good morning and welcome on this first day of september to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral as we say our morning prayers wherever you are please feel welcome you're looking at me i think up a very long path because today when we get to our reading of the acts of the apostles it is the story of the conversion of saint paul on the damascus road but first let's think about other things associated with this day this is the feast day september the first of giles of provence he was a saint who is best known for in his attempt to live a solitary life in the woods near neem the end of the river rhone and that huge way in which it spreads out into the mediterranean sea went into the woods and was keeping company by a hind a female red deer who in the tradition gave him sustenance with her own milk the king of that area discovered him inadvertently while hunting and in hunting behind they shot an arrow which most stories say the saint took by shielding the deer and so in his pictures always there is the deer his companion and also the arrow quite often sticking into his leg he became one of the patron saints of disabled people but the king then built him a monastery and he lived out the benedictine rule there still in quietude but in the companionship of a community there so we give thanks for st giles we have a special icon of st giles in the crypt of the cathedral in the beautiful chapel of st gabriel and it's in memory of a young man who died just a few years ago now whom we all loved dearly who was the son of our one of our cathedral families and uh when he died he had been for some years the manager of the upstairs of waterstones bookstore and always going to see giles was a way of making the morning interesting because he always knew which new books were there and the sort of things that you would like so we remember him this morning as well and give thanks for him um if you look at the the dates there and i'm just going to just go down very quickly on the list of dates connected with today some seem very small it's the death of the last passenger pigeon masa in cincinnati zoo in 1914 these beautiful birds had been hunted to the extinction of their species and on this day the last one died showing how fragile creation is the birth of edward allen one of the major elizabethan actors was in 1566 he was born but he founded alain's school and dullich college reminding us that many school children start school today and many members of staff go in as teachers in a really dangerous and different world with the pandemic and so we pray for all of those and shall do over the next few days because schools begin this week and next in in this country we see the birth of the composer joanne packlebel well known for his canon which uh the tune of which most of you will know the death of siegfried sassoon in 1967 who was enormously affected by the experience he had in the trenches in the first world war and had to wrestle with all kinds of shall we say demons but stood as a champion from that moment forward for folk who were facing those kinds of dangers because he remembered the death of so many of his men over whom he'd been an officer death of pope adrian iv as i say that's the only english pope nicholas breakspear in 1159 but at dawn on this day in 1939 germany invaded poland and started the second world war by that activity and in 1985 after 73 years robert ballard discovered the wreck of the titanic the liberty bell arrived in philadelphia on this day the first supermarket was opened in england in 1951 and in breslan in russia on this day the appalling uh captivity and then death of the school children in besdan school by chechen rebels 333 deaths and this also is world letter writing day well now what i pick out from all of that is the sense of things lost and things found and nothing being too small for our notice in this fragile world we'll come back to that as we reflect on the conversion of saint paul let's begin our morning prayers on this first day of the month o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the true the only light banish all darkness from our hearts and minds 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 oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen so we go to our morning psalm which naturally enough on this first day of the month is psalm 1 blessed are they who have not walked in the council of the wicked nor lingered in the way of sinners nor sat in the assembly of the scornful their delight is in the law of the lord and they meditate on his law day and night like a tree planted by streams of water bearing fruit in due season with leaves that do not wither whatever they do it shall prosper as for the wicked it is not so with them they are like chaff which the wind blows away therefore the wicked shall not be able to stand in the judgment nor the sinner in the congregation of the righteous for the lord knows the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked shall perish so let's turn to the acts of the apostles and we are beginning our reading this morning in chapter 9 at the first verse but saul still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the lord went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at damascus so that if he found any belonging to the way men or women he might bring them bound to jerusalem now as he went on his way he approached damascus and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him and falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him saul saul why are you persecuting me and he said who are you lord and he said i am jesus whom you are persecuting but rise and enter the city and you will be told what you are to do the men who were traveling with saul stood speechless hearing the voice but seeing no one saul rose from the ground and although his eyes were opened he saw nothing so they led him by the hand and brought him into damascus and for three days he was without sight and neither etched nor drank now there was a disciple at damascus named ananias the lord said to him in a vision ananias and he said here i am lord and the lord said to him rise and go to the street called straight and at the house of judas look for a man of tarsus named saul for behold he is praying and he has seen in a vision a man named ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight but ananias answered lord i have heard from many about this man how much evil he has done to your saints at jerusalem and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name but the lord said to him go for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the gentiles and kings and the children of israel for i will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name so ananias departed and entered the house and laying his hands on him he said brother saul the lord jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the holy spirit and immediately something like scales fell from saul's eyes and he regained his sight then he rose and was baptized and taking food he was strengthened this is a story with much background which luke really has not had time to sketch because it is a massive background and it has become a really violent background and also a context which opens out into a future which we do well to allow to take its course and not to concertina for saul we met first at the stoning of stephen where he was one who was consenting he even held the coats of the two witnesses and in jewish law the witnesses were the ones who cast the first stones but from then on he ravaged the followers of the way there was something about saul which was completely root and branch about everything he did and it all began with enormous violence let's make no bones about this saul's hands were covered in blood he himself later on when he tells the story in the acts of the apostles of his own conversion and he does that twice we hear this story three times in the acts of the apostles it's slightly different each time because it's a long memory back but he tells it again and in it he makes no bones about the fact that he seeks not only the imprisonment but the death of these people he votes for their death and that death meant stoning like stephen his hands were covered in blood he seized men and women destroying families involving children it had to and when he had finished in jerusalem he still hadn't had enough he went to the high priest to get letters to eradicate this evil this festering saw as he saw it within the context of his traditional way of faith as a pharisee brought up impeccably trying not to put a foot wrong but finding all the time and we know this from his own letters finding all the time that something inside him whenever he was trying to do good and obey the law was causing him to be tempted in other directions we go back to central augustine whom we were with it the other days into augustine hippo and here he is now not content with trying to eradicate these followers of the way in his own territory but gaining authority from the chief priests it was a doubtful authority to go to damascus which was one of the ten towns of the decapolis well outside the boundaries of that particular province and he was going along the road to damascus what was in his mind what was in his head what was in his life at that time what was in his dreams on his bed the screams of christians probably saying why why why are you persecuting us the body of christ shouting out to him these followers of the way and then suddenly on the way to damascus it all became too much and the the light shone on him and he saw fell to the ground in this story his companions who are probably terrified at what's happening violently to their leader are dumbstruck but they hear the conversation i don't know how much they hear they certainly hear saul's voice in the next telling of the story they see the light but they hear nothing he had to be led blind into the city and there how brave this man ananias who clearly has heard from the followers of the way there are greek speaking christians in that particular place well outside the authority of the chief priest but no doubt the chief priests had influence with king aritas of that area and we read later in uh the letters of of saint paul that in i think the second corinthians that it's the ethnic of king aritas who had influence in the city of the decapolis who is is forcing him after his baptism to escape by being lowered by the basket we have to remember that for ananias this was a matter of life and death he probably has wrestled on his bed before the certainty comes because the followers of the way the greek speaking christians of the decapolis knew what this man meant knew that it meant death for them and their families if he was allowed to bind them and carry them to really a foreign land back to jerusalem and ananias bravely goes to see paul and says brother saul and in laying his hands on then all those voices and the voice of jesus himself begin to come together and in his blindness saul fasting and praying prepares for baptism and is baptized and then later has to be smuggled out of the city that trauma that scar that old soul has been quelled defeated changed and converted but as in peter's story of the massive moment in his life when he denies his lord saul even when he becomes paul can never forget it it's the determining factor and the blood that was on his hands well he has to repent for and my goodness he does in all those journeys but let's not concertina that for we learn in the letter to the galatians for example just how long it took for him we're talking about three years of preparation 14 years before he returns to jerusalem so 3 and 14 17 years we're talking about and in all that time he's i think preaching in towns which are nothing to do with judea the nabataean kingdom of of king arritas and the towns of the decapolis were fruitful ministry just as we saw philip the evangelist going off to minister in caesarea on the coastline of the mediterranean the church will spread but don't let's imagine this all happened in a moment let's see saul in that time that hidden time of those years when he came to terms with his new vocation i said in the list of all the things that we were thinking about there's a sense of not one living creature being lost in god's sight from martha the last passenger pigeon to every soul on the titanic to every child in basra in that that desperate uh assassination of the children and i'm i'm thinking that we could go through the whole list again and at beslan getting the name wrong the in russia that is just a sign of of the way in which humanity has the capacity to destroy but god to remember how many children perished in poland how many people perished in poland as this conflict started who can say but on this day as we remember the fragility of human life but also the ability also in hearing the good news to repent and to begin a different kind of vocation even though we have been created by all that has gone before for those experiences have helped to make us in that way we remember this morning the conversion of saint paul we remember all those tragedies but we also remember the creativity that was going on in so many places and the way in which dials are provence in the companionship first of the red deer and of his own community with the wounds still in his leg of the way in which he took the arrow intended for another creature and we remember our lord's own description of how no sparrow falls without god knowing and how every hair in our head is numbered and so we turned to the lord this morning in prayer ananias was told i want you to to see a man named saul for he is praying and he went and said brother saul this is world letter writing day so i think one of the most encouraging things maybe we can do today is to write a letter or an email or a text or communicate in some way someone who might need us to do that on this day [Applause] let's uh say our prayers for this day remembering all those things that we have thought about and binding them into the colleagues for this day but first we'll look at the calendar for our anglican communion and we're praying for the diocese of ondo in nigeria with stephen oni the bishop there and his people the diocese of calabar in nigeria and tunde adelie the bishop there and his people and the diocese of the congo of kinshasa in the congo and akili mutshindu and his people as we pray for them here in this diocese we pray for archbishop justin for bishop rose of dover for bishop tim at lambeth and also for the parish of warmer and cornillo with seth cooper the parish priest sir carolyn wood the assistant curious stephen o'connor and all the folk in that particular part of our diocese as i said we remember all those starting school today children and staff and parents nervously letting their children go to school for the first time for many months we pray for all your concerns across the world and give thanks that the fragility of creation is in the creator's hands but it is within our power to destroy or create during the day [Music] almighty and everlasting god you are always more ready to hear than we to pray and to give more than either we desire or deserve pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy for giving us those things of which our conscience is afraid and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask but through the merits and mediation of jesus christ your son our lord so as we bring our prayers together in the prayer that our lord taught us we call to mind those whom we would want to pray for and those whom we would want to encourage on this particular day and we bring penitence for the past and thanksgiving for the gift of forgiveness through the holy spirit 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 as we say our own prayers on this day and as we use this image of the path and simple's journey we think of our own journey of faith and that to which god calls us as we go further step by step 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 now and always amen