good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral as we say our morning prayers on this wednesday the 20th of january it's a very windy and wet day and we're in the grip of storm kristoff as it's called sweeping across the country i'm sitting here besides this rather interesting plant a fancier japonica it's another winter flowering plant and it both its leaves and its flowers give interest to the winter landscape this also is a time when we're putting a link on for the royal society of the for the protection of birds bird watching weekend and that means the weekend after next january the 29th 30th and 31st is a time when you're asked to sign up and spend one hour whenever you like across that weekend noting down the birds in your garden so that we can have a national bird watch and see what's around and how many and everything else it's a nice way to spend an hour so we're saying our prayers on this day and we remember that the 20th of january is inauguration day for the united states so our prayers are for all the american people and for the new president who will be inaugurated today all those around him by the family of those taking office that it may be a a peaceful day and and a time of new development so let's begin our prayers 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 does 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 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 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 on this 20th morning of the month is psalm 103 bless the lord o my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name bless the lord o my soul and forget not all his benefits who forgives all your sins and heals all your infirmities who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with faithful love and compassion who satisfies you with good things so that your youth is renewed like an eagles the lord executes righteousness and judgment for all who are oppressed he made his ways known to moses and his works to the children of israel the lord is full of compassion and mercy slow to anger and of great kindness he will not always accuse us neither will he keep his anger forever he has not dealt with us according to our sins nor rewarded us according to our wickedness for as the heavens are high above the earth so great is his mercy upon those who fear him as far as the east is from the west so far has he set our sins from us as a father has compassion on his children so is the lord merciful towards those who fear him for he knows of what we are made he remembers that we are but dust our days our butt as grass we flourish as a flower of the field for as soon as the wind goes over it it is gone and its place shall know it no more but the merciful goodness of the lord is from of old and endures forever on those who fear him and his righteousness on their children's children on those who keep his covenant and remember his commandments to do them the lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom has dominion over all bless the lord you angels of his you mighty ones who do his bidding and hearken to the voice of his word bless the lord all you his hosts you ministers of his who do his will bless the lord all you works of his in all places of his dominion bless the lord o my soul return to our section of st mark's gospel that we're reading this morning and we are in chapter three and reading from verses one to six of st mark again jesus entered the synagogue and a man was there with a withered hand and they watched jesus to see whether he would heal him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him and he said to the man with the withered hand come here and he said to them is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm to save life or to kill but they were silent and he looked round at them with anger grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man stretch out your hand he stretched it out and his hand was restored the pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with their herodians against him how to destroy him we've come to a very different atmosphere with this little section this little pericappy of sin mark's gospel until now we've seen jesus regularly going into the synagogue and of course that's what's happening here again and he's teaching the people and as we shall see tomorrow his teaching is accepted gladly as authoritative and wonderful by the people who are amazed not only at his learning but by the effect he has on people and his ability to heal the wholeness of a human being body mind and spirit but a new dimension has entered into this now and it's a dimension of suspicion and outright hostility see how it comes the man is standing there with a withered hand as it is described unusable and they and that they here are clearly the pharisees who have a strict interpretation of the law that's what we're talking about how the law is interpreted what that ruling of the sabbath is about in terms of rest refreshment worship and what that contains and how that is interpreted by the strictest and also by jesus and the strictest are now in this group of pharisees looking to see whether they can find fault with this teaching for its beginning to threaten their own interpretation and teaching and jesus sees first this is the order sees first the man with the withered hand and says come here it's a lovely invitation whenever the lord says come it's a lovely invitation a resurrection invitation come and have breakfast on the shore of the lake that same lake of galilee but here to the man with the with the hand come here and looking round he asks the question it's a theological question of these who are teachers of the faith but have become interpreters of the tradition is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath day to save or to destroy and they are silent now here's a new dimension for we are always seeing jesus as someone calm and attentive and even there's the the little him gentle jesus meek and mild none of that now of course he said to the man with the withered hand with full compassion come here and the man is standing there and the people whom he's not speaking to at the moment the people are watching they've been listening to his teaching and the pharisees whom he is speaking to are silent when he asks them the question and he looks at them with anger it's a strong word anger but there it is bang the lord looks at them with anger and is amazed by their hardness of heart their lack of compassion you can translate it whatever you like but this is very strong emotion indeed and we're seeing all the humanity of jesus coming forth as we begin to see it develop and then turning back to the man out your hand that is the command the authority of healing body mind and spirit as we've said and the man stretches out his hand and is healed once again body mind and spirit in the company of the lord the anointed one who has come to bring release to captives recovery of sight to the blind let's go back to that prophecy of isaiah which he himself read in the synagogue at nazareth we can always go back to and see how he sees his role as messiah but also he sees very clearly as this gospel goes on what that means in terms of personal cost to him and what it will mean in the giving of his own life because now for the first time in this gospel and we've moved on fast but the word is there again useless immediately they go outside and they plot with the most unlikely political allies pharisees of the strictest type go to the civil politicians who are the supporters of the herodian dynasty which is anything but strict pharisee anything but pure in all its intentions but it is succeeding in keeping the status quo for those who have resources so one therefore has the pharisees and the herodians two very distinct political parties aligning themselves and aligning themselves against jesus in order to what argue with him no that's not what sin mark says to destroy him to kill him here's the first inference of what will happen to the suffering servant in isaiah all that in that tiny section of verses as we read in mark's gospel which is so keen to get us through this so that we could begin to see the meat of everything that is going to happen and also the true vocation of this one who in verse 1 has been proclaimed the son of god but who sees himself as the divine representation of our humanity and is ready to give us the spirit to become that too for each other and for a world which needs it so badly if we look this morning at what might have happened in on the 20th of uh of january there are some some lovely things in in terms of of memories of creative people we see that in 1837 the architect john cena a very imaginative architect architect of the buildings of the bank of england but his own museum uh in in lincoln's infields is is is such a good place to go and see and one sees all kinds of projects in every way of life creativity and encouragement to our creativity which then becomes as people see us being creative and encouragement to one another creative in the image of our creator bearing the image of the divine we see that in 1265 the first english parliament sat in the palace of westminster as it then was lords and commons representatives of the great towns as well as the lords for the very first time and that would develop through perhaps a good thing to remember on this inauguration day for the united states of america we see that uh in 1900 uh the northeast r d blackmore who wrote lorna dune died and we give thanks for his creativity we also remember in our christian calendar in the church of england richard roll of hampel who was a great mystic writer we know so little about his life he lived from about 1300 to 1349 and was very scholarly and wrote beautiful things many of which survive but she was a hermit and little is known about his actual life but he said of his mystical experience the first one he had and he had many i felt within me a merry and unknown heat i was expert it was not from a creature but from my maker as it grew hotter and more glad and in his writings he says he always felt that when he was singing the psalms again and again those psalms which undergirded the worship of jesus undergird everything that we do in our daily offices and in our life we saw it with wolfston of worcester yesterday we see it today but we see it in in two ways because this is not only the day for richard roll it's also the day when in 1568 miles coverdale died the first translator and publisher of the complete bible in english printed in english but we remember him or i do for something and have great gratitude to him for something else for his translation of the psalms which were put into the was put into the book of common prayer is still there the psalms which we use in our book of common prayer the 1662 version which is sung in so many of our cathedrals afternoon by afternoon when we are not in lockdown as we are at the moment those psalms were the ones translated by coverdale and they're not from the king james version of the bible they're from the much earlier version of miles coverdale and they have a poetic quality all of their own and so often when we quote the psalms because we know them and hear them sung by our choirs and read them in the book of common prayer in that section which is the sorter we're giving thanks for the beauty of the language of coverdale and have a look at it again and look at your favorite psalm in the book of common prayer and in that 17th century language going back to the 16th century with coverdale you will find great beauty and uh what we're using today is a a translation of a translation and a correction but inferences are still there because we can't give them up and that kind of translating is not only poetic but it's musical and richard roll said he loved singing the psalms he would have sung them in latin we tend to sing them in coverdale's english afternoon by afternoon when our choir is singing so we give thanks for all of that today and of our ability once again to remember when music helps us i wanted just to remember that in 1993 the actress audrey hepburn died on this day and we remember her for so many films and lovely things and amusement and i remember and we enjoyed this film very much in the film breakfast at tiffany's with the music of moon river going through it and the wonderful cat of course in that as well and also in my fair lady with the accent which gradually the professor changes into a polished accent till she comes to a point where her emotions gets the the better of her and she says something which makes the ascot uh uh congregation or whatever the the gathering um shocked by and and that that's a a very amusing moment indeed with eliza doolittle and um i want you to remember that that she in her childhood was in holland during the nazi occupation and her memories of that when she tells them in recordings and her writings are horrendous and she lived with all of that and the things she saw happened to people young men stood up against the wall and shot and little children being put on trains that were taking them away to to unspeakable horrors and often deaths in concentration camps all of that and her creative life gave us through the films a wonder of creation but at the same time she stopped creating films and became a unicef goodwill ambassador and was awarded all kinds of things for that so in two ways she was creative both in her making of films and plays and delightful personality but also in recalling all that suffering feeling anger about it and going on to do something good with that anger just as our little passage from sid mark this morning shows jesus's rage at their hardness of heart and at the same time turning back and healing that withered hand so it becomes useful again let's say our prayers on this morning this 20th morning and we're praying within the anglican communion on this day for the diocese of okobo in the province of the episcopal church of south sudan and praying also in this diocese for archbishop justin bishop rose of dover bishop tim at lambeth continuing to pray for the villages around sittingbourne and this day the area deanery asks us to pray for deanery fresh expressions and missional learning communities so we do that together in our prayers but you will have all kinds of prayers you want to bring to this time of prayer together and here's our collect for today almighty god in christ you make all things new transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory through jesus christ our lord amen and the prayer for unity for this day in the week of prayer for christian unity that the church may be a sign of unity for the unity of the whole of humanity heavenly father you have called us in the body of your son jesus christ to continue his work of reconciliation and reveal you to the world forgive us the sins which tear us apart give us the courage to overcome our fears and to seek that unity which is your gift and your will through jesus christ our lord amen so together we pray the prayer our lord taught us whenever we meet together in whatever language you'd like to say it in 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 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 as we say our own prayers 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 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 we give thanks that storm kristoff has given us a little window to say our prayers we give thanks for the companionship of the lovely fatsia japonica but also we give thanks for the companionship of clemmy and two of the girls behind i think the third girl is sheltering somewhere this morning out of the rain so they have been uh two girls sheltering out of the rain can't see spotty either around so there we are they're having their breakfast they're not too keen on rain but there's plenty of shelter for them in their little pen around here