Creekside Church Sermon of May 13, 2001 "You Are Now Licensed to Practice Medicine" Luke 4:16-22	Rev. David Bibbee
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When we were children, we made believe we were doctors. We checked our playmate patient's pulse and temperature and recommended bed rest or surgery. As adults we dispense medical counsel for simple ailments, like when to apply hot or cold to a sore joint, or whether aspirin or Tylenol would be best for pain relief. We aren't qualified to do anything else.

In my tackle box I have a hook removal kit-it contains everything necessary to extract sharp hooks intended for a fish's mouth which instead, end up embedded in the hand or some other part of the anatomy. When asked by a guest angler what I would do in such a case, I explain the procedure, but have not yet detected any anxieties put to rest. During last year's fishing camp at Camp Mack, a 14 year-old boy sank a hook into his finger. Fortunately, Tim McFadden's dad Wilbur was there. Wilbur is a general practitioner and a surgeon. He numbed the lad's finger with lytacane and began probing. He tried to remove it without making an incision, but the hook would not budge.

Then I said, "Wilbur, Dan and I know a good method." "Have you done it?" he asked. "No, but we've read about it and seen pictures." "Okay…let's try it." Wilbur said. The patient said, "Try what?" An M.D. had just turned the case over to M.Div's. A physician's referral to two preachers. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked. Actually, we weren't sure, but we didn't want to alarm him further. We still had a doctor to fall back on if necessary. Out of hearing range, we decided who would push and who would pull. We said a silent little prayer, gritted our teeth, and while another camper held our patient still, there was a sharp pull, and the next sound heard was the "ping" of a hook on the McFadden's kitchen floor. The surgery was successful. Our patient lived. He's even returning to our camp next month.

You who have studied Luke's gospel know that according to tradition, Luke was a physician. Before Jesus healed one person, Luke had a hand in the healing of many. He knew the satisfaction of correctly diagnosing people's ailments and prescribing treatments which restored them to health. Doctor Luke also knew failure. Sometimes all his knowledge and skill made no difference. He did his best, but it wasn't good enough.

I heard a neurosurgeon say he was jealous of obstetricians. When obstetricians walk from the delivery room, it is usually with good news of a new life that has entered the world. When neurosurgeons leave the operating room to meet family members, often the news they bear is not good. "It was a significant injury. We did everything we could. We just didn't have much of a chance." Imagining such scenarios is enough to keep most people from going into medicine.

Luke the physician had to deal with both these realities. But in Jesus, he saw something which would change how he dealt with people. It changed his view about life all together…so much so that he would be remembered not as Luke the physician, but Luke the evangelist. We know nothing about his medical practice-how many deliveries he performed or how many house calls he made. We do know the stories he recorded about shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night, and the Good Samaritan, and the prodigal son.

Under the influence of Jesus, the doctor became a disciple. He traded the black bag for the note pad and recorded what he heard, saw, and experienced with the greatest clarity he could, not because people love good stories, but because these stories had the power to change, to heal, and to save lives.

Angi read to you from Jesus' first sermon. It was short, but it was loaded. Jesus revealed the tools of his trade…the keys with which he would open prison doors, the medicine which would give the blind their sight. Jesus' ministry was one of doing, but first, it was a ministry of speaking. "God has anointed me to preach good news…he sent me to proclaim…" Preach. Proclaim. Talk. That's how Jesus changed the world…with words.

I make my living with words. Often they don't seem to accomplish much. I think them, pray and say them. I preach and teach with them. Once they leave my lips, I have no control over what becomes of them. They may fall to earth like wounded birds. They may go in one ear and out the other. They are heard, but not always understood. Some take root and grow, though I know nothing of it. That's how it is with words. Last week Pope John Paul retraced the steps of St. Paul. It was also another week of blood letting between Israeli's and Palestinians. While in Syria the Pope said to these warring factions, "Stop fighting. Forgive one another. Live in peace." I don't think it did much good. How many rock throwing, teenaged Palestinians emptied rocks from their pockets, approached heavily armed Israeli soldiers, extended their hands and say, "Why can't we be friends?" because of the Pope's words."

We don't expect much from words. We swim in a sea of them. We don't know which to believe. There are too many words, yet it's words we are starving for…the word which God spoke and light and land formed; the word God spoke which became flesh and lived among us; the word which Jesus spoke and lives were never the same. "Your sins are forgiven. Pick up your bed and walk. Fear not. Your faith has made you well. Don't worry about tomorrow."

Here is an irony worth pondering. Luke healed more lives as an evangelist than as a doctor. In his black bag there were compresses, poultices, pills and Ace bandages. After he became a disciple, he was given a different medicine …words-not his own words which would accomplish little. He was given Someone Else's. As the stories were passed along more lives were healed and new stories were created.

Think for a moment about how many of us came to faith in Christ because of a little something someone said. In the course of a simple conversation someone may have said, "I know things are tough for you right now. If it's okay, I would like to include you in my prayers." Maybe someone said, "I'd enjoy having you as my guest in church next Sunday." Maybe you overheard someone say, "There's no way I could ever keep my crazy life together without my Christian friends." I know people who ended up in pastoral ministry because they read a Bible lesson one Sunday and after worship a little old lady said, "You read so well. You should become a minister." I heard a writer talk of walking down a crowded New York City sidewalk. He made momentary eye contact with a black woman who said to him, "Jesus loves you," and then disappeared into the crowd as quickly as she had appeared. This ever so brief encounter changed his perspective on everything he was struggling with at the time. It was a catalyst for a new beginning.

Think of all the involved theories and theologies and strategies which have been conceived to win coverts, change lives, and heal the world. When you think about how Jesus did it, it is so simple it is almost embarrassing. He changed the lives of the poor, the prisoners, the blind and oppressed with words. When Luke discovered what Jesus' words and stories could do, he wrote them down so other people in other generations would know their power. He passed them on. Then it was St. Paul's turn. Then St. Augustine and St. Francis. Then came Martin Luther and Alexander Mack, and John Wesley…C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, John and Mary Q Sunday school teacher, your mother, your friend, you.

"Words," someone observed, "are so powerful they should only be used to heal, to bless, and to prosper." We don't give much thought to medicine when we are healthy. It's not until we have a bad headache that we appreciate what aspirin can do. It's not until we feel impoverished, blind or bound that we yearn to hear Jesus' words spoken by others who take the stewardship of the word seriously.

I titled this sermon, "You Now Have A License To Practice Medicine" for a reason. If I called it, "You Now Have A License To Practice Evangelism" some of you would not have listened. That's sad. Lord knows that much of what is done in the name of Christian evangelism has turned off more people to the Lord than it has ever turned on. But an evangelist is simply someone with a good word; a word about something that makes a difference; something that helps and heals. Being an evangelist is living on the basis of that good news, letting others get little glimpses of the life of Christ in our own. It's greatest work comes in little doses and deeds…sitting by the bed of a sick friend, offering a single mom child care so she can do something for herself for a change, telling someone who hurts that you'll pray for them. Show and tell.

Chuck Baldwin recently reminded us that an individual can have a greater impact on greater numbers of people by sharing Christ on an individual basis than a mass evangelist can who draws thousands of converts each night. There are plenty of mass evangelists. We need people like you to open your mouth and heart and give witness to what's inside of you. You do have that good word in your mouth, don't you? You can put your finger on the difference Christ makes for you, can't you?

You don't need to look far to find people full of fears and tears. What good are words to them? Nothing if they are just our words. But they are everything if they are gospel words which carry the promise and the presence of the One who heals, forgives, and restores.

The writer Robert Fulghum has a hard time answering people who want to know what he does for a living. When he has tried, the person asking usually ends up with more confusion than clarity. If he is on a long flight and someone asks the question, he avoids trouble by making up a profession he thinks no one is interested in. Most of the time it works.

But on a flight to Thailand he got bumped into first class and ended up sitting next to a distinguished looking Sikh gentleman. He wore fine clothes, lots of expensive jewelry, and had gold teeth. He thought he was a high-caste bazaar merchant. When the man asked Fulghum the what-do-you-do? question he said the first thing that popped into his head. "I'm a neurosurgeon." "How wonderful!" The man said with delight. "So am I!" He was. A real one. It took Fulghum a while to explain things, but he said that for 10 seconds, the temptation to be deaf and dumb had been great.

The next time you're asked what you do for a living, don't make something up but get into the habit of telling yourself, "I am licensed to practiced medicine," because you are…gospel medicine. Luke the doctor changed his profession to an evangelist, and as a result played a part in curing more ills than he could ever have imagined. So can we. So must we.

As the good news has been passed to us, it's up to us to pass it to others in the myriad of simple, yet totally sufficient ways we can. It's in our Hippocratic oath. It's part of the promise we made to Christ when we were baptized and turned from teachers and preachers, and firemen and foremen, and nurses and doctors into His disciples.

This message was inspired by Barbara Brown Talyor's sermon, "Gospel Medicine: which appears in her book bearing the same title.

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