Luke the Evangelist.Ìý A significant part of the Canon of the new Testament is attributed to be the writing of St Luke- the gospel that bears his name and the Acts of the Apostles.Ìý In Colossians, Luke is referred to as a Physician.Ìý He and his gospel in particular have long been associated with the ministry of healing and reconciliation, themes which we will explore in our worship today.Ìý The witness of St Luke in his gospel is to a God who meets us in the person of Jesus, and who then minsters to the sick, teaches compassion, inclusion, reconciliation and forgiveness.Ìý We draw near to this Jesus, mindful of our own needs and of the needs of a divided and broken world and we pray that we might know forgiveness, compassion, healing and reconciliation in our homes and communities this day.

Hymn
Amazing graceÌýÌý

The grace of God has dawned upon the world with healing for all.
Let us come to him, in sorrow for our sins, seeking healing and salvation.
Lord Jesus, you heal the sick:
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Lord Jesus, you forgive sinners:
Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

Lord Jesus, you give yourself to heal us and bring us strength:
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

May the God of love and power
´Ú´Ç°ù²µ¾±±¹±ðÌýyouÌýand freeÌýyouÌý´Ú°ù´Ç³¾ÌýyourÌý²õ¾±²Ô²õ,
heal and strengthenÌýyouÌýby his Spirit,
and raiseÌýyouÌýto new life in Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Music
Nada te turbe (Nothing can trouble) - Taize

We are going to hear three short readings today and the first is the healing of the crippled women on the sabbath in Luke chapter 13 read by Peter Hopwood.

Reading: Luke 13:10-17
Jesus heals a crippled woman on the sabbath

Reflection
Jesus was well known for his healing ministry. At some points in the gospel we hear that the sick were brought to him so he could heal them, or that their relatives would come to intercede for them, asking Jesus to come to those too ill to leave their beds. There is a famous story of a man carried by his friends to Jesus who is lowered through a hole in the roof because they couldn’t get through the crowd. But this story is different – Jesus is teaching in a Synagogue. It’s a sabbath. There aren’t the crowds jostling around, the clamour of shouts for Jesus to heal them, the cries of amazement when he does. It’s a different sort of scene. Jesus is teaching. The crowds are sat in silence, attentive, listening to what he has to say. And in the middle of this, Jesus sees a woman who was bent over and had been unable to stand straight for eighteen years. He stops talking. The sermon forgotten, he calls her over and tells her that today she is set free from her suffering. In front of everyone, she stands up straight and immediately starts to praise God. You can imagine the scene – the woman is shouting out her praises, the entire congregation erupts into noise. The quiet, reflective time of Sabbath worship is now a distant memory.

I must admit at this point that I have some sympathy as a worship leader with the leader of the Synagogue. The carefully curated act of worship has been thrown out of the window as the visiting preacher (probably a controversial choice in the first place) turns the sermon slot into an impromptu healing service. He’s already seeing everyone with some sort of ailment shouting out to Jesus to heal them next. He does what he can to try to restore order, vainly shouting out across the hubbub ‘No more healings! Let’s remember it’s the Sabbath, people! Come back tomorrow for that – there’s a whole six days a week for healing, but today let’s remember why we’re here!’ It’s not what his service plan had been.

But Jesus is having none of it. It’s interesting that it’s our little everyday hypocrisies that seem to anger Jesus the most. The ways our principles easily get set aside when it’s inconvenient, the ways we are happy to put ourselves out for our friends but won’t make the slightest concession when it’s something that only makes a difference to someone we don’t know. ‘You wouldn’t hesitate to disrupt your sabbath if it was something that benefitted you – but you presume to tell a woman who has suffered every day for 18 years that she should have waited another day?’

The picture Luke paints of Jesus is of a healer, yes, but not in the soft-focus sense of just making sick people well. Jesus as a healer shows us God’s compassion and his anger at petty injustices. Healing in an unjust world is always about more than just making people well.

Music
We cannot measure how you healÌý

Our second reading is one of the most famous from Luke’s Gospel Chapter 10, The Good Samaritan and is read for us today by Professor John Schad.

Reading: Luke 10: 29-37
The Good Samaritan

Reflection
The Parable of the Good Samaritan is justly one of the most well-remembered of Jesus’ parables, its deep influence on our culture still apparent in the way that calls to be a good neighbour or a good samaritan still have resonance. But this familiarity can mean we forget that this is a parable that only appears in Luke’s Gospel. It reflects Luke’s concern with healing and reconciliation – it’s a story about a man in need of healing, and poses the question who will give him the help he needs. Straightaway it reminds us of Jesus’s contempt for the outwardly religious and well to do who show no real compassion, who haven’t really understood and been changed by the love that God has for the world. It is these people who are the villains of the story. Those like the Synagogue ruler in our first reading, for whom the suffering of others is an inconvenience in their day, a brush with the lives of the less fortunate that might take them away from their own priorities, a possibly risky situation they’d be better staying out of. For the priest and the levite, the man by the side of the road is just one of the things they saw on the road as they were going to Jericho. Maybe they told their friends about it when they arrived ‘Did you realise how dangerous it’s getting on the road these days?’ Maybe they offered a prayer for the man once they were safely back in comfortable surroundings. But the man didn’t become any more to them than something they saw on the road. Was he dead? Was there anything they could do to help? They didn’t even stop to check.

The contrast is provided by the Samaritan – the one who is moved by compassion. He allows the man to be an inconvenience to him. He uses his own supplies to bandage him. He takes a detour to the nearest inn, stays overnight to care for him, pays for the the man to be taken care of. Arranges to return again to check everything was ok and pay anything still owing. Luke’s Jesus comes as a healer who teaches others to be healers. Who understands that healing is allowing our neighbours to be a burden to us. Changing our plans, giving of ourselves because someone else needs us to. Making caring for strangers our responsibility. And being willing to step beyond our prejudices in doing so. The Samaritan and the man on the road were not just strangers to each other. They were from groups that despised each other, that saw the other as an enemy. Healing involves seeing beyond our prejudices. It involves reconciliation.

Hymn
When I needed a neighbourÌý

Prayer
God of love, May we always see the world through the eyes of the Good Samaritan and be filled with your deep compassion. Grant us the insight to see the need in those around us, the wisdom to know how to respond, and the strength to do so willingly. We pray for those we might cross the road to avoid - the poor, the vulnerable and the marginalised. Open our eyes, that we might not cross the road from human need. May our love of you and love of our neighbour call us to be people of peace and justice in the world. And may we, like the Good Samaritan, always ‘go and do likewise’. ÌýAmen

Our final reading is read by Revd Dr Susan Salt, Priory Curate, and is the calling of Levi in Chapter Five of Luke’s Gospel.

Reading: Luke 5:27-32
The calling of Levi

Reflection
Not all healing is physical, because not all wounds are. Healing takes the form of reconciliation when what needs to be healed are broken relationships, broken communities. One of the slanders that Jesus’ enemies threw around about him was that he ate with tax collectors and sinners. We may recognise the dynamics of small-town gossip and applaud Jesus’ compassionate willingness to see people rather than their histories. But the inclusion of ‘tax collectors’ may still sound a little odd, if not comical, to our ears. No-one likes paying taxes, but it seems a bit extreme to exclude tax collectors from your table in polite company. But the tax collectors in Jesus’ day were collaborators with the Roman authorities. The ones who took the side of the oppressors against their own people. The ones who did the enemy’s dirty work so they could keep their hands clean. In an occupied land where you still had to feed and clothe your family, people who wouldn’t serve the Romans ended up either crucified or starving because their principles prevented them from taking Caesar’s money. And their families suffered with them. Everyone compromised. Everyone hated it. Everyone sought to avoid their guilt by pushing it all on the ones who compromised the most: the tax collctor. The tax collector was the living embodiment of a broken and guilty community. The choices they made were not massively different from anyone else’s, but they profited enough from it that everyone saw them as uniquely to blame.Ìý

Jesus the reconciler saw a tax collector named Levi and told him to follow him. And Levi did. In an instant. Leaving his old life behind him like a shed skin. Perhaps it’s only those who live with guilt and regret as their constant companions who really see the value of being given a second chance. Because when Levi threw a banquet for Jesus, all the collaborators and chancers and loan sharks and na’er-do-wells were there to meet him. All the dirty underbelly of the Roman occupation. You can imagine the horror of the Pharisees, their unwillingness even to be associated with these people. They complain to the disciples – ‘why do you eat and drink with tax-collectors and sinners?’ maybe they weren’t willing to get too close to the sinners sitting by Jesus. But Jesus overhears the question and gives it a serious answer. His answer isn’t the answer of cosmopolitan tolerance – ‘you need to get over your small-mindedness’. He doesn’t downplay the significance of what Levi and the others have done. None of them: Jesus, Levi or the Pharisees are in any doubt that the way the tax collectors are living is wrong. But Jesus turns it around – ‘I’m here *because* they’re sinners. I care more about showing them the love of God than about preserving my good reputation. It’s not those who are well who need a healer, it’s the sick.’ Healing and reconciliation meet in the attitude of compassion.

Music
Nada te turbe (Nothing can trouble)Ìý- Taize

Prayers
Loving God, your Son called people to follow him as his disciples.
Look with mercy upon those whom he calls today.Ìý
Give them courage to be people of healing and hope
where there is pain and despair.
Make them bold witnesses to the works of God in their own generation.
God of Love Hear our Prayer

Music
O Lord, hear my prayer - Taize

Loving God, your Son sent his disciples out into the world as people of peace.Ìý
Help us to look with compassion upon the world into which You send us.ÌýÌý
Equip us to be agents of peace and reconciliation.Ìý
God of Love Hear our Prayer

Loving God, your Son sent out disciples to preach and heal the sick.
Be with all who suffer and struggle this day in body, mind or spirit. Renew among your people the gifts of healing.Ìý We pray especially for all working to treat and support the sick at home and in hospital.
God of Love Hear our Prayer

Music
O Lord, hear my prayer - Taize

The Lord’s Prayer

Blessing
God, who has prepared for you a city with eternal foundations,
bring you, with all the saints,
to the eternal and triumphant joy of that city;
and the blessing of God almighty,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
be among you and remain with you always.
´¡³¾±ð²Ô.ÌýÌý

Hymn
Immortal love forever fullÌý