good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this sunday the 10th of october as we gather to say our morning prayers we've come out into our front courtyard today in front of the garage and we have that lovely virginia creeper hanging down and beginning to turn into a dark red color as the autumn goes on it really is a an awesome day today the tower belharry tower from the house was invisible because of autumn mists but the mist will burn off and i think we'll have a lovely sunny day here so bring your prayers from across the world the virginia creeper will become important to us tomorrow which is the traditional thanksgiving day in canada but many canadian churches will be keeping that today so we think of our friends in canada today and tomorrow keeping thanksgiving for not only the harvest but for all the bounties of their own life in a sense of thanksgiving for everything they feel thanks for and we feel thanks with them and for them at the same time and this morning too uh is a day when in india churches are celebrating the apostle to india the apostle thomas one of the twelve i've actually climbed the mountain where traditionally thomas is uh is buried and uh that's in chennai madrid at chennai madras getting the wrong country all together uh but today i uh in the the middle of the night really i knew that the great cathedral church of st thomas in mumbai bombay as it was is uh opening in worship for the first time after lockdown and that's a great moment so i purposely set the alarm at half past two and rang my colleague there the presbyter avinash rangaya who has charge of the cathedral church of st thomas in mumbai and gave him our greetings from the mother church of the communion here in england and we had a nice conversation and i said it's a little bit early even for you and he said no i got up early because i'm excited for this day it's the first time we're worshiping for a long time and and uh since then and i gave the greetings not only of the cathedral church but of all of us and said that we will be mentioning him on the broadcast this morning to the garden congregation and he now since then having given those greetings to his congregation because india is five and a half hours ahead of us in time has sent through one of our own members a young man called ravi joshua in india has sent back a message saying that that was given to the congregation and very well received and so to all our friends in india we wish you a happy feast of saint thomas the apostle on this day ravi was for some years between the years i think 2001 2003 a student here at christchurch and has visited since and has a great love for this place but he was very excited to be worshiping in the cathedral church in uh of saint thomas in mumbai this morning and sent that message of excitement back from the congregation and so we're praying for all our friends in india on this feast of st thomas the apostle on this date when they keep this traditionally and so let's begin our prayers this morning as we pray on this sunday morning together o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise bless the lord all you works of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you heavens sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you angels of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord all people on earth sing his praise and exalt him forever o people of god bless the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you priests of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you servants of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord all you of upright spirit bless the lord you that are holy and humble of heart bless the father the son and the holy spirit sing his praise and exalt him 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 o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this morning of the month the 10th morning of the month is psalm 50. the lord the most mighty god has spoken and called the world from the rising of the sun to its setting out of zion perfect in beauty god shines forth our god comes and will not keep silence consuming fire goes out before him and the mighty tempest sirs about him he calls the heaven above and the earth that he may judge his people gather to me my faithful who have sealed my covenant with sacrifice let the heavens declare his righteousness for god himself his judge hear o my people and i will speak i will testify against you o israel for i am god your god i will not reprove you for your sacrifices for your burnt offerings are always before me i will no take no bull fr out of your house nor he got out of your foes for all the beasts of the forest are mine the cattle upon a thousand hills i know every bird of the mountains and the insect of the field is mine if i were hungry i would not tell you for the whole world is mine and all that fills it do you think i eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats offer to god a sacrifice of thanksgiving and fulfill your vows to god most high call upon me in the day of trouble i will deliver you and you shall honor me but to the wicked says god why do you recite my statutes and take my covenant upon your lips since you refused to be disciplined and have cast my words behind you when you saw a thief you made friends with him and you threw in your lot with adulterers you have loosed your lips for evil and harnessed your tongue to deceit you sit and speak evil of your brother you slander your own mother's son these things have you done and should i keep silence did you think that i am even such a one as yourself but no i must reprove you and set before your eyes the things that you have done you that forget god consider this well lest i tear you apart and there is none to deliver you whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honours me and to those who keep my way when i show the salvation of god this truly is a call to worship on a sunday morning and that call to worship tells us that the call goes out with the rising of the sun on this sunday morning to its setting right across the world i think i've never been more conscious of that than this morning in the darkness of the middle of the night talking to the uh presbyter of bombay cathedral mumbai cathedral st thomas and thinking that worship there was just starting in the light of the early morning whereas here we are now worshiping as the sun has reached us but our friends in canada whom we're thinking of with the virginia creeper is actually are they are they are waiting for the sun to get there and are still in the darkness of night around the world the sun calls us to worship as the psalmist says in psalm 50 but at the same time that worship needs to be and it's said twice a sacrifice of thanksgiving and that sacrifice of thanksgiving is a giving of ourselves body mind and spirit in our activity our activity of thanksgiving being spread like the harvest to share in that think thanksgiving with others the last verse perhaps a knapsack verse whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honours me and to those who keep my way when i show the salvation of god special lesson for sunday morning and it comes from the gospel of saint mark jesus is teaching in the temple in the outer courtyard of the temple a traditional place for teaching to take place and crowds are hearing him gladly but you will remember i'm reading from chapter 12 of st mark's gospel you remember how as he teaches them and these are just days before his betrayal arrest and crucifixion as he teaches them groups of those who are of the main political oblique religious parties of that particular culture his own culture at that time and also supporters of the galilean monarch herat come to try and test him and catch him out so that he may be ridiculed in front of the crowds and one after the other groups come up to him and i'm this morning reading chapter 12 from verse 18 and sadducees came to jesus those who say that there is no resurrection and they asked him a question saying teacher moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but leaves no child the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother now there were seven brothers the first took a wife and when he died left no offspring and the second took her and died leaving no offspring and the third likewise and the seven left no offspring last of all the woman also died in the resurrection when they rise again whose wife will she be for all seven had her as a wife jesus said to them is this not the reason you are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of god for when they rise from the dead they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven and as for the dead being raised have you not read in the book of moses in the passage about the bush how god spoke to him saying i am the god of abraham and the god of isaac and the god of jacob he is not the god of the dead but of the living you are quite wrong and one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another and seeing that jesus answered them well asked him which commandment is the most important of all jesus answered the most important is hear o israel the lord our god the lord is one and you shall love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength the second is this you shall love your neighbor as yourself there is no other commandment greater than these and the scribe said to him you are right teacher you have truly said that god is one and there is no other beside him and to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strengths and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices and when jesus saw that she answered wisely he said to him you are not far from the kingdom of god and after that no one dared to ask him any more questions and as jesus taught in the temple he said how can the scribes say that the christ is the son of david for david himself in the holy spirit declared the lord said to my lord sit at my right hand until i put your enemies under your feet david himself calls him lord so how is he his son and the great throng of people heard him gladly it's a lovely thing to see jesus in the temple talking and to remember and this passage is repeated almost exactly in the gospel of saint matthew and the gospel of saint mark and the gospel of saint luke mark is thought to be generally the earliest of those three accounts it's the most urgent and the one that has the most uh compelling kind of time sees the time now about it but at the same time we we meet those groups who are there simply to laugh and ridicule we can't believe for a moment that the sadducees who are the governing party in the sanhedrin the high priestly family and of a particular branch of the jewish faith who did not believe that there was a concept of life beyond death the pharisees on the other hand did and the sadducees come up and they have cooked up this ridiculous story of the seven brothers each of whom following the law of moses marry the wife and none raise up children for her and if there is such a thing this is what they're saying as resurrection from the dead why it's clearly ridiculous because whose wife will she be and jesus probably paused with a sense of exasperation at another interruption at the teaching he was giving to the crowds and i believe that that the teaching that jesus was giving to the crowds is fully given to us through all the gospels because jesus would have been giving the good news to different groups of people and hearing their answers and hearing their problems and answering their questions but at the same time to have this kind of of argument put before him was getting in the way of the teaching with the crowds the sadducees think they're going to trip him over and all the crowds will laugh at what is ridiculous but jesus takes the situation which they are giving him and transfers it into a completely different dimension a dimension of eternity and a new creation and he establishes once again that the almighty and that new creation know no concepts of time all time which is a finite quantity all time is the present for the creator and here he is mentioning the very lessons that we've been reading in the old testament book of exodus yesterday the story of the burning bush now in the mouth of jesus remember the story of moses which is told in the book of moses about the bush it's deep in his heart deep in his mind deep in his imagination and he's about to tell them from their own minds and hearts and imagination for they knew that story well it's it's part of the pentateuch part of the five books of the law and he says how did god address moses in the present tense and he carried into that present tense people who in earthly terms could be seen to be dead but in the eyes of god are ever present i am the god of abraham i am the god of isaac i am the god of jacob and moses responded to him jesus doesn't say this but we can say it because we read the story yesterday in the present tense when the voice comes moses moses into the heart and mind of moses and he says as so often people hearing the call say but in the present tense here i am so that that sense of i am becomes the identification of the living god and jesus places that before them this is a message of great comfort for the the loss of someone in this life is by jesus translated into a sense of their ever being present for all times are in the present for the almighty and the eternal dimension we have a friend at the moment in canada who is losing her brother he's at the last stage of his life and the family are are of course intensely sad at a farewell and ready to be be grief stricken but at the same time there is this eternal hope held out by the savior in the courtyards of the temple in naming the father to whom he commends himself in his earthly life daily in urgent prayer as we see but at the same time there is that utter confidence and it shows himself almost in the way in which he sees the sadducees arguments as ridiculous and one remembers the little boy in the temple all those years before uh when he was age 12 just asking questions of the doctor of the law doctors of the law and responding with wisdom and here's a here's a scribe now who comes next who is a serious questioner so jesus takes his question very seriously what is the greatest commandment in the law says the scribe and jesus sees that he really is interested to see what the teacher the rabbi jesus will say and jesus says as the law says you must love the lord your god within your heart your mind your strength and then he adds the shortened version of the law which is found in the pentateuch in the same way in the first five books of the old testament you find that a gathering up of all the other commandments and love your neighbor as yourself and then he becomes just like the psalmist our psalm 50 today that is more than all sacrifice and burnt offerings or he could say that is the law and the prophets love the lord your god with all your heart and mind and will and strength and your neighbor as yourself there's a kit bag sentence in the the greatest way as jesus gives it to the scribe and the scribe says well that's well said and repeats what jesus has said and jesus turns to him and says you're not far from the kingdom of heaven we hear that after that no one does ask him a question but he asks the question of them in the from the psalmist about david where there at psalm 110 see how the scriptures are in jesus's heart and mind and soul all the time and he needs no books they're there from the teaching and the reflection given it's a clue to those hidden years which we have nothing about between the little boy of 12 and his appearing there to be baptized by john the baptist and to go into the wilderness to reflect on the vocation he has but here he is in the temple and one wants to say on a morning like this that jesus is very regular in the formalities of the faith which mary and joseph had brought him up in and his own people and his disciples were practicing at that time for we find him always in the synagogue teaching and since luke says he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day as his custom was and then at the same time the moment he's in jerusalem he goes to the temple they've come up for the feast the feast of the passover and that feast will be celebrated but in a very very different way for as i say were only days from his betrayal and arrest and crucifixion and only day is also for the sun to rise in a different way on that first day of the week already by the end of the new covenant when the book of revelation is written we find john the writer of the revelation on the lord's day in the spirit so that the day of worship in the breaking of bread has moved from the sabbath to the first day of the week as the sun rises a day of resurrection and here we are on sunday morning as the sun comes round the world from mumbai to canada rejoicing not only in the present tense in our finite human condition but also in the special way that jesus gives us of thinking of god and all his creation in the present tense which will be transformed into a new creation by the one who is the alpha and omega who makes all things new on this day if we think of some uh dates that uh are important i'm only going to use two this morning the first is is a memory of mine and uh i i noticed in one of the the lists of what happened today that in 1988 a man who was to become the lord chief justice of england igor judge that was his surname became a high court judge in 1988 and it was put down because it was quite uh amusing that it was judge judge but i remember meeting igor judge when i was the dean of hereford and we had a crown court service when red judges high court judges came and and visited an area to to hold court there and and to dispense justice there but first it always began with a service and the choristers of the cathedral came for a special service citizens came in and the judge was met and justice was prayed for and we gave thanks for justice at that time and afterwards in great ceremony the judge went off and then the ceremony was over and he was sitting in judgement at the court there he was in the midland division so would travel across the area of of england at that time and then much later on of course he became lord chief justice but i'm thinking of that time when he came for the crown court service because as far as i was concerned when that service was over i'd shaken hands with the judge and he'd gone and then the next oh about three mornings later uh i was telephoned by the judges clerk who said uh what time do the choristers say their own prayers at school and i thought what a strange question so i said well um i i think they will be saying them at about nine o'clock i can find out more definitely for you because the cathedral school was very nearby and he said well um the judge has had a case cancelled and would like to come and say his prayers with the choristers because the choristers sang to say their prayers with him at the crown court service and so in great surprise i received the judge again now just in his ordinary suit and we went in to say school prayers with the choruses and the rest of the uh cathedral school the junior section of the cathedral school in hereford and then i said to him would you like to speak to the the school and he talked about how dispensing justice from a distance was quite different from coming actually to be amongst the people so that they saw justice being done and that's why a judge traveled and then he said it's rather like the way in which god himself sent jesus to be with us in our human life because there is no substitute for actually sharing life and so when we say our prayers and say the our father and listen to the words of jesus we remember someone who came and lived a human life from life to death but then by his resurrection transferred the concept of eternity into something that was really in our own lives now later on when he was lord chief justice i i found myself sitting next to him at a particular dinner in london and i said to him do you remember that occasion he said yes i remember it very well he's retired now but sits in the house of lords on the cross benches that means belonging to no particular party and convenes those members of the house of lords one of them of course being betty boopsroyd that uh we talked about the other day so i give thanks for that memory and it's funny how certain sermons stay in your head and then on this day we did samsung yesterday well today is the birthday on october the 10th 1813 of giuseppe veldi and verde of course the great master the great master of italian opera recognized so even by folk like rossini and donizetti when he was a young man and he he lived from 1813 to 1901 and quite quickly became someone whose magnificent melodies stayed in the head but very often they linked with the longings of his own people or they linked with the longings and divine natures in terms of their spirituality of all humanity they're longing for that which will bring them home either in this life or the next and perhaps the most famous of his early songs was based on the sense of psalm 137 by the waters of babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered the ozian as for our harps we hung them on the willows that were nearby and that sense of loss and longing for home of course goes in that very famous melody in his early opera nabuko which became very famous and that ponce dorado the song of those longing for home by the waters of babylon and the translation would be if you like go thought on wings of gold the image of the thoughts flying backwards and forwards to their ruined city of jerusalem which they are longing to return to and rebuild and their temple lying in ruins as they are in the babylonian captivity vadi became almost an icon for his people but a bit like sansa had tragedies in his life and he married in 1836 margarita barretsi who sadly died four years later he lived with that tragedy but fell in love uh with an opera singer of a a wonderful voice called subpoena strep oni but somehow although his wife died in 1840 until 1859 although he began to live with her and his relationship with her was was known he couldn't actually bring himself to marry her but thank god in 1859 he did and they went to church together and he was a very very private man but everyone wanted to know about every detail of his life at that time and he didn't want that to happen and so he took the coachman and the bell ringer at the church and the priest was there the coachman of the bell ringer became the two witnesses and he and josephina were married and she became his wife from 1859 to 1897 and what caused him eventually to think i must take this step was the way in which she was being treated for living with someone that wasn't her husband they didn't treat him like that they dare not he was too great a man but it was jesupina when she walked into the village or something of that sort who was ridiculed and spurned and in church in the same way so that by marrying her in 1859 he made all that good for her and she became a wonderful support in all his life well the middling operas of his life very famous indeed aida and his requiem which is absolutely magnificent ottello and falstaff all of those are late operas the middling operas very famous rigoletto il trovatori and most favorite for us of all la traviata but think of poor violetta and the way that alberto is forced in his own mind to treat her because of his father's wishes we've seen that traviata so many times well i think we can count out five times in certain different places we've seen it in the royal opera house at blind born we've seen it in a venetian palazzo on the side of the canal done in different rooms i've spoken about that before i think and we've seen it also in our own drawing room here it was performed but the last time we saw it was in the anglican church in florence and it was performed there on a saturday evening beautifully in chamber version with marvellous singers and it causes us to remember the lovely city of florence home of so much creativity throughout human history and to remember also uh kirsten and simone and the children their dear friends of ours in florence uh and all the people of florence on this particular day and the those who are worshiping there on this sunday morning but it was traviata which was being performed and the case of violetta almost you felt mirrored for verdi the case of jesupina say that in that opera the passion that he has just as in so many of his operas the passion he has for italy uh becomes very very evident so thanks be to god for all the lovely uh songs which verdi has given us too many to to mention but it's interesting to know that he seemed to know which songs would become absolute popular winners so that he wouldn't let the the duke song from rigoletto la donnae mobile um be sung in rehearsal because he didn't want the secret to get out because he knew that tune landon immobile would become utterly a crowd winner just as the the same thing happens with nessendorma so all those things for um puccini and for verdi they knew what would be a winner i sort of think of elgar when he thought of the tune for his pomp and circumstance march which people now know as land of hope and glory as well as the pomp and circumstance march he wrote to jaeger his friend and said i have got a tune that will knock them over and composers tend to know that so thanks be to god for the way in which creation can be just caught out of particular atmospheres and verdi writing for his people but also writing from his heart and writing music which gives us creation in a wonderful way let's then say our prayers on this particular day before i go off to matins in the cathedral on this day we are praying for the church of the province of west africa and we're continuing in our own diocese to pray with thanksgiving for creation on our harvest focus day and all those whose task it is to produce harvests and to share the harvests and we also pray of course for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover emma at lambeth bishop emma at lambuth and we think today as our theme gave us that of those who were judging jesus uh and will judge jesus at the end of this passion week we've been reading about um we think of those whose task it is to dispense justice i was giving thanks for judge judge there's another friend of ours kimber wood who is a judge in the southern district of new york and we think of her and her husband frank kimba is well known for passing imaginative sentences which weren't simply particularly for those offending for the first time a prison sentence this is what the law says you go and do that because she felt and knew that it would mean that they would never return from that path that they were going on and so instead she put her own time on the line and said i'm going to give you this particular sentence of some kind of social interaction which would do good but every month or every two months you will come and spend time with me and i will question you about how that's going so she almost became a person of social services as well as dispensing justice and it takes me back to judge judge saying if you're amongst the people and you're sensing intuitively as well as in in your mind in terms of reading things about them and just giving out the law if you're amongst them then you can be imaginative in being creative to help them on a different path so we give thanks for kimber who was introduced to us by the person who painted my portrait here in the the uh the deanery jamie choris because he painted one of her and we happened to be there at the time in new york when in the courthouse that was unveiled and it was a wonderful moment because the tributes paid to her were fulsome and they praised not only her justice but also her humanity and the portrait gives all of that so let's say the collect a new connect for today and it's the 19th sunday after trinity i would call this a kit bag a knapsack collect that we ought to know by heart oh god for as much as without you we are not able to please you mercifully grant that your holy spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts through jesus christ our lord amen by the end of the week i hope we'll all know it by heart let's say the prayer our savior taught us and then some silence 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 [Music] 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 are men [Applause] that heavy sound of dunstan is calling me into matins in the cathedral as worship continues in the cathedral church itself so enjoy your sunday [Music] and happy saint thomas's day for all those in india keeping that special day today [Music] so [Music] so [Music] 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