good morning and welcome to morning prayer on this last morning of our current time in the United States we are at Norwalk and we're on the shoreline here with the waters behind us which is a good setting for the Easter story that we'll read from the gospels today but meanwhile wherever you are be welcome and enjoy this wonderful Sunshine after days of storm and snow but then yesterday the love day of the eclipse of the sun which we enjoyed so much this area of nor goes back many thousands of years with indigenous Americans using this uh and then when in the 17th century mid 17th century Dutch Traders came here they they made settlements with the Native Americans and then purchased areas of land for farming and arable purposes which still go on today it's a A really lovely place and some of you may have seen this in the past visiting this area of the Connecticut Coast so enjoy the scene around us as we enjoy being here we've been staying with two friends and this afternoon we shall go to the airport to fly home but meanwhile we have this lovely chance of saying morning prayer together on the coastline oh Lord open our lips and our mouths shall Proclaim your praise in your Resurrection o Christ let heaven and Earth Rejoice Allelujah 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 first fruits 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 look over here this is Officer Lo Animal Control we need you guys to all go back to your cars please my coyote over here I need to get what's this what's happening have we got a stop honestly everybody on the beach I need everybody to go back to the cars now please I think we're thank you very much I think we're doomed today than see just give up S we were interrupted after that beginning we were sitting on the shoreline as you saw and suddenly there was a warning from someone coming across the beach a uniform person from an animal welfare place uh belonging to the city here that there was a wild coyote on the beach which was dangerous to the people so they cleared all the beach it reminds us of what kind of country we're living in in terms of the areas of Nature and and wild creatures always being quite near you in the United States so we've come to a little Cove Around The Bay H and we'll continue our our broadcast from there so uh I'll start from the sentence I was coming to when we finished on the other Shoreline 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 oh God set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our Psalm this morning is Psalm 95 oh come let us sing to the Lord let us heartily rejoice in the rock of our Salvation let us come into His presence with Thanksgiving and be glad in him with Psalms for the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods in his hand are the depths of the earth and the heights of the mountains are his also the sea is his for he made it and his hands have molded the dry land come let us worship and bow down and kneel before the Lord our maker for he is our God we other the people of his pasture and the Sheep of his hand oh that today you would listen to his voice Harden not your hearts as at merba on that day at Mara in the wilderness when your forbears tested me and put me to the proof though they had seen my Works 40 years long I detested that generation and said this people are Wayward in their hearts they do not know my ways so I swore in my wroth they shall not enter into my rest glory to the father and to the son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be World Without End Amen so on this Tuesday of the week following Easter week I'm reading from St John chapter 21 and beginning at the first verse after this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of tiberias and he revealed himself in this way Simon Peter Thomas called the twin Nathaniel of Kaa in Galilee the sons of Zebedee and two others of his disciples were together Simon Peter said to them I am going fishing they said to him we will go with you they went out and got into the boat but that night they caught nothing just as day was breaking Jesus stood on the shore yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus Jesus said to them children do you have any fish they answered him no he said to them cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some so they cast it and now they were not able to haul it in because of the large quantity of fish that disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter it is the Lord when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord he put on his outer garment for he was stripped for work and threw himself into the sea the other disciples came in the boat dragging the net full of fish for they were not far from the land but about 100 100 yards off when they got out on land they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it and bread Jesus said to them bring some of the fish that you have caught Simon Peter went aboard and holded the net ashore full of large fish 153 of them and although there were so many the net was not torn Jesus said to them come and have breakfast now none of the disciples dared ask him who are you they knew it was the Lord Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them and so with the fish this was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead when they had finished breakfast Jesus said to Simon Peter Simon son of John do you love me more than these he said to him yes Lord you know that I love you he said to him feed my Lambs he said to him a second time Simon son of John do you love me he said to him yes Lord you know that I love you he said to him tend my sheep he said to him the third time Simon son of John do you love me Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time do you love me and he said to him Lord you know everything you know that I love you Jesus said to him feed my sheep truly truly I say to you when you were young you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted but when you are old you will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go this he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God and after saying this he said to him follow me Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said Lord who is it that is going to betray you when Peter saw him he said to Jesus Lord what about this man Jesus said to him if it is my will that he remain until I come what is that to you follow me it's a lovely story by the Lakeside of the disciples being invited by Jesus whom they have recognized to have breakfast come and have breakfast it's one of the loveliest sentences of the resur Direction narratives and Peter is so Keen to be there that he has jumped from the boat and splashes to the shore but later goes back to get fish from the net which they have caught and then after breakfast that which has been troubling him all this time is cleared up by Jesus he turns to him and uses the old familian name not the should we call it a nickname that he'd given him Peter The Rock he will use that again but for the moment here he is calling him Simon son of John Simon bar Jonas is in the King James version do you love me all the these and Peter it seems answers the three questions in the same way and Jesus asks the questions and gives a commission with each of them which we heard but what we're not gaining and I've said this on different occasions and you'll be aware of that is that the verb for love me which Jesus is using is not the verb for yes Lord you know that I love you which Peter uses Peter uses a Greek word which talks about a sort of instinctual love which you might have for someone which Peter's always had for the Lord he's tried to protect him but that love fell short in the high priest's Courtyard on that day of his seizure in the Garden of Gethsemane and Peter fails and denies Jesus three times Jesus is using the Greek word which is a much more disciplined and determined kind of love the Agape kind of love which is sometimes used for a Christian love Feast that means a wide embracing love embracing all things and do you love me in that way is something that for the moment Peter can't really cope with he knows he has the instinctive love of Jesus that a friend might have and that's how he answers but Jesus a second time asks with the larger word and Peter responds still using that instinctive word for love which is something that we would feel For Those whom we love in very definit and so the third time Jesus accepts what Peter is offering and he himself changes the verb and says do you love me using that word which Peter has used and Peter says Lord you know everything you know that I love you and Peter then is given that prophecy and Jesus wraps it into some sentences about when you were young you bound yourself into your clothes and went where you wanted to but when you are old others will bind you and lead you where you do not want to go and we told by the evangelists this was to S signify the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God living out that wide concept of love not so much instinctive but using mind heart and body to show that love which had failed him in the high priest Courtyard but would not fail him later on when he could be Peter The Rock on which which Christ built and founded his church this is this is a day in our calender the 9th of April when we remember the Lutheran Pastor Theologian and teacher Dietrick boner boner lived through the 1920s 30s as a great teacher and his book The cost of discipleship is very much a Christian Classic but his opposition to the Nazi regime and their treatment of the Jewish people caused him in the end to be arrested and placed in prison thinking of Peter people will bind you and take you where you do not want to go and he spent two years also in prison before he was suspected of being part of the plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944 and eventually really just before the Nazi regime collapsed he was hanged in his prison in the concentration camp there his letters and papers from prison are also published as a Christian Classic and it's a very important aspect of his love for Christ that he maintained that faithfulness of supporting those who were most persecuted and lost his own life in that support a predecessor of mine as dean of Canterbury George Bell who was Dean of Canterbury until 19 29 and then became Bishop of Chichester was a very close friend of deatric bonhof and he received U letters from prison from him at the end of of the War uh bell went to Germany and his message to the German people was our fight was never against you our war was never against you it was against that Nazi Creed which was taking over Europe and persecuting so many and he went bravely to that I remember an occasion of an anniversary of that when we went to the House of Lords where bell had made his speech condemning the bombing of Dresden uh and the portrait which we had painted by Del laslo which hung in the Deery in Canterbury of George Bell was placed beside his the portrait which Del laslo had painted of heti bell George Bell's wife who went on living in the precincts in Canterbury in retirement after George Bell's death and when we were there there was a a a very small man with white hair standing beside his daughter and this was the person who had translated George Bell's letter to the German people into German at the end of the war saying what Bells mission was to say to the the people of Germany our fight was not against you it was always against the Nazis and their Creed of persecution and Terror so we remember him he's been uh it would seem really unjustly persecuted even all these years later from from an accusation but that seems to have have died now with with um stricter investigations and we remember him George Bell on this day when his friend deatric bonhof was murdered so cruy in that concentration camp so that his letters and papers from prison are letters and papers from a mar it reminds us and we've spoken about this this person uh of the the Rector uh o of the reformed Episcopal Church in salaman in the second world World War and you'll this will ring all kinds of bells with you um who was taken by the fascist soldiers and taken away to prison without any kind o of accusation or trial and then when he was said to be released was in fact taken off to a a forest and was shot so that um we we remember uh father atalan at this time and and a mar in our connected Church in Spain near to the Church of St Thomas of Canterbury there in salaman but so many Martyrs of that kind have given their lives and Jesus on this this time on the shore as he forgives Peter for his denials and then commissions him knowing he will be stronger because of those denials it becomes an important lesson as the the last lesson of the Resurrection appearances as this season goes on this is a beautiful place in the sunshine with the sound of the Waves lapping and maybe we all have different memories today it's actually one of my um memories of April the 9th that my mother's birthday was today she died in 198 5 age 72 died very suddenly uh of a heart attack and it took us all by surprise but I remember with such Thanksgiving her wonderful personality always so forgiving always so cheerful always so ready with a colorful note to somebody if they were going through bad times or a visit or The Taking of flowers to them but at the same time she was a very musical person and loved nothing more than to um sit on a chair beside me as I played in a compliment to a song that she wanted to sing on the piano so that on this day with the sunshine it's lovely to remember for me to remember my mother H and all the gifts that she was able to impart to me in in her life and I uh uh sometimes I I feel her face looking at me thinking now come on you must remember to do that this is how we encourage people this is how we're kind to people in this way so thank God for her but thank God for de Tri Pon thank God for all who in a spirit of self-sacrifice give themselves and thank God for Jesus forgiving Peter forgiving him three times for the three times Deni but knowing that this will have tempered his faith in the fires of of what shall we call it failure when he couldn't couldn't even say that he knew Jesus to the made in the in the high priest's Courtyard by that other brazia rather than the brazia now which Jesus has lit for them on the side of the Sea of Galilee when he says to them come and have breakfast Peter before when they're sitting there has said I'm going fishing we will come with you say the other disciples amongst whom is Thomas who we be thinking of and Nathaniel who was called from under the Fig Tree the two sons of Zebedee they're all there I'm going fishing they go out onto the lake but the real intention now I am going fishing means that they are the apostolic ministers with the the good news of the Evangel the gospel to give to those for whom they will fish and when they have fished for them they will then be part of Christ's company and we give thanks for that today and thanks that so many of those have given their lives through history in this way on this beautiful Shore where for centuries back people indigenous uh tribes here before Europe was even conscious of them would be farming and and about their business and fishing and the the beaches covered with clamshells and oyster shells and then when the Dutch Traders came and made good treaties with them that uh those those things were shared and Norwalk today still Bears the the name of the the tribes of norw at that time and we give thanks for that long history here but give thanks for the life of the place today so let's say our prayers on this day and think of all those who have influenced your life for good and helped you to be more faithful as I'm thinking of my own mother but also the example of dear Tri bonhof on this day as we say the Easter collect Lord of all life and power who through the mighty resurrection of your son overcame the old order of sin and death to make All Things New in him grant that we being dead to sin and alive to you in Jesus Christ May reign with him in glory to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be praise and honor glory and might now and in all eternity through Jesus Christ Christ Our Lord amen so we say together the prayer which our Lord 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 you can hear as a a hum in the background the noise of the fishermen's boats as they go out still to fish in these beautiful Waters and bring the catch ashore as our story showed the disciples doing on the Sea of Galilee all those years ago so enjoy your day and we shall make our way to the airport in an hour or two's time and fly back to England so the next time we speak to you we shall be back at home uh with Lily and Leo and tiger and uh we're very sad to be leaving the United States uh and Canada this side of the Atlantic after all these weeks of Lent and Easter tide sharing it with you and with the people of the United States so God bless you and until we meet again in morning proud we say [Music] farewell