[Music] good morning and welcome to the dinery garden on this tuesday of the week following easter week the nation is still very much in mourning for the duke of edinburgh following his death last friday and in preparation for the funeral which will be on saturday and we remember him with thanksgiving in our prayers and continue to pray for her majesty the queen and the royal family we also pray of course for the people of saint vincent with the devastating eruption of the volcano la soufiere and all those attempting to help them at this particular time bring your prayers from wherever you are in the world it is the most beautiful spring morning here with a bright blue sky and around us in the lawns spring flowers bluebells and cowslips and ox lips and fritillaries are beginning to flower in great measure i woke to a white frost and when i went across early to martin's in the cathedral the car looked like a little igloo but this sunshine in april soon dispels all of that and we hope it won't have done too much damage to magnolia and camellia flowers in the garden so enjoy this easter season and we begin our prayers together on this tuesday morning april the 13th 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 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 does 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 are some on the 13th morning of the month is the long psalm 68 and i'm reading some verses from it now let god arise and let his enemies be scattered let those that hate him flee before him as the smoke vanishes so may they vanish away as wax melts at the fire so let the wicked perish at the presence of god but let the righteous be glad and rejoice before god let them make merry with gladness sing to god sing praises to his name exalt him who rides on the clouds the lord is his name rejoice before him father of the fatherless defender of widows god in his holy habitation god gives the solitary a home and brings forth prisoners to songs of welcome but the rebellious inhabit a burning desert oh god when you went forth before your people when you marched through the wilderness the earth shook and the heavens dropped down rain at the presence of god the lord of sinai at the presence of god the god of israel you sent down a gracious rain oh god you refreshed your inheritance when it was weary your people came to dwell there in your goodness oh god you provide for the poor blessed be the lord who bears our burdens day by day for god is our salvation god is for us the god of our salvation god is the lord who can deliver from death sing to god you kingdoms of the earth make music in praise of the lord he rides on the ancient heaven of heavens and sends forth his voice voice a mighty voice ascribe to god power his splendor is over israel his power is above the clouds how terrible is god in his holy sanctuary the god of israel who gives power and strength to his people blessed be god i'm going to the gospel of saint john and as i said we are beginning to look at the way in which the group of disciples especially the galilean ones who were with him from the very beginning in the fourth gospel begin to reflect on what they remember him saying and so many of those sayings the later things are in what we call the farewell discourses the the talk around the supper table on that last thursday evening we're told early in st john's gospel when he had risen from the dead the disciples remembered this and these are some of the sayings of jesus that will be remembered they will contain through the next seven days the i am statements of jesus not all from this supper table conversation some from earlier in the gospel yet all as we keep saying in the present tense which is the tense in which we need to read the gospel and the words of jesus always and take them into our lives remembering back for the phrase in our creed according to the scriptures becomes very important as we shall see today but today i'm reading in john chapter 13 and i'm beginning to read at verse 31. when judas had gone out jesus said now is the son of man glorified and god is glorified in him if god is glorified in him god will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once little children yet a little while i am with you you will seek me and just as i said to the jews so now i also say to you where i am going you cannot come a new commandment i give to you that you love one another just as i have loved you you also are to love one another by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another simon peter said to him lord where are you going jesus answered him where i am going you cannot follow me now but you will follow afterwards peter said to him lord why can i not follow you now i will lay down my life for you jesus answered will you lay down your life for me truly truly i say to you the will not crow till you have denied me three times let not your hearts be troubled believe in god believe also in me in my father's house are many rooms if it were not so would i have told you that i go to prepare a place for you and if i go and prepare a place for you i will come again and will take you to myself that where i am you may be also and you know the way to where i am going thomas said to him lord we do not know where you are going how can we know the way jesus said to him i am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me if you had known me you would have known my father also from now on you do know him and have seen him [Music] philip said to him lord show us the father and it is enough for us jesus said to him have i been with you so long and you still do not know me philip whoever has seen me has seen the father how can you say show us the father do you not believe that i am in the father and the father is in me the words that i say to you i do not speak on my own authority but the father who dwells in me does his works believe me that i am in the father and the father is in me or else believe on account of the works themselves an amazing passage which they would have looked back on philip and thomas those galileans from the lakeside who have come with him to jerusalem and are about to undergo the most traumatic experience an experience which includes their own desertion and failure but we have seen how jesus gathers them together again by the lakeside and how after he has risen those words begin to have meaning so that when the spirit is given which he breathes on them they too can begin to to perceive that the creator will be seen in his works in them in the unique vocation that they like every human being will have and jesus is beginning to give them that wonderful gift but for the moment they are pondering it during these days leading up to pentecost when the fullness of the spirit is poured out onto the church with its message for the whole world of the character and quality of the creator and of what we would call the kingdom of heaven according to the scripture i said and i want to turn this morning just briefly to a passage from the prophet isaiah that book that we know jesus took and read in galilee and in his own synagogue at nazareth to those who knew him there i'm actually in chapter 30 of the prophet isaiah and i'm beginning to read at verse 18. therefore the lord waits to be gracious to you and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you for the lord is the god of justice blessed are all those who wait for him for a people shall dwell in zion in jerusalem you shall weep no more he will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry as soon as he hears it she answers you and though the lord give you the bread of adversity the water of affliction yet your teacher will not hide himself anymore but your eyes shall see your teacher and your ears shall hear a word behind you saying this is the way walk in it when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left this is the way walking it and jesus who has really soaked himself in the scriptures and knows so much of them by heart psalms and law of moses and prophets and particularly the prophet isaiah is now saying i am the way and the truth and the life because of the fullness of the creator who dwells in him and the spirit he breathes in those post-resurrection stories onto them is giving them the same spirit i am the way walking it your teacher will make himself known which takes us instantly back to the garden with mary magdalene rabunai my teacher and then jesus shows her for her the way do not cling to me but go to my brothers and when she goes to them her message i have seen the lord she could also have been saying i have seen the way ahead because that way is being given in the present tense so many times in that lesson from st john today in the um room of the last supper there is a present tense being spoken now is the son of man glorified says jesus and the word now single syllable all these words have single syllables giving to us i am i am the way and the word now now the son of man is glorified and god is glorified in him and then there is this sense of at once in saint john's gospel they've been waiting now at the suppertime table everything is going to happen but they will only remember and look back later the gospel in the present tense as it is for us with these great i am statements well there are many things that we could think about on this particular day in the present tense yesterday we found ourselves engaged in a wonderful conversation and please thank you very much because it fitted in with all his principles and this was very much his his uh brainchild together with others from the university of kent and those who are setting aside a piece of land in kent to make a forest garden where what is grown will complement whatever else is grown and that's the principle that he's always worked on with this garden here not only in companion planting but i think i've mentioned before when we were doing the gospel of saint john the way in which we spiritually see jesus and physically see jesus talking in different lands right up to the the eternal layer beyond but in the garden the same kind of thing happens and one could talk about it right across the world for this is a feature of all natural forest life but in the 1980s robert hart who was a gardener in shropshire on wenlock edge began to evolve principles of gardening in various layers and the layers grow from a great height down to the ground and down into the depths and if you think about that then the top layer and if you bring it down to an english garden but some of you will be in different parts of the world and the top layer could be much higher is the tree canopy both protecting and shielding and letting through the light in a certain amount of quantity the the light behind beyond of the sun sunlight absolutely necessary to all growth the next layer down is a lower tree layer and in an english garden that would be shorter fruit trees and then there's a shrub there and let's go to an english garden again of currants and berries and that kind of plant and then a herbaceous layer of herbs and things which tend to flower and leaf on the ground and then a rhizosphere of root vegetables whose leaf might be in the herbaceous layer but the fruits of them are below the ground and then in leafage a ground cover layer like strawberries or growing across the ground and creeping plants and and even some herbs in that way on the soil surface and finally and most wondrous of all a vertical layer of climbing things like vines which grow up the trees and grow vertically and in that forest garden all things complement each other and it's much less work to maintain so a very large field has been set aside and this project should we call it is in its infancy but we had a conversation about what might and white what might not grow in that area and we found ourselves really trying to work to the creators principles and i myself was mostly a listener in this conversation but it was a wonderful conversation held first of all out in the open air in the site which is set aside and then in a great barn in the evening i found myself involved with our friends the ordinance seminarians and those some who are already ordained in uh berkeley divinity school at yale university and normally that group would be here living our life of canterbury but they can't come this year because of the coveted restrictions and so i found myself engaged in a seminar for them and with them by zoom across the world for um best part of an hour and a half last night and it was a wonderful thing to see all their faces on zoom but we talked far and wide we talked about ordinary things very much finite things on the flatland we talked about the past you might say sort of buried quality and fruitfulness springing from that we talked about things which are in our minds both for the future and for um now and we talked also about spiritual things spiritual things in community and individually and each our unique vocation and all those young women and men who were responding to me from right across the other side of the atlantic were giving me encouragement as i was giving them but as the gospel of saint john we were talking in layers layers of this life and layers of that which is possible to both imagine mentally and go beyond spiritually into infinite depths everything complemented the others ideas and of course conversations like that are never finished but it's a wonderful thing that we can do that we do it in our garden congregation day by day we encourage each other mutually across the world this also is a day in 1668 when the first poet laureate was appointed he was john dryden and he was pert laureate for 20 years in the reign of charles ii his poetry was written in heroic couplets much of it was translation from classical verse or political satire i remember my sister studying for a level with the um the poem absalom and the hitterfell which of course is based on the davidic narrative in this in the stories of king david and his family and the way in which the favorite son absalom revolted against his father and then didn't take the advice of of a hitterfell but took the wrong advice and and then it all went completely wrong and there's a situation politically in charles ii court where a favorite illegitimate son of charles ii he had no legitimate heir but james scott duke of monmouth the title given to him was plotting in some way and others were plotting for him to oust james ii from the throne when charles ii died and dryden sets all that out at the king's behest in political satire and those couplets become not only the work of the parrot laureate in poetry but also in political satire speaking across that period of the restoration of which he became an emblem dryden not read so much today but there are nice quotes of of i like this one happy the man and happy he alone he who can call today his own he who secure within can say tomorrow do thy worst for i have lived today well it's a present tense thing i like also his sentence genius must be born and never can be taught and also but far more numerous was the herd of such who think too little and who talk too much well we find ourselves doing that sometimes and so it's a it's a wise warning wanted also to mention that yesterday baroness shirley williams died a great political figure in english life she died aged 90 and probably one remembers her best for her part of the labor cabinets in the late 20th century but also for leaving the labour party to join the social democratic party which she and william rogers and roy jenkins and david are informed in 1981 and in that year it was thought to be able to carry all before it it's very difficult to break the mold of the political system here in england and shirley williams herself had lost her seat with the margaret thatcher victory in 1979 but she came back into politics in a a big way and later on of course the social democrats joined with the liberal party to form the liberal democrats but we give thanks for her for her warm personality and also for her ability to to speak so well she was the daughter of the novelist vera britain who wrote the testament of youth and i think she inherited from her mother a great way with words so god bless her and god rest her as well as we remember her contribution to national life bring your own thoughts and and imaginings today and also your your concerns and intentions as we say our prayers together now we are praying on this day in the anglican communion for justin our archbishop and also for the diocese of baida in the church of nigeria the lakoja province of the church of nigeria and in this diocese of rose bishop of dover for tim bishop at lambeth and for the eastern woodensburg parish and david ridley sandra marsh and robert stevenson in their ministry there so here is the correct 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 men that we say each in our own language 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 contemplate the way which our savior shows us the god of peace who brought again from the dead our lord jesus christ 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 the upon you those whom you love and those whom you would remember today and always are men [Music] you