good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of thursday the 3rd of march as we gather from across the world to say our morning prayers welcome wherever you are and bring your own concerns and intentions to our prayers we've come out on this first ordinary morning of lent having kept ash wednesday yesterday to the herb garden part of the kitchen garden here with the greenhouse next to me and the box hedges dividing up the sections of the herb some of the herbs still in leaf because they have survived the winter like the sagebush others are ready to sprout and grow again at this time of year and others will be replanted we're also within the cut flower garden of the deenery which again will be replanted with things and other things will grow up from the roots so it is the most lovely day today it's it's warm and it's got uh a blue sky with a model of white cloud but the sun is shining on me over the roof of the the uh the the buildings here over the wall and uh so we will begin up hello tiger you've joined us this morning um we begin our prayers on this morning and and as we have done for the past days we begin by thinking of the people of ukraine and our hearts ache for them as we as we say our prayers for them uh your screens our screens are filled with the violence of that situation and at the same time with uh speeches from across the world in the united nations and the parliaments of various nations all in amazing support of the ukrainian people we were touched by this the speech of the kenyan representative to the united nations which you can access in the debate a few days ago and he was talking about how in every continent there are strict borders drawn historically but cultures tend to flow across them and it's a sign of maturity when a nation accepts the legal definition of the borders and its integrity as a nation but at the same time can be if you like in a a a multilateral kind of relationship with those around now you can think of that if you're if you're in anywhere in the world um and certainly in europe where the the boundaries of of history tends to cut across various cultures and languages uh you can think of the border between france and spain where there are a multitude of different cultures but the historical boundaries being respected as the limits of the nation as it is now and not trying to roll back the map the kenyan uh spokesman said is a sign of maturity in a nation and taking its place in the world and they recognized he said this was the whole summit of his speech um they recognized the integrity of the borders of ukraine and that that is a sovereign nation so what affects one affects us all all of those things and one thinks yesterday of the standing ovation rarely given in our parliament for the ukrainian ambassador all of those things are saying support but nevertheless our prayers are for those who are suffering appalling violence many deaths and fleeing from their homes with no hope of return crossing borders so we pray also for those welcoming them and uh as as they welcome them giving them hospitality and places to be and feel safe so let's say our prayers on this particular morning as the sun shines on my prayer book o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise hear our voice so lord according to your faithful love according to your judgment give us life blessed are you god of compassion and mercy to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of our sin your light breaks forth like the dawn and your healing springs up for deliverance as we rejoice in the gift of your saving help sustain us with your bountiful spirit and open our lips to sing your 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 our psalm on this third morning of the month is psalm 16 preserve me o god for in you have i taken refuge i have said to the lord you are my lord all my good depends on you all my delight is upon the godly that are in the land upon those who are noble in heart though the idols are legion that many run after their drink offerings of blood i will not offer neither make mention of their names upon my lips the lord himself is my portion and my cup in your hands alone is my fortune my share has fallen in a fair land indeed i have a goodly heritage i will bless the lord who has given me counsel and in the night watches he instructs my heart i have set the lord always before me he is at my right hand i shall not fall wherefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoices my flesh also shall rest secure for you will not abandon my soul to death nor suffer your faithful one to see the pit you will show me the path of life in your presence is the fullness of joy and in your right hand are pleasures forevermore verses in that lovely song to take to heart the idea of the lord instructing one's heart in the night watches but also the benedictine joining together of body mind and spirit in uh verse eight wherefore my heart is glad my spirit rejoices my flesh also shall rest secure and finally and this important for us in a moment you will show me the path of life in your presence is the fullness of joy in your right hand our pleasures forevermore so we go to the gospel of st john once more and we take up from where we left off and we finished chapter three uh on tuesday before we broke for ash wednesday yesterday and now i'm beginning chapter 4 and we shall read up to the end of verse 26 because this is one story and it is another conversation that jesus is having you won't want that like that's your word for the robin not for you you can have this if you want but it's here you are you don't want that here i'll have that uh chapter 4 now when jesus learned that the pharisees had heard that jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than john although jesus himself did not baptize but only his disciples he left judea and departed again for galilee and he had to pass through samaria so he came to a town of samaria called saikar near the field that jacob had given to his son joseph jacobs well was there so jesus tired as he was from his journey was sitting beside the well and it was about the sixth hour a woman from samaria came to draw water jesus said to her give me a drink for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food the samaritan woman said to jesus how is it that you a jew ask for a drink from me a woman of samaria for jews have no dealings with samaritans jesus answered her if you knew the gift of god and who it is it is saying to you give me a drink you would have asked him and he would have given you living water the woman said to jesus sir you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep where do you get that living water are you greater than our father jacob he gave us the well and drank from it himself as did his sons and his livestock jesus said to her everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again but whoever drinks of the water that i will give them will never be sassy again the water that i will give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life the woman said to jesus sir give me this water so that i will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water jesus said to her go call your husband and come here the woman answered him i have no husband jesus said to her you are writing saying i have no husband for you have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband what you have said is true the woman said to him sir i perceive you are a prophet our fathers were shipped on this mountain but you say that in jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship jesus said to her woman believe me the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in jerusalem will you worship the father you worship what you do not know we worship what we know for salvation is from the jews but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth for the father is seeking such people to worship him god is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth the woman said to him i know that messiah is coming he who is called christ when he comes he will tell us all things jesus said to her i who speak to you am he another conversation like the one with nicodemus where the person with whom jesus is talking is thinking of earthly things and he is trying to impart to them heavenly truths we have said that this whole gospel is the unveiling of the gift of the holy spirit which jesus himself has come to give as the free gift the good news from the creator and his whole human life is about the imparting of that gift that spiritual gift in order that earthly life can be enriched but have its horizons made limitless and here is another conversation the second of those conversations that we've heard we've had little conversations between jesus and nathaniel in chapter one uh and jesus and philip all of those going on but the the big conversation the first one with nicodemus why nicodemus who's a teacher of the jews but really can't get his head or his heart or even more his spirit around what jesus is saying and he he keeps relying on earthly experience nicodemus his path his journey from then on we don't know about the way it led what we do know is that he was there at the cross at the end and his past led him through many ways and that conversation with jesus is something that he must have born witness to and on this occasion if you say well who who tells us about the details of this conversation which happened between the woman and jesus no one else was there and the answer is of course well the woman she'd already begun to be an evangelist and a bringer of the evangel the good news of the giving of the spirit which opens human horizons in a limitless way beyond time and she does that the moment she runs back to the city and says come and let me let me show you uh someone who's told me all i ever knew that will happen in the next section of this but for the moment jesus is imparting this knowledge of which she will be the evangelist and let's just think where he is at the moment jesus has gone from galilee down into jerusalem where we saw him teaching and now this section and then then going with his disciples where the disciples were told today jesus didn't baptize but his disciples did his disciples were baptizing with john and the uh pharisees have heard of this and that more people are now going to jesus in john and suspicion the light of suspicion has gone round on to jesus and so jesus has begun to make a journey from that hostility in judea and back to galilee for ministry there but on the way the shortest route is through samaria and he finds himself near the uh samaritan town of samaria of saika in samaria on the slopes of or just below mount jerizim the holy mountain for the samaritans that is what the woman is talking about when she says on this mountain and you say in jerusalem and then jesus begins to answer her but first they have an ordinary conversation and she um when he says to her give me a drink first of all she's surprised that he should be addressing a woman because that was very very uncommon in in public places for a man to address a woman whom he did not know and at the same time that he should be addressing a samaritan for jews as the gospel tells us had no dealings with the samaritans but jesus breaks all those conventions and says to her he's tired he's sitting on the side of the well and he says uh give me a drink and then she says um how is it that you a jew speak to me a woman and a samaritan and he then says if you knew uh who you were talking to you would have asked him and he would have given you living water and the the woman replies i think it's the new english bible that says sir you have no bucket this is a a good thing an ordinary thing for us you've got no bucket how would you get living water our father gave us this well and our forefather jacob and he and his sons and his livestock drank from it but you've got no bucket she is the one with the vessel and he then begins to speak about the gift of the spirit she is earthbound still quite naturally and he's speaking of the gift of the spirit which will become within her if received a wealth spring of living water welling up inside her this image this earthly image of water very much an image of the gift of the spirit he will baptize with the spirit i have baptized with waters as john the baptist the one who is coming after me will baptize with the holy spirit and with fire but water is the image for today and as we think of that then the woman says but um which is right we think as samaritans that we should be worshipping on this mount in mount derision and you as jews think you should be worshipping in jerusalem all shall be worshipping in jerusalem and jesus says woman the hour is coming and even now here time again in sin john's gospel even now here means because of the presence of jesus but we well know that jesus keeps saying in sin john's gospel but the hour is not yet so there's a a a double connotation here the hour is coming and is indeed here when people will worship neither here nor in jerusalem but will worship god in spirit and in truth for the father seeks such to worship him god is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth there's the lesson there's the gift this is what the living water means and it's there laid out in front of the woman but there's more yet because this whole passage and our passage ended with the woman still standing there not having made a response to what jesus says when she says well we know that messiah's coming who is called the christ when he comes he will teach us everything and then perhaps the greatest i am statement of all i who i'm speaking to you the one who is speaking to you am he i am no image except himself it is i i am the one and we we leave that there we'll take it up again tomorrow to see her response but that counts to me as the overarching i am statement for all the others which use illustrations i am the bread of life i am the true vine i am the good shepherd here just his own physical humanity i am he it couldn't be plainer than that and here we go from earthly things to heavenly things because he's already said i am he and can give you this gift which will be as living water welling up inside you a constant spring of the spirit if you knew and we wait with baited breath to see what she has realized for this gospel as we say is one that one can read through life and gain new meaning daily but for the moment the woman's journey her path let's come to that again for jesus is tired from his journey and that's not just the physical journey it's the struggle of making people understand what the gift is if you knew the gift you would ask and you would be given living water the gift of the spirit well we'll go on with that tomorrow but for the moment i just wanted to look at someone we've grown quite used to uh because we were talking about him and reading some of his poetry and a poem by robert frost as well the american poet when we were on the day when elena fargen was being removed to us yesterday we might remember her again with uh morning has broken like the first morning beautiful black bird has spoken like the first bird she was a great friend of edward thomas and his wife helen and i want to come back to them because this was the day the third of march in 1878 when edward thomas was born and for a while he he he took a time to become poetic he was a writer he wrote many things but his poetry blossomed later in life and really is in the few years leading up to the first world war that he himself begins to write most beautiful poetry some quite short often anchored in the natural life of the world and using that as images for the experience he is having probably of course his most famous poem of all is avalstrop which i'm not reading this morning we've read it many times yes i remember adult it says and that took place just before the first world war with all its terrible violence and waste of human life uh actually broke out and we think of him sitting on that train which suddenly stopped in the summer of 1914 no one expecting war at all a bit like us at the moment with this conflict having broken out almost of a clear sky with such violence unleashed across the world and now here's thomas sitting in that train in peaceful england uh as the train went through gloucestershire and oxfordshire and suddenly stopped at adelstrop if you remember and he talks about the silence and that moment of silence which he remembered and then suddenly that silence was broken by the sound of the singing of all the birds of oxfordshire and gloucestershire he says it's a wonderful moment just a moment a short poem and it's it's a poem it's it's it's good to know but it's not that one i want to think of this morning because thomas is someone who helps us understand that in life there are many choices to be made and some of them are really hard so that his friendship and close companionship with robert frost the the american parish who wrote probably uh one of america's best known poems which we've read again recently so i'm not going to read it again this morning the road not taken and sent it to thomas as a reminder of a day when out on one of their walks and that was in hampshire they came to a place where the path divided and they had to make a choice and that became a symbol to frost of choices in life and to thomas of choices in life but was significant for thomas because edward thomas at that time was living in hampshire near the village of steep and uh this is where he is much remembered still with a four mile circular walk which begins at steep church on the hampshire downs and goes on a circular walk and goes very very high as it rises up on mutton hill and looks at a huge landscape and then comes back through woody places and back to the chat shard so it's from the churchyard all the way around and you can walk it to the churchyard and on the on the the the highest point i think on mutton hill uh um there's a a plaque a stone plaque which says this hillside is dedicated to the memory of edward thomas poet born 3rd of march 1878 killed in the battle of aris 9th of april 1917 and then a quotation from one of his pieces of writing which ends one of his pieces of writing and i rose and knew that i was tired and continued my journey continued the path what does that tiredness mean well i think it's a mixture of all kinds of things he's tired with the choices he has to make he's tired from the journey he's making but he's weary and body mind and spirit because this huge war has broken out and his choices are in two different directions he is in hampshire robert frost now no longer a companion in his walks and at home with helen and elena fargen talking about the the poetry they're doing he has gone back to the united states to new hampshire and edward thomas has already decided that he and helen and the children are going to go and emigrate to new hampshire hampshire to new hampshire that's one choice the other choice is that he feels that he ought to stand bravely with his country in this war there's no conscription yet and here's a poem called the path and it's written in 1915 and it talks about the path that his children run along and run down to the preparatory school of b dales where they go to school and they run down the path having having skated along the path and with woodlands and steep banks on both sides and this is his image of that path which the children have a better imagination about than adults the path running along a bank a parapet that saves from the precipitous wood below the level road there is a path it serves children for looking down the long smooth steep between the legs of beach and you to where a fallen tree checks the site while men and women content themselves with the road and what they see over the bank and what the children tell the path winding like silver trickles on bordered and even invaded by thinnest moss that tries to cover roots and crumbling chalk with gold olive emerald but in vain the children wear it they have flattened the bank on top and silvered it between the moss with the current of their feet year after year but the road is houseless and leads not to school to see a child is rather and the eye has but the road the wood that overhangs and overhawns it and the past it looks as if it led onto something legendary or a fancied place where men have wished to go and stay till suddenly it ends where the wood ends well there's a passage where the path seems like the silver stream of the spirit and it's a path that has been worn the children wear it that means wearing it with their feet they have made the path but on each side they see all kinds of things with the imagination of a child and they skip along the path in a way that men and women don't they keep their eyes on the road and the dangers on each side but to the children there is excitement and running down to school and then notice the poem changes and thomas is on a road that you don't find children running along it's now the path of life and going on to where the wood ends 1915 and he made his decision he would not go to new hampshire instead he would go to war and so many people are making decisions for ukraine in ukraine at the moment that they're going to risk their life to serve others in their need in this violent situation thomas went to war and never came back he was shot uh cleanly through the chest on the 9th of april in 1917 in the battle of maris we remember those quiet significant moments in his life of total peace like adelstrop where the journey stopped and as the psalmist said that the lord instructed his heart in the night watches well this wasn't this was on a train where people kept silent and we're looking out at the beautiful countryside of peaceful england in the summer and all the bird sounds of oxford showing gloucestershire we have great tits singing here this morning in a great way as well as of course the little roosters in their imprisonment for the avian flu but uh thomas gives us that moment in adulthood he gives us a moment when he sees farmyards with tall nettles in that lovely pond tall nettles and that we think of with the fields and woods and farms of ukraine in all its beauty this morning but also the choices that people are having to make and pathways which they want to make safe again for the imagination of the children but pathways to where always the gift of the spirit can be realized and recognized and so let's give thanks for his poetry but also for the choices that we ourselves have to make and the choices that are being offered to the woman at the well by jesus himself if you knew the gift of god and who it is saying to you give me a drink you would have asked him and he would have given you living water and then that great overarching sentence at the end when the woman has said we know that when the messiah is coming who is called christ he will teach us all things and then the great overarching i am statement with jesus is humanity as the only image i the one who is speaking to you am he let's say our prayers then on this first ordinary morning of lent we're praying in the anglican communion for the diocese of kibondo in the anglican church of tanzania and we're praying in our diocese for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for emma bishop at lambeth and at the same time today for a group of parishes which calls themselves the kingswood benefits and they are the villages of cholak where we have many friends it's a high point uh on the road which eventually will lead down to ashford uh but as far as working there very high point lovely village many friends there but it's always the first place that gets snow in winter long before canterbury ever gets it uh chilum where there is the most wonderful castle uh and uh it was the site of one of uh caesar's encampments when he came here uh gomesham which is uh gomesham park so associated with the jane austen story her brother uh i think edward knight and the the family owned the the uh the gomerchan park he had been given to the knights because they had no children and the austrians had too many and so jane would go and stay with her brother there and it's thought to be the site of several of her novels and and the people who were there uh also were instrumental and in images for her books but it thought that mansfield park was composed in one of the follies that stand there uh so a nice association with the novelist jane austen crondale one to us that's the site of the campuses pub which serves one of the best sunday lunches if you go out there and mo lash so those villages cholak ochilum gomesham crondale molash and the person who is looking after them is catherine sigrist and we pray for her in her ministry and karen burgess the assistant curat there and pray also for the life of saint mary church of england primary school there so let's say our own prayers here's the collect and bring your intentions and prayers as we pray together almighty and everlasting god you hate nothing that you have made and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent create and make in us new and contrite hearts that we worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness may receive from you the god of all mercy perfect remission and forgiveness through jesus christ our lord amen so we say together 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 forever and ever are men moment now of reflection as we remember the story of jesus by the well and also the decisions offered in our choices in the path of life [Music] [Music] is is [Music] come by [Music] my love my heart [Music] not [Music] [Music] christ give you grace to grow in holiness to deny yourself take up your cross daily and follow him and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you from those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always are men well fletcher has by special request asked that azelstrop be red so we'll do that now i can do it on the phone as he keeps reminding me here it is yes i remember adlestrop the name because one afternoon of heat the express train drew up there unwoundedly it was late june the steam hissed someone cleared his throat no one left and no one came on the bear platform what i saw was addlestop only the name and willows willow herb and grass and meadowsweet and haycocks no wit less still and lonely affair than the high cloudlets in the sky and for that minute a blackbird sang close by and round him mistia father and father all the birds of oxfordshire and gloucestershire just a moment of memory from edward thomas on that afternoon of peace before the conflagration happened okay sorry i'm sitting on a high stool here you can't sit on my lap it's a bit of a slope sorry [Music] you