good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this saturday the 5th of june wherever you are in the world please feel welcome we've come into the front of the house with clemmy and her piglets here and this woodland scene will fit our reflections on this sint boniface day the apostle to the german people very well indeed i'm sitting under a walnut tree and there's a liquid amber tree in front of me and a silver birch behind me but trees all around me yesterday was a day of solid rain very heavy rain at times and so today no rain gray sky but the earth smells good and damp and there's this lovely scent of flowers and earths and trees and leaves around me so let's say our prayers and in our reflections we shall come back to st boniface and also the portion of st matthew which is rather a colorful story today oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your faithful servants bless you they make known the glory of your kingdom blessed are you sovereign god ruler and judge of all to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of this age that is passing away may the light of your presence which the saints enjoy surround our steps as we journey on may we reflect your glory this day and so be made ready to see your face in the heavenly city when night shall be no more 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 does we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever are men before we say our psalm i wanted to apologize that we seem to have had trouble in getting our morning prayer online to you and please pray for hannah because she's wrestled with this and sometimes over several hours and we hope that the difficulties can be resolved but i apologize that some of you have had to wait for morning prayer because of those difficulties today we're going to say on this morning of the month psalm 25 to you o lord i lift up my soul oh my god in you i trust let me not be put to shame let not my enemies triumph over me let none who look to you be put to shame but let the treacherous be shamed and frustrated make me to know your ways o lord and teach me your paths lead me in your truth and teach me for you are the god of my salvation for you have i hoped all the day long remember lord your compassion and love for they are from everlasting remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions but sink on me in your goodness oh lord according to your steadfast love gracious and upright is the lord therefore shall he teach sinners in the way he will guide the humble in doing right and teach his way to the lowly all the paths of the lord are mercy and truth to those who keep his covenant and his testimonies for your name's sake o lord be merciful to my sin for it is great who are those who fear the lord then will he teach in the way that they should choose their soul shall dwell at ease and their offspring shall inherit the land the hidden purpose of the lord is for those who fear him and he will show them his covenant my eyes are ever looking to the lord for he shall pluck my feet out of the net turn to me and be gracious to me for i am alone and brought very low the sorrows of my heart have increased oh bring me out of my distress look upon my adversity and misery and forgive me all my sin look upon my enemies for they are many and they bear a violent hatred against me oh keep my soul and deliver me let me not be put to shame for i have put my trust in you let integrity and uprightness preserve me for my hope has been in you deliver israel oh god out of all his troubles as we've said time and again the psalms which jesus knew so well have the atmosphere of different times of the psalmist's human life sometimes as with this one a sense of loneliness and desolation and uh a prayer for help and these psalms become real prayers this hymn book of jesus himself the hymn book of the second temple the son the psalms are quite often called so today we're going on with the gospel of saint matthew and i'm starting to read chapter 14. now instant mark's gospel the story i'm about to read which matthew has altered a little bit as is his won't um the story i'm about to read is put in as an interlude between the mission given to the apostles as they go out in pairs and are themselves now being apostolic the representatives of the anointed one and in order that you might think about them in their ministry mark inserts a story which almost sits by itself and then after that the apostles come back and the story continues matthew because of the way he orders things with a discourse and narrative and discourse and narrative and we've just finished the parable discourse uh that ended for us at the verse where are we in chapter 13 verse 50 or maybe you could want to take it on to 52 and then the sentence which comes at the end of each discourse and when jesus had finished normally it says all these sayings because of this being the parable discourse he says and when jesus had finished his parables he went away from there and the narrative begins again and that narrative was yesterday in nazareth but today we go on with the interlude story which mark uses and it's a story which really is with brackets around it it sits by itself and it's a colorful story and a sad one chapter 14 verse 1 at that time head of the tetrarch heard about the fame of jesus and he said to his servants this is john the baptist he has been raised from the dead that is why these miraculous powers are at work in him for herod had seized john and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of herodias his brother philip's wife because john had been saying to him it is not lawful for you to have her and though he wanted to put john to death he feared the people because they held him to be a prophet but when herod's birthday came the daughter of herodias danced before the company and pleased herod so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask prompted by her mother she said give me the head of john the baptist here on a platter and the king was sorry but because of his oaths and his guests he commanded it to be given he sent and had john beheaded in the prison and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl and she brought it to her mother and his disciples came and took the body and buried it and they went and told jesus you can read the story in sin mark's gospel which is rather longer and gives a bit more explanation for here we're not told that herod really liked listening to john there was that aspect of him which was moved by the preaching and teaching of john and he feared to kill him not because necessarily of the people but because he himself couldn't decide that that was the right course of action and then this story happens and the daughter of herodias whom herod wanted as his own wife and john had said that's not lawful she's she's been your brother's wife and so herodias himself herself hates jon and the daughter who's not named in the new testament but from other sources we know she was salome a name rather like uh the the one of the women who follows jesus rhyme but certainly not the same person the daughter dances it's become really quite a a a painting and also even an opera by richard strauss based on a play by oscar wilde all of those things because it's a dramatic story but it shows how shall we say capricious christian martyrdom can be simply by the wave of a hand and in order to please the guests in the middle of a feast secular power effects the death of the herald of jesus john the baptist and at the end um we have the conclusion of the story as told by matthew once again compare it with mark it's it's rather different because here she brings the head to her mother and the disciples of john came and took the body and buried it in mark it says i think laid it in a tomb but then mark continues and the apostles returned to jesus so the interlude is over here in order to get the story back to jesus we hear that the disciples of john went and told jesus so it moves from that story back to jesus matthew is telling his story for his people in the way that he wants and we're reading the evangelist in the way that he wants us to read it with this great question mark over everything can this be the son of david and we are there to answer from all the evidence given from the scriptures and from the stories and for the signs and eventually from the passion yes it can and it is this story this story fits well with the reflections we shall have today because the story of john the baptist is a story that jesus reflects on himself in the gospels and in luke's gospel in a in a great way but when jesus has been asked by the disciples of john are you the one who is to come and at that time john is in the prison so john has already been incarcerated by herod the tetrarch who was the ruler of of of galilee his father's kingdom had been split into three hence his his tetrarchy but he had power there and power over life and death as we see from this and our reflections will be about christian martyrdom so let me come to this day which is the feast day of boniface boniface the apostle to the germans and remembered for three strands which really went into the forming of what is now modern europe he was the reformer of the frankish church which was at that time part of what is now france and that was a christian area with a powerful king and he was after that as sent by the pope apostle to the german people and also he was the chief influence in the alliance between the papacy and the carolingian family from whom charlemagne the first roman empire emperor for hundreds of years since uh the the the last emperor in rome fell so charlemagne became the first emperor of the western church and and peoples and the first really emperor of what would become the holy roman empire and boniface was really important in all of that and he came from early beginnings which seem quite unlike what we're seeing with his great apostleship and primacy over the church in germany so we think of him first being born in devon in england and we're looking at the date let me have a look and see when he was born 675 a.d in crediton we think or maybe in exeter in in the west of england but he went soon from he was from a well-to-do family and he went soon to the monastery the very famous monastery at a place called nursling near winchester where there was a very important school of scholarship and the influence of saint oldham was very great there all time the abbot of malnsbury and oldham had been taught here by hadrian in the school here so the first thing we hear of it and this to me has always been interesting the first thing we hear of this monk who was called winfrey in those days uh boniface was the name given to him by the pope when he was sent as a missionary to germany but young winfrey was obviously a person not only of great scholarship but of huge diplomacy and when king inna of wessex held a synod to try and resolve some issues in the church he did so on the banks now if you remember when i was talking about assisi uh not too long ago i talked about the way in which the revo torto a wiggly river a tortuous river reminded me of my own river nada in tisbury when i was the parish priest there in wiltshire and on the banks of the nada the the king in saxon times held a synod and certain issues were resolved and it was resolved also that all towns should be bishop of a new diocese of sherman but they had to tell the archbishop of canterbury and somebody said well winfrey's is an excellent young diplomat he could go and tell the archbishop and all will be well and it was it was his first diplomatic mission and after that they wanted to make him the abbot of nursing but he had a vocation to go across the channel and first of all to be an apostle with billy broad to the dutch and the freedoms there and that ended when the the the violence of a a pagan element there became too great and the liberal retreated to the monastery and and um [Music] vince winfrey at that time went back to his monastery in england but he set off again and this time went to rome and got the commission from the pope to go and be the apostle to the german people a missionary apostleship a missionary bishopric and his name was changed by pope gregory ii to boniface the missionary bishop for germania at that time so the frankish people and he was very much under the protection of the frankish royal family because christian elements were moving eastward so he he went with that protection but at times he found himself faced with pagan practices and here we come to the trees because the legend most told about boniface was about what was thor's oak or donut oak or jupiter's oak according to which language the store is being told in which was a tree thought by the peoples to have enormous magical property and belonging to the great chief of the gods and at the same time it was worshipped and boniface was teaching a christian gospel where creation itself gave glory to god but it was idolatrous to worship the creation rather than the creator and so he chopped the tree down and in the legend um the people standing around in the forest were appalled and expected lightning to strike down from thor or jupiter or whatever the god that they were naming at that point was and instead nothing happened and this moved uh boniface's ministry onwards he had them chop up the tree and build a chapel of sin peter there in the forest and so he was using that which they had seen to be holy as their particular chapel and so boniface started there and then began to evangelize the the um the germans there it's a pity the tree had to be chopped down uh it was a a savage kind of of of way of dealing with a fine oak tree but the legend of course is right at the root of things that that tree was the material for the church which he built justice francis used the stones that were thrown at him to repair the church in assisi now we could go on because there's an enormous story to tell about boniface and one could look at how um under his his uh first bishopric and then arc episcopy uh he founded diocese in in germany that the list is quite long salzburg and regensburg and mainz as his metro political see all these places and devotion is mostly kept for him in the monastery at fulda and fulda to me is a good word because it's a hymn tune all our hymn tunes are named after places and the places that we hear named remind us if i if i sing come down i love divine and i see the tune is down omni then i think of the village in the cotswolds where uh vaughn williams was was born and and so many different names and so many german tones if the hymns are german or welsh places if they're welsh and here's fulda and nowadays we sing that to the hymn we have a gospel to proclaim and you will know that him well i'm sure it goes through all the the events of our lord's earthly ministry right to the resurrection and ascension glory at the end and then the commission given to the church so fulda reminds me of that but it is of course a very important town city in in central germany and fulda is where uh boniface is is is most named the pigs have had their breakfast and they now think my cassock is good breakfast so i'm just sort of fending off a little piglet who's um having a tasty breakfast on my kasich and uh boniface then decided that he he had an enormous amount of uh i'm should i gain rescue it's all right chemical look after herself um um boniface had an enormous amount of success with the frankish protection and then the extension of christianity in germany itself but went back to try again with the friesians and sadly the friesians when he was having success there and called a great confirmation gathering uh in the open air but the people who came were pagans who murdered both boniface and his company at that time how capricious is christian martyrdom let me come back to the tree for a moment because quite often these legends uh and or perhaps i should say that that so many places claimed boniface as their place but it's fulda where boniface is is most revered and credited in devon and now he is the the patron saint of devon so let's think a little uh about how capricious christian martyrdom can be it can happen just like that and it was boniface who said to his armed followers that they should put their weapons down and at that point they suffered martyrdom gladly for the lord but so unexpectedly at that time we give thanks today for boniface his english beginnings in devon his diplomacy for the english church but his real vocation to cross the channel and to go and evangelize more and more of the eastern part of europe as it then was and that's the foundation stone and the tree becomes important now there's another little caterpill to this because some have said that the tree uh was the emblem of the first christmas tree and that there seems not to be a great deal of truth in that but there is the most charming story written by the american ambassador to the to luxembourg in the netherlands in the first world war his name was henry van dyke jr and rather like cecil spring rice the british ambassador to washington who wrote the the lovely verses about so my soul and silently has silent shining bounds increase in the him i vow to be my country henry van dyke wrote hymns and stories and some of them were quite uh quite legendary but they are lovely stories and you can you can read them uh and one of them is about the uh the other wise man i remember reading that as a as a child the fourth wise man but one was called the first christmas tree and that really tells the story of sin boniface and the way in which the tree would give glory to god and not be worshipped itself but give glory to god he wrote that in 1897 before long before the great war but there is a poem also that he wrote which i was going to quote this morning here it is it's time is too slow for those who wait too swift for those who fear too long for those who grieve too short for those who rejoice but for those who love time is it eternity i think at first he wrote but for those who love time is not and now it's been changed to time is eternity take it as you will as with the legends of christian martyrdom which accrue different detail so let's say our prayers on this particular day and we're praying in the anglican communion on this day for the diocese of carlisle in the church of england in the york province and the people there and at the same time we're um having an encouragement by the diocese to pray for all parishes in a listening and discerning on the way of world environment day well we're sitting here amongst the the green grass and the trees with our friends here is enough encouragement to pray for everywhere on world environment day let's say the prayer for today god our redeemer who called your servant boniface to preach the gospel among the german people and to build up your church in holiness grant that we may preserve in our hearts that faith which he taught with his words and sealed with his blood and profess it in lives dedicated to your son jesus christ our lord amen so we say each in our own language the prayer that our lord 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 of silence now in this environment for you in your own places to say your prayers for today god give you grace to follow boniface and all his saints in faith and hope and love 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