Rev’d Caroline - [email protected], 01285 712467
Readings for Sunday: Isaiah 35.3-6; 2 Timothy 4.5-17; Luke 10.1-9
This Sunday we celebrate the feast day of St Luke the Evangelist: author of Acts and of course the Gospel according to Luke, companion to Paul on his journeys around the Mediterranean, and somehow, in the middle of all that, also being a doctor. A busy man!
One of the things we encounter quite frequently as Christians in the modern world is the idea from people outside the Church that science and faith are incompatible. In fact, often this thought is taken a step further, with people suggesting that science and faith don’t just work together, they are actually antithetical – you can’t hold on to one if you have the other.
I think Christians who were scholars and scientists through the centuries would find that an extraordinary proposition. Isaac Newton was convinced that his studies were serving God, learning more about God’s amazing Creation. One of the founding figures of the modern study of genetics, working on the development of pea plants, was a monk – Gregor Mendel. For them, science was an outworking of their faith.
I don’t have exact figures, but anecdotally, thinking of the people in the medical profession that I’ve met over the years, a genuinely high number of them are Christians, or people of faith. If science and faith were antithetical, wouldn’t we think that impossible? But it isn’t. Medical science and faith in God can very much go hand in hand; not least in the sense that working in medicine is a vocation, and a way of serving God, working in the healing and care of His children.
Luke is one of the earliest example of followers of Jesus who also sought to heal not just through prayer, but through study and learning, knowing that God can be served in all the ways in which we reach out and care for His creation as a whole, and human beings in particular.
We look to Luke, trailblazer, apostle and evangelist, patron saint of all doctors and medical workers, as a reminder to us all – learning about and caring for the world in all the ways we can will never be a detriment to our faith, but will only deepen our understanding. And let’s pray for all those who serve God through serving their neighbours as doctors, nurses, technicians and carers. May they be blessed in their faith and in their work.
Rev’d Caroline
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