good morning and welcome to the garden of the dinery at canterbury cathedral on this morning of the feast of the transfiguration it's a feast when jesus took peter and james and john up very high on the holy mountain they're right up in the northern part of of uh the land that they know beyond the borders and up almost into the the the peaks of the highest mountain in the area and the disciples as we know are fairly sleepy so we've come out here i've come up high and the the kind of of of feelings that the disciples have of a vision which comes and goes that a cloud covers them but at the same time they are aware of intense glory we're um trying to convey by the way in which the foliage might obscure me blowing in the breeze i'm sitting here by the great windows that queen mary suggested to dean hooper to give light to the deanery library and there's light rain falling i'm hopeful that that might go off so i'm sheltering under the umbrella at the moment but i hope you're you're seeing me from time to time through the trees but there's method in our madness as you'll see when we come to the reading from the gospel of saint mark and our reflection afterwards let's begin our prayers o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your light springs up for the righteous and all the peoples have seen your glory blessed are you sovereign god king of the nations to you be praise and glory forever from the rising of the sun to its setting your name is proclaimed in all the world as the sun of righteousness dawns in our hearts anoint our lips with the seal of your spirit that we may witness to your gospel and sing your praise in all the earth 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 sixth morning of the month is psalm 30 i will exalt you because you have raised me up o lord and have not let my foes triumph over me o lord my god i cried out to you and you have healed me you brought me up o lord from the dead you restored me to life from among those that go down to the pit sing to the lord you servants of his give thanks to his holy name for his wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye his favor for a lifetime heaviness may endure for the night but joy comes in the morning in my prosperity i said i shall never be moved you lord of your goodness have made my hill so strong then you hid your face from me and i was utterly dismayed to you o lord i cried to the lord i made my supplication what prophet is there in my blood if i go down to the pit will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness hear o lord and have mercy upon me o lord be my helper you have turned my morning into dancing you have put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing o lord my god i will give you thanks for ever all three of the synoptic gospels as we call them matthew mark and luke tell this story of the transfiguration of our lord and his appearance to three of his disciples in glory i've just celebrated the communion in the cathedral the early morning communion and at that we read the story from the gospel of saint luke and in luke's gospel luke is absolutely clear that the disciples are intensely sleepy they've climbed the high mountain and they think that they are going to be given a rest so their sense of clear thinking and clear sight comes and goes amongst the snows of the top of the mountain and jesus goes on as he does in gethsemane and is by himself so that their vision of seeing his glory is absolutely clear and the sense of what they have been given in the voice that comes to them is absolutely clear but the sense of what their mortal eyes see is shall we call it intermittent and it puzzles them and they are left puzzled at the end but i'm going to use the gospel of saint mark this morning and that's mark chapter 9 to tell that story and i think in a moment i might actually get rid of the umbrella which gives me much more light and uh the rain is letting up a little bit it may come back i'm in mark chapter nine and uh we are starting at verse two after six days jesus took with him peter and james and john and led them up a high mountain by themselves and he was transfigured before them and his clothes became radiant intensely white no fuller on earth could bleach them and there appeared to them elijah with moses and they were talking with jesus and peter said to jesus rabbi it is good that we are here let us make three shelters one for you and one for moses and one for elijah for he did not know what to say for they were terrified and a cloud overshadowed them then a voice came from the cloud this is my beloved son listen to him and suddenly looking around they no longer saw anyone with them but only jesus the story as told by saint mark as i said to you the story as told by sin luke gives the disciples the sense and this may be another memory which was transferred to luke from one of those disciples gives them the memory of being very sleepy when they got to the top of the mountain and wanting to rest but at the same time their eyes were filled with glory and as as they began to see more clearly a cloud came over them once again this is an extraordinary shall we call it confirmation of what peter has said at caesarea philippi you are the christ and they see his glory and it seems to them that he is there talking with two symbolic figures as you know day by day we're looking at the book of genesis the old testament the scriptures which jesus knew and on which he had had really based his vocation as the anointed one from the prophets and from the law and the psalms and now here are two figures symbolic of law and prophecy moses who himself went up to the holy mountain to receive the old covenant and elijah who himself went up onto the mountain symbol of all prophecy and the promise in malachi is that he will come again before the coming of the lord but uh the the the prophecy of elijah is also an important one because he himself at one of his most desperate moments when he felt that really there was no use in anything went up onto the mountain and you remember how sheltering in a cave the great storm broke with noise and rocks being split and thunder and lightning and wind and noise and then suddenly the absolute silence and the still small voice reassure him that he is in the presence of god and his vocation and his journey is to continue it always makes me um or rather moves me that in sin mark's gospel they come down the mountain and the disciples minds and eyes and memories are in a confusion of glory and wonder as often happens when our spiritual imaginings become so absolutely powerful and confirmed by something which has sealed what we have seen and known with our inner eye and as they come down jesus tells them that this this experience mustn't be told by them um part of what st mark might be said to call the the messianic secret because if they begin to tell this they will tell it in a way which which gives the wrong message until they have understood what the glory of the lord in being lifted up and giving himself totally is but they come down onto the flat plain and there after the wonder and the glory of the mountain lying on the floor in the middle of a crowd with the distraught father beside him is the epileptic boy whom the other disciples whom they've left behind cannot help with and jesus no longer with his disciples minds and eyes on the mountain snaps them back into the gift that they're there to give and says bring the boy to me the mountain experience is there to serve the world's need there are several things which overarch this day but the most powerful of them all in human terms this day of transfiguration when that which in our human flesh jesus himself shows the glory and wonder of god and all the gifts he would want to give us in creation august the 6th is the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb in hiroshima in 1945 and that scene of desolation after i think about 70 000 people were killed that scene of desolation of those left and the danger of everything that atomic weapons mean and the aftermath of that becomes very apparent in the photographs shown two completely different images the mountaintop and the capacity of humanity to do harm it was in the middle of a war escape which uh was clearly going to cause many many more thousands of of deaths and this seemed to those making the decision a way of preventing that but to us looking at the pictures it showed the appalling capacity of what humanity could do in terms of destruction and the horrendous responsibility of making decisions for all leaders on this day then those two images are with us together with the image of the father with his epileptic boy for whom he has total care his eyes aren't on the mountain top his eyes are on the tortured figure of his son and when he talks to jesus uh he he says it this is often thrown him into the fire or into dangerous places into water jesus bring the boy to me and those gifts which he will soon hand on to the twelve then those gifts are being exercised by jesus himself in his humanity showing the capacity for heaven's gifts to be given by us day by day to each other but first we rejoice in the glory of the disciples the three disciples experience because very soon they will also be accompanying their lord in a different kind of situation going farther than the other disciples in the garden of gethsemane and hearing his prayer there an agonized prayer stretching his humanity to the limits this today not only stretches humanity it glorifies his humanity with the glory and wonder of heaven and sometimes we get glimpses of that in the lives of others in the way they they give themselves in total sacrifice we get glimpses of that glory in mountainscapes and and coming and going in in images of brightness which this day tells us needn't just be save it on their own but give us strengths to go on there are two dates that i want to remember today as we say our prayers are both august the 6th the first of them is that on august 6 1660 the spanish painter diego velazquez died he was the most important painter of the spanish golden age in the reign of philip iv and many of his scenes are portraits of people both in court splendid people powerful people but ordinary people like the woman frying eggs scenes of the kitchen and sometimes he blends those so that biblical scenes are given the face of those who are actually doing the ordinary work of humankind in their daily life his artistic talents and the way in which he used them and explored them became an influence for artists right through the centuries which followed even to the present day so many artists take inspiration from him but one of his techniques and if i think of uh two biblical paintings to start with the separate emmaus and christ in the house of martha and mary he puts it that way round then the action is given as though through a little window and the focus of the painting is on someone who is doing the menial task of preparing the supper now in the second of those it might be martha we're looking at but certainly the lord is seen through what almost looks like a window sort of aperture in the wall so that our focus is on that which is ordinary and every day and then suddenly we're transported as those through a lens to what is going on beyond that happens with both those paintings magnificently and the ordinary things with the the the girl who is preparing that supper at emmaus probably she's baked the bread probably she's set out the table and what is happening at the supper is through a little lens beyond so that the wonder is portrayed now velazquez does that in his paintings and throws it back at us but he never so wonderfully than in one almost of his last paintings in 1556 which is a painting called las meninas which is of the ladies in waiting around the spanish infanta the little little girl at the time and in that painting there's a wonder of detail of what's going on and at the same time through an aperture see or perhaps this time should we say a mirror because it has to be a mirror it's a reflected image of velasquez himself painting and then he is not looking at what he's painting he's looking back at us so different dimensions in this lens this time the artist at work all the imaginings of the artist and then the ordinary details of life that he is painting but the artist's eyes looking back at us challenging us to the same kind of creativity no wonder other artists have have loved velazquez and been inspired by him not only his techniques but this sense of so many different layers of dimension which again we're trying to give you this morning by the aperture through which you're looking at me and by the lens in which the disciples saw the glory of their lord and then were asked to widen that gift with their own creativity for the needs of the world below well velasquez is not the only person who uh has an anniversary on this day that i wanted to remember on the 6th of august in 1809 alfred lord tennyson was born who became poet laureate of england in 1850 and held the post longer than anyone else ever has uh he he lived until 1892 so was poet laureate until the day of his death he's also one of the most quoted of of poets just in in in couplets and i remember my father being able to really recite many many couplets of of of tennyson normally scenes of action he used to do it when he was shaving and and and uh i remember him the revenge and the ballad of the fleet with his couples sink me a ship master gunner sing sink a splitter in twain fall into the hands of god not into the hands of spain and the gunner said aye aye but the seaman made reply we have children we have wives and the lord has spared our lives let us live to fight again another day father could say reams of stuff of that kind i just want to mention two of tennyson's poems the first one is from mort dartha and it's something which um uh in a way has become very very famous to us and we are seeing arthur dying in his barge and talking to sabedevia here it is you will probably know the words well the old order changes yielding place to new and god fulfills himself in many ways lest one good custom should corrupt the world comfort thyself what comfort is in me i have lived my life and that which i have done may he within himself make pure but thou if thou should never see my face again pray for my soul more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of wherefore let thy voice rise like a fountain for me night and day for what are men better than sheep or goats that nourish a blind life within the brain if knowing god they lift not hands of prayer both for themselves and those who call them friend for so the whole round earth is every way bound by gold chains about the feet of god but now farewell i am going a long way with these iceest if indeed i go for all my mind is clouded with a doubt to the island valley of avillion where falls not hail or rain or any snow nor ever wind blows loudly but it lies deep meadowed happy fair with orchard lawns and bowery hollows crowned with summer sea where i will heal me of my grievous wound very famous passage from tennyson which has become deeply loved in its concept of prayer is as golden chains linking us with each other and binding the whole earth at god's feet the other passage i wanted to read some of is the passage from ulysses now this is different this is ulysses actually sitting in front of the fire in old age but he dreams that there is still something left and as a man of action wants still to do it this is different from the tranquility of the arthurian one but still it's tennyson at his best there lies the porch the vessel puffs her sail there gloom the dark broad seas my mariners souls that have toiled and wrought and thought with me that ever with a frolic welcome took the thunder and the sunshine and opposed free hearts free foreheads you and i are old old age has yet his honor and his toil death closes all but something at the end some work of noble note may yet be done not unbecoming men that strove with gods the lights begin to twinkle from the rocks the long day wanes the slow moon climbs the deep moans round with many voices come my friends tis not too late to seek a newer world push off and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars until i die it may be that the gulfs will wash us down it may be we shall touch the happy isles and see the great achilles whom we knew though much is taken much abides and there we are not now that strength which in old days moved us in heaven that which we are we are one equal temper of heroic hearts made weak by time and fate but strong in will to strive to seek to find and not to yield ulysses odysseus in the greek in old age still believing that she has a vocation and a quest to fulfill you won't see this but i've been joined up here by lily and she is exploring climbing higher up the mountain let's say our prayers on this particular day and we're praying on this 6th of august of course for the people of hiroshima today of course for all those whose lives are still affected by war of any kind but we're also praying for any concerns that we have and for the life of christ's church throughout the world giving that gift of glory in so many places of need and encouragement we pray for justin our archbishop and the life of our anglican communion today for the diocese of down and drama in the church of ireland the amar province and here we continue to pray for the north downs scenery the villages and communities of the north towns of kent and those who act as chaplains to organizations there of all kinds that's a ministry of encouragement in hospitals in prisons in community centers for the police the armed services for sports people with so many organizations bringing that gift of glory to those in need through the ordinary things of life as velazquez did with his brush showing us and then the lens showing the glory that might be shared all of that we pray on this day of the feast of the transfiguration for which we give thanks here is the collect for this day father in heaven whose son jesus christ was wonderfully transfigured before chosen witnesses upon the holy mountain and spoke of the exodus he would accomplish at jerusalem give us strength so to hear his voice and bear our cross that in the world to come we may see him as he is who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen so we say 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 so a moment of silence now for our own prayers so [Applause] so so [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 amen you