Sermon
St. Luke-prayers for
Intercessions, becoming vessels of God
A few moments ago, I offered a prayer for those who work in
the field of medicine. And I want to use
this occasion to highlight three things that we can all relate to, whether we
work in the medical field or we don’t.
The first has to do with intercessory prayer. Lots of people, especially those outside of
our church do not understand the concept of intercessory prayer. Lots of non-Orthodox, and even lots of Orthodox
people question why do we invoke the names of the saints in our prayers. The easiest answer to this question is
this—have you ever asked someone else to pray for you? The answer for most of us is probably
yes—“I’m about to go on a trip—pray that I go safely.” “I’m about to have surgery, pray that it goes
well.” People want prayers for these
kinds of things all the time. And
because our church is a collective WE, a community effort, when one is in need
of prayer, he or she enlarges the number of people praying by inviting others
to pray for their concern. In the
services, we offer, “Let US pray to the Lord for this or that.” “Let US pray for the servant of God who is
sick,” etc. So, if we enlarge our prayer
group to include other people in our parish, then why not enlarge it to include
the saints of the church. Many times
when I visit hospitals, I give people an icon of the Virgin Mary holding the
Christ child in her arms. And I pray
that she will hold the person who is sick in her arms as well. It is not only a comforting image, a
comforting thought, but part of our theology and tradition, that we call upon
the Virgin Mary to hold us as her children, with her as our mother. And there is the tradition of the saints who
also intercede for us. Most of us have a
Patron Saint—St. Nicholas, or
The second thing I want to highlight, again using the
doctors as an example, is that the healing that comes from medical science
comes from God through the skills of his vessels, the doctors and nurses. Everything that we have that is good comes
from God—our skills, our talents, our minds.
So when a doctor finds a cure for disease, it is God working through
that individual, or that individual allowing God to work through him or her to
bring healing. We are vessels, not
robots. We definitely play a part in the
creative process. To us an art
analogy—God provides each of us with clay in the form of our talents. And each of us works with that clay to mold
it into something beautiful. Each pot
looks different when it is done. When
asked who made the pot, the answer is the one who gave the clay, together with
the one who molded it. Becoming God’s
vessel means working hand in hand with God and allowing God to work hand in
hand with us.
The doctors and nurses and those in the medical field do not
just have jobs, but have a holy ministry—the ministry of healing the broken
body. Medicine works very closely with
the church, as the church seeks to minister and heal the wounded soul. Teachers also have a holy ministry as God
works through them to stimulate and grow the mind. Parents have a sacred duty, a holy ministry,
as God works through them to grow a person—and to teach that person many of the
basic things he or she needs to know to grow up—to know what it feels like to
be loved and be secure, basics like learning how to eat and to walk, and how to
make good choices. The parent is a
vessel of motivation to develop the talents with which God has blessed their
child and a vessel of security to keep that child safe during these years of
development. For those who are married,
marriage is a ministry, marriage is a work of the heart—imparting unconditional
love to a spouse over the life of the marriage.
Architecture and construction are ministries which provide
protection—houses in which to live, roads on which to travel. And I could go through every noble job which
there is and find a way to call it a ministry.
The word for ministry in Greek is “Diakonia,” which is
better translated as “service.” So, all
of these aforementioned jobs are ministries of service. So if someone asks you what your job is, you
should reply, I serve others by being a doctor, or a teacher, or a priest, a
bank teller, a store clerk or a basketball coach. I serve my child by being a parent, and I
serve my spouse by making sure they have a loving and safe home to live in with
me. When one works at his or her task
with an honest and sincere heart, when one sees his or her work as a ministry,
as an act of service, and when one sees himself or herself as a vessel of God rather
than an employee or manager, that’s when God can enter the picture, where one
can work side by side with God and achieve more than he ever could working
alone. When we pray about committing
ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God, we are referring
to bringing God into all the facets of our life, including our “jobs” which
occupy a large amount of our time. When
you bring God into your job, that job becomes a ministry, and you go from being
an employee to being a vessel of God, a vehicle through whom God can work.
Which brings me to my third point which is about the
importance of prayer—prayer is when we communicate with God, when we bring Him,
His guidance, His power, His glory into our particular life situation. There are many times in my life that I feel
stressed out—going to a hospital to visit a distraught family whose loved one
is about to die, hearing someone pour out their soul in confession, or even
from my home life, when Nicholas is sick or won’t stop crying, or when I get
sick and have to go to the doctor—and each time I face the task alone, I always
remain nervous and feel inadequate. When
I bring God into that situation, I almost always feel peace. There are prayer books that offer prayers for
any situation you can imagine, like prayer for children each morning, or prayer
before a spouse comes home from work.
And if you prefer, offering up
your own words is just as good—why not say a prayer after you drop you children
off in the morning that they have a good day at school, or before they come
home that they’ll get their homework done.
How about a prayer before starting your day, however it is you spend the
day. How about a doctor uttering a
prayer as he or she is about to see each new patient of the day. Dozens of
patients would mean dozens of prayers. I
often utter a prayer before each appointment in my office, or confession in the
church, so that 1)I feel the presence of God; and 2)I am again reminded that I
am a vessel for God to work through, and that I don’t operate independently of
Him, and that I can lean on Him an count on Him to work with me and guide me in
the tasks I am doing.
And here’s one more helpful hint regarding prayer—we are
supposed to pray for people by name—ourselves, our loved ones, those who we
know are in need. But it is also helpful
to pray for categories of people—for instance, for those in the armed forces
and their families, for those who are sick and those who care for them, for
those who teach and those who are taught, for public servants like policemen
and firemen.
As you leave church today, complete these two sentences:
I allow God to work
through me by_____________
I am His vessel
because I___________.
Throughout the year, I will try to highlight the patron
saints of various people, jobs and circumstances. This year, St. Luke happened to fall on a
Sunday, so it was a good opportunity to highlight and to pray for those in the
medical field. In a few weeks, we’ll celebrate
the feast of St. Nectarios on November 9, another opportunity to pray for
healing, specifically for those who have cancer. Next week, on October 26, we will honor St.
Demetrios, the patron saint of athletes—he’s the saint we invoke to keep our
children safe while playing sports. And
so on. This is why we open the church so
often for prayer and worship—to not only commemorate the important saints from
the 2,000 year history of our church, but to seek their intercessions to help
us through the circumstances of our lives, and to help us become vessels of God
using their examples to guide and inspire us.
May God, through the Intercessions of St. Luke the Physician continue to
bless and guide the healing hands of doctors and nurses and all those who work
with them to become vessels of healing, and to impart through them God’s healing
upon all of us when we are in need of it.
Amen.