good morning and welcome to the dinery garden on this sunday the 3rd of october we're keeping the theme of harvest harvest thanksgiving today and we've not gathered things together because the harvest is all around us and so i'm sitting here it's also a significant date it's the year's mind of william morris and william morris as you know was a textile designer very much member of the arts and crafts movements but he was a poet a writer of stories and in many ways a philosopher as well and a worker in so many different ways and one of his uh designs for textiles was called cabbage and vine and here i am with brassica leaves around me and a vine behind me but i've also got three other friends here who won't be caged for long now they came with barrel yesterday and you saw battle with the hedgehogs in yesterday's morning prayer but she also uh is caring for other birds and animals which are rescued and she brought three little birds who are better released into this garden now yesterday was a day of enormous storms terrible wind drenching rain and actually coaxing winnie and and clemmy into shelter what was a large business and we both got drenched doing that before i went off to even song yesterday afternoon but the wind and the rain kept up blew out the pilot light on the gas boiler in the deanery so there was no hot water this morning and now all that's been put right over there but the devastation in the herbaceous border particularly to the large banana leaves is is uh fairly evident and we'll have to do some tidying up afterwards but for the moment we're giving thanks for the fruitfulness of creation now these three birds are wild birds and they're a little bit anxious because i'm sitting next to them talking but we're going to release them first of all into the very large fruit cage which will be a controlled place to start with and then eventually having put food down for them there will open the gate of the fruit cage and they can go and enjoy the garden here beside me is a missile thrush and also a young black bird and a donut or hedge sparrow hedge warbler and the three of them will just fly around amongst the leaves still of the soft fruit and have protection in the large fruit cage here and then go out into the garden and enjoy the fruitfulness still of the autumn the wind did damage because the trees are in full leaf and the garden isn't yet shut down and protected for winter but today rather like the beethoven pastoral symphonies there are happy feelings after the storm it's very still there's a thin grey cloud but be welcome wherever you are in the world as we think of our own fruitfulness in our own lives and the way in which jesus in the gospels uses the image of the harvest so many times oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise send your holy spirit upon us and clothe us with power from on high blessed are you creator god do you be praise and glory forever as your spirit moved over the face of the waters bringing light and life to your creation pour out your spirit on us today that we may walk as children of light and by your grace reveal your presence 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 amen our morning psalm on this third morning of the month is psalm 16 preserve me o god for in you have i taken refuge i have said to the lord you are my lord all my good depends on you all my delight is upon the godly that are in the land upon those who are noble in heart though the idols are legion that many run after their drink offerings are blood i will not offer neither make mention of their names upon my lips the lord himself is my portion and my cup in your hands alone is my fortune my share has fallen in a fair land indeed i have a goodly heritage i will bless the lord who has given me counsel and in the night watches he instructs my heart i have set the lord always before me he is at my right hand i shall not fall wherefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoices my flesh also shall rest secure for you will not abandon my soul to death nor suffer your faithful ones to see the pit you will show me the path of life in your presence is the fullness of joy and in your right hand our pleasures forevermore special lesson for today being sunday so we've left the book of genesis and i'm going to the 12th chapter of the gospel of saint luke and beginning to read at verse 22 and this is jesus speaking to his disciples 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 have neither 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 of the field 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 close you owe you of little faith and do not seek what you want 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 instead seek first his kingdom and these things will be added to you fear not little flock for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom sell your possessions and give to the needy provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail where no thief approaches and no moth destroys for where your treasure is there will your heart be also jesus often uses the image of the harvest and he uses it in a particular way he'd been used in growing up in nazareth to celebrating the various feasts of the year and the feasts of the year were attached and are attached to aspects of the agricultural year as he would have known it in his own work it surrounded him in those as we call them hidden years while his own vocation was developing before his experience of baptism and his time in the wilderness before he came proclaiming in what seems like a three-year ministry that good news of the kingdom being given to people then and there with his own presence and offering of his own life but meanwhile the seasons surrounded him and there's evidence in the way he speaks of the lilies of the field which means really all colorful flowers as they bloom and grow at different seasons but the real seasons of celebration were at the time of the in gathering of the things which were growing perhaps we can talk about wheat being gathered at the wheat harvest or barley being gathered at the barley harvest or grapes and olives being gathered at that particular harvest which gave most joy and when booths and shelters were built outside to enjoy that particular harvest he uses all those images as the liturgical life of the faith in which he was brought up and the faith he was taught by his parents and those who taught him in synagogue and in in lessons all of that is deep within him and the psalms speak plentifully of those harvest times they also speak of of um images and metaphors the valleys stand so thick with corn that they laugh and sing such an amazing image of hills and mountains giving images of strength but valleys with thick corn seeming to laugh and sing and and flocks and herds feeding from the bounty but jesus today is talking about the wild birds and as he speaks he is using the image always as an image in the best sense of the word of judgment about our own fruitfulness he's speaking in that little passage i've just read to his own disciples and giving them about advice about their own creative gifts body mind and spirit exercised in community a narrow community of the twelve a wider community of their own families and friends and those who follow about with them and then the community of their own nation and eventually the community of humanity in the whole earth just as when jesus says teaching in the temple and the greeks want to see jesus he says now is the hour when the son of man will be lifted up to draw all nations to himself all of those things speak about a sifting a judgment and a good agricultural eye can see how a harvest is coming on some of the plants around me have been beaten down others have been protected by the way in which their trellised and the vine behind me doesn't seem to have suffered a great deal with the rain and wind in the night the framework that they are given as a way of growing in a trellis or a a framework which is tied together across the beanstalks on each side of me or even the rose in which the brassicas are here with me this morning all of that is a way of assessing how the harvest will be the flowers give us joy but the judgment is in the seed that is being produced which can then be planted for next year's growth and harvest and when jesus is talking about the harvest he seems always to relate it to us our own fruitfulness our own realization of creative gifts our own ability to grasp that and use it each one of us completely different but growing from strong roots needing to be reflected on and growing in body mind and spirit given encouragement by creation itself as we say our prayers or simply walk amongst god's creation wherever we may be but it's that image of the harvest that jesus is interested in he takes the gifts of the father for granted of course he does he's surrounded by them his heart and his mind is filled with quotations and that psalm we read this morning the lord is my portion and my cup we know what the word cup means for jesus in terms of drinking the cup which the father has offered him the sign of his own vocation but that must give itself in fruitfulness when harvest time comes and harvest time for him will come in jerusalem harvest time though can come in terms of our own gifts on any day different gifts different plantings different aspects of fruitfulness and being surrounded by all this life in the garden here but surrounded also by the life of humankind living in this bountiful planet and balancing their own needs with the needs of the planet and particularly the needs of others a bountiful harvest is something that needs to be shared but let's not just think of harvests which grow out of the earth let's think of harvests which grow in our own lives our minds our hearts our souls and creative gifts that we can share new every morning but i said that we would be coming to particular years mine dates and one of them this morning is william morris he was born on the 24th of march in 1834 but died on this day the 3rd of october in 1896 and the list of his accomplishments massively known for the arts and crafts movements in which he engaged with artists like amber jones or dante gabriel rossetti but at the same time inspired by pugin and inspired by the works of ruskin all of these things morris took into himself but used in his own particular way he was and i i list how he's described a textile designer a poet an artist a novelist a translator and a political activist morris believed in fairness but he also believed in rootedness everything needed to have deep roots within the culture in which it was being produced but everything also had to be done with integrity one of his favorite statements was nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful should be there no work which cannot be done with pleasure in the doing is worth the doing and his tapestries show marvelous pictures of creation the tapestry of as i've said cabbage and vinegar tapestries which include beautiful birds sometimes mythical birds sometimes garden birds like these which in a few moments will be released into the semi-freedom of the fruit cage and then out into the wonderful freedom of the garden itself to sing for us for each of them is a songbird some of the tapestries are tulip and willow one is simply called trellis and over the trellis wonderful things are growing but at the same time in his tapestries there is a sign of morris is looking for roots in poets of the past of his own culture and then mythical lands which those poets described all of the arts and class people admired the poet laureate at the time lord tennyson and tennyson himself was a person that that spoke of the arthurian legends but morris went back into chaucer and also mallory with the arch with the the arthurian legends and all of that came at the world's end the well at the world's end was his novel which he wrote where the water of life could be received and in such books is that he became massively influential in the writings of people like j.r.r tolkien or c.s lewis both of them admired the work of william morris he's giving us pictures pictures of his mind and heart and imagination but at the same time he learned crafts so that his workshops were never filled with machines doing the work of the tapestries which he couldn't use himself for he very much believed in the work of the body as well as the mind and the spirit well see how much we could go on saying about william morris that many of you will have favorite william morris patterns for wallpapers and tapestries and even he designed furniture and houses but it's for those textiles that we remember him best and also the stories and poems he created all deep rooted at the same time today is another year's mind it's the year's mind of sir malcolm sergeant the conductor that's what he was best known as he was a com a really uh excellent musician in all ways he'd been a church organist he'd been a composer but sir henry wood who founded the prom concerts saw all sergeants potential as a conductor very early on and said to him this is your vocation and sergeant embraced it and became through many years the the best known name of an english conductor at the time of his life for 20 years he himself conducted promenade concerts but at the same time his his uh connection with the doily cut opera company gave him the chance to record most of the savoy operas and at the same time his connection with the huddersfield choral society with the royal choral society and with so many symphony orchestras including the bbc symphony orchestra the royal philharmonic orchestra gave him a chance to show music and share music in a way that made him an icon of what it meant to be a conductor now the most famous picture of him i think is the picture of him a colored photograph of him standing immaculate in his white tie and tails having just conducted the last night of the proms and the last of those i think he did was in 1966 and around him are being waived by lots of young people union jack saying we belong here but we mustn't think of the last night of the proms as an event by itself it isn't it's actually a celebration of a long harvest through weeks of the summer which has been broadcast every night on radio and often now on television and many of the works that i know well now i was first introduced to by listening to the radio the wireless as my parents called it at that time broadcasting promenade concerts of adventurous music of new musicians and of works from the past that sergeant was giving us in a particularly new way with a strong and skilled hand he was an encouragement to the music of people like william walton and of vaughn williams and he was a an excellent conductor of elgar's work but he would say to choral societies when they were finding a new work hard look remember people couldn't sing the dream of jurontius at the beginning they really made a real mess of it just concentrate concentrate and this piece will suddenly grow on you he did that with belshazzar's feast for walter with the choral society was finding it really difficult to sing and sergeant said it it's all right all is well if you concentrate hard you can sing this but he gave as a gift to us who were young at the time and listening to his works in the promenade concerts or i remember with enormous joy his concerts in the royal albert hall at christmas time for the royal choral society with him standing there introducing new carols to us or orchestral pieces that attach to christmas all of those things i give great thanks for and i have in mind uh an evening in 19 i think probably 1966 when it was a holiday time and i was doing a holiday job at that time and gardening for some friends uh quite a bicycle ride away they were called a family called somerville gun and mrs somerville gun in old age had created the most magnificent garden and i was helping her and i'd set off on my bicycle in the morning and all day long work there and then come home and most nights there'd be things to do in the evening but i remember a night eating my supper which was pouring with rain outside on the garden and the kitchen door was open and the promenade concert was a concert version of the magic flute and i sat there listening to the whole of the magic flute and got to know it well for the first time and gave thanks for that promenade concert it's an image that stays in my mind so that the last night of the prom simply becomes a harvest time of saying thank you in our culture for an international program of music from every culture stretching weeks and weeks and young people standing and waiting to hear that and cheering it to the echo night after night so thanks be to god for malcolm sargent he may have said that his uh fame was based on two m's mercado and messiah but that was just a joke it actually was based on enormous skill and interpretation of music of all kinds a fruitful harvest like william morris and we give thanks for him let me just return on this particular day to the diamond jubilee of songs of praise a harvest of hymnady because as we celebrated it on the day itself october the 1st 1961 when the first the first broadcast was done it was always a sunday program so it's on this day that the bbc is broadcasting at 2 45 this afternoon on bbc one the diamond jubilee anniversary program of songs of praise and her majesty the queen has written the most moving message of thanks to that program for 60 years of broadcasting almost 3 000 songs of praises with so many presenters so many congregations of ordinary people singing and from 1977 onwards and the queen mentions this not the date but this aspect of songs of praise opportunities when ordinary people are interviewed about their faith and their story and their own fruitfulness and harvest and that became a dimension of songs of praise how did you find yourself doing this the interviewer would ask or why is it that you've chosen this particular hymn more and all of those things from sensitive presenters many of them and one thinks that people like sahari sikham and dim flora heard and it will be ali jones tonight he's made his name with this after pam rhodes after many years and we look forward to his welsh flavor as he hosts the program but other presenters we will reappear and we actually give thanks for that harvest of hymnady we do that day by day as we give thanks for the way those tunes and words stay in our head and we'll all have different hymns that we like but find different hymns for different occasions i'm going to move on now because our friends here are getting restless and we're going to release them in a moment but let's say our prayers for this morning a morning of harvest thanksgiving harvest thanksgiving of a real way because the plants around me are still growing in the ground and the harvest is yet to come and we pray for the gifts of the spirit in realizing our own harvest day by day in fruitfulness join with me in the college for harvest thanksgiving and bring your own intentions and prayers your own gifts of creativity and give thanks for the spirit of life which actually inspires us to be creative for one another day by day eternal god you crown the year with your goodness and you give us the fruits of the earth in their season grant that we may use them to your glory for the relief of those in need and for our own well-being through jesus christ our lord amen so let's say in our own language and in whatever way we like to do so the our father 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 limit of silence now for your own prayers so you guys yes so so so so 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 [Music] we're going now to the fruit cage which is a protected areas a large protected area which these young fledglings which beryl has brought and raised them from pledgings can come into now and be fed in here as they develop strength to go out into the wider world later on so we've got some nice food from them here for them here which i shall put on the ground and they can begin to enjoy that and now we can put them down and begin to release them here if i lift this up you can see them and they will there we are the donuts gone and let's let the others go out now if we can do that come on blackbird let's have you outside the opening is quite small come on i may have to leave them here and just find their own way out but these are bigger birds go on off you go go on come on off you go they're being a bit nervous about coming out i think maybe i'll if i put them on the floor they can find their own way out and then we can see them far away here we are want to go outside a bit nervous go on see if we go the little tonic did it straight away the cage is a bit small for them come on come on off you go [Music] i think i'm going to leave the cage here for them to just fly around they'll do that quite easily when they're by themselves they'll find the gap there we are the blackbird's gone and now only the missile thrush and then missile thrush you can find your own way all right don't be anxious you're all by yourself now [Music] i think we'll leave him here amongst the strawberry leaves there's plenty of food to eat and he can then come out and enjoy being just here [Music] let me do that i need to go off to matins as you hear the bell ringing and the birds will then be absolutely fine in the protected enclosure there we are those birds will now build up strength in there there's plenty of food for them to eat and we'll put food down for them daily and very soon they'll be fully uh grown and strong birds to just simply come out and enjoy the garden on the days of autumn which i hope will still give us some sunshine [Music] have a good day and enjoy the sense of fruitfulness which autumn can still give us despite the wild storms that we had yesterday [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] is oh [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] you