good morning and welcome to the dinery garden and we've come to the orchard on this very wet morning but we were determined on this wednesday the 21st of october which is apple day at thanksgiving for the harvest of apples particularly in this nation and so we wanted so much to be amongst the apple trees well we waited for the rain to go off but it clearly isn't going to go off and so we give thanks for the blessings of god's good rain falling down on these trees and we've left some of the fallers before picking them up to give you a sense of the bounty of the apple harvest this year so let's say our prayers together wherever you are in the world bring your own intentions and think of your own concerns as we say our morning prayers and this if this is a little late coming to you then it was caused by us waiting for the rain but i hope you'll feel it was worth it simply to see the apple harvest as we give thanks for it so let's think back to october the 21st in other years and we can see that this is quite a poetic day and we'll come to that in our reflection because in 1772 samuel taylor coleridge the great romantic poet and friend of wordsworth was born but we will think of some of his poetry when we're reflecting later this is in england also that the anniversary of the battle of trafalgar one thinks of that great column in trafalgar square the battle was fought on october the 21st in 1805 and it's entered into english history this the the flag signal which nelson gave on that morning has become really iconic england expects that every man will do his duty remember the story he said to his flag lieutenant lieutenant pascoe can you send that up and he said england confides he's confident that england confides that every man will do his duty and pasco said we've not much time uh the lord and uh if i use confides i'll have to spell the whole word out in flags why not use expects which is just one flag so that's what we have england expects and in this sort of atmosphere our whole world expects each ot every person to be looking after each other during this time of pandemic so also we remember this as a day of huge tragedy in 1966 on this day october the 21st that enormous heap of coal flag which was made soaking wet by the reigns of this time of year slid down onto the community of aberfan engulfing its primary school and the of the 144 people who died on this day 116 were the young children of the community those of us who remember that will remember the horror unfolding during the day of that little community and we still think of of that now and the dangers we create and are constant vigilance to look after each other and particularly the children so may they rest in peace and rise in glory from aberfan all those who died on this day we also remember on october 21st 1520 that ferdinand magellan first entered with three ships the strait which now bears his name and in the end through in horrific circumstances was able to break through and cross the pacific he himself never made it back to spain he was portuguese but the spanish had underwritten the whole expedition but we give thanks for the way in which our world now is so easily in contact nation to nation on this day of magellan let's say our prayers o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise visit us with your salvation and sustain us with your gracious spirit 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 does 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 psalm on this morning of the month the 21st is psalm 105 it tells the whole story of israel being taken out from egypt into freedom but it also tells something of the story of the very long journey through the wilderness and the things which happened on the way i'm just reading the last section of this psalm then god brought them out with silver and gold there was not one among their tribes that stumbled egypt was glad at their departing for a dread of them had fallen upon them he spread out a cloud for a covering and a fire to light up the night they asked and he brought them quails he satisfied them with the bread of heaven he opened the rock and the waters gushed out and ran in the dry places like a river for he remembered his holy word and abraham his servant so he brought forth his people with joy his chosen ones with singing he gave them the lands of the nations and they took possession of the fruit of their toil that they might keep his statutes and faithfully observe his laws alleluia so we turn to the act the epistle to the philippians paul's letter to the philippians which we've been reading and i'm in chapter 2 today and i'm going to read up to the end of verse 13 verses 1 to 13 of the philippians as to say i remember from school days being taught how to order the first four epistles in that way because you sometimes get mixed up with the um philippians and galatians and ephesians and so on and i remember a school teacher saying take the first vowel of each and if you go a e i o it doesn't go as far as you then you get galatians ephesians philippians colossians and uh sometimes i still have that in my head when i'm ordering them so here we are philippians and we're chapter two so if there is any encouragement in christ any comfort from love any participation in the spirit any affection and sympathy complete my joy by being of the same mind having the same love being in full accord and of one mind do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourselves and let each of you look not only to their own interests but also to the interests of others have this mind among yourselves which is yours in christ jesus who though he was in the form of god did not count equality with god a thing to be grasped but emptied himself taking the form of a servant being born in human likeness and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross therefore god has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that jesus christ is lord to the glory of god the father therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed so now not only as in my presence but much more in my absence work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is god who works in you goes to will and to work for his good pleasure well that is one of the most marvelous passages in the new testament but a great section of what we read is thought to be and it's pretty certainly an early christian hymn which paul knew and those in the christian communities knew it's set out in so many of the scriptures in two verses and it's in our mind it's certainly in my mind because of caroline noel who was a a poet daughter of a an anglican clergyman in the 19th century wrote that as a metric hymn and it's fairly faithful to what's being said at the name of jesus every knee shall bow every tongue confess him king of glory now tis the father's pleasure we should call him lord who from the beginning was the mighty word humbled for a season to receive a name from the lips of sinners unto whom he came and so the hymn goes on several verses more but you see how close it is to that early christian hymn and it's it's wonderful that paul in the middle of this letter to the beloved philippians writes out this hymnic meditation poetic meditation which was probably sung in the christian churches when they met together for the breaking of bread quite often in people's own homes and we sing that now at the name of jesus every knee should bow one could say many things about this lovely passage but so much of it speaks for itself paul's constant joy fill up my cup of happiness is what he says how by having unity amongst yourselves this whole epistle is about harmony the only even warning words he speaks to his beloved philippians are about the dangers of disunity and the really strong things he says is that jesus christ emptied himself of all that glory of the the eternal word and became someone in human form so that he could show us the path of the unity of the whole human race but particularly the unity of those who are in community in fellowship in coinnonia and that is an really important message coming through what we begin to get i think at this point is the fact that as paul had prophesied his journey would end in rome he is now believing in his heart that this will be the end of the journey this letter is a letter of enormous joy in almost love but it's also a letter of farewell and the hymn sets out almost a theology of belief in jesus but you could say it encapsulates the whole gospel story which luke his companion in some of the time he's in prison when he's not himself sent off to give messages around to other churches luke said set out for us in the gospel which through the spring and early summer months we looked through fit that hymn against that gospel and you see how that theology for paul is so important well this morning i said was a day of poetry because of samuel taylor coleridge and maybe some of you will have learned some of his poems i remember i've got here the rhyme of the ancient mariner now that rhyme to go back to that narrative of jesus emptying himself in order to become our salvation our healer our shepherd our friend and the one who will take away the consciousness of sin once realized and confessed and all of that comes in that huge rhyme of the ancient mariner which must have really startled those who read it but it was very different poetry from what they'd read before but what we uh what we got at school was the way in which the albatross first of all came when they're in they were in that great danger and led them through we think of miguel in the straits there lands of ice the ice splitting and the albatross always there and the temptation with the ancient mariners crossbow was to shoot the albatross and things at that point suddenly changed so when they got into the still ocean the wind dropped the albatross was no longer with them it was dead and the sailors hung it round the neck of the one who had shot the albatross you remember these words perhaps all in a hot and copper sky the bloody sun at noon right up above the masted stand no bigger than the moon day after day day after day we stuck nor breath nor motion as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean water water everywhere and all the boards did shrink water water everywhere nor any drop to drink the poem if one reads it all gives an amazing feeling of the thirst and desperation and the death which followed this thirst and the sense of everything being absolutely hopeless but it is actually a a poem of penitence and then redemption for it is at the moment that the ancient mariner can bless the beauty of the creatures in the sea and begin to pray again that the breeze begins to come and the sense of death recedes well we think of all those things on this day of the apple harvest for the apple is such a symbol of the fall of humanity through temptation and the will to do evil but it's also a symbol of fruitfulness being given again many of you may have gone on the camino in in spain in northern spain and found there in the various places that you went um i've seen it twice so you may say to me there are many more occasions than that but i think first of all of the town of astorgia which is best known for the bishops palace which gaudi built there and in that stunning cathedral in that crossroads between the camino and the old roman silva road is the virgin mary holding the christ child in her lap and he in his hand is offering to you the apple but it's the apple of the fruitfulness of his own coming a symbol of his own life and a new start for humanity and i remember it also in a really beautiful tiny little village oh sobrero which is the church of saint mary in the province of lugo and still on the camino and they're in a a very ancient church right on the top nothing like the great cathedral i've just been talking about but there too as you go in is a much simpler virgin mary is sitting with the christ child offering an apple where there are plenty of apples on offer here after last night's winds and they will be picked up later though some will be left for the birds because the apple is a great sign and we have um a poem here let's think of coleridge but this is a very different poem by one of his friends lee hunt at the same time and he is imagining fairies coming and robbing the orchard and stealing the apples and taken away by the fairies usually it was village boys that would come and and and scrump the apples as we call it here here's his little poem song of the fairies robbing the orchard we the fairies blithe and antic of dimensions not gigantic though the moonshine mostly keep us oft in orchards frisk and pipas stolen sweets are always sweeter stolen kisses much completer stolen looks are nice in chapels stolen stolen bee or apples went to bed the world are bobbing then's the time for orchard robbing yet the fruit were scarce worth peeling were it not for stealing stealing talking of the delights of temptation and of getting the apple but at the same time one has to think of the corollary of what happens when temptation is given into and the sin which follows so this morning i have another poem at the end by laurie lee but this morning let's say our prayers first and think of the places that we would pray for today on this wet morning in england we're praying in the anglican communion for the diocese of rajasthan in north india and for the bishop there jaba singh and the diocese of kyobet in the south sudan and elijah awet the bishop there and all his people here in this diocese as we pray for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth we pray for the parish of saint paul's cliftonville in margate and for patrick ellison in his ministry there and all his people so bring your own prayers as we say the prayer for this week oh god for as much as without you we are not able to please you mercifully grant that your holy spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language we say the prayer which 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 to the sound of the rain as we say our prayers this morning so here before the blessing is laurie lee's poem and it gives thanks that the apples when they fall are then made into something wonderful maybe into sauce or jams or preserves or cider food for the birds but essentially in the midst are pips which can grow into trees they're signs of new beginnings in a round world here's the poem it's called simply apple's poem behold the apples rounded worlds juice green of july rain the black pill star of flowers the rind mapped with its crimson stain the russet crab and cottage red burn to the sun's hot brass then drop like sweat from every branch and bubble in the grass they lie as wanton as they fall and where they fall and break the stallion clamps his crunching jaws the starling stabs his beak in each plump gourd the cidery bite of boy's teeth tears the skin the waltzing wasp consumes his share the bent worm enters in and i with as easy hunger take entire my seasons dole welcome the ripe the sweet the sour the hollow and the whole perhaps we remember that laurie lee's most famous book was called cider with rosie 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 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