good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this second sunday of easter tide as we gather for our morning prayers welcome wherever you are in the world it's a lovely morning here this is normally called low sunday because of the high celebrations of easter sunday last week and yet it's always been more of a reflective sunday a time to think of the messages of easter as the apostles themselves were remembering things that jesus had said and realizing them their meaning i'm sitting in front of the enormous magnolia solangiana the largest of the great trees which wendy white thompson and her husband er neon was the dean here planted in 1967 and you will remember those of you of the garden congregation that wendy herself died this year on good friday so the magnolias have become a point of memory behind the magnolia are the the the windows of the deanery library they're large windows they were lancet windows which gave no light to that room but this is a day on uh in 1689 when william and mary were crowned as joint monarchs of this kingdom and they were crowned by the bishop of london because the archbishop of canterbury refused to crown them he had sworn an oath to king james ii an oath of allegiance and he refused to break that oath so archbishop sancroft was not in in a good relationship with uh william and mary who had come william of orange come across from the netherlands with the daughter of james ii mary to become the joint monarchs and later archbishop sancroft was deposed from his archbishopric because he would not swear another oath of allegiance but queen mary was an enormous friend of the dean of canterbury at the time tillotson and dean tillotson eventually became the new archbishop of canterbury a safe pair of hands the new uh joint monarchs felt but also because queen mary was a visitor here she didn't like the lancet windows and caused the dean to open them up to huge windows of light into that double cube room the library which is a lovely room at this time in the morning the windows face east to the rising sun all those are memories and all that we've been seeing in the media and on television about the life of prince philip across the years has evoked memories of our own lives and memories can be creative things as we shall find on this day of reflection this second sunday of easter tide as we say our prayers o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise in your resurrection o christ let heaven and earth rejoice alleluia blessed are you lord god of our salvation to you be praise and glory forever as once you ransomed your people from egypt and led them to freedom in the promised land so now you have delivered us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your risen son may we the first fruits of your new creation rejoice in this new day you have made and praise you for your mighty acts 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 amen our psalm on this eleventh morning of the month is psalm 57 be merciful to me o god be merciful to me for my soul takes refuge in you in the shadow of your wings will i take refuge until the storm of destruction has passed by i will call upon the most high god the god who fulfills his purpose for me he will send from heaven and save me and rebuke those that would trample upon me god will send forth his love and his faithfulness i lie in the midst of lions people whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword be exalted o god above the heavens and your glory over all the earth they have laid a net for my feet my soul is pressed down they have dug a pit before me and will fall into it themselves my heart is ready oh god my heart is ready i will sing and give you praise awake my soul awake harp and liar that i may awaken the dawn i will give you thanks o lord among the peoples i will sing praise to you among the nations for your loving kindness is as high as the heavens and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds be exalted o god above the heavens and your glory over all the earth my heart is ready oh god my heart is ready i will sing and give you praise well singing of course in our worship is the one thing we can't do but we're amply underlined in song by the song thrush this morning it was the first sound i heard it may even have awakened me from the open bedroom window before even dawn had shown the streaks of first light for this is a time of year when the song thrush sings to establish his dominance over this garden and you may hear him continue to sing as the morning becomes wider and brighter the song will quieten down but tonight the song will begin again and it will be the last thing we hear as the streaks of day disappear in the west with the sun we give huge thanks for the song of the song thrash and the missile thrush and they will breed now in lovely nests and establish their songs all over the garden until about mid-july the song will be sung and so we are now going to begin our reflection for the morning and to read a passage from the first chapter of sorry the 15th chapter of the first letter of saint paul to the corinthians and i'm reading from verses 1 to 11 it's paul himself remembering and passing on a memory to the corinthian church he is elsewhere probably in ephesus and is writing to them and here is chapter 15 beginning the first 11 verses now i would remind you brothers and sisters of the gospel i preached to you which you received in which you stand and by which you are being saved if you hold fast to the word i preached to you unless you believed in vain for i delivered to you as a first importance what i also received that christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to keep us then to the twelve then he appeared to more than 500 brothers and sisters at one time most of whom are still alive though some have fallen asleep then he appeared to james then to all the apostles last of all as to one untimely born he appeared also to me for i am the least of the apostles unworthy to be called an apostle because i persecuted the church of god but by the grace of god i am what i am and his grace towards me was not in vain on the contrary i worked harder than any of them though it was not i but the grace of god that is with me whether then it was i or they so we preach and so you believed well that is written in an epistle which was probably written in about the year 54 a.d and much earlier than any of the gospels were written down and much oral tradition was being handed on from church to church but paul in this chapter 15 is between verses 3 and 7 quoting a much much older oral tradition and this fact is agreed in scholarship he is quoting what you might call a creed a statement of belief which is thought to have come from the jerusalem church and been formulated in oral tradition probably only a few years three or four after the crucifixion it of course stands at the heart of the creed which we call the apostles creed and which we say at the offices daily morning and evening prayer that creed is a tradition going back to the very life of the early church right at the beginning and we give thanks for that foundation stone of memory as paul gives it but notice that in the creed there are certain things which are established from the very beginning and twice paul says in that creedal statement in accordance with the scriptures christ died for our sins and rose again from the dead on the third day in accordance with the scriptures he's probably going back to the prophet isaiah chapter 53 our lord himself was fond of quoting but also he um is looking to the prophet hosea giving joy on the third day in accordance with the scripture our lord as we've seen from psalms from the law of moses from the prophets is always quoting scriptures showing what under lay his own sense of vocation as the anointed one who was sent to fulfill god's will but here is the statement of the early church and then a list of witnesses and a list of those who would remember and paul says many of them are still alive and chief among them the one whom paul calls kiefers some pronounce it cephas i'm um i always say fast because of the kappa in the greek language but of course it's the name given to simon peter and it's the name given in st john's gospel and in saint john's gospel which we have been studying in a great way and we'll continue with the i am statements next week to study there is a priority of tradition which is coming through which is different from the priority of tradition in mark's gospel in the synoptic gospels but you remember how very early on when andrew brings his brother to jesus simon and jesus looks at him and says you are simon son of john you shall be called kyfas which the evangelist explained is to be translated petros because the word kefas is from the aramaic for solid rock and the evangelist translates it into the greek which people will understand and from which peter takes his name his brother already has a greek name andrew petros petras in the feminine is the solid rock petross is the let's say nickname the familiar fond name which jesus gave to peter we call him peter formally yesterday in the lakeside scene of resurrection which the apostles are now remembering jesus announced his formal name simon son of john do you love me and in the forgiveness he gives and the commission he gives he establishes his foundation stone christ himself of course is our foundation on which we build but here is peter the one in the apostles who will be the solid rock on which that community remembering back to what jesus has said and all the things which are now beginning gently in reflection to make sense to them and the lovely thing is that this name is still there kyfas among the galilean brethren the community of the the lakeside in the beginning the community of men and women who came with jesus from galilee from the lakeside khifas states from there remember how in the um gospel of saint john mary magdalene at the tomb when she recognizes the voice of jesus goes back to the arab aramaic rabbunai and then the evangelist translates that into my teacher and uh here again the aramaic talks of the earliest roots and fondness of that galilean community first called and that's given in most detail in john's gospel where john the baptist points out jesus and says there is the lamb of god and the two disciples of john follow jesus and andrew is one of them and brings his brother who is then called kyfas in the fond aramaic as dates back but these would have known the common greek as well they were they were fishermen trading in that area as jesus had been a carpenter as his father had been and all of that would have been known to him but the familiar language was the aramaic kiphas and paul uses that for peter because that's how the jerusalem church would have known him later in galatians we find that paul goes up to the jerusalem church to test his vocation but meets only two people at that time spends i think ten days there this is galatians chapter one and uh in that early epistle again galatians of saint paul he talks about how he met kyfas and james now we're not talking about the apostles james we're talking about the brother of jesus who is named in the list of those in nazareth and james the just as we normally call him became the leader of the church in jerusalem of the family of joseph and that meant that there was a significance to him now we see that the brothers of jesus who had doubted are there with the mother of jesus in the list of of of those gathered in luke's gospel and in the earliest account in the acts of the apostles but here is james as the leader of the church in jerusalem giving credibility to paul's ministry and we're we're going all the way back here it's a wonderful thing how the memories are being evoked of paul of how he received that he says in galatians it was 14 years before he went back again and then he met what he called the pillars of the church he went with barnabas and again it was kefas peter and james the just and john this time and that needn't surprise us either but it gives us that witness and it also moves me whenever i say the apostles creed the baptismal creed and that happens at the daily offices i believe in god the father almighty maker of heaven and earth and through we go with this testimony from the earliest days of the jerusalem church which is what paul received and now there's a chance for the apostles to sit and remember we read in the account of the cleansing of the temple early instant john's gospel that later on the disciples remembered how he had said these things after he had been raised from the dead they remembered that he had said these things and remembering is a creative activity it's a wonderful thing to do if the memories are being used now in order to go forward reflecting back to go forward in body mind and spirit to go on and have a particular and unique task that god has given to each of us reinforced each day and reinforced by the memories of the early church there are different ways that people remember i'm sitting on a a bench here which uh belonged to friends whom we remember and it's now a bench that we use but very often people want to give benches for people to sit and reflect around the precincts and a tiny plaque is quite often placed on them to remember someone who loved to sit there in years gone by the memory is lovely and at the same time it opens up into an intention and as people walk away there is if they're good memories a sense of well i now see what that person meant by this or i'm now encouraged by their own life and we've had plenty of time to reflect during these mornings and your lenten books the lovely books that you have some of you have shared with me if you live near enough we had a marvelous one sent recently just temporarily because of course it will become very much the property of that person and we give great thanks for the lovely way in which each day of lent the the right up to easter day itself is not only catalogue with little stickers of plants beginning to dry and and be there as a memory of a journey but it's a journey that will go on and all these things in music and birdsong and flowers and and the way in which we've been reminded constantly day by day wonderful paintings have been done and pictures of them have been sent us by folk who are oh on the other side of the united states of america or in canada or uh uh in in in uh areas down in in the the far east in or down in australia these pictures sent saying this is what i thought today and we've no time it's a sadness that to respond to all of them but please be assured that every one of them enriches our own memories and the lovely thing out in the fresh air people often say what have you learned this year well of course those lessons are still to be reflected on but one thing we have learned is that the gospels speak with a freshness out in the fresh air because all the images which jesus is using are around us and the seasons themselves speak of that well this is a morning for memories and as we go on through this day there will be other memories the archbishop of canterbury justin will celebrate and preach at the eucharist in the cathedral this morning at 10 30 and it will be a tribute eucharist to the memory of prince philip we shall have the lord lieutenant of kent and the high sheriff of kent and the lord mayor of the city representing all those who can't be there because the congregation even in the great nave will be fairly few because of the spacing that must go on but nevertheless a small choir will be able to sing in that space and though the people can't sing they will be filled with memories and the archbishop will pay tribute in his sermon to all that this nation has been thinking of since the death of prince philip on friday so as we think together in memory we pray that by grace those memories may be creative but we give thanks for the deep roots not only of the gospel but of the life of the church in its creedal statements and of the epistles which so often give us insights as corinthians did this morning on this day also in 1755 james parkinson was born an english physician who discovered parkinson's disease and his notes were so detailed and complete as he studied it that he laid the foundation for all subsequent research my sister for years had parkinson's disease and was in the end very very disabled indeed but we give thanks for all the way in which she was helped in the early years by the medicines which were able to allow her to continue life uh for probably 20 years or more and it was only at the end that she became so utterly disabled so we give thanks for the work of james parkinson and the research done in 1936 today this is a happy memory the first butlins holiday camp was opened by billy butlin at skegness and it meant that families could go on holiday and have the holiday organized for them and those camps became a feature of english life in the years which followed two political events on this day in 1979 the tanzanian forces which had been sent in to help the ugandan people against the dictatorship of eddie amin the dictator who was responsible for the murder of archbishop danani luwum uh who is remembered in our martyrs chapel the tanzanian forces uh captured kampala and the dictator uh fled to exile in libya meanwhile the government of tan of uganda was restored and the tanzanians withdrew in that point so we give thanks for that and pray for the ugandan peoples on this day and the tanzanian peoples and all our friends there and then in 2019 the sudanese president omar al-bashir who had been president for 30 years was overthrown and arrested by the army in khartoum after that long time in power and we pray therefore for the sovereignty council of sudan in its governing of that nation today so as we pray we will bring our own thoughts and prayers from across the world and we have on the lawn now noises of the cockerel crying which is one of kefas's own memories of his denial and the forgiveness given which strengthened him in his mission as the rock on which jesus was going to build his church we're praying in the anglican communion today of course for justin our archbishop and for the church of the province of the indian ocean pray also again for the church of st george's in deal and it's mission opportunities they're praying for the clergy there sheila porter chris spencer and ben forbes prayed two for rose bishop of dover and tim bishop at lambeth so bring your own prayers as we use the colic for this second sunday in easter tide almighty father you have given your only son to die for our sins and to rise again for our justification grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth through the merits of your son jesus christ our lord amen we say the prayer our savior taught us in whichever language you like to use 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 of silence now for your own memories and intentions on this day [Music] the god of peace who brought again from the dead our lord jesus christ that great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight 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 remember and pray for today and always amen now you