good morning and welcome to the deanery garden of canterbury cathedral on this morning wednesday morning the 17th of june early in the morning and leo and i have come up to the far far end of the garden into the orchard which earlier in our filming in april and in may was full of lovely wildflowers the primroses and the even the bulbs coming up and daffodils at this time of year we allow it to to just grow up and seed and so lots of moon days is still butter cups and also the beehives beyond the apples are forming in the trees and also the pears and the quinces and it's a a lovely time of year to think of fruitfulness which is growing on wherever you are in the world please be welcome it's a a week when the british flower growers call it british flower week it was this week was founded in new covent garden in 2013 in order to promote the growing of of flowers and also flowers from farms and other movement which encourages the growth of flowers locally and us buying cut flowers locally so that there's no great carbon footprint we can think a little bit about that later on but meanwhile we want to say our prayers together and to remember anyone that we need to remember in our prayers this is a happy day for us for in the night two young friends of ours have had their first baby rupert and charlotte the son and daughter-in-law of one of our lay members of chapter but we congratulate them on the birth of their baby daughter this morning so let's begin our morning prayers oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise visit us with your salvation and sustain us with your gracious spirit o come let us sing to the lord let us heartily rejoice in the rock of our salvation let us come into his presence with thanksgiving and be glad in him with psalms for the lord is a great god and a great king above all gods come let us worship and bow down and kneel before the lord our maker for he is our god we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand 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 are men our psalm this morning is psalm 86 incline your ear o lord and answer me for i am poor and in misery preserve my soul for i am faithful save your servant for i put my trust in you be merciful to me o lord for you are my god i call upon you all the day long gladden the soul of your servant for to you o lord i lift up my soul for you lord are good and forgiving abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you give ear o lord to my prayer and listen to the voice of my supplication in the day of my distress i will call upon you for you will answer me among the gods there is none like you o lord nor any works like yours all nations you have made shall come and worship you o lord and shall glorify your name for you are great and do wonderful things you alone are god teach me your way o lord and i will walk in your truth knit my heart to you that i may fear your name i will thank you o lord my god with all my heart and glorify your name forevermore for great is your steadfast love towards me for you have delivered my soul from the depths of the grave o god the proud rise up against me and a ruthless horde seek after my life they have not set you before their eyes but you lord are gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and full of kindness and truth turn to me and have mercy upon me give your strength to your servants and save the child of your handmaid show me a token of your favor that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed because you o lord have helped and comforted me so we turned to the gospel of saint luke for our reading and we have arrived at chapter 12 and are beginning this morning at verse 22. jesus this morning is speaking to his disciples rather than to the many many people of the crowds who were pressing upon him in readings earlier in the chapter jesus said to his disciples therefore i tell you do not be anxious about your life what you will eat nor about your body what you will put on for life is more than food and the body more than clothing consider the ravens they neither sow nor reap they neither have storehouse nor barn and yet god feeds them of how much more value are you than the birds and which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to their span of life if then you are not able to do a smaller thing as that why are you anxious about the rest consider the lilies how they grow they neither toil nor spin yet i tell you even solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these but if god so clothes the grass which is alive in the field today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven how much more will he clothe you oh you of little faith so do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink nor be worried for all the nations of the world seek after these things and your father knows that you need them but instead seek his kingdom and these things will be added to you such a good day to be hearing jesus's words about the lilies of the field and the grass growing up we always think of jesus walking walking walking from one community to another through the seasons through the countryside in galilee by the lakeside in judea walking through samaria by the river jordan on the mountain top and around him the unfolding glories of the season and at the same time the anxious disciples we've been thinking all through these chapters as jesus's mind still set on his vocation and the need for courage and steadfastness and conforming to the will of the heavenly father in jerusalem but all the time he's been telling the disciples and therefore us through the writings of the evangelists to build up the inner life concentrate on the inner life regularly so that there will be strength and energy to go out and not only give good news to the world but to help the world physically in the world's needs and no more important time than this one yet let's think for a moment about the natural beauties of each land in which we live and the way in which the seasons unfold and sometimes take rest and sometimes are full of energy and sometimes have different kinds of beauty this is a day in 1579 when sir francis drake with the golden hind that little ship circumnavigating the globe landed in what is now california and there in california the story tells they did two things they nailed a brass plaque to the place claiming it for queen elizabeth the first and at the same time they held a service and gave glory to god using with the reverend francis fletcher who was the chaplain of blake's ship using the 1559 elizabethan prabhuk there on that pacific shore to give thanks two strange activities yet two very human activities for whenever we see something of great beauty and that coast is of immense beauty and the pacific ocean of intense beauty as you look out from the west coast over the ocean as the sun sets something so intensely magnificent that you want to clutch and keep it just as you want to keep the life of a flower pick it and take it away and keep it for as long as possible that's one human natural activity the brass plaque here we are this is ours what a strange thing it's like planting a flag on the moon and saying the moon is ours now on the other hand the other activity was also very intensely france is straight like to give enormous thanks to god for this and in giving thanks all that came from his inner life there are two wonderful prayers of francis drake both deserve to be used constantly one of them is about finishing the work to its very conclusion until it be thoroughly finished the other is about sailing far from the shore and daring things for god it's a disturbing prayer yet he and his men must have known that on the golden hind there is in the lovely cathedral church of grace in san francisco a fine ideal uh mural idealized idealizing the situation at that first service on the shore it's full of color full of beauty jesus says consider the lilies of the field as he walks among them and so that's why we've come to the orchard for at the moment in its wild state for a couple of months before the grass is sized but the seeds will have dropped and for the moment hedgehogs can snuffle around here wild creatures can find life here butterflies can land on the nettles it's all good food and the bees have a wonderful time because the limes are now in flower the lime trees and they scent the precincts of canterbury cathedral these great trees but they're almost invisible flowers but the scent especially in the evening is incredible jesus says what do you do about all those things you give thanks and let them prompt you towards the gifts given to you by your heavenly father not try to claim them clutch them you can't do that with wild things what you can do is give thanks for them the birds of the earth the flowers of the field and learn lessons from creation for the inner life so that you can feel free to be yourself with the gifts that god has given you in the outer life day by day in difficulty in hardship in care of one another in all these things and in care of the planet i said that this is the flowers from the farm week the fresh flowers we national flower week there are things colliding together for this all beautiful i remember being in tanzania and ministering there and there were huge fields of flowers in rose near to mount kilimanjaro airport i was working near mount meru and i said to the person with me what are these flowers and he said oh they're european flowers they they grow here and then they're cut all of them and put onto big airplanes and taken to sell in european markets and sadly there is a a bad side of that for us because they take all the water from higher up and the water never gets down now to the farms lower down in tanzania well we remember all of that and remember the enormous carbon footprint of great big jumbo jets bringing flowers when so much beauty grows around us and we can take locally and and grow our own and and have wonderful times with the seasons all those things jesus pointing in so many directions but the the lesson still the big lesson build up the inner life god feeds that with so many images in the situations you will meet and the outer life will take care of itself because you will have energy to fulfill all those duties which every human being has to let's say our prayers on this day we are praying for the diocese of nyasa in southern africa and the centim sasa the bishop there and his people and also the whole of aotearoa new zealand and polynesia and the primate there don tamihiri and pray for him and his people in those islands at this time in our own diocese we pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth and we continue to pray for the villages around sittingbourne praying for all kind of missional learning communities which are growing up there and asking god's blessing upon all who minister there so let's say our prayers praying yourselves for all whom you would want to pray for wherever you are in the world oh god the strengths of all those who put their trust in you mercifully accept our prayers and because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without you grant us the help of your grace that in keeping of your commandments we may please you both in will and deed through jesus christ our lord amen and the son collect for psalm 86 god of mercy who in your great love drew your son from the depths of the grave bring your people from death to life that we may rejoice in your compassion day by day and praise you now and forever amen so we say each in our own language the prayer which jesus taught us to say whenever we pray 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 a moment for our own prayers in silence the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds and 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 on those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always amen