good morning and welcome to the deanery garden in canterbury cathedral on saturday the 8th of january we've now come two days from the feast of the epiphany but the season of epiphany is just opening up and we're revisiting a scene we looked at on epiphany day we've come into the orchard where we were sailed here and gave thanks for and bless the trees but we've come back because the lesson this morning is for mary and joseph are revisiting of familiar places but with puzzling different dimensions coming into them and when we get to our scriptural lesson that will become very clear so the orchard is still in its dormant state and waiting to leaf and to fruit later some flowers are are on the the branches of of other kinds of trees but the fruit trees themselves completely um completely bare at the moment and waiting to abandon and go forwards and open out and around us there are flowers it will open i've got the mahonia behind me in with gold and also the uh lanisra fragrantissima the the fragrant honeysuckle with all these are winter flowering plants but the orchards know they need their sleep before they begin to fruit a familiar place but with different lessons and lessons that we have to take in heart and mind let's begin our prayers on this day oh 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 sun 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 praises 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 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 son this morning on this eighth morning of the month is psalm 40. i waited patiently for the lord he inclined to me and heard my cry he brought me out of the roaring pit out of the mire and clay he set my feet upon a rock and made my footing sure he has put a new song in my mouth a song of praise to our god many shall see and fear and put their trust in the lord blessed is the one who trusts in the lord who does not turn to the proud that follow a lie great other wonders you have done o lord my god how great your designs for us there is none that can be compared with you if i were to proclaim them and tell of them they would be more than i am able to express sacrifice and offering you do not desire but my ears you have opened burnt offering and sacrifice for sin you have not required then said i lo i come in the scroll of the book it is written of me that i should do your will o my god i delight to do it your law is within my heart i have declared your righteousness in the great congregation behold i did not restrain my lips and that o lord you know your righteousness i have not hidden in my heart i have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation i have not concealed your loving kindness and truth from the great congregation do not withhold your compassion from me o lord let your love and your faithfulness always preserve me for innumerable troubles have come about me my sins have overtaken me so that i cannot look up they are more in number than the hairs of my head and my heart fails me be pleased o lord to deliver me o lord make haste to help me let them be ashamed and altogether dismayed who seek after my life to destroy it let them be driven back and put to shame who wish me evil let those who heap insults upon me be desolate because of their shame but let all who seek you rejoice in you and be glad that those who love your salvation say always the lord is great though i am poor and needy the lord cares for me you are my helper and my deliverer oh my god make no delay i waited patiently for the lord and that might be the theme of mary's pondering because today we're going to read the end of the chapter in sint luke which concludes shall we call them the infancy and birth narratives of jesus and it ends with a story all by itself of jesus at the age of 12 that mary's thinking considering and pondering continues chapter 2 verse 41 of the gospel of saint luke i think leo is looking at a robin so that's why he's making that noise the robin teases him rather now the parents of jesus went to jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover and when he was 12 years old they went up according to custom and when the feast was ended as they were returning the boy jesus stayed behind in jerusalem his parents did not know it but supposing him to be in the group they went a day's journey but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances and when they did not find him they returned to jerusalem searching for him after three days they found him in the temple sitting among the teachers listening to them and asking them questions and all who had him were amazed at his understanding and his answers and when his parents saw him they were astonished and his mother said to him my son why have you treated us so [Music] behold your father and i have been searching for you in great distress and jesus said to them why were you looking for me did you not know that i must be in my father's house but they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them and jesus went down with them and came to nazareth and was submissive to them that his mother treasured up all these things in her heart and jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with god and with men a story which stands all by itself in the first part of the hidden years of jesus as he grows up and gradually realizes and perceives the vocation which is his and his alone tomorrow the sunday after the epiphany we keep the feast of the baptism of jesus and by that time our gospels will be telling the story of jesus coming to john the baptist in the river jordan for baptism and a confirmation of that vocation with the dove descending and the voice which jesus perceived you are my beloved son in whom i am well pleased but for the moment we have the double application of the word father the old translation mary my son why have you treated us thus behold your father and i have sought this sorrowing we have looked for you with great worry is what she's saying mary is referring to joseph and jesus in his answer refers to the heavenly father who is promoting the vocation of his messianic being inside him as these years develop and he's sitting there in his father's house the translation will take both meanings father's house father's business father's occupation all of that and when he goes back with them he goes back to the carpenter shop in nazareth which the people speak of in the synagogue when he's speaking to them in nazareth in the gospels later on but for the moment here is the 12 year old boy in the temple the age of 13 a boy of his culture would take responsibility for himself but for the moment he is a child of his parents and submissive to them but luke suggests that that obedience to his parents and learning from them but learning so much more is clearly going to be a dimension of the life which stretches out in those hidden years until he emerges on the banks of the jordan and comes to john for baptism a double loyalty and the concept of my father's house the temple where he's sitting with the doctors of the law asking questions having them answered asking more having them answered and people are wondrous of this 12 year old's ability to understand and that becomes a sense of what is going to develop into our lord's ministry which is seen by him and told to be to all the fulfillment of the law and the prophets and the psalms which he will know well and pondered on in his prayer life for jesus even in his assy ministry withdraws into the silence of prayer and sometimes sends the disciples away in their boat while he goes up to the mountain to pray to make decisions but also to wrestle with his own vocation and we see that several times in the synoptic gospels but for the moment here is this little boy who's come up with all the villagers and obviously going to jerusalem was about 75 miles from jerusalem to the galilean border and then beyond that to nazareth and so it was quite a journey to make and they'd have camped on the way and it was not at all unusual for the fact that children would be in one group and another they would have known each other well from that small community as they came as is was their custom that comes in luke quite a lot showing that jesus acts according to the custom of the way in which god is worshipped at that time we get that when he says on sabbath day he went to synagogue as was his custom but here mary and joseph as was their custom going up to the temple for the feast of the passover and it becomes a very important aspect of jesus's life that everything is lived out in obedience to the law but also his life will bring a fulfillment of the law and of the prophets and of the psalms which he quotes constantly the hidden years have been imagined by many artists and i i think of uh two pre-raphaelite artists john everett milay and william homan hunt milay painted a picture priced in the house of his parents showing jesus the young jesus in the carpenter's shop having wounded his hand on a nail and uh his mother is is being tender with him and joseph is looking at the the wound obviously used to things like that here's the robin come now because uh leo's gone away um and he's very keen to have some mealworms you could have some come on come on come on perhaps i'll put them down there for him nearby he'll come back look it's all waiting for you here let me put them here and then he'll come back there we are put them there and the other is very much uh the picture by herman hunt of uh jesus himself in the carpenter shop it's called a shadow of death and it shows a much older jesus stretching out at the end of a day's work as though his shoulders are hurting from from all or aching from all the work he's been doing and where christ's arms make the shadow of a cross along those cruel tools which are obviously signs of what will happen to him the blessed virgin mary is is on the floor on her knees and opening a chest which might be just rummaging in the cupboard for something but at the same time there are the gifts of the wise men as though the chest is the symbol of mary's heart in which she treasures up all these things keeps them and ponders them so we give thanks for the way in which herman hunt has set that out in that very dramatic painting of jesus in the carpenter's shop all these pre-raphaelite painters dwelling on the scenes and signs of the epiphany stories as we go through that epiphany season and i think the one is in the manchester art gallery that's the christ in the house of his parents and the other in tate britain the shadow of death the hellman hunt very dramatic pictures which caused quite a stir when they were first painted but let's come to the date of another famous painter for on this day giotto died in florence in the year 1337 and giotto was a painter who forged the way in early renaissance painting on the realistic presentation of these scenes it was in devotional terms both in illustrated sorters and missiles and books of ours and also in the sense of the holy rosaries mysteries as they went through the pictures of the scenes of the joyful mysteries of jesus birth the sorrow for mysteries of his death and the glorious mysteries of his uh passion his resurrection and ascension and his his uh receiving of of his mother into heaven as a sign of the receiving of us all into that eternal dimension all those things were very much the stuff of painters as they portrayed the scenes going along and those scenes become important for giotto now many paintings have attached to themselves at a giotto ticket uh some are absolutely definitely jotto and others not i remember first being arrested by giorgio in uh my times in assisi where those huge panels in the upper basilica attributed to jotto tell the life of saint francis as you look around in that great space of the upper basilica in the lower basilica where the art is mostly chimabue there are some other scenes by joshua himself now leo don't keep frightening the robbers away he's trying to have his breakfast um and that sense of people pondering on the mysteries of the life of our lord or the annunciation mysteries of the angel coming to the virgin mary or her ministry later on of being the one who pondered and received the pain which simeon said that she would have in the way in which the grown-up jesus was was treated but all those scenes are set out and by a painter like giotto they become really lifelike uh i think probably his his his uh his his best uh um uh set of paintings are in this uh scroveni chapel in padua and that shows the life of the virgin and the life of christ in scene after scene after scene but also you can find them in the same kind of way in florence where he made his home and in florence particularly in the church of santa croce where two of the chapels the bardi chapel and the peruzi chapel show the life of saint francis the light is in john the baptist and the life of st john the evangelist but many other scenes of our lord's own life and we give great thanks that the authorities in florence commissioned giotto to design the great campanile of the duomo and that is a huge sign pointing up to heaven so we give thanks for giotto's meditations on the life of christ and the life of some of his saints particularly saint francis and john the baptist and the virgin mary herself of course so we think of that as a way of journeying through the life of christ with the help of an artist like giotto but also on this day on the 8th of january 1324 the italian uh explorer the venetian explorer marco polo and he died in venice but of course he's best remembered for his journeying journeying journeying and discovery of places fletcher was remembering this morning the game marco polo which children play quite often in summertime around swimming pools where one is blindfold and has to keep shouting marco and everyone else has to respond polo so that their voice can give them away and then be chased it's like a form of blind man's bastard buff and gets very exciting indeed and very noisy with the the caller calling marco and all the rest shouting polo but it's talking about journeying and finding a discovery and from the the age of 17 to the age of 41 marco polo with his uncle and his father who had been on the silk road before went across the silk road to china and there he came to the attention of the great khan kublai khan and became the khan's emissary for so many places for the khan learned to trust him and we remember how in uh genoa later on in life when they had come back he went at the age of 17 came back at the age of 41 never went there again the silk road was becoming more and more dangerous but marco polo came back to venice and there in venice uh he joined in the the uh wars that venice was fighting these italian cities had wars with one another and they had a war with genoa and he found himself in a genoese prison and one of his fellow prisoners rusticello dapisa was a writer and he helped marco polo set down his story as lucas set down the story of jesus and the the years of narrative oh here's the robin hello come leo's gone now you can you can have your breakfast um uh so uh um rusticello dapisa set down the story and gave us when they were released from prison between them they produced the book the travels of marco polo which opened up the wonders of different creatures different spices different inventions the use of paper money for example i think all sorts of things which were really common in china but at the same time were unknown to europe and then some of them exaggerations like rhinoceroses being unicorns and all of all of these things going on but it was the fabulous east which was being given to them in the travels of marco polo and of course the wonderful thing is that uh that uh comes together with the way in which our magi brought beautiful gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh and that image of the east and kublai khan is an important image as we think of marco polo um coleridge uh the poet samuel taylor coleridge uh actually um wrote a poem about kublai khan in in in his great city of xanadu in xanadu kublai khan a stately pleasure dome decree and all the all the uh imagination of the east is there and and uh it's beginning to rain rather hard so i'm going to put an umbrella up um there we are i don't think the robin will like that much but it'll keep me dry um and uh so we give great thanks for that but people have dreamed about and and and also meditated on marco polo's works in the same way that they've dreamed and meditated on the way in which st luke set out the gospel stories at the very beginning and one thinks of italia calvino and his book invisible cities which shows the relationship is a novel published i think in 1974 the relationship between the great khan and the young marco polo and the great khan whose board is saying to marco polo tell me about the cities you know and marco polo starts talking about the cities of europe and the cities he knows and uh and kublai khan is is is not done he realized certain similarities in all the cities and right at the end of this long meditation kulikan says there is a similarity there and i think all the cities that you are talking about are actually venice and uh uh marco podo has to admit that in his heart and mind venice is the emblem of all cities for him because it's home and we think of that sense of jesus now going home to nazareth for those hidden years submissive to mary and to joseph as he begins to learn and explore his own vocation to be our christ our messiah let's say our prayers on this increasingly wet morning oddly no wind so the umbrella is keeping me quite dry we are thinking today and praying for in our anglican communion the diocese of jabalpur in the united church of north india and here in the diocese uh the canary benefits which is the parishes of ash chilandon uh gunston nonington elmston preston and starmose line of villages and uh we give thanks for the ministry there of david molden and pray for him in his ministry on those villages quite nearby to to canterbury and so we we think of that life and ash is a place which fletcher grew up in and so that becomes home in a special way or used to be um so now we are going to say the prayer for today and bring your own prayers and intentions from wherever you are in the world oh god who by the leading of a star manifested your only son to the peoples of the earth mercifully grant that we who know you now by faith may at last behold your glory face to face through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language 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 amen moment for reflection now on this day of epiphany [Applause] [Music] foreign is is [Music] god [Music] these are [Music] please [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] 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 so as the rain falls uh let me wish you a a good saturday and every blessing as we continue to keep the days of epiphany and our orthodox friends continue to keep the days of christmas the reason that leo is so uh odd in his behavior with the robin is that he gets jealous of anyone taking his place in front of the camera whether it be ducky or russell when they're allowed out or tiger and the robin is of course the cheekiest of all and so uh this morning he's given him a a real run around but leo hates the rain so uh he will be gradually leaving the robin to the chair and the robin can have his breakfast in peace [Music] [Music] so [Music] you