[Music] [Music] [Music] so good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of sunday the 10th of january it is the most perfect winter morning utterly still and everything covered in white frost so that the lawn if the sunshine on it would be like a field of diamonds but you can see from the way in which the the fruit nets and vegetable nets protecting them are covered in in a frost and all the the box hedges and the herbs covered in white frost on this lovely morning it really is a sight to see the tower of belle harry at the moment which i'm looking at is shrouded in frosty mist and it looks as though that the tall hedges have been covered with icing sugar and we are waiting for the sun to rise later but for the moment we're going to say our morning prayers wherever you are in the world please feel welcome here on this sunday morning it's the feast of the baptism of jesus but as we shall see later there are two themes to this day and we shall mention both of them as we worship in our reflection but for the moment let's say our prayers and enjoy the sight of all this frost oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your light springs up for the righteous and all the peoples have seen your glory blessed are you sovereign god king of the nations to you be praise and glory forever from the rising of the sun to its setting your name is proclaimed in all the world as the sun of righteousness dawns in our hearts anoint our lips with the seal of your spirit that we may witness to your gospel and sing your praise in all the earth 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 as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence so god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this tenth day of the month is psalm 50 the lord the most mighty god has spoken and called the world from the rising of the sun to its setting out of zion perfect in beauty god shines forth our god comes and will not keep silence consuming fire goes out before him and the mighty tempest stares about him he calls the heaven above and the earth that he may judge his people gather to me my faithful who have sealed my covenant with sacrifice let the heavens declare his righteousness for god himself is judge here are my people and i will speak i will testify against you o israel for i am god your god i will not reprove you for your sacrifices for your burnt offerings are always before me but i will take no bull out of your house nor he goes out of your folds for all the beasts of the forest are mine the cattle upon a thousand hills i know every bird of the mountains and the insect of the field is mine if i were hungry i would not tell you for the whole world is mine and all that fills it do you think i eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats offer to god a sacrifice of thanksgiving and fulfill your vows to god most high call upon me in the day of trouble i will deliver you and you shall honor me but to the wicked says god why do you recite my statutes and take my covenant upon your lips since you refused to be disciplined and have cast my words behind you when you saw a thief you made friends with him and threw in your lot with adulterers you have loosed your lips for evil and harnessed your tongue to deceit you sit and speak evil of your brother and slander your own mother's son these things have you done and should i keep silence did you think that i am even such a one as yourself but no i must reprove you and set before your eyes the things that you have done you that forget god consider this well lest i tear you apart and there is none to deliver you whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me and to those who keep my way will i show the salvation of god as i said there are two themes for today this is the feast of the baptism of jesus and our lesson is of that theme so we're reading from the first chapter of the gospel of saint john it's a lesson you'll recognize as one of the epiphany lessons earlier at the eucharist we read the same kind of account about the baptism of jesus from the gospel of saint mark and over the next few weeks mark's gospel will be our companion at morning prayer but for the moment here in saint john chapter 1 and beginning at verse 29 is john the baptist witness to the baptism of jesus which he himself has performed the next day jesus here john saw jesus coming towards him and said behold the lamb of god who takes away the sin of the world this is he of whom i said after me comes a man who ranks before me because he was before me i myself did not know him but for this purpose i came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to israel and john bore witness i saw the spirit descend from heaven like a dove and it remained on him i myself did not know him but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me he on whom you see the spirit descend and remain this is he who baptizes with the holy spirit and i have seen and have borne witness that this is the son of god a powerful witness from the herald of the coming of the anointed one the christ who was expected by the people and some had thought that john himself was that particular person but john kept saying i am not he i am not he are you elijah i am not you remember the dialogue that john the baptist has with the authorities who are sent to quiz him about what he is doing baptizing with water and he says in effect mine is a ministry of preparation for the one who is to come and i have been told that when i see the spirit descending like a dove and remaining on that person i shall know that this is the one and he then testifies and i saw that with this one the spirit remains remains throughout the ministry of the christ the anointed one the messiah but that spirit is going to be a gift for the whole world the baptism which jesus will give will not simply be a baptism of water and repentance but a baptism of fire and the holy spirit igniting all those things which seemed dry breathing into valleys of dry bones all these prophecies coming to fulfillment and that feast as we see jesus stepping into the water on this particular day our image of the epiphany for today one of water we give thanks for that for the refreshment of that and for the gift of the spirit which we ourselves can claim and receive as those who have received the ministry and life of jesus and have become members of the body of christ all that is ready for us day by day with still the belief in the forgiveness of sins which john prophesied and affected with his baptism the water and the spirit and later in st john's gospel and the blood and in his epistles which we've read this week in morning prayer the three which testify the spirit and the water and the blood well yes this is the feast of the baptism of jesus it's also plow sunday and there are many services available in different dioceses for not only the blessing of the plow but the blessing of seeds and new beginnings and we remember with the sentence in luke's gospel spoken by our lord in chapter 9 and verse 62 whoever puts their hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of god the plow is a a farm implement of intention to break up the earth make it ready for the planting and to go on and plant wonderful things which will grow to fruitfulness so this has also become a sunday in midwinter as you well see for gardeners too with the blessing of seeds i will remember in my country parish in tisbury in wiltshire farmer carter from place farm a place with the largest thatched tithe barn in england which had belonged to the abyss of shaftesbury pre-reformation but was simply part of his farm bringing an old plow into the parish church always on this day and standing it by the font symbol of baptism and the plow would be blessed there are different prayers a blessing for the plow in different parts of the united kingdom but certainly the church of england has recognized those agricultural festivals as a time mostly symbolic because the farming here now doesn't wait to plow for this particular time in winter but it always did and so it becomes a sign of new work to be done we've not got a plow here this morning but we do have implements of gardening and useful things which help in all sorts of ways the pots which are ready and the riddle or the the the sieve which sieves out the stones from the the earth as it falls through all kinds of uses for that old-fashioned riddle there and it becomes it becomes almost a symbol of what we were talking about in detective stories of the moonstone a few days ago of of riddling out problems but at the same time all of these symbols some of them old-fashioned some from different cultures and some looking the same but with different bits on on on attached to them like the two watering cans both of those are gifts from friends uh some or the the nearer one to you is a gift from some friends in america and we remember peter and alison in their family this morning they came to spend easter with us uh and and brought that as a sign of refreshment in the garden and the one beyond has just arrived at christmas from another friend for these little watering cans are immensely um uh useful for watering the pots in the greenhouse so we thank amanda for the gift of that particular walking can she's been a very close friend for years and to have that is a sign of refreshment and new beginnings and the tall rake the dutch rake is a sign of our very very good friend our old uh gardener who had been a dutch tomato grower peter van dyke who was part of the garden for so many years and we remember him with his wife ria on this day and the dutch culture of that kind of raking one of the hoes is called a dutch hoe and another an english hoe but everywhere using implements of growing and gross and i ought to mention that this big rose was planted so we could remember pete van dyke is called a trial doland the star of holland and it flowers beautifully and scents beautifully in red but to go back to the plow it was a wonderful day in the church calendar in that very ancient church of sin john the baptist in tisbury there beside the river nada which ran along beside the churchyard and the plow would be brought in to say christmas is over we've celebrated the feast of the epiphany and now work must begin a sign of work for us all putting our hand to the plow the sun this morning which is full of lovely images says to us that there are those who hear all the commandments and actually just ignore them and think that they will be fruitful it's worth reading psalm 50 again because the big message is offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving every prayer must contain aspects of thanksgiving for god is giving us new purposes and we start with the sense of for giving us forgiveness giving us new beginnings those historic heritage buildings which now place farm with its satch barn has become were in the 19 when was iron tisbury the 1970s and all the ways through the 1980s probably until 1987 and in those days no one took any notice that it was really a heritage building it was actually a farmer carter's farm and bob and betty carter farmed that and bob had been the church warden for many many years and was still the church warden when i left for church wardens actually gave guidance for young clergy like me and would would say i think that's unwise to do it that way do it this way because they knew the village but now as part of the great fontilla stage the uh new lord megadeth well not so new now but alistair lord mercadel is is showing this set of buildings as a wonderful place for showing off how things were done and a monastic set of buildings like a grange so that the tithe barn at place farm where when there was nothing being stored in it in summertime we used to have medieval banquets and sing uh jolly songs i remember writing a a show with richard shepherd writing the music called clogbet the cowman and it was a lot of fun doing it as we had that and we found that that massive barn with its wooden rafters was a wonderful place for the the performance of music because of its massively good acoustic i could uh really speak an awful lot about those days but the farming year was everything and the four farming festivals of this day plus sunday and regation when we give thanks and bless the just the sprouting of the crops and and then lamas when the first loaves were presented at the altar at the beginning of august and finally harvest thanksgiving singing the hymn come you thankful people come raise the song of harvest home but today what was sung was for the beauty of the earth lord of all to thee we raise this are either grateful hymn of praise or sacrifice of praise a sacrifice of thanksgiving we remember our lord's warning words no one who puts their hand to the plow the plow is a sign of new beginnings and maybe implements and things that we're going to use in our creative work day by day and certainly the creative work of our own lives of faith of penitence of thanksgiving and of seizing new beginnings day by day as the sun rises on whatever the situation is and at this pandemic time in midwinter it's not the happiest of situations for many and yet nevertheless there is the plow there is a sign of let's put our hand to the plow and go forward and not look back whoever puts their hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of heaven give thanks for all of that on this player sunday and it's a sign in as we look back on these these uh uh former january the 10th of all kinds of new beginnings in uh 1645 archbishop lord william lord the archbishop of canterbury was executed after a trial by the parliament and it was thought that that was the end of all of the things which archbishop lord and king charles the first were intending for the life of the church the book of common prayer was made a criminal document and there was no archbishop of canterbury between 1645 and 1660 but we shall see at the end of the month how that was put right for very often the tragedies can be turned into new beginnings in the same way and in 1654 the english botanist and physician nicholas culpepper was born on this day january the 10th and we have uh his first first edition of culpepper's complete herbal with all his illustrations in the library here two other botanists are important on this day corrodus lineas the swedish botanist who is very well known and used still for the system of classifying living organisms and in 1864 an american botanist george washington carver not well known but i love one of his quotes he said 99 of all failures come from people who who have the habit of making excuses well if the cap fits and uh i i i admit it um from time to time i think that creates a very good one when one's putting one's hand to the plow other new beginnings today indian tea was first auctioned in in britain and that meant that tea became much much cheaper and was soon the national drink before it was any tea from china in 1840 january the 10th roland hills penny black stamp was first used the postal service began and on that day alone a hundred and twelve thousand letters were posted in london and in 1863 the first section of the london underground ran from paddington to farringdon and in 1946 this too a wonderful new beginning the general assembly of the united nations met for the first time in westminster central hall in london new beginnings times of thanksgiving and times of intention by grace and with the help of the holy spirit to put one's hand to the plow for the work which is our particular vocation using the gifts which are special to us as unique people in all the world so each one of us in our uniqueness and i'm including every human being in that unique status is ready to do some kind of creative work or to be helped to do it and one remembers that encouragement quite often comes mutually even with the people we are helping and so we're saying our prayers on this particular day and we're praying for the diocese so not a diocese uh a whole province this morning of the anglican church in aotearoa new zealand and polynesia we pray for all three stan strands of that wonderful church there and we also pray for those who are creating missional learning communities in the area deanery of osbridge around faversham nearby so as we pray for them we pray for present archbishop of canterbury uh justin and we pray also for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth and any whom we would want to pray for on this feast day of the baptism of christ eternal father who at the baptism of jesus revealed him to be your son anointing him with the holy spirit grant to us who are born again by water and the spirit that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language we say the prayer that jesus 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 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 so we in silence make our own intentions for this first sunday after the epiphany feast of the baptism of jesus and plow sunday 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 and 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 today and always amen you