good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this saturday morning we've come to our usual place on a saturday morning here but only to begin our morning prayer this morning because we want another um help from one of the natural things in the garden for the reflection on our gospel of saint matthew but we've come to join kemi and the piglets in their breakfast to begin with and to welcome anyone from right across the world to canterbury cathedral bring your own concerns your own prayers it's a beautiful morning here in england a lovely june morning as the sun comes up and and begins to crest the the trees and shine on us this morning and we are bringing prayers for the whole world of course and in terms of people suffering from uh things which have happened through human endeavor going wrong in the collapsing of the building in miami in florida and all the distress and also fatality that that has caused we remember the people there and in our prayers are beside them and at the same time those who have lost their lives in the extraordinary tornado in the czech republic so those pictures are hugely alarming and shows the immediate force of of the natural elements as trees are uprooted and whole communities destroyed we again stand beside those people in their prayer in our prayers and their prayers so let's begin our prayers here and then we'll go to our other location oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the day star dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night blessed are you sovereign god creator of all to you be glory and praise forever you founded the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands in the fullness of time you made us in your image and in these last days you have spoken to us in your son jesus christ the word made flesh as we rejoice in the gift of your presence among us let the light of your love always shine in our hearts your spirit ever renew our lives and your praises ever be on our lips blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our sound this morning on the 26th morning of the month is a section of the long psalm 119 and that psalm is a meditation on the law of the lord i'm starting at verse 105 and reading that section your word is a lantern to my feet and a light upon my path i have sworn and will fulfill it to keep your righteous judgments i am troubled above measure give me life o lord according to your word accept the free will offering of my mouth o lord and teach me your judgments my soul is ever in my hand yet i do not forget your law the wicked have laid a snare for me but i have not strayed from your commandments your testimonies have i claimed as my heritage forever for they are the very joy of my heart i have applied my heart to fulfill your statutes always even to the end there's no better sound than hearing clemmy and the piglets at their breakfast in the morning a sound of total and solid enjoyment but we're going to leave them now and go to a different part of the garden to give us another image on this day for our reflection on the gospel that we shall read from saint matthew another spot in in the garden on this lovely june morning and our reading from the gospel of saint matthew the 20th chapter and beginning at verse 1 jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard after agreeing with the labourers for a denarius a day he sent them into his vineyard and going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace and to them he said you go into the vineyard too and whatever is right i will give you so they went going out again about the six hour and the ninth hour he did the same and about the 11th hour he went out and found others standing and he said to them why do you stand here idle all day they said to him because no one has hired us he said to them you go into the vineyard too and when evening came the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman call the labourers and pay them their wages beginning with the last up to the first and when those hired about the 11th hour came each of them received a denarius now when those hired first came they thought they would receive more but each of them also received a denarius and on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house saying these last worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat he replied to one of them my friend i am doing you no wrong did you not agree with me for a denarius take what belongs to you and go i choose to give this last worker as i give to you am i not allowed to do what i choose with what belongs to me or do you begrudge my generosity so the last will be first and the first last you'll see why we've come here behind me is our opulent vine which having been well pruned earlier in wintertime is now flourishing and will later in the year give good fruit it goes right along the old wall with its roman foundations the wall of the city and the wall of the precincts these days and the wall of the deanery kitchen garden and i'm sitting amongst vegetables here with tiger at another breakfast time having left the piglets at theirs in the other part of the garden but it's the vine i want to concentrate on because the image of the vine and this morning the vineyard is a crucially important one in old testament and new testament images and in the teaching of jesus the vineyard represents so many different things and it represents a community of people in total diversity caring for it workers in the vineyard it can as in isaiah uh in chapter five be representative of the community of israel and the the planting of choice vines which deliver sour fruit there are other images when it is something much much wider and broader than that in terms of the life of our whole planet and there are other images where the vine itself and its branches become the image that jesus wants to use but here is a wonderful parable which is what we've learned to call special matthew it comes within matthew's gospel and is ordered just here i started saying this is chapter 10 20 verse 1. sometimes the chapters and verses get in the way of our thinking about these stories because this is a complete follow-on from the conversation that we were listening to yesterday when peter was saying so we've left everything to follow you what's in it for us and jesus responds and and sketches out in with a certain sort of irony the the the the the gifts and rewards that are very uh limited in in peter and the other disciples imagination we know that from the way in which they've said who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and all of this and the struggles that jesus is having in opening up their minds and spirits to the real concept of the totality of the dimensions of what the creator wants to give us in terms of the good news that jesus himself is bringing and that passage ended if you remember and i said here's the stick in the tail by him saying to jesus to peter but many who are first will be lost and the last first and how does this passage end which goes straight on from it so the last will be first and the first last it's a circular route all the way around and meanwhile we are so say workers in the vineyard standing first idle in the marketplace until the call comes it always interests me that the times of the day set out are reflected of by the the old canonical hours as we said the hours when prayers were said sometimes quite short prayers sometimes longer prayers as in our morning prayer when we reflect on things and have time to do so the prayers said in the middle of the day are sometimes only arrow prayers little bits and pieces grabbed from our knapsack at times when we're most busy but the life of this place when it was monastic was governed by those what we would call canonical hours when the daily office the work of prayer was engaged in by the community some of them were out and about working in the fields at their work and would say those offices there but the bell would tell them when and others here and still the bells ring out for morning prayer and evening prayer but look at the hours as they come he goes out at sunrise at cockcrow early in the morning the the hours of of uh prime and and the matins and the prime and then after that we come to the way in which the day works itself out in our time from 6 a.m to 6 p.m and he goes out and at the third hour and there was a little office called tis and at the sixth hour an office was sixth and uh at the ninth hour an office called knowns and then finally at the eleventh hour five o'clock when vespers even song for us would be would be said or sun and eventually the evening the completion of the day when people come at the end of their work and that's the hour for compliment that is not of course implicit here because jesus is is teaching long before those kind of communities existed but what it is telling us is that there are hours throughout the day when we're reminded simply to pray and give what's on our hearts and maybe a sentence or two that we know by heart from our knapsacks or the way to do it and then at the same time i wanted to talk about the fact that when the laborers come at the end and grumble at the master of the house because heaven's rewards are all the same for everyone god's generosity is total absolutely total let's get these off my lap because something more important is coming on i think um and uh as we do that we we think of the way in which um the the rewards of heaven have to be embraced with total gratitude at whatever time we receive them because the work in the vineyard whatever that be for us is something that as god has called us to there's only one reward and that is the totality of god sharing himself we're back in a lucan special passage with the father of the prodigal son my son you are always with me everything i have is yours he's grumbled too by the fact that his brother who's come late and behaved in his mind atrociously is getting the same kind of reward and the father responds in that way well here's jesus saying that heaven's generosity is given totally and absolutely the interesting thing is that the the word uh which is used when the owner of the vineyard says to the the one who's grumbling my friend the the greek word etaros is used only three times in matthew's gospel it's not the general word for friend philos is the general word for friend eteros has a certain irony about it um and my friend uh he's he's actually saying if you are my friend you have to realize this that the generosity is given to all and the wonder and glory that we feel at that generosity must be accepted by even those who've worked much longer and suffered the burden and heat of the day um i always think of of hymnnity which which includes those those verses and uh we in that old hymn which we don't seem to sing much these days beneath the cross of jesus i feign would take my stand and in that the the heat of the moon tide and that the burden of the day is mentioned as it is in the harvest hymn which we sing uh to the o lord our hearts we raise from the the burden of the noon tight heat and the the weariness there it's all there in that hymn but they're wonderful images and the word of tyros my friend is only used twice more in matthew's gospel it's used for the wedding guest who comes to the wedding in the parable not prepared not bothering to prepare with the wedding robe and it doesn't mean robe of course it means our preparations for coming in in humility and gratitude before god my friend how came you in here without a wedding robe and then lastly uh it's a comment on judas's intention and the irony uh must have stung at that time in the garden of gethsemane because when judas arrives then jesus greets him with the word my friend meaning are you my friend in what you're doing now etiros or in the vocative attire so all of that we remember in this wonderful parable but essentially the diversity of times and gifts working in the vineyard which we might see as our own community our own particular place our own extended family or the life of our planet and that's made up of a diversity of life and of creatures there are just some some days the thrush is singing magnificently this morning um just some some some dates from this time um on the 26th of june in 1817 branwell bronte was born and we think of that bronte household at house how they all fitted in and how they achieved the creative work they did is a complete wonder to me but it's a wonderful place to visit because you see in that little vineyard how many different kinds of work were going on and their father patrick the parish priest who has lost his wife and is looking after them all outlives them all and dies at the age of 84 but he's got one kind of work but in the middle of all that she's got the work of caring for them looking after them and particularly branwell who goes very much astray and paints himself out of the quartet of of of the three sisters and himself and that that has now been rediscovered in the portrait as you well know but he himself was a wonderful painter and a poet and a writer in that household with charlotte and emily and anne and the things that they created a little vineyard all of their own and patrick in his vineyard of the wider parish and friends around creativity going on and then at the same time let's remember that on this day in 1945 in san francisco the united nations charter was signed it was signed by 49 nations and many many other nations have joined since an intention that the workers in the vineyard of this world might live at peace and with tranquility and welfare of others at that heart a fine and noble ideal and we've seen over the years since how difficult that is to achieve but how that is still going strong and for that we give thanks and all the organizations particularly here of course we remember that because we are a united nations a unesco united nations educational scientific and cultural organization world heritage site and that means that we have a special cultural physical or natural significance and the list of those places is quite short but canterbury cathedral together with saint augustine's the site of the old monastery and also martin's parish church queen bertha's church form a world heritage site and the sign of that in the stone in the precincts reminds us of the care we need to take because this is a gift for the whole planet and it's exercised in a multitude of different ways and when visitors come they experience that and different people coming at different times enjoy different aspects of the life here but we who are stewards of this vineyard are very conscious of that and on this morning we give thanks for all those working for united nations organizations throughout the world and for the very concept of a united nations in the vineyard of our planet i wanted to say next and this is the last day tolus um that on this day richard iii became king and now buried in leicester cathedral and uh we remember him but we remember most of all the fact that richard iii has been vilified and demonized for years as crookback dick and there is um and i'm on a detective novel again now a wonderful novel which i think was her own favorite novel and has been voted many times the best detective story ever written by crime writers themselves and it normally appears in the top 10 list even if it's not the top one when they do the new vote it's called the daughter of time and was written in 1951 and josephine tay was was near to death at that point when it was published but her favorite detective alan grant of scotland yard is in a peculiar position in this book he is in bed in hospital absolutely frustrated that he can't get about his work and at that point he is helped by his friend marta hallard the actress who comes in and says we've got to find you something to do creatively we really do have to find something for you to do and she comes in with various pictures from the british museum and from other places and he finds because he's very interested in people's faces and thinks he can read things from them he finds a portrait in the photographs that has been given of richard iii and that starts him thinking about whether the vilification and demonizing was absolutely right or not and she gives him an assistant an american student who's got time hanging heavy on his hands brent carradine but the inspector is stuck in bed thinking thinking thinking and the quote the daughter of time is very much from the proverb truth is the daughter of time and that means that those who win the battle in time very often reshape the truth and grant is trying desperately to get to the truth about richard iii which he believes satisfactorily that he's done in the end i'm not going to give too much away from the story in case you haven't read it but it is the most marvelous detective story and dropping my papers and as we think of it we think of the way in which we take for granted things handed on about people and sometimes the evidence points otherwise so that that motto truth is the daughter of time is a very good one the winners shaped the story the tudors shaped the story of what they wanted people to think about richard iii and that meant that um shakespeare helped them in his in his play but read the story the daughter of time it's a good one and it'll um exercise you nicely now we have special guests in the vineyard this morning and i've been joined here uh by beryl who uh we know very well she and her husband island are very good friends of ours but baron and alan in the midst of a very very busy life doing all kinds of other things uh and mostly for other people are people who in their home receive little and and sometimes not say little animals and birds and creatures who are in need of rescue and help and we have here with us this morning three very junior workers in the vineyard and we have some senior ones who trundle around we don't see them too much and let me just show you one they have to be kept warm here is a baby hedgehog and hello barrel sorry you're on the screen i think matt fletcher's filming you and fed and uh beryl and alan have been looking after three of these which have been handed in to them for care here they are a trio of junior workers in the vineyard for hedgehogs are very useful going around mostly at night trundling around looking after the welfare of themselves and their own family but helping with the population of slugs and everything else that attack the vegetables so they have their own particular role now these at the moment have to be kept warm and given a very special diet and be cared for as they grow up and later on they will be released you want to say something about them well they came in to us at three two and a half weeks old they've been abandoned and as hedgehogs are getting to a point now where they're going to be very very rare we have to keep them all going so we're hand feeding them and they will be they've had farley's rusk today for the first time and they will then be fed until they can manage on their own and with a bit of plea they might come here and reproduce and i hope they will and do very well and we keep them all going in the in the wild so it's massively important that the part of the vineyard that that um we have here and in other parts of the the nation here let's say this part of the world these are english hedgehogs european hedgehogs and they need a special environment and special areas where in fact um they can can find the right kind of of of habitat and the right care for themselves later on there's an old proverb um from a greek philosopher in the uh seventh century bc which says the fox knows many things the hedgehog knows one great thing and this little chap knows that already his because i'm holding him he and i'm a stranger oops uh he is actually um putting his prickles in a particular way to protect himself to roll into a little ball a little world of his own surrounded by the protection of his prickles and having that one thought is uh something that people have seized on famous essay by isaiah berlin talking about that the fox knowing many many things and being much diverted and many writers and painters and everything else he puts into that category but others like tolstoy knowing one great thing about creation about humanity about god's vineyard and here's the hedgehogs who know one thing and we want them to have a very happy life so let's put them back into the warmth as we go on uh and do um look them up and and see how you can help with hedgehogs because if we really fail with hedgehogs there will be a time when they become extinct which will be a total tragedy for everyone with these beautiful creatures and also these useful creatures in the vineyard beryl thank you for coming with all of these stay on we're just going to say some short prayers and then we'll say farewell to our people who join us in the garden congregation but to have the three little juniors in the garden congregation become a really important thing so now um let's think who we're praying for today on our list we're praying in the anglican community and of course for archbishop justin and on this 26th of june we are praying for the diocese on the coast in the church of nigeria the ondo province of the church of nazareth nigeria and in our own diocese we're having a one of the listening and discerning on the way days for all parishes but we pray of course for bishop rose and bishop tim in their episcopal ministry as ordination time for those in sacred ministry approaches so let's say the the colleague for today which i'll read and then we'll say the our father together almighty god you have broken the tyranny of sin and have sent the spirit of your son into our hearts whereby we call you father give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service that we and all creation may be brought to the glorious liberty of the children of god through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language and in our own way we say the prayer our savior taught us our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever are men moment of silence now in the cool of the morning here in england as the day begins yes the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and of his son jesus christ our lord the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you love and those whom you would pray for now and always are men so whichever part of the vineyard you're working in today may god give you grace to accomplish that day and may the the the sense of the very big concept of god's kingdom given to all be yours as well as the many little things that we know so we think of the fox and the hedgehog you