good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this thursday the 24th of february we've come just outside into a morning of weeping drenching rain but it almost suits the mood both of our reflection but also of our thoughts and prayers as this terrible conflict between russia and ukraine and all the tensions of the world of europe and the whole world are on us this morning we lament all that is going on and and pray for some kind of influence for good in that but meanwhile our prayers are for the ukrainian people and the russian people in that area where now there is real physical danger and enormous tension which has uh bursts beyond the control of diplomacy as we speak this morning and our hearts are are really um sad for that situation and yet all we can do is i keep saying is undergird that with prayer and although we've come out into a raining weeping gray morning and around us see this the winter is it still has the leaves of the trees in its grip and the bare branches show that and so much of the dead foliage still here but little points of light in the middle of that little points of hope of a new spring a new beginning but at present we just hold the situation in our prayers and rejoice that we can do that together right across the world breaking all barriers by this means of coming together in prayer so let's say our prayers on this particular day and we say them with sadness for the world situation [Applause] oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise hear our voice o lord according to your faithful love according to your judgment give us life blessed are you sovereign god our light and our salvation to you be glory and praise forever you gave your christ as a light to the nations and through the anointing of the spirit you established us as a royal priesthood as you call us into your marvelous light may our lives bear witness to your truth and our lips never cease to proclaim 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 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 morning of the month the 24th morning of the month is psalm 116 i love the lord for he has heard the voice of my supplication because he inclined his ear to me on the day i called to him the snares of death encompassed me the pains of hell took hold of me by grief and sorrow was i held then i called upon the name of the lord o lord i beg you deliver my soul gracious is the lord and righteous our god is full of compassion the lord watches over the simple i was brought very low and he saved me [Applause] turn again to your rest o my soul for the lord has been gracious to you for you have delivered my soul from death my eyes from tears and my feet from falling i will walk before the lord in the land of the living i believe that i should perish for i was sorely troubled and i said in my alarm everyone is a liar how shall i repay the lord for all the benefits he has given to me i will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the lord i will fulfill my vows to the lord in the presence of all his people precious in the sight of the lord is the death of his faithful servants o lord i am your servant your servant the child of your handmaid you have freed me from my bonds i will offer to you a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call upon the name of the lord i will fulfill my vows to the lord in the presence of all his people in the courts of the house of the lord in the midst of you o jerusalem hallelujah [Applause] so we turn to our lesson and there's no need to introduce a new book of samuel we're going into the second book of samuel as i said just for two or three mornings to establish david on his throne in jerusalem but for this morning we begin the second book of samuel it was totally one book when the book was written and was separated i think for reasons of scroll storage and things of that sort afterwards so we're really continuing the same book as we begin chapter one of uh to samuel and i am going to read some of that chapter today it's a long chapter but i want to complete it to the end so there are bits and pieces which fit ill with facts that we've heard from the last chapter of the death of saul and jonathan but nevertheless this is how the news reaches david [Applause] after the death of saul when david had returned from striking down the amalekites david remained two days in ziklag and on the third day behold a man came from king saul's camp with his clothes torn and dirt on his head and when he came to david he fell to the ground and paid homage david said to the man where do you come from and the man said i have escaped from the camp of israel david said to him how did it go tell me and the man answered the people fled from the battle and also many of the people have fallen and are dead and king saul and his son jonathan are also dead then david said to the young man who told him how do you know that saul and his son jonathan are dead and the young man who told him said by chance i happened to be on mount gilboa and there was saul leaning on his spear and behold the chariots and the horsemen were close upon him and when he looked behind him he saw me and called to me and i answered here i am and he said to me who are you i answered i am an amalekite and he said to me stand beside me and kill me for anguish has seized me and yet my life still lingers so i stood beside him and killed him because i was sure that he could not live after he had fallen and i took the crown that was on his head and the armlet that was on his arm and i have brought them here to you my lord [Applause] then david took hold of his clothes and tore them and so did all the men who were with him and they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for saul and for jonathan his son and for the people of the lord and for the house of israel because they had fallen by the sword and david lamented with this lamentation over saul and jonathan his son [Applause] and he said this song of the bow should be taught to the people of judah and behold it is now written in the book of jasha david said the beauty of israel is slain upon your high places how are the mighty fallen tell it not in gath publish it not in the streets of ashkelon lest the daughters of the philistines rejoice lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult would you mountains of gilboa let there be no dew or rain upon you nor fields of offerings for there the shield of the mighty was defiled the shield of soul not anointed with oil from the blood of the slain from the fat of the mighty the bow of jonathan turned not back and the sword of saul returned not empty [Applause] saul and jonathan beloved and lovely in life and in death they were not divided they were swifter than eagles they were stronger than lions you daughters of israel weep over saul who closed you luxuriously in scarlet who put ornaments of gold on your apparel how are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle jonathan lies slain on your high places i am distressed for you my brother jonathan very pleasant have you been to me [Applause] your love for me was extraordinary surpassing the love of women [Applause] how are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished [Applause] it's one of the most beautiful canticles in the scriptures and i suppose we important to be surprised because david is the emblem of psalm writing and we're even given the name of the tune that this psalm was sung to by the people the song of the bow [Applause] and possibly even that was named because of course jonathan and david's last meeting was when jonathan was using that bow to shoot arrows in protection of david the trick they had worked out whereby jonathan could let him know whether or not it was safe for him to come back home to the palace with jonathan or needed to flee because saul was intent on taking his life and we saw that sad passing and the fact that david went off when they said their farewells in the field jonathan went back to his royal duties and david went off not knowing where he was going to go and now the news of saul's death and jonathan's death but also the death of so many that david and the young men around him would have known and so they spend their time in grief and set aside the days for mourning [Applause] i think it's one of those things that we need to recognize in ourselves that cheerfulness is not always going to be the pattern of what we sing or say or feel because this kind of grief and utter desolation is part of our humanity and leads us to be better human beings if we embrace and recognize it and on a day like this when the world is in such military tension and turmoil and people are already losing their lives in violent situations of war on a day like this then grief is proper to all we do but this is also a song of deep personal lament we've seen on the way through to this moment how people have risked their lives for the welfare and safety jonathan risking his life for the welfare and safety of david and also david risking his life in a strange way to honor saul he's never given up his loyalty and now any sort of reconciliation been put out of his head by this violent death of the king to whom he has always shown loyalty and honor despite the violence shown to him by saul and then at the same time remember the witch of endor on the outskirts of society people like her banned and shunned by the power of the king and yet when she sees king saul lying on the ground in fear and terror her one thought is to give food and something that will give him um strengths physical strength to go onwards with his own journey these people are putting their own lives at risk for another and these are acts of grace and the end of the the tragic end of what we call the first book of samuel is just given mother like these lovely little daffodils around signs of grace in the middle of what is terror and rage and anger and violence and in the end the death of so many in battle including king saul and jonathan himself this is a canticle of lament song like that is generally called a trinity could be called also maybe an elegy and we use them really whenever we gather to share people's grief yesterday i had a funeral here in the crips of the most wonderful lady who lived to be the age of 94. and so there was great grief but there was also a sense of celebration for that long life and one had to try to encapsulate both the grief and the mourning and the tears of the family and those who had known and loved her and she was well known and loved she was quite a focus for all kinds of lovely social things and she'd been a focus at any social gathering in a wonderful way but so faithful and loyal to so many shall we say charitable causes which helped others throughout her life and the things that were said afterwards at the reception those stories our stories also of sadness but also of do you remember when and as human beings we do do that [Applause] today we have a much much bigger service and we're honoring someone who died at the age of 92 who had been who played for england in football he was a member of charlton athletic but at the same time was a man of kent as they say and had played cricket for the county of kent and so the cathedral today will be filled and it can now once again be filled with those who will want to come and give thanks but also we shall be surrounding his widow and family with our prayers and there will be sorry moments of grief when the family give a lovely tribute and it will be an intimate tribute i want to say that today has a sense of um endings becoming new beginnings because the very last huge service that we held in the cathedral here in 2020 before suddenly we were locked down and entered these strange months of the last two years um the last service we held of that kind was a service to give thanks for the 150 years of the life of the kent cricket club and again the place was absolutely filled with people and the story of those years was told and the memories afterwards at the reception in the same way and then suddenly down came the stopper on all social activity we found ourselves locked in and i looked back as so many did to that moment as the last moment of the the old way of doing things and now today this is a day i've said it's a day of grief because of the situation in ukraine and russia of course it is but it's also a day when here in england many rules are relaxed and so on this 24th of february there is a sense of stepping out into something which feels freer and once again we have a huge service with the kent county cricket club but also representatives of charlton athletic football club coming to give thanks for sporting activity and for one who ran the straight race and we remember sin paul's image of the athlete and the football team is called charlton athletic in the the exalting of the strength of the physical as well as exalting in the strength of our memories and our thinking in a mental way and coming to a place which is a holy place without spiritual dimension with the the sense of that which is beyond uh and uh there's always a tradition that at these great cricketing occasions if we're singing at him it has to be the hymn jerusalem and did those feet in ancient times walk upon england's mountains green blake's vision of the new jerusalem uh and that and the the the weapons and their spiritual weapons and mental weapons used sometimes physical weapons used to build it so all of that will happen today here at 11 o'clock and that ends back on march the 4th 2020 when the last huge service before lockdown was held and a new beginning on this february the 24th now 2022 we couldn't have believed at that time this would go on so long gives a sense of how endings can become new beginnings and things will be done differently but there is a hope like the little daffodils with their light on this gray dark morning of rain weeping from the heavens of hope opening up once again but yet that kind of music that lamentation that energy that sense of what will come in the eulogy very or word quite like it uh from the family when they speak today but we do use music in that way and the scriptures use that too some of the psalms are laments the whole book of lamentations a lament for the over the ruins of the city of jerusalem and its people taken into exile but we use music and we shall use this in the reflection like samuel barber's adagio which we last used on the anniversary of 911 but that piece has become associated with the sense of lament over our human condition and tragic death sometimes of thousands we use in services of memory um elgar's nimrod which he wrote for his friend whom he jaeger and jaeger in german is a huntsman and of course nimrod was the mighty hunter in in the bible and so for her love of his friend elgar wrote that that elegy almost um for jaeger and called it nimrod and it's one of the the things that we we tend to play at services of memory walford davis's solemn melody or george soldenball's elegy on the organ all of those things really do give us that sense of the fact that there is music of lamentation and music of grief and poetry of lamentation and poetry of grief which can open out into new horizons as well as they as that poetry goes forward but grief and the days set aside for grieving which we see going on with david and those around him and at the moment the fact that the king's crown has been brought to him means absolutely nothing for his heart is broken by the death of jonathan and let's say also by the death of saul for he had always honored the anointed king the kingship will now pass from the tribe of benjamin which saul and jonathan belong to to the tribe of judah uh the royal line of david from the tribe of judah but for the moment there is in david's heart nothing but grief and we give thanks for the beauty of that canticle and also for the ability of poets and musicians through the ages in every culture to provide us with music for grief as well as music for joy for both wring out the emotions of our humanity and make us better people more compassionate people more aware of ourselves and more aware of what we really do treasure in one another and those things are really things to think about on a morning like this when such a devastating scene of war has opened out right in the heart of europe and people are in real danger i should um i should have perhaps said but let's put it now i'm i'm i'm doing really just one date today and that is the fact that on this day according to the um histories the 24th of february 616 king ethelbert of kent died and um that therefore is a year's mind but the liturgical calendar keep him tomorrow keeps him tomorrow the liturgical calendars i should say both of the roman catholic church and of the anglican church and also of the eastern orthodox church keeps the memory of king ethelbert and all that he did to assist in the shall we say replanting of the christian gospel in this land for it had been here in the last years of the roman occupation and those who had been christian had fled far west so that in coming here augustine found a pagan land but ethelbert of course had married a christian princess uh birther daughter of the king of the franks and was already ready here with a priest in st martin's church and uh here is the the the site of the palace of ethelbert and bursa and we shall come to all that tomorrow which will be the proper day to remember what ethelbert and bhasa did for the the christian faith here in kent and then on in these islands i did want to say we are fast approaching lent itself so uh next wednesday will be ash wednesday march the 2nd and as with last year we're intending to begin a little journey together and we would like you to provide yourself with a notebook quite a simple notebook it doesn't have to be anything special at all and each day once again we will pluck from all that we are experiencing the little sprig of something we need to remember and uh this was prompted just one lovely thing that's happened to us today or one sentence of learning or something of that kind that we we've learned and i think i think i think the rain has gone off a bit but uh i can actually be dripped on heavily by the the tree above me so i might come now i'm going to just step forward and get ups go forward towards the camera because pleasure can give you this so here we are get back to my seat under this dripping tree oops there we are um this little book was given to him uh by chris pascal who's the head of our visits and it's it's a book called uh what i did today and it's it's called a one good thing one line a day journal and uh as you open it then you can put your own months and years and everything else and down the side simply are one two three four five six one line and uh we're not going to suggest that you you you buy a book like this it don't it gave us the idea with all the green leaves on it and i think um chris pascal and she is always an encourager in in our life uh gave it to fetcher as a sign of encouragement in these times but what he's asking for is really just one line uh we we have uh friends the dean of rochester and his wife i may have said this before that when we go to to have any meal with them uh very often the people around the table do i think called pits and peaks which means that everyone uh and if it's in the evening you've had the whole day everyone has to say what was the best thing about today and what was the worst thing about today for them and you have to think almost sort of on the spur at the moment and be as absolutely honest as you like and there's much laughter and much teasing and all the rest of it and and everyone has a go at that it actually does open up conversation magnificently around the table because nobody escapes who's sitting there there are guests there then all of the rest of it and sometimes with uh even the the the uh dogs or cats that are in the room uh it's done for them it's clearly the best day of and we could do that the best point of leo's life today or the best point of of of lilly's life today all of those things but we're only wanting one thing of learning or of development or of just setting you back on your heels and thinking well i'd never thought that before or yes i actually do need to learn that lesson now the the great thing about any kind of diary and diurnal as uh where that comes from is that the rain's gone off it must be daily and uh if you set yourself too hard a task and say well i will do this and you know a whole paragraph and this and that i know if i do that it's just not going to succeed because there'll be days when i can't do it and the essence of all this is if you miss a day it's missed you go on to the day it has to be immediate and you can choose to do it at the end of the day or whenever you like but it's an essence of as the book says what i did today one good thing one line and then if you want to do other you know longer lines on some days when you have time fine but don't miss it and don't miss the line as we go through and i think it'll be both fun but also shall we say salutary and educative and whatever words of that kind you like to use to do together as we once again set out on a journey of lent right across the world and it's a time when some days will be full of brightness and joy and some days will be days that are just um should we say gray and some days might be really difficult ones when life seems hard and and you never quite know how a day will be doing that but we remember with our opening sentences that it's always the gift of a new day and at the same time we are set to offer ourselves in thanksgiving to that day knowing that in our prayers asking for forgiveness at the beginning of the day then there is a sense of fresh new beginnings of what that day might bring i read psalm 116 um i could have read this morning psalm 118 which is another of the morning psalms and in that we have the verse which is a lovely verse this is the day that the lord has made we will rejoice and be glad in it doesn't say if it's a nice day or if we get on pretty well in this day it simply says this is the day that the lord has made we will rejoice and be glad in it because we are messengers of the good news and the good news is given in grief and in sorry and in situations of real tension and also in days of rejoicing and gladness when the light of the daffodils is very much shining with hopes of new beginnings so i hope that will be a nice journey to make together as we go up from ash wednesday all through those six and a half weeks to easter day so let's see our prayers on this particular morning uh we are praying this morning for in the communion for the diocese of mount kenya west in the anglican church of can of kenya we pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover and for emma bishop at lambeth and today we're praying together with the diocese for people who are homeless and the work of the canterbury chaplain to the homeless the reverend joe richards who is also priest in charge of our nearby churches of saint dunstan st mildred and saint peter in canterbury and so we we remember those churches and of course the ministry to the homeless at this time let's then say the prayer that is the prayer for this week and this is the second sunday before lent and we're praying this prayer together from right across the world almighty god you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image teach us to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children through jesus christ your son our lord who with you in the holy spirit reigns supreme over all things now and forever are men so each in our own language across the world as we hold this desperate situation of military conflicts in our hearts and minds 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 amen moment of reflection now as we listen to music which is very much a lamentation barbara zidaggio [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and of 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 are men and we have to remember our own queen's sentence at the time of 9 11 grief is the price we pay for love