good morning it's may the first so welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this lovely morning here when everything is all blossomed we had to come to the orchard and here we are in the deanery orchard with cherry blossom and apple blossom and pear blossom aplenty on this morning of the first month of may of a morning of the first day of the month of may and we give thanks for all the blossom and growth of springtime wherever you are in the world you may be in a completely different season but the way the seasons pass becomes so important to our thinking and our imaginings as we found out as a garden congregation i wanted today to begin with a joyous happy birthday to one of our dearest friends joanna and we say have a really happy birthday and extend also our love to stephen her husband on this day we hope that they will share that birthday together and also i wanted to say a prayer for the reverend donnie dunn after his long ministry in south virginia he suffered a really bad fallen accident and now is on life support so we pray for him and for his wife mary donnie a massive fan of c.s lewis throughout his ministry and uh said um i believe in christianity as i believe in the sun rising not because i see it but because by its light i see everything else so we pray for donny in the hands of god this morning so let's say our prayers in this easter season bring your own concerns for the many areas of our world which need our prayers oh 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 firstfruits 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 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 first day of a new month is quite naturally 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 besides 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 a short sound which begins the salter which daily we take lessons and images from now today is since philippines and james day and i'm reading from the gospel of st john special lessons for a special saints day and so we are keeping that day and i'm starting in st john with verse 35 of chapter one the next day again john the baptist was standing with two of his disciples and he looked at jesus as he walked by and said behold the lamb of god the two disciples heard him say this and they followed jesus jesus turned and saw them following and said to them what are you seeking and they said to him rabbi which means teacher where are you staying he said to them come and you will see so they came and saw where he was staying and they stayed with him that day for it was about the tense hour one of the two who heard john speak and followed jesus was andrew simon peter's brother he first found his own brother simon and said to him we have found the messiah which means christ he brought him to jesus jesus looked at him and said you are simon the son of john you shall be called which means peter the rock the next day jesus decided to go to galilee he found philip and said to him follow me now philip was from beside her the city of andrew and peter philip found nathanael and said to him we have found him of whom moses in the law and also the prophets wrote jesus of nazareth the son of joseph nathaniel said to him can anything good come out of nazareth philip said to him come and see jesus saw nathanael coming towards him and said of him behold an israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit but nathaniel said to jesus how do you know me jesus answered him before philip called you when you were under the fig tree i saw you nathaniel answered him rabbi you are the son of god you are the king of israel jesus answered him because i said to you i saw you under the fig tree do you believe you will see greater things than these and he said to nathaniel truly truly i say to you you will see heaven opened and the angels of god ascending and descending on the son of man well a little bit of detective work and a bit of my own thinking has caused me to enlarge that bit of the gospel of saint john i very much believe john like mark is full of original sources and has been those sources have been put together to form the last gospel by the evangelist in a wonderful way but here we have a group of galileans around the river jordan and they are listening to and probably all of them have been baptized by john the baptist and two of them two disciples of john the baptist are said to be with him when john sees jesus walk by and says there is the lamb of god and one of the disciples we know was andrew the other is unnamed but he's with andrew and the two disciples go and follow jesus and say where are you staying and jesus says come and you will see and they spend that day with him now then we read on the first of all andrew has brought his brother simon whom jesus called peter his rock but at the same time the other disciple i believe was philip because we're told then that philip was of the same town as as andrew besider on the lake of galilee and jesus before setting off back to galilee he decides to go to galilee and no doubt andrew and peter are coming along with him he goes to find philip who i believe has already been called and philip calls nathaniel or sometimes the church conflates nathaniel and barcelona because in the list of those following um we have no nathaniel but we do in luke's gospel have bartholomew well that is not what i just wanted to talk about today it's philip that i'm interested in and phillip and james the son of alpheus both appear in all the lists of the 12 which are given in matthew mark luke and acts and the extraordinary thing is that philip is always disciple number five in the list after simon and andrew and james and john they don't necessarily appear in that order but philip is always number five and comes from the same town as andrew and simon their cider which technically isn't in the tetrarchy of herod antipas is actually just over the border into the tetrarchy of philip i don't mean philip the apostle i mean philip the tetrarch who rules that little bit and these kingdoms almost if one called herod the king or head of the tetrarch or herad the ruler are tiny compared with modern political arrangements and they're all under the general umbrella of the roman empire and judea of course has already been taken completely into and samaria has already been taken completely into the roman empire by then but philip always number five and james the son of alpheus always number nine in every list there's a discrepancy among some of the other names and the tax collector who was called in saint mark's gospel the earliest account is called levi the son of alpheus the tax collector in matthew who is called is called matthew it's not unusual for people to have different names or even nicknames which jesus gives them but let's just concentrate on philip and james for today for the suggestion is that um james is in some way related to the family of jesus certainly a galilean and the connection always with his father alpheus and levi also son of alphaeus but let's stay with philip for the moment remembering that both the saints we remember on this 1st of may are of the 12 always in the list of the twelve philip james the son of malphius not james the brother of john and let's think of philip for wonderful philip is always the one who either unlocks something or asks the question which will unlock something and remember that we had this little passage about him here calling nathaniel and simply saying come and see it's an invitation and we found the one who is the christ what from nazareth can anything good come out of nazareth says come and see says philip and the encounter with jesus becomes one of the crucial encounters in terms of our understanding of jesus's ministry but then again when jesus is surrounded by the five thousand who are needing feeding in st john's gospel who is it that is saying where can we find bread to feed all this multitude i mean it's it's it's it's as much as a month's wages to feed them all it's philip there and with him andrew who says but there's a boy here with five loaves and two fishes philip and andrew and then again we come to the lesson in john 12 where jesus is teaching in the outer temple courtyard and uh he's teaching the crowds and a group of greeks come wanting desperately to see jesus it's the foundation of our cathedral mission statement to show people jesus it comes from this story of foreign travelers coming to our holy and wonderful historic place to wander at the temple but then they hear the words of jesus and begin to want to see jesus and they tap the arm of philip who must have been standing on the outskirts of the crowd he's got a greek name that might have helped um and they say so we would like to see jesus and philip goes to andrew philip and andrew all over again and once again we have this connection with the galilean friends and it's when andrew says to jesus that the greeks would like to see you um that everything opens up began with philip finding them passing it on to andrew his friend on to jesus and jesus says now the time is fulfilled and the son of man will be lifted up and draw the whole world to himself sets things going and then at the last supper as well it's philip who by a question prompts a whole discourse because he's not frightened to speak up well you see why i think that philip is that other disciple right at the beginning but detective work is always hard because you can't prove it it's a long time ago and it's a wonderful thing to do because it causes us to see things in the light of jesus as i quoted that c.s lewis comment about the sun rising and seeing everything by its life you see everything by his light easy to do that on a lovely morning like this there's uh about the month of may so many things because poets have written about it and songs have been written about it it's the time of year when everyone begins to feel glad in the northern hemisphere the southern hemisphere you have to wait to a different time of year for the same feelings of spring and growth and and flowering and there is um something that i did want to read to you this morning which i will in a moment but i want to think first of all of one or two other dates this morning on may the first and first of all um it's the the date of the birth not the best sorry in 1759 josiah wedgewood founded the wedgwood pottery now josiah wedgwood was a mighty strong abolitionist of slavery and uh we have lots of material in the the library of abolitionist material here of the the um library long before scavenger was abolished and josiah wedgwood in setting up his company in of wedgewood pottery at berlin in staffordshire actually began to make as almost as a sideline mass-produced cameos supporting the abolitionists of slavery and this was his great way of supporting that campaign which came to its fruition at the end of that century in which he was born he was also of course the father of um sorry the grandfather of charles darwin who himself was was born in shrewsbury not too far away from from staffordshire um and then in 1769 the duke of wellington was born the iron duke as he was called who not only won the battle of waterloo but in 1828 became the tory prime minister and uh was a very conservative figure and was only prime minister for two years but now he helps us in our next date this day in 1851 on this day queen victoria opened the great exhibition in hyde park it was such an exhibition as had never been seen by its size before it was held in the enormous crystal palace which joseph paxton who had before designed greenhouses for the duke of devonshire at chatsworth joseph paxton designed and became the wonder of the mid 19th century and lasting until it was taken down at the end of the hyde park exhibition and rebuilt again on sydenham hill and tragically burned down without too much insurance to rebuild it in 1936 but at the time it was the wonder of the world and people traveled foreign rulers came to see this huge exhibition of the way in which an industrial nation and this nation was leading the way in engineering and zimbabwe kingdom brunel helped in all of this but it was the brainchild of the prince consort prince albert and in her speech opening the uh um and in her diary afterwards uh queen victoria was really proud of her consort and it reminded me of the way in which the queen at had jubilee with that speech called prince philip her strength and stay and victoria certainly had had an enormous amount of admiration for the way in which albert carved his own line and was a huge supporter of science and all forms of creativity the great exhibition made so much profit and it was reckoned that about a third of the population of england went to to to see this uh upon church outings and by railway trains which were now opening up the land for easy access to things they went in groups and most of the names of victorian england whom we think of went to see it but at that time its profits were put into the founding of all those wonderful museums and places of learning that you see in kensington chief amongst them of course the victoria and albert museum but many other science and music and arts places for that was albert's passion and we give thanks for all that creativity coming from that on that day when queen victoria opened the great exhibition on this day in 1873 um the missionary david livingstone died in zambia and i've told you before that the tree under which he died was taken to carver cross which now hangs over the pulpit in in zanzibar cathedral and we give thanks for david livingstone's memory and all his care there and um i have only one last thing and that is to say that in 1753 carolus lineas published his catalogue of species and the names the latin names and the way in which he organizes that in names is still the foundation of the way in which we catalogue plants uh today so we give thanks for his work now i wanted to say something much more important and that is the fact that may is very often a month which christians dedicate to the mother of the lord mary and gerald manny hopkins wrote the most wonderful poem wondering why that is so and said none of her the dates of her feasts like the uh february the second purification of the blessed virgin mary about annunciation on march 22. none of her feasts come at this time so he wrote his poem the may magnificat and to read that in this orchard this morning is a wonderful thing to do may is mary's month and i muse at that and wonder why her feasts follow reason dated due to season candlemas lady day but the lady month may why fasten that upon her with a feasting in her honor is it only its being brighter than the most star must delight her is it opportunist and flowers fine soonest ask of her the mighty mother her reply puts this other question what is spring growth in everything flesh and fleece fur and feather grass and green world all together star-eyed strawberry-breasted throssel above her nested cluster of bugle blue eggs thin forms and warms the life within and bird and blossoms swell in sod or sheath or shell all things rising all things sizing mary sees sympathizing with that world of good nature's motherhood their magnifying of each its kind with delight calls to mind how she did in her stored magnify the lord well but there was more than this spring's universal bliss much had much to say to offering mary may when dropper blood and foam dapple bloom lights the orchard apple and thicket and thorpe are merry with silver surfing cherry and azuring over greybell makes wood banks and breaks wash wet like lakes and magic cuckoo call caps clears and clinches all this ecstasy all through mothering earth tells mary her mirth till christ's birth to remember and exaltation in god who was her salvation a wonderful reflection on this month by the poet jared manley hopkins so let's say our prayers it's the fourth sunday of easter prayer that we're using for the last time this morning and as we do so we are praying for uh coincidentally after remembering it yesterday the diocese of british columbia in canada and we're also praying for our near-lying parish plannington outside the walls here uh it's vacant at the moment but it's an easy walking distance from here and we therefore bring this colleagues and then the our father in whichever language you would like to say it as our morning prayers bring your concerns we all bring our concerns for nations like india and brazil and those nations facing so much in the pandemic but you will have others that you want to pray for bring them now as we say this collect and the our father almighty god whose son jesus christ is the resurrection and the life raise us who trust in him from the death of sin to the life of righteousness that we may seek those things which are above where he reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever are men so we pray 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 as the matins bell bit later on saturday morning rings should call me to the cathedral in a minute or two but we have time to hold silence together to say our prayers too [Music] the god of peace who brought again from the dead our lord jesus christ that great shepherd of the sheep 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 pray for today and always amen [Music] i'm going to walk down the path and off to the cathedral to say matins with the chapter hi tiger good morning lovely morning for you hi hello