good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of january the 27th thursday january the 27th as we gather to say our morning prayers we'd plan something a bit different but it's such a lovely morning and there is the most wonderful smell of spring about uh mostly and it's one of those mornings when i wish that we could convey to you a sense of the smell of the scent of uh all around me because the scent of the daphne bush in full flower i'm sitting next to a winter box here but beyond me is the daphne and i'm surrounded by the beautiful scent which is more exotic than any perfume from the daphne and it gives one a sense of spring beginning to awaken in the garden itself there are lovely golden aconites now flowering and even some little snowdrops and little violets if you look for them and this morning there is that flavor of spring i'm being very optimistic because we are still in deep mid-winter really january the 27th we were a long way to go yet but we have signs that's a good word for the epiphany signs of that spring which will come and awaken us all so we're going to begin just briefly our morning prayer out here and enjoy the sense of this morning bring your prayers and concerns of course from right across the world at this time it's a world where there is nervousness about military maneuverings uh in ukraine and and russia and also areas of the world that know no peace and so think of them in your hearts between us we can probably cover the whole globe with the concerns that we have so let's say our prayers on this morning in the epiphany season 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 son 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 as 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 amen our psalm as i inferred yesterday when ravi in uh mumbai sang psalm 121 i said that's tomorrow's song but we'll say it now with memories of all those scenes of our anglican communion from yesterday in the different cathedrals across the world psalm 121 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 you're going out and you're coming in from this time forth forevermore you're going out and you're coming in and that's exactly what we're about to do so we're going to have a short piece of cheerful music as we change scenes from here to where we really want to be this morning [Music] [Applause] [Music] do we've come inside to a special place in the scenery which i'll describe in a moment but i wanted to remind you that this is the anniversary of the release of the last prisoners from auschwitz and has become holocaust memorial day and we shall be keeping that formally in worship with the rabbi and the imam with us on saturday afternoon at 5 30 in a context of a slightly changed even song and that will all be online but we remember this as that particular anniversary and the way in which holocaust memorial day covers the time when people from the different communities can come together so on saturday we shall do that at 5 30 in the afternoon on live stream so we come here into this room which we generally call the pet room and there are a multitude of different creatures in here for different reasons mostly for protection and also to give them the environment which uh gives them uh the the life that they need at the time and so looking around from the nearest part of the camera we've got some some places where harvest mice live and breed the smallest and fastest of of creatures but in fact very much endangered because of the fields in which they are generally finding their habitat disappearing with the methods of modern agriculture and so we're causing them to to breed here and uh giving them a chance and they are the most delightful tiny friendly creatures and need a special environment and then if i come round the room if i go on this side first then we have a lizard tank with two rescue lizards which were left we don't know by whom at the uh deanery um in a box one day and uh one of them was was injured but has now recovered completely and they're having a a decent life in that little environment there and next to me then two finches a fire finch and a siskin and both again are rescue birds the finch the siskin is unable to fly they get on very well together in this cage here and then next to me here are a very chatty pair of zebra finches who are gregarious and and we felt that they deserved their chance as the badgers that had theirs yesterday so they i think will make themselves very much heard this morning flesh was delighted that this curtain behind because whenever we film inside the scenery when there's light outside it's very difficult to get the cameras light right because there's so much light coming in that i never appear and so the curtain is closed very much for the warmth of the creatures to stop draughts coming in this this room needs to be kept warm and that makes it much much more easy for him to film and then also if i look just beyond the fish tanks there is a place where two quail are overwintering with the bird flu of course and they are also in a good and safe atmosphere here so we come to the the tanks here which is why we're here today because we've come once again as we were yesterday to a scene of colorful diversity complete diversity and this large tank is full of the the bigger fish you've got that we've had the tanks for about 20 years really um penguin tetras and emperor tetras and congo tetras and a large rainbow fish bob the boseman rainbow fish you can see him very much swimming around he's been here for years i can't even date his age i don't think maybe 10 years or more um and at the same time you have a black goldfish here with telescope eyes and uh he is actually he was given to us about five years ago by one of the girls at the school who had a goldfish and and loved him and when she was leaving she had no idea what to do so she came around to the deanery and said could could could we have her fish and so we did and here he is five years later enjoying life in this big tank all of these get on really well together and yet they're from very different parts of the world we've got fish from mexico fish from the amazon fish from oceania and we could have a complete lecture on fish i'm not going to do that this morning but we'll come to this tank also and say that in in this tank um we've we've got uh our very special royal whiptail catfish and we always called stick fish amongst a whole uh group of tiny fish in there all of whom get on well neon tetras and it's obviously why they're called that because of that they're shining lights and mollies and platies and guppies and most on quarries too but most of them are live-bearing so you have the excitement of seeing them give birth and the the the little tiny little fish are fully formed they come out and they're coupled up and then they suddenly spring open and swim away a complete miniature of what they will become it's a very exciting thing to do now the the royal whiptail fish is coming across the screen here he's my special friend and uh playing we call him stick fish and playing hunt for stick fish because he disguises himself in a great way and sits on a leaf and disguising and shelter and everything else becomes very important many many of these here have evolved dorsal fins with which they taste and feel and go carefully you see this with the angel fish here from the amazon that what they have in front are evolved dorsal fins those are sensitive fins which are absolutely essential for the life of the fish and for their safety and for all kinds of of sense which they have in the water well enough of of this we've come here because it's a world of diversity and so often the psalmists mention the birds of the air and the fish of the seas and the rivers and so here is a completely different kind of world but it also will help me when i go on to our reflection father on in the reflection for the moment i want to read the story that we've come to in one samuel and you will remember that uh when saul it's interesting that both our heroes recently have been called saul saul who became sin paul and saul here who is the one whom samuel has already anointed as king in response to the people's request but they do not know anything about that and you remember how saul this soul went back to his uncle and when the uncle asked him so what did you go to samuel for and he said well to find out where the donkeys were and then he said what did he say to you and saul replied he told me that the donkeys had been found and so we came home back to the ordinary not telling anything about what happened with samuel interesting too that both saul's saul of tarsus and saul here belong to the tribe of benjamin as they say least of the tribes so i'm going on from verse 17 of chapter 10 of one samuel now samuel called the people together to the lord at mizpah and he said to the people of israel thus says the lord the god of israel i brought up israel out of egypt and i delivered you from the hand of the egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you but today you have rejected your god who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses and you have said to him set a king over us now therefore present yourselves before the lord by your tribes and by your thousands then samuel brought all the tribes of israel near and the tribe of benjamin was taken by lot he brought the tribe of benjamin near by its clans and the clan of matrites was taken by lot and saul the son of kish was taken by lot but when they sought him he could not be found so they inquired again of the lord is there a man still to come and the lord said behold he has hidden himself among the baggage then they ran and took saul from there and when he stood among the people he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upwards and samuel said to all the people do you see him whom the lord has chosen there is none like him among all the people and all the people shouted long live the king then samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the lord then samuel sent all the people away each one to his home saul also went to his home at and with him went men of valor whose hearts god had touched but some worthless fellows said how can this man save us and they despised saul and brought him no present but saul held his peace so a mixed reception but notice with this king when he's found and physically is made to stand amongst the people it's his stature that is mentioned and is noticed keep that in mind for when we come a bit later on in the story to the anointing of david but for the moment let's go back to saul because here if with anyone is a reluctant candidate and saul clearly since all that happened to him has been on his mind has been pondering all these things and he's now come with all the diversity of the tribes around and he knows he comes from the lowliest of the tribes and the smallest of the clans and he's said all those things to samuel but nevertheless samuel has chosen him and saul is very doubtful about all of this and no doubt has had much heart searching but all the tribes in their total diversity within the community of that one people which the king will you unite them with are about to acclaim him as king except for some always some who in the scriptures are called worthless fellows but the people clearly who don't accept saul saul is going to have to prove himself before we go much further but the the the kingship which the people desire is being furthered and the danger of kingship is pointed out again by samuel as he sets out the rights and duties of kingship it's a tall order to fulfill for anyone in terms of leadership and we see the reluctance of saul who knows himself and is clearly thinking is it me and at this point when the people begin to acclaim him now let's remember that there's an inbuilt tension in all of this because you don't have to go far in the psalms particularly in the the psalms of the 90s 93 97 99 all of which begin with a straightforward sentence the lord is king and this is what samuel's been saying to them you must never forget in all this that though you ask for an earthly kingship for you as a holy and chosen nation the lord is king one of them begins be the people never so impatient the lord is king and in one of the psalms also you get moses and aaron among his the lord's priests and samuel among those who call upon his name said that until then those have been the leaders the priests and the prophet and the lord is king but it's a hard thing when they're fighting philistines to keep in mind that the lord is their king for the philistine lords lead their people into battle with great valor and that's what the people want and that's what they've asked for and now samuel has provided that still with a warning never to forget that over all this the lord is king the creator of heaven and earth and all the diversity within it well now this is a a day and it's a very special day really because on this day the 27th of january 1756 mozart was born mozart is really accepted as one of the greatest composers in the history of western music he wrote in all the musical genre of his time and excelled in everyone his taste his command of form and his range of expression have made him seem the most universal of all composers and yet we have to remember that all his music was written to accommodate the tastes of those who'd asked and commissioned asked for and commissioned this music whether it be masses or symphonies or most of all operas it was to the commissioning of the opera or even finally the requiem that mozart had to look and try to do his best and yet from the very day of his birth almost his father leopold who was in the service of the prince archbishop of salzburg at that time and were talking about the time of the holy roman empire with a multitude of different states and all kinds right across europe right up to the french border and well on into vienna on the other side and uh these tiny some of them just city states some of them ecclesiastical states some of them princeton's and the seven elections of the the uh holy roman emperor himself all of these actually are there to keep the um center of europe governed as it always had been the empire last holy roman empire lasted a long time and mozart was born into it but leopold in the service of the prince archbishop of salzburg saw that he had in his child a prodigy and water prodigy and so the father sought to take advantage of that prodigy and what i'm just going to look at now is what father did to try not only to sell his prodigy but to get him a position which would settle all of them for good uh financially and with fame and everything else so he took him on tour and remember we're talking about them the horse-drawn coaches going rattling along in roads the dangers of travel and all of that but leopold took the family on tour in order to show off mozart and actually his sister who was also quite quite musically gifted but it was mozart who was the the infant prodigy so he was born in 1756 and the first tour happened in 1763 when he was seven and he was taken to munich and then to augsburg and then to stuttgart and then to mannheim and then to mainz and then to frankfurt and then to brussels and then to paris and then to london and there they stayed for 15 months and toured england mozart came here to bourne park and we are talking of a child between seven and nine at this time having to perform in this way in all those completely different places among strangers but we know that he performed in in the country house born park near here there's a mozart room there where he performed and the journey went on after the 15 months touring england leopold mozart then took mozart to the wolfgang to the hague in in uh in the netherlands to amsterdam back to paris to neon to swiss cities and then back to salzburg november 1776 three-year tour for this child now he's 10 when he comes back and as if that wasn't enough in 1769 leopold was off again and by then mozart was composing in an incredible way as well as performing he was now between 12 and 13 and for 15 months between december 1769 and the next 15 months they traveled again this time it was italy verona milan bologna florence rome mozart was taken as uh a 15-year-old to the um sorry 12 or 13 year old to the sistine chapel and there in rome he heard that secret of the sistine chapel closely guarded secret allegri's misery and sure enough when he left the place he simply wrote it all down in his head it was there he was prodigious and so the secret was exploded by mozart being in the sistine chapel at that age between 12 or 13 and writing the whole thing down when he came out and the then he went to naples and came back to rome and the papal audience was so successful the the pope made the um child a knight of the order of the golden spur and in milan where mozart composed an opera mitrodate ray de ponto mithranitis the king of pontus onto venice back to salzburg not enough for leopold 1771 august or december back in salzburg he uh had then had eight symphonies and for divertimenti and a substantial number of sacred works 204 happened in october 1772 and it lasted until march 1773 by now he's 1819 and he at that unnatural writes the exotic jubilation it's brilliant alleluia at the end and then in 1777 mozart now 21 without father because the archbishop of salzburg needed father to be doing his job for him but for the next 16 months father wasn't content to let his gather about son as he saw him go by himself so mother was sent and they went to munich and augsburg and mannheim and paris and there sadly for mozart his mother became gravely ill and died and that took him back to salzburg in 1718. i've said all that because if you can imagine the diversity of experiences that young man was having but also the way in which the um father's uh will was being exercised like iron across him was causing all kinds of tensions and in paris for the first time without his parents he began to to feel that desire for freedom i'm not going much further with mozart this morning what i wanted to say was that all of those restrictions on his genius and all the experiences that he was having caused the genius to flower even more so that the mozart we know who gave us those brilliant operas and opened up new ideas new ways with music was the one that had been prepared for by this astonishing range of diversity and experiences under the iron hand of his father and in a strange way that grip and the desire to kick it off and be free himself became part of the the genius uh each one to develop their own creative talents but mozart more than any was given a talent which sadly uh was too short-lived like mendelssohn because mozart died at the age of 37 but he had given us so many wonderful gifts and one of his most famous masses is the coronation mass when he wrote it it was not called that it was just one of his masses but it became very very popular indeed and in 1792 in july of 1792 mozart had died by then um the holy roman emperor francis ii was crowned in frankfurt to the music of that mass which was very definitely at that point the coronation mass and what we're seeing was the coronation of the last holy roman emperor in european history in 1806 napoleon's forces in napoleon himself ripped up old europe and the holy roman empire was never ever recreated instead francis ii with the advice of his chancellor in vienna became emperor of austria instead france is the first emperor of austria but the music of mozart meanwhile was taken up by all and i like to think that in those years of massive physical stress massive mental stress because his father was shaping everything and he was performing to order everywhere but at the same time collecting experiences of the music of all those places and experimenting with his prodigious talents that creativity was unwrapped and it involved in that way somehow god's gifts can't be kept down and the the fact that we have all that from mozart is something to glory about so let's say our prayers on this day of diversity once again only uh in the water this time and i'll feed the fish with that that the breakfast at this particular point and we have here some nice flakes on this side that we can give them and there we are this is just the sort of thing that this tank likes we normally give the creatures their breakfast when they're with us as you know and so let's do this for the fish and there'll be a measure of excitement here as we do it as they all realize that breakfast is being given here and then we do the same for the other child but there's a very special kind of food for stick fish but we'll do this for these and see the same kind of thing will happen and then here's the special food for him but it'll take him a while to realize it's coming where he is at the moment see if i put those down there [Music] he'll uh realize that that and enjoy them through the day [Music] so let's set our brows we are praying today for the diocese of kajal keiji in the province of the episcopal church of south sudan how will i remember that in the central ecuatoria province it was when i first knew it rather damaged by the civil war in 1979 um [Music] and then we're praying also for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover and emma bishop at lambeth and we're still with the sanet deanery parishes right across the island of spanish and we think of the people today who exercise a chaplaincy role in all organizations from schools to hospitals and all kinds of community centers and clubs and so on so we give thanks for the ministry that they give and there's a long list of them in the senate dinery and we are going to say the prayer for this week the third sunday of epiphany almighty god whose son revealed in signs and miracles the wonder of your saving presence renew your people with your heavenly grace and in all our weakness sustain us by your mighty power through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language in complete diversity across the world 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 are men moment now for your own reflection [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] oh foreign [Music] [Applause] hmm um [Music] hmm [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Applause] [Music] me [Music] bye um me hmm [Music] christ the son of god perfecting you the image of his glory and gladden your hearts with the good news of his kingdom 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 say whatever your day and however diverse then feel god's blessing on it as our psalm has given us that kind of you know going out in our coming in god is blessing us [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] my [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] hmm [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] hmm [Music] hmm [Music] hmm [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] so [Music] hmm [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] huh [Music] um [Music] so [Music] do um [Music] me [Music] hmm [Music] hey [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] so [Music] hmm [Music] hmm [Music] you