good morning and welcome to the dinery garden on this monday the 21st of september the autumnal equinox so from now on we are very definitely in autumn and there is a smell of autumn about the garden wherever you are in the world please feel welcome to join in our morning prayers here as we begin another working week and the noises of the city and the traffic of going to their work on the roads outside will be very very much uh present also you will hear the sound of the water running here in this fern garden to keep the tree ferns damp which is the atmosphere that they like this is a day if we look back on september the 21st when uh gustav host was born in 1874 known for his planet suite but also with a lovely photograph of him sitting outside the deanery front door with john maysfield and the dean at that time having written the music for the play which the canterbury festival put on written by mayfield the coming of christ but remember him most i think for his planet suite and also for one of the tunes for that used for a him i vow to be my country we remember on this day in 1832 the birth of the death of sir walter scott and he wrote novels which were probably more popular in earlier days novels like ivanhoe and rob roy though his scot monument in edinburgh is still the biggest monument to any writer in the world h.g wells was born on this day in 1866 who wrote the time machine and the war of the worlds and the invisible man creative energies that we're thinking of and those who knew about them in 1962 bamba gascoigne's university challenge was screened for the first time and now we think of his great project for newgrange opera and at this time once again we pray for those in the performing arts we remember sad times in our world this was the day in 2013 of the terrorist attack at the westgate mall in nairobi when 63 shoppers were killed but we also remember way way back that this in 19 bc was the day on which the poet virgil died he was seen by medieval christianity to be a really important figure because in one of his eclogues he prophesied the birth of a royal child who would usher in the golden age and that's why he acts as stand his guide in the long poem through through hell and then into purgatory and beyond as they begin to enter paradise on this day also in 1954 shinzo abe the longest-serving japanese prime minister was born he's just retired real health and we wish him a happy birthday and think of all leaders at this time who have had to carry that country through very hard decision-making in this pandemic and then we think and we'll think about this again in our reflection that on this day in 1937 george allen and unwin the publishers published the hobbit by j.r.r tolkien an unknown name at that time and all that came from that but this isn't matthew's day and we remember matthew the evangelist who's named the first gospel bears and apostle in the list of the apart of the disciples uh matthew the tax collector so let's begin our prayers on this day oh lord open our lips and our mouths shall proclaim your praise may christ the day star dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night blessed are you creator of all to you be praise and glory forever as your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation may we rejoice in this day you have made and as we wake refreshed from the depths of sleep open our eyes to behold your presence and strengthen our hands to do your will that the world may rejoice and give you praise 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 and 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 are men our psalm this morning this 21st morning of the month is psalm 105 and i'm reading some verses from that now oh give thanks to the lord and call upon his name make known his deeds among the peoples sing to him sing praises and tell of all his marvelous works rejoice in the praise of his holy name let the hearts of them rejoice who seek the lord seek the lord and his strength seek his face continually remember the marvels he has done his wonders and the judgments of his mouse o seed of abraham his servant o children of jacob his chosen he is the lord our god his judgments are in all the earth he has always been mindful of his covenant the promise that he made for a thousand generations the covenant he made with abraham the oath that he swore to isaac which he established as a statute for jacob an everlasting covenant for israel he spread out a cloud for a covering and a fire to light up the night they asked and he brought them quails he satisfied them with the bread of heaven he opened the rock and the waters gushed out and ran in the dry places like a river for he remembered his holy word and abraham his servant so he brought forth his people with joy his chosen ones with singing so we turned this morning not to the acts of the apostles for this isn't matthew's day and on a feast day of an apostle we use a special lesson and i'm reading from st matthew chapter 9 verse 9. as jesus passed on from there he saw a man called matthew sitting at the tax desk and he said to him follow me and he rose and followed him and as jesus reclined at table in the house behold many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with jesus and his disciples and when the pharisees saw this they said to his disciples why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners but when jesus heard it he said those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick go and learn what this means i desire mercy and not sacrifice for i came not to call the righteous but sinners then the disciples of john the baptist came to him saying why do we in the pharisees fast but your disciples do not fast and jesus said to them can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment for the patch tears away from the garment and the worst hair is made neither is new wine put into old wineskins if it is the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed but new wine is put into fresh wineskins and so both are preserved well we give thanks for st matthew on this day and we remember the call of matthew the text tax collector who in luke's gospel and in sin mark's gospel is known as levi but we've grown used to people having different names in different places but the call took place on the shore of the sea of galilee in jesus what by then was being called his hometown not the town he came from nazareth but the town where he had made his home in capernaum and matthew is called from the tax deaths capernaum was an important trading route and this was no doubt a customs office and it's likely that matthew was one of the tax collectors in the pay of herod antipas but his particular occupation was vilified by the pharisees because so many of those who were tax collectors appropriated funds that were not theirs made themselves very rich and so matthew gets should we say with that brush there's nothing in the gospel to suggest that matthew is in any way devious or is making a profit for himself illegally all of that comes from various attributions to other tax collectors nor does matthew say anything about this as zakiyah stands but he obviously gives a party in his own home which is clearly big enough to hold quite a few and when uh they see jesus sitting down with tax collectors those who see themselves as very righteous and upholding the law say to jesus or say to his disciples not to jesus himself though he overhears why is he sitting with tax collectors and sinners the two go together in their mind you know matthew being in capernaum would have heard the teaching of jesus quite often so to stand up from his tax desk and instantly to follow jesus i think was probably a decision which came on that morning as a surprise but there had been preparation that's how i see this story unfolding but the gospel that bears his name tells of a long journey for that gospel which is normally seen as the shall we say the most jewish of all the gospels written to those of the jewish christian faith and trying to encourage and support them just as luke was writing for the hellenistic christians who were beginning to develop as we've seen in the acts of the apostles and there are telltale signs of that right through matthew's gospel the way in which first of all the gospel is ordered into five sections of teaching and some of that teaching is very much talking to the community that he knows which has developed perhaps the biggest image of this is the fact that his first discourse which probably is the most famous and we know as the sermon on the mount gathering teaching of jesus together and beginning with the beatitudes places jesus on the mountain giving teaching luke who was much more used to the greek schools of teaching who would wander around on flatland places jesus in a flat place and in luke's gospel is normally called the sermon on the plane but here the sermon on the mount of jesus talking to the disciples and then thus to the crowds beyond five of those discourses and they each end when jesus had finished speaking he goes on the journey goes on and perhaps one can say but this is a loose connection that the five books of the law which moses gave from the mountain are set out in five new discourses in the gospel of saint matthew the sermon on the mount and then a missionary discourse which gives the apostles their commission to go out and teach the people on jesus behalf during his ministry and then parables of the kingdom of heaven notice matthew always says the kingdom of heaven because to the jewish faith the name of god was sacrosanct and here in that discourse we have the parables of sowers the parable of the tares the parable of the mustard seed and so on looking around at parables like the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price using ordinary things as jesus did to give the teaching of jesus in parables the fourth is an anticipation of the future community which will be the church and rules for its life and then when jesus had finished speaking he goes on and the final one is on the mount of olives so it's sometimes called the olivet discourse and that's about the end of time and about judgment before going on to the passion and our lord's resurrection we give thanks for that gospel and that journey of saint matthew at this time when we remember also on this day the publication of a book which at the time the very devout roman catholic j.r.r tolkien who himself had been through the first world war and now was about to live through the second world war when he himself writes the what set out to be a children's book the hobbit it's full of all kinds of treasures in its own right but it's clear to me that tolkien began to see meaning in it culled from his faith which he was going to develop in the three volumes of the lord of the rings the hobbit published in 37 and the lord of the rings published in 1954 and 55 and written after all of that well tolkien was a great poet as well as a writer and his poetry gives us enormous christian insight you cannot read any of tolkien without having in the background although he always said none of this is a direct allegory but having in the background a much wider faith about heaven and earth and good and evil and the diversity of those who serve it but most of all the fact that it's the most unimportant and unself-assuming type of people the hobbits who actually have to carry the burden of the golden ring lest it corrupt the mighty and powerful but first of all there's a a lovely poem about the journey as we think of st matthew and our own vocations this morning which appears in the hobbit in that children's book which is so much more than a story for children here it is roads go ever on over rock and under tree by caves where never sun has shone by streams that never find the sea over snow by winter stone and through the merry flowers of june over grass and over stone and under mountains in the moon roads go ever on under cloud and under star yet feats that wandering have gone turn at last to home afar eyes that fire and sword have seen and horror in the halls of stone look at last on meadows green and trees and hills they long have known well there's much more imagery which comes from salmady and the scriptures but also the myths of many other nations for tolkien was an expert in language and semantics but his vision was boundless it needn't surprise us that this has proved one of the most popular books in all the world and the about the last sort of counting i think the lord of the rings had served something like 150 million copies making it right up there as uh one that still is full of popular imagery if you think of all the things about the royal line of david and the way in which that has gone through our psalms and in our journey here's another of his poems from the hobbit the king beneath the mountains the king of carving stone the lord of silver fountains shall come into his own his crown shall be upholden his harp shall be restrung his halls shall echo golden to songs of your re-sung the woods shall wave on mountains and grass beneath the sun his wealth shall flow in fountains and the rivers golden run the streams shall run in gladness the lakes shall shine and burn all sorrow fail and sadness at the mountain king's return i think isaiah the prophet could have written that and certainly tolkien derived much from it and also the sense of david's heart being restrung so that we can sing at this time of pandemic is an enormously important one the road scene though is a pilgrim poem and in the lord of the rings that has been refined and rewritten and perhaps that's how we can end this reflection the road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began now far ahead the road has gone and i must follow if i can pursuing it with eager feet until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet and wither then i cannot say none of us can but each of us knows that god has special purpose for us and this day we may discover some new dimension of it we're going to say our prayers now and on this day particularly we are praying for the diocese of ketecho in tanzania and for isaiah shambala the bishop and his people the diocese of kitkum in uganda and the bishop there wilson katara and his people and the diocese of ketui in kenya and the bishop there joseph mueller and all of his people we pray also for all churches and institutions dedicated in the name of saint matthew but here also in course today we're praying for the parish of elsham simpisa and for stephan thomas and nick ratcliffe in their ministry there and we remember also stefan as the area dean of that east bridge deanery um in which uh el shams and peter sits so let's say the prayer and join your own prayers to this and we're using today the prayer force in matthew's day and giving thanks for his gospel his particular way of showing us jesus teaching and the road which he sets out out for us to follow remembering that christians were first called followers of the way oh almighty god whose blessed son called matthew the tax collector to be an apostle and evangelist give us grace to forsake the selfish pursuit of gain and the possessive love of riches that we may follow in the way of your son jesus christ who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever are men so each in our own language now we say 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 so as always a moment of silence for your own prayers this morning bringing your own concerns and imagining them as we go forward in this day commending all whom we would pray for into the hands of god [Music] the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and if 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 amen you