good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this thursday the 27th of may for morning prayer welcome wherever you are in the world we've come outside but i've got with me a greenhouse plant which is flowering nicely this is a spider lily in my common language it's a fragrant amaryllis and for those of you who are botanical specialists fetch has given me the absolute name of it it's a hymenocarlis festalis and here it is and in all its glory it's had three flowers so far and is very beautiful and delicate but we brought it amongst its more hardy cousins here which are flowering in this spring weather it is a beautiful morning with a totally blue sky and a light breeze but the the sun is coming up on the rose bush beside me here big rose bush madame lagrada's sanjama and it's covered in buds so later on we shall be able to show you this very fragrant rose bush and at the same time the bugloss the blue blue gloss is still flowering around and the irises are out and flowering as well and there's much promise from the fig tree here as it puts out its leaves it's always a bit shy coming out in colder climates but it is the really the spring blossoming at its best at this time and folding into summer quite soon so now um we'll begin our prayers and then we can have many reflections as we continue our reading of saint matthew's gospel o lord open our lips and our mouth 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 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 on this morning of the month is psalm 120 this morning sees uh yesterday afternoon the conclusion of the very long psalm 119 and that is followed by a series of short pilgrim psalms and here is the first of them psalm 120. so 121 will read i lift up my eyes to the hills from where is my help to come my help comes from the lord the maker of heaven and earth he will not suffer your foot to stumble he who watches over you will not sleep behold he who keeps watch over israel shall neither slumber nor sleep the lord himself watches over you the lord is your shade at your right hand so that the sun shall not strike you by day neither the moon by night the lord shall keep you from all evil it is he who shall keep your soul the lord shall keep watch over your going out and your coming in from this time force forevermore a very beloved son by many and the verse said the sun shall not strike you by day neither the moon by night means a sheltering from conditions which are too hot or in the other way um too cold at night too dark and we've chosen this spot together this morning because as i sit here there will be a passing over from the shadow of what's my left hand side your right to the u of u looking at me and the sun coming up on my right as the light overtakes the darkness and that will fit well also with our reflection in the gospel of saint matthew but you may like to read those little psalms for today all the way through they go from psalm 120 right through in the end to the end of the afternoon psalms right through to psalm 131 short psalms after the very long 119 and each day is marked by the atmosphere of its psalms let's say turn now to the reading from matthew's gospel and here we are in chapter 12 where we left off yesterday we read up to verse 21 yesterday and today i'm going to read from verses 22 up to the end of verse 36. then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to jesus and he healed him so that the man spoke and saw and all the people were amazed and said can this be the son of david but when the pharisees heard that they said it is only by beelzebub the prince of demons that this man casts out demons knowing their thoughts jesus said to them every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and no city or house divided against itself will stand and if satan casts out satan he is divided against himself how then will his kingdom stand and if i cast out devils by beelzebub by whom do your sons cast them out therefore they will be your judges but if it is by the spirit of god that i cast out devils then the kingdom of god has come upon you or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strongman then indeed he may plunder his house whoever is not with me is against me and whoever does not gather with me scatters therefore i tell you every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven and whoever speaks a word against the son the son of man will be forgiven but whoever speaks against the holy spirit will not be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come either make the tree good and its fruit good or make the tree bad and its fruit bad for a tree is known by its fruit you brood of vipers how can you speak good when you are evil for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks the good person out of evil out of his good treasure brings forth good and the evil person out of evil treasure brings forth evil i tell you on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak for by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned it's a very different passage from the passage that we have been reading and in a way it shows a different kind of special matthew we've said that the special matthew of jesus being given words like take my yoke upon you and learn from me for i am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light words special to matthew but now matthew is shaping in chapter 12 his narrative to show a different aspect of what is going on and one might call that controversy instant mark the controversy is there from the very beginning even in his own synagogue even amongst his own people there are questions about the sabbath questions about jesus's authority there's grumbling and murmuring and in the end outright violence and jesus senses all of that and now in this chapter 12 we get the same collected together by matthew for matthew like luke is of an orderly mind but the principles they're using are quite different even though often they use the same material used and ordered in different ways and here we have a chapter where controversy makes itself known we saw it in the cornfields at the beginning of chapter 12 when the pharisees were complaining that jesus's disciples were working on the sabbath by plucking the ears of corn and eating them a snack as they went along not breaking the law by gleaning but certainly in the pharisees absolutely strict jot and tittle of the law interpretation breaking the law by working almost grinding corn as they got rid of the husks and then chewing up the corn that they're eating as the snack as they went along and at the same time we saw yesterday with the man with the withered hand stretching it out and jesus turning on them and because in his heart and by the the look on their faces these people who've come as critics wanting controversy nervous about what jesus is doing to their teaching by opening up the law to his original intention and becoming quite brave in doing that but jesus sees what their faces look like knows what's in their hearts you remember yesterday he turned on them and said if you have a sheep who falls into the the pit or down a well don't you take hold of it whether it's the sabbath day or not and save it for the sabbath was there and is there to do good on it was done for the benefit of humanity for rest and refreshment and spiritual reflection not to be a great heavy yoke my yoke is easy my burden is light he is fulfilling the law and the prophets and now after jesus has withdrawn with his disciples and come back again and is beginning to heal people and the demon oppressed man is brought to him matthew collecting all this together the question is asked and this is the big question that matthew is wanting his own people his own community of greek speaking jewish christians in syria probably as we've said to be asking years after this has happened can this be the son of david that's the question written large over this and the question is being asked also of us who read the gospel certainly that's what matthew wants for the anointed one will be the fulfillment of law and prophets and psalms and wisdom writings and the question is is this the one that everyone is expecting and one of the litmus tests was can this be the son of david and matthew's gospel is one big yes it not only can but it is the truth he is the one that people were expecting the son of david who will open the law and the prophets and the psalms and the wisdom writings to be the treasures of the whole world in fulfillment with the good news that the one that they were expecting was bringing but that kind of change as light begins to dawn on the people is not really to the taste of those who have always guarded the letter of the law and are now standing against him so they throw the accusation at jesus he actually does these things by the power of beelzebub the prince of devils and he is casting out the demons in people by the power of the one who controls the demons the devil and jesus turns it on then for it's quite clear that they also the pharisees used exorcists to cast out demons and he's saying if i if if if i do it by the prince of devils who who do your who do your sons here do it by he's aware of their thinking and then at the same time he goes back matthew goes back to the teaching about how we recognize good from evil and we recognize it by the fruits that the tree produces if it's a good tree it will produce good and wholesome fruit you can see the people nodding and it goes back to that teaching in the seminal on the mount can a can a vine produce thorns and thistles you know it produces grapes fig tree will produce figs good trees produce the fruits that they are are there to produce and humanity is there to produce the fruits of the spirit but if every if anyone not only doubts that but denies that is hostile to that spirit which produces those fruits in body mind and spirit in physical action in mental thinking in conversation and in spiritual imaginings if anyone says that this is of the devil well the case is lost that's certainly not even a sin right for forgiveness because at that point there is no power that can forgive and create health and healing and it's jesus's task and the disciples task in our task for to open people up to that wholesome medicine so that their lives and their minds and and hearts and spirits and their bodies are there producing good fruit and accepting the fact that the spiritual power is there to do that because we born and shaped in the image of god can be divine in our own lives in that way with good fruit coming from our lives and no better time to think of that than a day when the sun rises on these burgeoning bushes set to flower in the way they should and be fragrant in the way they should and some already flowering and some like the fig tree just latent in their shyness it coming out in a northern hemisphere all those things in the context of controversy of course we think of jesus's gentleness but at the same time we think of his courage standing in the middle of something which is becoming quite violent and the controversy will grow and it comes from those who should in his mind know better because they know by heart the law and the prophets and they've used them in the wrong way all of that matthew is telling to his people and on this morning he's telling it to us as we read that part of chapter 12. so let me then go on and think about other things of of this day um first just this is an aside really but it's about another kind of of creature and the way in which we look after our earth i wanted to talk about because we've been talking about devils i wanted to talk about the tasmanian devil for a moment on the island of tasmania and tasmania tasmanian devils are little marsupials who live or used to live only only on the island of tasmania and now thank god they're being bred on uh the the mainland in new south wales and that is going we hope to help save them because at the moment they're threatened not only by the kind of things that that are threatening so many forms of wildlife but a special disease known to them also and and alone and it's called the tasmanian facial tumor disease and it's it's passed on contagiously and it by by the the way in which they may bite one another in scraps and and go on in that way and nothing much can be done about it con research now uh here's our own tasmanian devil who's just arrived at the at the right time um research now tends to suggest that they are beginning the one in the wild to to develop a kind of immunity but the decimation of their their population in tasmania has been alarming they were called devils by the first european settlers there because of the particular screams and growls they make when they're afraid in their own wild habitat and they're anything but devils really but they're not creatures that actually like affection from human beings or respond to it they can't be kept as pets but they are charming to look at and if you google them you'll you'll see them in full action and hear some of their cries but you'll also see this terrible disease which is which is causing them to to to die and we hope that both the breeding programs in tasmania itself from those who are free from the disease and the breeding programs in new south wales will save this species together perhaps with their own immunity which they're beginning to build up and which can happen with diseases as we well know that was all in brackets but it's a an interesting thought on a morning when our our scriptures are talking about devils and i wanted to go on in a completely different way with another another date which happened on this day may the 27th in let me just see which year so i get it right uh 1849 the great hall of houston station in london was opened a magnificent hall built when you see photographs of it and it was pulled down in 1962 tragically despite demonstrations and much opposition it was pulled down to make something which was seen to be more modern and houston station now is of no particular merit in that way um and walking up the road you come to some pancreas station which has a fitting both exit point and entry point for people coming into england houston station used to have this enormous hall because in the 19th century it was thought that traveling and whether you were traveling by in the mind then museums and libraries had this dignity built into them so that when you went in a sense of awe in the architecture was also part of it and a great arch was created for houston station and also this huge hall and it reminded me of a passage from e.m forster's novel how is end which many of you will read some of you will have seen the film of howard's end but in that and i i know the book well because we studied it at a-level english and so we had to get to know the text quite well and i was fascinated by the the schlegel family the two sisters and their brother all very different but it talks at one stage about margaret schlegel having different feelings about different railway stations because of where they would take her i'm going to read the passage because it's rather wonderful [Music] margaret had strong feelings about the various railway termini they are our gates to the glorious and the unknown through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine to them unless we return in paddington all cornwall is latent and the remoter west down the inclines of liverpool street lie fenlands and the illimitable broads scotland is through the piles of houston wessex behind the poised chaos of waterloo to margaret the station of king's cross had always suggested infinity very situation withdrawn a little behind the splendors of sin pancras implied a comment on the materialism of life those two great arches colorless indifferent shouldering between them an unlovely clock were fit portals for some eternal adventure that's the end of the paragraph i'm surprised that foster didn't add victoria station for to me victoria station was the place that set off for europe before ever the eurostar took you first from waterloo but now from sin pancras so that the golden arrow that took you across the channel and then went on to paris would go from victoria station and very often when high dignities arrived dignitaries arrived into england they'd be received at victoria station but nowadays of course all things are different nevertheless those stations throughout the world still have a dramatic feeling of gateways to a journey and some of you will remember wonderful stations if you think of the the stations of new york then penn station and i never saw it in its great glory because that too was demolished and and and the hall there but you can get something of that if you go to grand central station nevertheless if you think of penn station you certainly um think of the journey you're you're going on because uh that line where the a seller comes down from boston it's another station that one would think of and through to new york and on to the very attractive union station in washington again a fit fitting place it was thought in the 19th century for people to travel from it gave expectation and beauty to the journey from the very beginning you might say the same about airports i can leave you doing this for for hours i'm sure and certainly french stations will be the same the the station that nice that runs the train all the way along to marseille is another one it's not the station you're thinking about really it's the expectation of the journey and places that you like being at the end of that notice how the liverpool street station to margaret schlegel spoke of the norfolk broads and all that lay there in that beautiful county and so one goes on in your own countries it will be the same but airports would do the same for you now it certainly does the same for us as we set off from particular airports and think ah this is not only speaking of this it's also speaking of the place that we shall go to and um railways i see are making a bit of a comeback as president macron has revived the night trains so that the um trains can can go through the night because short paul aircraft flights are the things which give the biggest carbon footprint and the train taking you along is much less in its its carbon footprint all those things and and why i was saying it is that we have been spending time not only with st matthew but over the months with luke and mark and john and each of those are gateways in a different way to the gospels and their gateways built by particular evangelists we've grown used as we've been looking at matthew to the way in which he built up this special gateway and matthew was orderly and ordered everything in blocks of teaching and blocks of narrative we shall soon begin in chapter 13 the next block of teaching and it's matthew grouping together the parables we've not had one in matthew yet whereas let's go then to mark and see how mark short fast journey and at the same time full of excitement a different kind of journey and it the the first sentence is the gateway to the gospel here begins the gospel of jesus christ the son of god no doubt about where you're going everything is there for the journey and luke as i said earlier orderly but a different kind of orderliness luke is going to lead us on as he sees it a chronological journey with all the evidence there but he will draw beautiful pictures of parables and health and healing and will go to him for stories which don't appear anywhere else the prodigal son and the good samaritan and the way in which he tells stories of healing with a doctor's flavor sorry my tasmanian devil's back hi and also the way in which he tells stories like the emmaus road only in luke's gospel particularity and the way in which each of the four gospels opens up a different world but each is giving us that divine quality which the son of david can this be the son of david yes it is and the last gospel as uh this margaret slagle talks about king's cross had always suggested infinity from the very word go the fourth gospel is speaking to the spirit in a special way in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god the same was in the beginning with god all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made so all of that is is coming as the light comes across me and the fourth gospel talks about light all the way through the light shines in the darkness and the darkness can't overcome it on the other hand one could also go to our psalms which give us shades of light and darkness in terms of human emotions and you could say that psalm 119 which covers in the month from the afternoon of the 24th of the month all through the 25th and all through the 26th is a long journey a long haul on railway or flight and now we've come to short halls beautiful short halls with the psalms for today we cover a lot of ground 120 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 all the way through short psalms and then tomorrow morning psalm 132 lord remember david and all his trouble and that goes on in a a a wonderful way so let's think of particularity but let's also think of controversy for special matthew can give us and as he collects things together his particular ordering of things is for public reading and also four scholarly looking at aspects of jesus's ministry grouped together luke's is different luke's trying to tell a story imaginatively and basing it on facts as he has gathered them and so light and darkness and realization come as we realize that different human beings will be attracted by different aspects of what's going on and we think of the conflict controversy between light and darkness between um as we in uh those the language of the the pharisees pit devils against the angels and so on in in our life but sometimes the devil can be quite affectionate country and uh so he's come upstairs he didn't like that he's gone on and let's say our prayers then on this particular morning of the month and we were praying today in the anglican communion on this 27th of may for the diocese of northern california in the episcopal church province eight and the bishop there and there and uh the people there and uh in this diocese for justin archbishop and for rose bishop of dover for tim bishop at lambeth and today for the area deanery the parish is gathered around reculver the area deanery of reculver and the area dean carol smith in her ministry and we will over the days name those parishes so that we go back to the naming of the parishes so that you can imagine the areas that we're playing praying for bring your own concerns about your own areas and everything that you have in your hearts and minds this morning as all kinds of problems face our world both health and violence problems of controversy but also a world full of thanksgiving for all kinds of of life and and aspects of things that are going on so think of both as we turn to our prayers god who was at this time taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your holy spirit grant us by the same spirit to have a right judgment in all things and ever more to rejoice in his holy comfort through the same jesus christ our lord who lives and reigns in the unity of the father and the holy spirit one god now and forever are men so we say each in our own language 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 for ever and ever amen moment of silence now for your own prayers as the sun shines down on the lovely rose bush which is just waiting to burst into flower okay [Music] [Music] the most important sentence in howard's end in uh e.m forster's mind and he gives the first two words of that sentence right the sort of frontier piece of his story is only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted and human love will be seen at its height so a connection between that which is passionate in us and instinctive and that which becomes as you might say prosaic but in the sense of being thoughtful using mental energy as well as the hot blooded passion and connecting them so that the divine and spiritual quality is given life force and that connecting is something that we do despite controversy and i don't mean violent controversy i mean some aspects seem to seeming to contradict something else in our lives we make ourselves uh more ready to accept both by constantly making those connections and this morning we began in shade and have ended in sunshine but the whole lesson is about our capacity for fruitfulness which is made by connecting by grace the different parts of our humanity only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted and human love will be seen at its height just as divine love is shown in every aspect of our individual and collective humanity and the real connection for that humanity is to make with that which is divine for which we were created to be fruitful the spirit of truth lead you into all truth give you grace to confess that jesus christ is lord and strengthen you to proclaim the word and works of god 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