good morning and welcome to the dinery garden on sunday the 24th of april it's the sunday following easter day and it's normally known as low sunday but there's nothing in terms of this morning in england which is feeling low it's the most beautiful spring morning full of sunshine and blossom and flowers beginning to burst as you look at the opening flowers of the wisteria which are just beginning to show themselves and we'll revisit that when it's in full bloom and and fully scented but this morning wherever you are in the world please feel welcome as we say our prayers together and bring your own intentions and concerns on this morning of easter tide this second sunday in easter tide we of course begin by undergirding the situation in ukraine with our prayers that continues to be extremely serious for our world and most of all for the ukrainian people and so we pray for them whether they are there in danger in their own land or have fled their land which they've done in millions to find hospitality and safety elsewhere mostly leaving members of their family behind and so all of that we continue to pray for on this sunday in easter tide and at the same time i'm sitting here under the feature of the garden at the moment these magnificent cherry trees it's a complete canopy over me a flower flowers looking down on me petals on the floor on the path here now these flowers always have a very special meaning for us because ever since federer's mother jackie knew them uh they have flowered on her birthday which is today and so just to celebrate that because of course she is in spain with danny and arabella um i brought out this is pure apple juice i assure you at this time in the morning i'd fall back over if i was drinking anything alcoholic but nevertheless we wanted to just toast jackie's birthday under her chariot cherry trees so happy birthday jackie your cherry trees have performed it's the 24th of april and they are in full flower as is the lovely crabapple next to it a very happy day so let's go on you'll have many anniversaries yourself to think of are many happy things and also people that you need to pray for in some kind of special need or anxiety fear or distress or in need of healing and we continue to remember that the pandemic is still very much a feature in our planet today oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise in your resurrection oh 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 first fruits 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 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 psalm this morning it's the 24th morning of the month it could have been psalm 116 or 117 or 118 we used 118 as an easter psalmer special psalm last week and i'm going to use 116 this morning the first of the three psalms for the 24th morning of the month i love the lord for he has heard the voice of my supplication because he inclined his ear to me on the day i called to him the snares of death encompassed me the pains of hell took hold of me by grief and sorrow was i held then i called upon the name of the lord o lord i beg you deliver my soul gracious is the lord and righteous our god is full of compassion the lord watches over the simple i was brought very low and he saved me turn again to your rest o my soul for the lord has been gracious to you for you have delivered my soul from death my eyes from tears and my feet from falling i will walk before the lord in the land of the living i believed that i should perish for i was sorely troubled and i said in my alarm everyone is a liar how shall i repay the lord for all the benefits he has given to me i will lift up the cup of salvation good morning mr robin i will lift up the cup of salvation and will call upon the name of the lord i will fulfill my vows to the lord in the presence of all his people precious is the sight of the in the sight of the lord is the death of his faithful servants o lord i am your servant your servant the child of your handmaid you have freed me from my bonds i will offer to you a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call upon the name of the lord i will fulfill my vows to the lord in the presence of all his people in the courts of the house of the lord in the midst of you o jerusalem alleluia you're hearing the sound of the bell for the early communion it's not one that i'm at this morning i'm celebrating the 11 o'clock communion and preaching to the school at matins at 9 30 and this is their first sunday back from their easter holiday so they will be full of excitement for a new town i'm sure [Music] so let's go to our reading this morning now this morning i think my movement might be startling the rob and i'll put his food just a bit farther over so he's he's got some room um this morning uh we're going to read the last verses of the gospel of saint luke we've been through each of the gospels with their resurrection narratives and now after the story of the road to emmaus which we read earlier in the week how those two disciples recognized jesus in the breaking of bread [Music] after that they ran back to jerusalem and they found the disciples in the upper room full of excitement themselves and then they told what had happened on the road this is verse 35 of chapter 24 of luke they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of bread well we stopped just there in fact that's stopping in the middle of luke's narrative for luke is about to end what will be part one of his narrative it will continue in the acts of the apostles but he's going to make a join just here and we'll think about that at the end but let's remember that verse from the end of the story of emmaus then they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread as they were talking about these things jesus himself stood among them remember we're in the upper room now with the disciples and with the two who've run from emmaus and said to them peace to you but they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit and jesus said to them why are you troubled and why do doubts arise in your hearts see my hands and my feet that it is i myself touch me and see for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that i have and when he had said this he showed them his hands and his feet and while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling he said to them have you anything here to eat they gave him a piece of broiled fish roasted fish and he took it and eps before them then he said to them these are my words that i spoke to you while i was still with you that everything written about me in the law of moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and he said to them thus it is written that the christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from jerusalem you are witnesses of these things and behold i am sending the promise of my father upon you but stay in the city until you are closed with power from on high and jesus led them out as far as bethany and lifting up his hands he blessed them while he blessed them he parted from them and was carried up into heaven and they worshipped him and returned to jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing god well that's the end of the gospel of saint luke as i said that gospel will continue its narrative in luke's second volume the acts of the apostles but for the moment he's completed this narrative and you will notice luke comes very late to the story of the christian church in its beginning joining paul in the middle of one is one of his missionary journeys and then being with him and coming back to the city of jerusalem and even to the other parts of the holy land and collecting information beginning to understand this story so as that story continues he just collects fragments from the other gospels to put into the picture that he wants to draw and continue with now we saw that in mark the young man shouting to the women as they fled down the road uh says uh remember what he said to you that after i am risen i will go before you to galilee there you will see me that's the message they must tell the disciples so that the beginning then will be in galilee in matthew's gospel it's the same the mountain is uh one in in galilee itself so if we look at the end of st matthew's gospel we have the same kind of ending now the 11 disciples went to galilee to the mountain which jesus had directed them and when they saw him they worshipped him but some doubted and jesus came and said to them all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit teaching them to observe all that i have commanded you and behold i am with you always to the end of the age mark points the disciples to galilee john ends in galilee on that scene on the lakeside where they have been pointed but luke is wanting a different focus and so he draws things to a conclusion here with shall we say almost snippets little items from the other accounts and we've got there first jesus standing among them saying peace be with you you've got reflected in one of the sentences the sense of being startled and slightly afraid what they're witnessing and him saying why are you troubled why do doubts arise there we are again with the story of of thomas being reflected on and then touch me and see and then eating with them on this occasion not the bread and the fish of the lake side but a piece of roasted fish from their supper have you anything to eat here they gave him a piece of roasted fish and then joy begins to take the place of that which was startling them and making them afraid but he says the words to them that he has said to the two on the way to emmaus and he says them still to us these are my words that i spoke to you while i was still with you that everything written about me in the law the law of moses and of the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them thus it is written that the christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from jerusalem luke's two-part work in geographical terms but he's meaning it also to be representative of the way the church was spread as a gift this wonderful grace to all nations through all time it begins in uh nazareth with the stories of the annunciation well it begins actually in the temple with with uh zechariah and the vision of the angel coming and then with mary and nazareth and then it takes us to bethlehem and from there we see both the galilean ministry and finally we reach jerusalem and luke doesn't want to move from there because that's going to be his new starting point say that when the acts of the apostles part 2 opens we are in jerusalem and the story of the ascension that he want to tell will take place on the mount of olives but in this particular episode at the end of this gospel he leads them away back to bethany which he's always done at the end of a day in jerusalem back to bethany and there he blesses them and parts from them and there's an insight into what's going to happen next with the story of the ascension when the acts of the apostles opens and the work of the church begins all of this is there together with the almost a bible study which jesus has begun on the road to emmaus and now he continues in the upper room it's why we read the old testament scriptures it's why we read the psalms with such joy each day and still each morning and evening at morning and evening prayer read a passage from the old testament and that rising on the third day is reflected very much in one of the canticles that we use from hosea chapter 6 and normally that in our daily prayer if you have a copy of daily prayer it's on page 175 it's a canticle that's used on friday mornings in ordinary seasons and it's straight from the prophet hosea come let us return to the lord who has torn us and will heal us god has stricken us and will bind up our wounds after two days he will revive us and on the third day will raise us up that we may live in his presence there's a resurrection narrative let us strive to know the lord his appearing is as sure as the sunrise how often have we reflected that in our garden prayers he will come to us like the showers like the spring rains that water the earth and then your love for me is like the morning mist like the dew that goes early away for loyalty is my desire and not sacrifice and the knowledge of god rather than burnt offerings but that sense of on the third day will raise us up that we may live in his presence the joy of resurrection as set out in the prophet hozier in chapter six but so often those senses of the anointed one who is to come are there embedded in the law the prophets and the psalms and jesus says that both on the road to emmaus but also to the disciples themselves in this end of saint luke's gospel in sin john much of the teaching is given around the supper table but what is absolutely clear is that resurrection is not something it is going to be read day by day those stories have been told we've told them this week but resurrection is something that is lived out in the life of the church and in our own physicality as body mind and spirit is given as a living sacrifice by each of the friends of jesus those of us who call ourselves the body of christ today that assurance given us we share meals with people people who yet don't know anything of this message and we have to use the right images to share that message which we try to do the teaching is there the foretaste of that teaching in the old testament and plentifully there in the gospels and of course in the epistles because as we've seen in this easter week some of those predate the gospels by several decades so they led out to bethany and there's more to come because volume two will begin absolutely in jerusalem and the gift of the spirit will be plentifully shown at pentecost in luke's second volume there's some uh a particular date i wanted to deal with today and uh this is the date of the year's mind that the day she died of the american novelist willa casa april the 24th 1947 she died having been born in 1873 and she was above all else she was a writer in many ways and and spent much of her early year in nebraska but she was a writer for various magazines and most of her life after was lived out in new york in new york city but with constantly going back in her mind and her novels to the great plains and to new mexico in places that she was wanting to help people understand but she's a novelist whose seems develop on the way through and they are deep themes there are two of her novels that i particularly enjoy one is called death comes for the archbishop which is a a a poignant kind of title it was written in 1927 is telling the story of the vocation of a young french priest who is pointed out where the book begins in rome pointed out by three uh high-ranking churchmen as they sit having supper on a hillside outside rome looking back at the turrets of rome and the the dome of saint peter's and one of them says the very person that you want to find because they're wanting to find a bishop to establish a new diocese in new mexico it's at that time outside the ordinary diocesan work of the roman catholic church in the united states and someone points to the figure of uh in the novel jean-baptiste latour in historic terms jean-baptiste lammy but it's best not to go into history stay stay with uh it's based on a historic character but stay with the novel because one begins then the minute the prelude is over and you leave rome you go then straight to the deserts of new mexico and find the young priest finding it hard to discover water in a desert place as he's looking for a community and his horse is tired and his water bottle is empty and he stops and we see him saying his office at that time of day there as he tethers his horse to one of the the cacti or something that is standing in that dry scrub of desert in that extraordinary landscape of new mexico and then the story goes on another priest from france uh father jose viol he's called in the book go to join him and the whole whole book is the story of the setting up through jean baptiste latoya's ministry episcopal ministry of a new diocese in a different part of the world and new holy places are created and discovered and new graces of the gospel and the way in which that ministry unfolds right up until the death of the archbishop he never goes home again to france though from time to time he and father joseph sit at supper with the two candlesticks on the table that he's brought with him and father joseph is rather a good cook and they talk about lovely things from france but are eating the things of new mexico by then now it's not that book that i wanted to talk about this morning it's another one that developed from her own life and understanding and it's called the professor's house and it's the story of professor godfrey st peter and his wife lillian and his two daughters and their husbands the professor's stepson and the book is in three completely uh sorry son son-in-law the book is in three particular parts it starts by describing the family after the great war the professor is a professor of history at hamilton university and uh all these things are slightly fictitious but i sort of have a feeling that will occasionally base them on people that she had met as always is the case with so many of the novelists and godfrey saint peter is named particularly he's a professor of history after godfrey of bologne who was the the person who captured jerusalem and his cen peter the rock on which the church was founded and there's no accident in that name that she gives him for this is a story of developing faith but faith in humanity as well as faith in god and it's set in three sections and some people have found that rather a dislocation in fact it starts as i said in the first section with the description of the family after the great war but the professor is missing the person who had been his elder daughter's first fiancee a man called tom young man called tom outland and tom outland had been someone who was an archaeologist and an historian discovering secrets of a cliff city in new mexico and at the same time a rancher and he is at one with the natural world and at the same time he becomes a huge friend of the professor at that time and the professor is looking forward to a life with his elder daughter and her new husband tom and all this unfolds in the second part of the book where tom's story is told in the present tense so you go back to tom outland story and tom has to go away to the great war and his life ends there and then the third part of the story is simply called the professor and the professor is looking back and facing almost a great hole in his life a vacuum where the vision of tom outland and his view of the creation is missing and the professor is lamenting this looking round at the more worldly values of his daughters new husbands and even lillian his wife following the great war and embracing all things modern and having a different set of values and there's a dislocation in the professor's mind of the yearning they go to a new house and he insists on keeping his dusty old study in the old house because he he cannot bear the sense of letting go of what had been before the great war and tom outland becomes a sign of that of a different set of values and at the same time that now is in the past and the professor becomes demoralized his family go off on a very luxurious tour of europe now tom outlands by his excavations and by all kinds of things that he had done had made a complete fortune and he had left all of that before he went away to war his will gave it to his fiancee and she now is busy with her new husband spending tom's legacy all over europe but the professor is left at home and he's getting more and more disconsolate and at some stage in his study there is a gas leak and he is in danger of dying and at that point um he is saved by the old servant of the family whose name is augusta and she is a devout german catholic and somehow while the family are away this old servant a semstress whom he'd never taken notice of before rebuilds his face rebuilds those pieces which he's looking back to and which tom's uh vision of what things were had shown him and at the same time cause him to know that he can embrace the future now i don't want to say too much more because it's spoiling if i uh if i start telling a novel in that way but i i i wanted to say that this novel has been likened to a perfect sonata or even a movement of a sonata in sonata form so it's either a three movement sonata or as you'll probably remember if you've ever studied sonata form you get an exposition a development and a recapitulation and i think this is the the summer of all willow cases work in the way she sets this out because it's it's looking back to a past which becomes idealized and then refusing to take those ideas and mix them with the future in a different kind of dimension and that becomes an important facet and aspect of this book i found it as i remembered it a book for now for there's never been a time when where in the the whole history of the world when all humankind has been bound together and is looking back to a world when the pandemic didn't exist looking around to see how it's changed now it does exist and then also being faced by climate change and war and needing to take values both old and new to rebuild both physicality and mental and scientific knowledge and at the same time that spiritual dimension which we speak about all the time how can i not think this when i'm sitting under voice not of stone but of beautiful flowering cherry in a new spring and willa casa would have understood all of that but she was a quester and was never satisfied with the last novel and some of the novels like this one the professor's house took a long time to put together so we give thanks for that name of new beginnings godfrey in jerusalem saint peter the rock on which the church was built and also the tom outland and the very name outland means to suggest that there are other societies other dimensions other values which have to be mixed in with what the professor is thinking and also what he's going to give to the world and his students in his scholarship from then on so thanks be to god for this lovely morning here in england and for this second sunday of easter tide which feels anything but a low sunday and it'll be a lovely thing to go across and talk to the students of our king school canterbury from the pulpit in the cathedral when matins begins later on this morning let's look at the places that we're praying for this morning uh we are with in the anglican cancun communion the anglican church of papua new guinea and we pray for that uh province there and then in this diocese pray for archbishop justin and bishop rose of dover and bishop emma at lambeth and today we're praying for shepherd's leaves benefits and that benefits consists of the parish churches of saint mary the virgin selling st james is sheldwich lee's saint leonard's battles mere leaves and st lawrence's leave land some of those churches are on the lee's quarter state which is an estate which produces the one of the largest crops of non-food crops in the country and it's on the estate of our friend phyllis sons there so one finds enormous fields of of calendula uh marigolds in popular terms and uh fields of equiam as well now the achium produces omega-3 which means that we don't have to take omega-3 and reduce fish stocks throughout the world instead it can be taken from the accium and we give thanks therefore for those crops which are doing such good at the moment and pray for peter newell in his ministry there and for the life of selling church of england primary school school terms have begun now for the summer term so we will say our prayer for the second sunday of easter bring your own intentions and all those concerns that you may have across the world to pray together 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 as the birds sing around us we use the prayer our savior taught us in whatever language you yourself like to use our father who which 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 then of reflection before our blessing [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] he's [Music] or [Music] follow my little [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] is my [Music] my [Music] 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 and those whom you would pray for today and always are men and once again uh congratulations on her birthday to jackie and also when i've finished um matchings with the school and then celebrated the song eucharist i'm baptizing a little girl called savannah and so we congratulate savannah and her parents and family apple juice i assure you uh oh this is reminding me of an amusing incident yesterday which happened because of the brazia which we left and because tiger was sitting there we put or he put some some more charcoal on it and it was very very warm indeed and of course the cats here and we had a a group of people who were garden congregation people that i could show round and and they were sitting by the brazier and so it was warm there and then we left it and coming back later in the afternoon fetter met me and said guess which three creatures were sitting around the brazier completely contented with each other and warming themselves so i said uh well tiger obviously yes leo yes lily no well who else had the tortoises escaped no think bigger and he said he'd gone out into the garden and lying with the two cats was clemmy who had broken out of the enclosure where she lives with uh with winnie and trotted across the lawn and was warming herself by the brazier with the two cats having a conversation and it took quite a lot of persuasion to take clemmy away from the warm fire and lead her back to the the walled garden where she lives with winnie and all the the hens in their incarceration so an amusing story but obviously uh clemmy knew where the warmth was yesterday afternoon so enjoy your day as we hope we shall and have a happy second sunday in easter blue uh food you