good morning and welcome on this wet tuesday morning it's it's raining steadily and so we've come into the greenhouse and we have our friend tiger with us um it's a good thing to come into the greenhouse at the moment because the spa mania which has been lots of green leaves for you until now is now flowering beautifully with with wonderful flowers and even the baby plants are showing flower as well and the flowers uh when a bee lands on them uh begin to almost move around to to help the bee in their work so so it's it's uh quite eerie to watch it doesn't harm to the bee it's not one of those uh bee eating plants at all but the flowers are uh alive in the center with their their yellow are they stamens uh just going all around the the bee at that time and helping with the pollination so uh we give thanks for the the growth of all things on this rather wet morning but at the same time uh wherever you are in the world then feel welcome as we say our morning prayers on this particular day and i think that um we will do most of our reflection at the time of reading the passage of scripture but i did want to say some of you if you're following lectionary will realize that i am not reading the morning prayer new testament lesson which would have been through the whole of corinthians because we have done quite a few epistles recently and it's time that we journeyed with an evangelist and so i am reading the communion gospel for each day from the gospel of saint mark which takes us steadily through st mark's gospel as our companion on the way so if you're puzzled that's why that's happening at the moment of course the cathedral is locked so there is no eight o'clock communion in the morning and that becomes therefore a nice thing to read the gospel together as we say our morning prayers so let's say our prayers on this particular day and then we will think about many things when we come to our reflection o 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 son 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 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 our morning psalm on this morning of the month is psalm 62 on god alone my soul in stillness waits from him comes my salvation he alone is my rock and my salvation my stronghold said that i shall never be shaken how long will all of you assail me to destroy me as you would a tottering wall or a leaning fence they plot only to thrust me down from my place of honour lies are their chief delight they bless with their mouth but in their heart they curse wait on god alone in stillness o my soul for in him is my hope he alone is my rock and my salvation my stronghold so that i shall not be shaken in god is my strength and my glory god is my strong rock in him is my refuge put your trust in him always my people pour out your hearts before him for god is our refuge the peoples are but a breath the whole human race a deceit on the scales they are all together lighter than air put no trust in oppression in robbery take no empty pride though wealth increase set not your heart upon it god spoke once and twice have i heard the same that power belongs to god steadfast love belongs to you o lord for you repay everyone according to their deeds so we turn to the gospel of saint mark and these are short sections for the gospel each morning we're in chapter and we are reading from verse 21 and up to verse 28. remember that yesterday we read how jesus passed along passing along the shore of the sea of galilee calls simon and andrew and james and john and immediately they leave what they're doing and follow him we carry on from there in verse 21. and they went into capernaum and immediately on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching and they were astonished at his teaching for he taught them as one who had authority and not as the scribes and immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit and he cried out what have you to do with us jesus of nazareth have you come to destroy us i know who you are the holy one of god but jesus rebuked him and the unclean spirit convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice came out of him and they were all amazed and questioned among themselves saying what is this a new teaching with authority he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him and at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of galilee notice how again i think three times in that passage and that will continue this greek word we were looking at yesterday yusus immediately in latin stat him immediately is that giving the gospel of sin mark a speed as you're reading it i remember the first time i heard it recited by an actor all the way through in a london theater it was a powerful piece of acting with the king james version of the bible no text he knew the whole gospel no verses no chapters simply from the beginning the beginning of the gospel of jesus christ the son of god and off we went no breaks it was a roller coaster it's quite a short book 16 chapters and in its original form it breaks off suddenly and that's a puzzle which many many people have tried to solve but puzzles are good things as we shall think about in a moment or two uh but at present i just wanted to think about capernaum for capernaum becomes the home base in galilee for the ministry of jesus they come and go to capernaum and tomorrow we shall go into a domestic scene but for the moment it's just enough to know that they are there 30 miles from the uh highland town of nazareth little town there which was much much more quiet and and removed from the kind of life that capernaum had for capernaum was a very very important trading center particularly for fish and the trade route all the way down from damascus and to the mediterranean went through capernaum and at capernaum the people traded and the fishermen and we saw them yesterday not only themselves but zebedee the father of james and john with the hired servants in their boats this was a thriving industry and jesus calls them and today we find them in capernaum but we also find something of the regularity of jesus's life it was the sabbath day so he went into the synagogue so luke tells us that he regularly did that he went into the synagogue at nazareth in the early parts of luke gospel as he regularly did and here in capernaum just as nazareth he was asked to speak now there's nothing strange in that the leader of the worship of the synagogue often asks someone who was recognized as being learned in the scriptures and might have something to say to stand and address the people that happens at nazareth but it happens also here in capernaum no explanation nor does mark tell us what jesus said but what we do get is the first inference of the fact that any shall we say disorder in the body mind or spirit of someone that god created them to be is something that jesus reaches out to heal it might be something of the mind of the spirit of the body and what mark is saying is that this good news is about salvation healing the words roots are in the same kind of area salve to anoint one's eyes is one of the scriptural passages so they might see better and that salve is something that forms the root of the word salvation health and it's not just of the body or of the mind all of the spirit is of the whole personality the unique personality that god has given each one of us with special gifts and vocations and here jesus is interrupted by the disorderly shouting of someone with we know not what problem everything was put down to an unclean spirit at that time and the most important thing for mark is that jesus reaches out and by his calm ministry quietens all that is going on and we get this scene of shouting but what amazes the people is at the end of this explosion of whatever this poor man is suffering from there's quietness and healing and they are amazed but amazed not only by the healing but by the teaching he teaches as one with authority now i wanted to say right at the beginning of sid mark's gospel i want to introduce the word pericope which is a word taken from the greek but it's a a word in our english language now to mean a small part of something which has been cut out and stands exactly by itself and the three early gospels particularly are made up of these short bites we're used to them because we tend in in services to use short bytes of any book in the scriptures pericappies but even more so this gospel the first to be written down went around the writer clearly went around not only to put down his own experience of what's going on and there's apostolic experience if we go by the tradition it's an apostolic tradition which mark drew from peter in rome and wrote down that gospel but also so many other stories that were told which had probably been put down in written form and were rehearsed at worship when people came together with the breaking of bread but here they're put down in ordered form and for the first time we have them there nevertheless they are like a string of beads which have been put together and mark is putting it together fairly swiftly so people can read it in one sitting if you like it's a good thing to do but at the same time remember that each of them is like a jigsaw piece or a a piece of of of broken glass because it's been cut around and used by itself in a kaleidoscope so when the light shines through it and it's held in a different way rather like the flowers of the spharmania they begin to move around and have the light shining through them and not only the color but the scent and all of that becomes something crucial we can see them as a whole or we can hold them up and look at each one of them they're a puzzle for a lifetime and the putting together of those stories in our minds and hearts in the gospel whichever gospel we're in becomes an intensely important activity every day of our life just one little section maybe and we can never tire of reading it partly because the jigsaw pieces of our spirituality and our mind coming together often save bits of the puzzle for later in life and we find as we read it i certainly do a lesson a little pericope a bit of the gospel 21 to 28 of chapter 1 this morning i must have read that oh how many thousands of times allowed and in private and yet suddenly some morning one of the sentences one of the words will become a new piece of the jigsaw puzzle which i hadn't realized before it's a thing that we human beings absolutely love to do and when i look at the dates this morning of um the the things which have happened on this particular day the 12th of the month in the past i find well first of all it's the feast day of saint aylrid of rivo who was an abbot of the monastery at rivo who was born at hexsum and our calendar calls him sin already of hexam you do it either way you like but he died in three years before beckett he was a great scholar and he wrote histories a history of the life of king edward the confessor but at the same time he's remembered and when we say his prayer at the end he's remember having written a treatise on spiritual friendship and it's a very impassioned treatise on the way in which friendship and companionship at a very deep level can be uh so helpful in the journey body mind and spirit he he draws on uh writings of cicero's into augustine of hippo but he's very very personal to elridge himself so we give thanks for him today if you've been to river you'll know there are wonderful remains of the monastery left there but also today in 1856 the painter john singer sergeant was born now his paintings are a complete treasury of color so many are portraits but others are landscapes in different styles and going around to see them has to me always been the most amazing pleasure i fell in love with his paintings in the edinburgh um national art gallery uh oh let me just think in about 1966 or seven when i stood before the portrait of lady agnew and thought this is really beautiful and uh you can you can see that portrait if you if you look up lady agnew john singer sergeant on on google but it's there and if i go to edinburgh i always want to go and see that portrait again but since then i've got to know many many more and one that became important and the the artist who painted my portrait here in the deanery young man there actually loved this portrait as well and we didn't know that this was the the case he was already going to paint my portrait and i was standing in the metropolitan art gallery in new york and we looked at this painting of father sebastiano who was a a priest in northern italy at the time of sergeant's life and he uh sergeant asked if he might paint him and he is shown at his desk and he had been gathering young priest who was really keen on on botanical specimens he'd been gathering specimens and they're all over the table in a rather disordered room and he's looking at the the painting and there's a sort of light in his eye and over the bed is thrown his outdoor cloak and at the back there's a crucifix by his bed and around is this sign of his interest in god creation and you feel you know the person just as you look at it and it became another favorite of of the sergeant collection what you find with sergeant is that the portraits he wanted to paint always have more life than the ones that have been commissioned and that's about inspiration but a many pieced puzzle for looking at characters and personalities and different kinds of vocations this is the day that terry weight arrived in lebanon in 1987 and went uh on a mission for the archbishop of canterbury to try and release people held hostage and then of course was held hostage himself and held in the darkness and that story has been told so many times and is again inspirational in our puzzle but most of all on this day with regard to mysteries in puzzle it's the day that dame agatha christie died in 1976 and she she wrote 66 uh mystery novels detective novels all with puzzles in them and they have become so popular that they are up there with sales of books throughout the world are with the bible and shakespeare and the agatha said what is the what is the secret of agatha christie well it's the fact that the the answer is really never given all kinds of clues are given if you're reading a miss marvel story like murder at the vicarage or something of that sort the body in the library lovely miss marvel stories which we know from television as well you don't get the answer until you get to the end clever people get it before others don't get it some people get it wrong and then our cross when they get to the end and if it's inspector puerto the the the the murder of roger akroyd or one of those um then uh i think that in the same way murder on the orient express uh orbit on the nile or all of those the the glory is the fact that she describes things with great detail and not just about the murder but at the landscape and conjures up an atmosphere but at the same time what is holding you in suspense is it like any good puzzle you're trying to work it out to get there towards the end whether it be hercule puerto or miss marple or tommy and tuppence beresford her novels always give you that wonderful feeling of being on an adventure where the pieces of the puzzle will come gradually we recently saw when drama was still happening about two years ago uh in in london county hall no longer used for sittings of the the uh council um the performance of witness for the prosecution and we were sitting in the seats of the councillors but some of the audience were given tickets to be the jury and they were the ones who are going to have to vote about this at the end just guilty or innocent and all the rest of it as the story unfolded it was the most historic place to be the most magnificent performance and when it starts again i'm sure it will when all this lockdown ends i would say if you're anywhere near london go and see it because you're kept on the edge of your seat all the way through just as that long running play the mousetrap which was only ended by the coronavirus and had gone for years and years until 2020 and i'm saying all this because the gospels are just the same they're companions for us along the way showing us jesus it's the mission statement of this place but we see jesus in the breaking of bread and the sharing of the cup we see him in one another we see him in situations which suddenly spring out at us with a new jigsaw piece which fits in well with the reading of the gospel or the reading of the epistles or a little piece of prophecy or a sentence of the psalms all those things which we do regularly and as we do so we come to those pieces these little pericappy cut out for the morning for us to read or the evening as we do that then what we are doing is holding ourselves open to new jigsaw pieces new surprises which will fit into our life and understanding and that becomes immensely important we're given them in god's creation we're given them in holy places we're given them at home in meetings within our community and breaking bread not only in church but also any meal we take with another and we are often frustrated that we can't find the answer and have to wait for it and sometimes we wait years for just that particular piece but the puzzle never ends until it breaks open into glory and the answers become absolutely evident when our earthly course is run glimpses of that can appear at any time so as we give thanks for all of those things this morning we're going to say our prayers and we look this morning at the people we're praying for we're praying for our our nearby um parish of favisham which is just up the road from here and uh praying for simon rollins and daniel corcoran in their own uh ministry there and at the same time we're praying in the anglican communion for the diocese of north africa which is in the new episcopal anglican province of alexandria so at this time we pray for those places and the people who live there and around them and we pray also for our own friends and and communities who support us pray for justin our archbishop and pray also for rose bishop of dover and tim bishop at lambeth and uh that whatever your prayers are this morning we'll use first the prayer for el rede river and then secondly the prayer for this week almighty god who endowed rid the abbot with the gift of christian friendship and the wisdom to lead others in the way of holiness grant to your people that same spirit of mutual affection so that in loving one another we may know the love of christ and rejoice in the eternal possession of your supreme goodness through jesus christ our lord amen and the conduct for this week which reminds us that we're in the epiphany sign of the baptism of jesus 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 we say together the prayer that our lord taught us in whatever language you like but bring names of people who have sprung to mind as we've gone through this morning and hold them in your heart and hold them in the silence which will follow the our father the minute we mention fabishim we think of our friends brian and john turner who actually tune in to us every morning and are helped by worshiping in this what we're calling a garden congregation right across the world uh brian was the the lower master which is the the deputy head here for many years at our king school and we still keep very much in touch with him and his wife jan so that's just a sign of friends we might be thinking of i'm prompted by things for this morning bring them in your hearts and minds as we say this prayer in whatever language you like and then keep silence afterwards 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 amen moment of silence now for your own prayers 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 are men well you're a good boy but i sort of feel you're using me as a bit of a radiator this morning aren't you it's not too cold in here though is it and the rain is puttering down still outside we can stay a long time tiger but i'm not time to do things