good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral to the deanery garden on the morning of the 25th of april welcome wherever you are in the world for you it is the morning of the 25th of april for me and for fletcher unusually it's the afternoon of the 24th of april a sunday afternoon and we're filming on sunday afternoon because tomorrow morning very early i have to cut a train to london to preach at southwark cathedral at the consecration of the new bishop of salisbury stephen lake was one of my currents at sherman abbey and was with me for four years and he was a really excellent curious and he and his wife carol and their family have always been friends all the way through with my sister and myself while she lived and since then with flutter too we know them well and are are very fond of them so i should be very proud to be preaching tomorrow morning at his consecration as bishop of salisbury but for the moment we're filming in glorious conditions instead of cold winter mornings which we've had i'm in the middle of a sunday afternoon with bright sunshine and we have the flowers the yellow tulips and the blue sky reminding us to pray for ukraine where the situation is very severe indeed and we do that first and foremost as we always do at this time but this isn't mark's day and uh since mark one of the evangelists we've talked about quite a lot recently but we'll just have an exploration innocent mark and get some of the atmosphere of st mark the evangelist on this day i'm going to start our morning prayers now and then we will read part of st mark's gospel oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise in your resurrection o christ let heaven and earth rejoice alleluia blessed are you lord god of our salvation to you be praise and glory forever as once you ransomed your people from egypt and led them to freedom in the promised land so now you have delivered us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your risen son may we the firstfruits of your new creation rejoice in this new day you have made and praise you for your mighty acts 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 does 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 i'm going to read the psalm for the 25th morning of the month and that is psalm 119 beginning at verse 33 teach me o lord the way of your statutes and i shall keep it to the end give me understanding and i shall keep your law i shall keep it with my whole heart lead me in the path of your commandments for therein is my delight incline my heart to your testimonies and not to unjust gain turn away my eyes let's say gaze on vanities oh give me life in your ways confirm to your servant your promise which stands for all who fear you turn away the reproach which i dread because your judgments are good behold i long for your commandments in your righteousness give me life let your faithful love come unto me o lord even your salvation according to your promise then shall i answer those who taunt me for my trust is in your word oh take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth for my hope is in your judgments so shall i always keep your law i shall keep it forever and ever i will walk at liberty because i study your commandments i will tell of your testimonies even before kings and will not be ashamed my delight shall be in your commandments which i have greatly loved my hands will i lift up to your commandments which i love and i will meditate on your statutes part of the long psalm 119 exalting god's law and really likening it to the the pure law which jesus himself said he had come to fulfill you'll hear in the background here the noise of a ball game going on in the boys house it's some little distance away but they have a period of games on a sunday afternoon which is informal their own game and they get very excited which is nice to hear now i'm going to read the very beginning to start with of the gospel of saint mark it gives us the flavor of this particular evangelist whose day we are recalling [Music] so it's in mark chapter 1 and we'll read up to i think verse 14 the beginning of the gospel of jesus christ the son of god as it is written in isaiah the prophet behold i send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the lord make his paths straight john appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and all the country of judea and all jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river jordan confessing their sins now john was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and at locus and wild honey and he preached saying after me comes he who is mightier than i the strap of whose sandals i am not worthy to stoop down and untie i have baptized you with water but he will baptize you with the holy spirit in those days jesus came from nazareth of galilee and was baptized by john in the river jordan and when he came up out of the water immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the spirit descending on him like a dove and a voice came from heaven you are my beloved son with you i am well pleased the spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness and he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by satan and he was with the wild animals and the angels were ministering to him but after john was arrested jesus came into galilee proclaiming the gospel of god and saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of god is upon you repent and believe in the gospel the beginning of not mark's gospel it is mark's gospel of course but that's not he unknown as he announces it it's a straightforward sentence straight between the eyes no messing about this is the hallmark of mark the beginning of the gospel of jesus christ the son of god straight there you know the whole story in one sentence it's not a title that jesus uses of himself he is more often uh inclined to call himself son of man and others call him son of david but here the beginning of the gospel the good news of jesus christ the son of god mark is setting it out and then first of all the prophecy from isaiah to show that all is being fulfilled according to prophecy and then at the same time we have the baptism of jesus by john we hear a little bit of john the baptist preaching in the wilderness but he jesus comes to the river jordan to be baptized by john and as he steps into the water we have this this scene described now notice that we get this word as he steps into when he came up out of the water immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the spirit descending on him like a dove it's one of mark's favorite words all the way through the gospel the greek word jesus immediately immediately there is a speed with this gospel it's the shortest of the gospels it's the earliest of the gospel and it's giving you what you need almost like a kit bag that you can can carry and get the whole compass of what is going on notice you start when jesus is already an adult there are no birth narratives nothing of the wise men as in matthew nothing of the angel coming to mary or the the shepherds at bethlehem as in luke nothing either of the long preface of the word made flesh as in john instead straight there the adult jesus after the years the hidden years of being in nazareth with his parents and usually thought to be uh helping joseph and maybe taking over with the brothers in the carpenter shop but at the same time gaining learning because jesus comes with enormous amounts of scriptural learning as becomes evident by the way he quotes the scriptures to people nevertheless he immediately sees the heavens open and the spirit descending like a dove and the voice confirming his vocation you are my beloved son in whom i am well pleased that actually is the confirmation of his vocation as he comes up out of the waters and the holy spirit descending like a dove happens next well yes the temptations happen in the wilderness as they do in matthew as they do in luke but they're not described one after the other there's no orderly description of three temptations instead here's this word again the spirit immediately drove jesus out into the wilderness this isn't a gentle walk into the wilderness there is a sense of being driven at this time and wrestling with that vocation which has actually dawned on him a way that it hadn't before and in matthew and luke the temptations come one two three and jesus answers each with the sense of combatting satan's temptation usually using scripture that the devil himself quotes scripture in those temptations but here it's not like that in matthew and luke those temptations are then followed by a time when jesus is in the wilderness with the wild animals and being ministered to by angels here everything happens together which is really much more true to human life that temptations come and go at the same time as blessings coming and going and the company that we're keeping coming and going so he was in the wilderness 40 days that just means a long time being tempted by satan and he was with the wild animals and the angels were ministering to him so all those things happening together until the time comes when he bursts onto the scene and says the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of god is upon you repent and believe in the gospel it was actually that sentence which gave me the thought of the very first hymn that i was asked to write the kingdom is upon you the voice of jesus christ fulfilling with his message the wisdom of the wise it lightens with fresh insight the striving human mind creating new dimensions of faith for all to find it was that line that gave that gave birth to that particular first verse of that hymn which is now in many hymn books but we could go on here i'm not intending to but since mark's gospel is something that you can simply read right through ignore the titles ignore the verses in terms of the numberings ignore the chapter headings read it as quite a short piece of writing and you get even more that sense of immediacy and the different passions that aroused in jesus himself as well as the people around him he goes in to heal the man with an unclean spirit and we say and we hear as he goes into the synagogue in capernaum on the sabbath day immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit and all of that starts to spread his fame the healing of that man but still the sense of urgency and immediately he leaves the synagogue and enters the house of simon and andrew with james and john and immediately again they told him about her see how that word comes again and again he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up and the fever left her and she began to serve him that evening at sunset they bring to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons and the whole city is gathered together at the door and he heals many who were sick with various diseases and casts out many demons and then the immediacy stops just for a moment stops and we see verse 35 and rising very early in the morning while it was still dark jesus departed and went to a desolate place and there he prayed [Music] there are pauses in all that busyness and one would say well thank god because jesus needed that time to recharge that vocation he's had the pause in the wilderness for a long time to prepare and now we get this immediacy of ministry and the way in which he responds to everyone who is coming towards him and the crowds build up build up he's on home territory the same time he needs that time apart and he can only get that by rising very early in the morning and going to a deserted place the crowds keep looking for him over and over they keep looking for him and when simon comes out to find him they say everyone's looking for you and jesus says it's time to move on there's a there's a physical momentum to this gospel as well there's also the sense of jesus is humanity as our humanity is shocked and angered by what is happening to the people of ukraine and we watch it and emotions well up inside us and they are quite violent emotions because we feel so strongly about that well in the end of chapter four as jesus walks along a leper comes up to him imploring him and saying if you will you could make me clean and we're told in this translation moved with pity jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him i will be clean and immediately the leprosy left him it's not that word this time that i want to to focus on it's the word pity for it looks as though the greek word has been changed and the older greek word was more like anger certainly very strong emotion at what has happened to the humanity of this leper probably when jesus puts his hand out to touch him it's the very first time the leper has been touched because lepers were utterly and absolutely untouchable so since that leprosy was was diagnosed probably it's the first time the leper's been touched and we don't know whether that word anger was because of the way in which people treated lepers as total outcasts or is what the disease was doing to this human being made in god's image and he stretches out his hand but since then the gospel has been revised and the word pity it where it reads wealth moved with pity jesus stretched out his hand but what was there was about stronger kind of word what we could go through all the way through that's in mark's gospel with these kinds of thoughts sid mark's gospel concentrates on the miracles and the healing of people and also the hostility building up against jesus it's really one journey all the way through with pauses to teach the disciples to draw them apart to pray in quietness and make decisions and some of the parables are there also but not nearly as many of the parables as in luke or in matthew for that matter because there is an urgency of getting on to the most important part of all that's going to happen and at this point we come to another very um shall we say uh uh and by that i mean the sense of it being very like mark passage because the disciples in mark's gospel are getting it wrong over and over again and jesus keeps telling them what's going to happen when they get to jerusalem the only one journey in mark's gospel going up to jerusalem and so i'm going to read from verse 32 of chapter 10 of mark covering all this very fast because this is his day and they were on the road going up to jerusalem and jesus was walking ahead of them and they were amazed and those who followed were afraid and taking the twelve again he began to tell them what was to happen to him saying see we're going up to jerusalem and the son of man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the gentiles and they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him and after three days he will rise and james and john the sons of zebedee came up to him and said teacher we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you and he said to them what do you want me to do for you and they said to him grant us to sit one at your right hand one at your left hand in your glory jesus said to them you do not know what you are asking are you able to drink the cup that i drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which i am baptized and they said to him we are able jesus said to them the cup that i drink you will drink and with the baptism with which i am baptized you will be baptized but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant but it is for those for whom it has been prepared and when the ten heard it they began to be indignant at james and john and jesus called them to him and said to them you know that those who are considered rulers of the gentiles lorded over them and their great ones exercise authority over them it shall not be so among you but whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be the willing slave of all for even the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many that's the key passage in st mark's gospel first of all the underlining to james and john of what the glory of the christ will be it will be the glory of being lifted high on the cross giving himself completely for the sins of the whole world and at the same time they are saying um that they can drink of the cup that jesus drinks well remember as mark tells the story in the garden of gethsemane and he does it in quite detail that the cup is the one that jesus himself is finding that he is wanting the father to take from him but nevertheless thy will be done as the sentence says but on this occasion he says you don't understand what you're asking can you drink the cup that i drink of be baptized with the baptism with which i am baptized and they say we can and i'm sure he looked at them both with affection in their innocence at they're not realizing all the horror that lay ahead when they get to jerusalem well mark tells it as it is and i don't need now to go into the story of the young man who follows the disciples out into the garden of gethsemane and is almost arrested by the temple police nor the young man who is in the um the the tomb on that sabbath day or the day after the sabbath rather when the women come there and find the stone rolled away and a young man sitting there saying uh you're looking for jesus of nazareth he's not here he is risen but go and tell his disciples that uh he will be going on before you to galilee where you will see him just as he said and we remember that those words were spoken on the way to gethsemane and the thought that that might be john mark as he's called and we've looked also at how john mark's mother was the owner of the upper room and we've looked at how john mark went with paul and barnabas on the first missionary journey and failed them and came home because he hadn't bargained on the difficulties of the journey and then was given a second chance by barnabas we could look all the way through the gospels and the epistles and find names where john mark is there or just mark and the church's tradition is that mark was for a while the emanuensis the one who wrote down the memories of peter and certainly the denial of sin peter is strongly set down in st mark's gospel the church's tradition also is that sin mark became the first bishop of alexandria one of the most important dioceses and and churches of the early church and the tradition also is that he was martyred but nevertheless we remember him as mark the evangelist the one who hands on in his own particular way the gospel the good news from that first sentence the beginning of the gospel of jesus christ the son of god everything else is explanation but it's explanation which demands as did the gospel of saint john which we've been doing in garden congregation over the last few weeks demands reflection and also comparison and seeing how it fits into the kaleidoscopic picture of the various gospels as the light shines through them for one gospel informs another but mark is the earliest and on this day we give thanks for that straightforwardness of mark's gospel and the immediacy with which he calls us also to be messengers of the evangel and give the message in all straightforwardness to those that we ourselves encounter who need healing or comfort or encouragement or a spiritual dimension said that the kingdom of heaven and the image of god may be awakened in them so on this day thanks be to god for saint mark i'm actually going to think of someone else whose birthday this was um but he was born in the middle 19th century and became very early on at the age of 23 a member of parliament and was a parliamentarian in his way for most of his life i'm talking about edward gray who was this nation's foreign secretary for longer than any other foreign secretary in history he became foreign secretary in 1905 i think and remained foreign secretary until 1916 11 full years and immensely important years he it was who had to deal with the diplomatic situations which led up to the great war he'd already been in office in the foreign office in a short period of liberal government in the 1990s but then was out of office and simply a member of parliament though he was created a member of the privy council as well and then he uh grey went on to become the foreign secretary in 1905 and the foreign office and the foreign secretary's room became very much his home he's best known i think that's not what i want to talk about this morning but his he's best known as the foreign secretary who on that night of november the 11th in 1914 was looking out of the foreign office window as the gas lamps were lit in st james's park and said to a friend the lamps are going out all over europe we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime he saw war as a tragic failure of all his diplomatic efforts and he had tried very very hard to avert it as a senior statesman and the foreign secretary by 1916 his eyesight was beginning to fail he stepped away from the cabinet and government at a reshuffle when asquith ceased to be prime minister and uh lloyd george took over for a while he became ambassador in the united states but he was a senior figure right up to the time of his death but i'm wanting to look at this particular little book it's called the cottage book and it's actually the country diary of sir edward gray and his wife at a busy time of his life before he became foreign secretary but still was taken up with parliamentary business and justice mark gives jesus time apart to go apart to refresh the channels that need to be refreshed if you are you're giving giving yourself all the time so gray who had a country estate in northumberland which is far far too far away for him to go to from london unless he had a long spell of vacation instead they had a little cottage down near winchester at itchin abbas and they wrote between them every time they went there a bit like me saying um write a sentence of good good good things that have happened on a particular day during lent when we were doing that in lent they did it in their cottage book the cottage book stayed at the cottage and it was there by the river itchen and what would happen would be that gray was a great fisherman a fly fisherman the same time he was an expert on birds and wrote excellent books on both those subjects but as they went down he and his wife his first wife i'll explain that in a moment dorothy they would go down on the train from waterloo early in the morning on a saturday morning if they couldn't get away on friday nights from the house of commons and they would go in the early morning down to the railway station from which they could walk to their cottage by the river i say cottage it's really just a bit of a shack which they got with a a corrugated iron roof and yet for them it was the way in which they could be in the countryside and this cottage book is decorated with all kinds of little bird pictures but the entries are simply saying how beautiful everything is here's one absolutely at random and they put their initial to show which one of them is writing in it so march the 15th to march the 17th saturday to monday and we are in the year 1902 and uh it's gray himself writing here an even better sunday temperature 55 and 38 but still we pruned a lot and lay out in the wild park in the afternoon near a flock of chucking field fairs which are not familiar itching things not belonging to the season the birds sang more confidently than ever and in the morning standing on our lawn i was aware of of a well-known sound small and weak but very sure and there was a chiffchaff in the chalk pit the 16th is an early date for this there was some wind in the week and it has blown out the titic nest on our limes but there is still plenty of time in the season for things to begin again but the next entry is not edward gray but dorisey gray his wife got here at one it's april the 19th now got here at one warm windy gray day i planted some red and yellow willows in the hedge to the left in front and near the kinglet place i heard the first willock that's a willow warbler we've got the warblers come back here now sing just as i opened the gate on arriving and saw swallows and had a cuckoo and a black cap all at once there are five wagtail eggs in the old blackbird nest in the alcove the inside has been made up very loosely there is a blackbird sitting calmly on a nest put right in the shooting in the corner by our bedroom window we shall have a bad time when rain comes and so will it there is a thrush nest with one egg in the east honeysuckle black thorn on the chalk pit edge is very fine and there is a blackbird nest in it overhanging the chalk pit one looks down at it through spickly white flowers the beds seem dry wallflower fading as it comes out and daffodils not good the lawn has not yet been known and hardly needs to be it cannot be said that there is any green at all showing around the base of our limes so there we are and on the same day edward writes we think badly of the wagtails nest there are five eggs still cold all sorts of birds sing willow wrens black caps nightingales white throats cuckoos and once one bit of a grasshopper warbler both our days have been soft and warm for the time of year i read that because it seems a wonderful thing that someone who was engaged in all that high diplomacy between the ambassadors and there weren't many ambassadors in london in those days only the ambassadors of the great empires of europe at that time and places like the united states and the republic of france all of those edward gray knew them all very well and he was in touch the japanese ambassador there was an alliance between um the japanese empire and the and uh and this uh nation in those days and gray himself was very fond of furthering the sense of on taunt between france and russia and wanting desperately to preserve the peace of europe but that was a hard task and in 1906 news came when he was already foreign secretary news came that his wife dorisey whom he had shared the cottage with on so many occasions at their home in faladin right up in the north in northumbria had been tipped from her dog cart that's one a one one cart that you drove with a pony and it turned over and she knocked her head and never recovered consciousness she died a few days later so very young because he'd been an mp very young and he did eventually marry again but not for a long time so he was a widower through all those years of of being foreign secretary and uh i wanted to say that reading the cottage book and the sense of his delight in all those things reminded me of the way in which people need to withdraw into something creative and peaceful in order not only to relax but also to live in a spiritual dimension where the creation is speaking to them and recharging their batteries i love the cottage book but i also love the gospels especially when jesus says to his disciples come your part and rest a while all too often that is interrupted but nevertheless jesus himself needed that time and so do we so doing this seems odd on a sunday afternoon rather than tomorrow morning with you when i shall be on the train um nevertheless it's been a lovely time to draw apart and think with thanksgiving of sin mark and the evangel that he gives us but also have a little reading in sir edward gray's cottage book with all those sorts of the birds singing and the flowers and trees growing in the same way in 1902 as they are today in 2022 and our care for them and our care of the earth is just the same as grey and his wife dorothy found in those days too so let's say our prayers and then we can think of the various parishes that we are praying for in the anglican communion today we're praying for the diocese of lagos mainland church of nigeria and in our own diocese for justin archbishop of canterbury rose bishop of dover emma bishop at lambus and we're praying for the villages of the sitting born deanery the villages around the town of sittingbourne for julian staniforth the area dean and the ministry there so let's say the prayer bring your own intentions but say the prayer for this week almighty father you have given your only son to die for our sins and to rise again for our justification grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth through the merits of your son jesus christ our lord amen so together in whichever language you like to use 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 as we uh use our own reflections at the working day beginning of another week [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] i was all alone nobody that'd call me home i would run free nobody that'd help me sing i'd pick daisies they could change me [Music] i was in the trees singing with the birds and bees i'll make use of what i got do you love me do you love me not i'd pick daisies they could change me [Music] found my place [Music] i found my own escape [Music] do [Music] they could change will you be my friend i pick daisy they could change me i'd pick daisy will you be my friend [Music] my friend [Music] now i'm all alone [Music] i think of how you come and go i hide out in the field [Music] they could change me [Music] typical sunday afternoon sounds the ball game over in lineker house they have their own special ball game there that has been invented years ago and they take great pride in playing it much in the envy of the other houses and also the sound of ice cream vans over in the recreation ground behind me and the um lovely sound of the birds around us as well and the it won't be a tolling bell this afternoon in for even song you hear the bells already ringing in the distance from the two towers so there is morning for you those even song bells are being properly rung rather than unchimed the god of peace who brought again from the dead our lord jesus that great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you love those whom you would pray for today and always amen i was roundly chilled off yesterday by furniture for forgetting to give you the answers to the two uh riddles that i'd asked i'm always forgetting at the end to do that but here we are and i'll look at them again it's the medium difficulty ones that i'm looking for and that's here so i think i asked and didn't answer i love to twist and dance i have no wings but i fly high up into the sky and that is a kite i think let's have a look medium 13 a kite and the other one you throw me out when you use me and take me in when you're done what am i and the answer is an anchor so here are um two more my tail is long my coat is brown i like the country i like the town i can live in a house or live in a shed and i come out to play when you are in bed what am i i think we've got that straight away and then lastly i am the word that has three syllables and 26 letters what am i and an esop's fable just briefly before i go off to evensong we saw yesterday the wolf and the crane and today the wolf and the lamb this is a bit grisly a wolf came upon a lamb straying from the flock and felt some reluctance about taking the life of so helpless a creature without some plausible excuse so he cast about for a grievance and said it last last year sir you grossly insulted me that's impossible sir bleated the lamb for i wasn't born last year well retorted the root with a wolf you feed in my pastures that cannot be replied the lamb for i have never yet tasted grass well you drink from my spring then continued the wolf indeed sir said the poor lamb i've never yet drunk anything but my mother's milk well anyhow said the wolf i'm not going without my dinner and he sprang upon the lamb and devoured it without more ado and the uh the motto is hypocritical speeches are easily seen through i think we'll have another actually because uh this is uh quite a short one the wolf in sheep's clothing a wolf resolved to disguise himself in order that he might prey upon a flock of sheep without fear of detection so he closed himself in a sheepskin and slipped among the sheep when they were out at pasture he completely deceived the shepherd and when the flock was penned for the night he was shut in with them but that very night as it happened the shepherd requiring a supply of mutton for the table laid his hands on the wolf mistaking him for a sheep and finished him off with his knife on the spot harm seek harmfind is the motto so we'll come back to those tomorrow and have a wonderful day there's a helicopter flying over now and i can't see because of the cinema is exactly whether it's a police or or whether it's a a health medical helicopter but it's whisking away into the blue sky enjoy your day and tiger i'm not even going to disturb he looks absolutely peaceful on his sunny rug um