good morning and welcome to the dinery garden in canterbury cathedral on this morning of thursday the 10th of september we've come to the deanery orchard this morning and the sun is just rising over the wall and over the trees beyond me as we begin to say our morning prayers wherever you are in the world please feel welcome and bring your concerns to our prayers september the 10th is one of those days when there are very few significant happenings in history which which jump out at us but there are some uh and i just mentioned um the birthday in 1659 of henry purcell who is an icon of of english music in that century and has been part of the repertoire of singers in church ever since so we give thanks for him and for his composition and at the same time in 1224 the franciscans arrived in england and since then their ministry has been very much something which has been appreciated as they began to spread across first the european world and then the whole world in the footsteps of saint francis himself so we give thanks for them but i'm wanting to concentrate on two names in our reflection edmund peck and alexander crummell edmund peck died today in 1924 and alexander kramel in 1898 both of them were significant priests and missionaries in communities where they felt they needed to raise the attention to the communities around them cromwell was a pioneering african-american episcopal priest and his memorial really is the church of st luke's in 15th street in washington but we'll think a little about him and a great deal about edmund peck whose name is unfamiliar but he too was a pioneering priest in communities that were just not his own but which he became part of but let's first of all say our prayers and read our lesson from the acts of the apostles oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the daystar dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night blessed are you creator of all to you be praise and glory forever as your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation may we rejoice in this day you have made and as we wake refreshed from the depths of sleep open our eyes to behold your presence and strengthen our hands to do your will that the world may rejoice and give you 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 and 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 on this morning of the month this tense morning is psalm 50 and i read some verses from it now 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 a mighty tempest stares 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 that the heavens declare his righteousness for god himself is 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 but i will take no bull out of your house nor he goat out of your folds 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 whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me and to those who keep my way will i show the salvation of god so we turn to the acts of the apostles and today we are carrying on from the lesson which we used yesterday and beginning chapter 12 about that time head of the king laid violent hands on some who belong to the church he killed james the brother of john with the sword and when he saw that it pleased the jews he proceeded to arrest peter also this was during the days of unleavened bread and when he had seized him he put him in prison delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him intending after the feast of the passover to bring him out to the people so peter was kept in prison but ernest's prayer for him was made to god by the church now when headed was about to bring him out on that very night peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains and centuries before the door were guarding the prison and behold an angel of the lord stood next to him and a light shone in the cell he struck peter on the side and woke him saying get up quickly and the chains fell off his hands and the angel said to him dress yourself and put on your sandals and he did so and he said to him wrap your cloak round you and follow me and he went out and followed him he did not know that what was being done by the angel was real but thought he was seeing a vision when they had passed the first and the second guard they came to the iron gate leading into the city it opened for them of its own accord and they went out and went along one street and then immediately the angel left him when peter came to himself he said now i am sure that the lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of herod and from all that the jewish people were expecting when he realized this he went to the house of mary the mother of john whose other name was mark where many were gathered together and were praying and when he knocked at the door of the gateway a servant girl named rhoda came to answer recognizing peter's voice in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that peter was standing at the gate they said to her you're out of your mind but she kept insisting that it was so and they kept saying it must be his angel but peter continued knocking and when they opened they saw him and were amazed but motioning to them with his hand to be silent he described to them how the lord had brought him out of the prison he said tell these things to james and to the brothers then he departed and went to another place one might call this passage [Applause] meanwhile in jerusalem for we have been in antioch and luke is now juggling between the two major cities this is becoming a tale of two cities and remember how that story starts it was the best of times it was the worst of times one of those famous openings which charles dickens gives us here's a tale of two cities antioch the teeming roman greek and every nation city third biggest city in the roman empire at that time and luke has shown how barnabas and saul have been proclaiming the good news in that city and now at that time means let's go back to jerusalem and see what's happening there and here we have herrod agrippa the first not a popular person amongst the jewish people but nevertheless popular for a moment amongst the roman authorities and he's been given more and more control and now his lands include galilee and even judea it won't last for long as we'll see but for the moment he's trying to curry favor it works with some so that the first of the twelve are martyred by the sword as we hear it's james the brother of john remember how the two brothers said we can drink the cup that you will drink and jesus said you you will indeed well here is how the first of them drinks that cup james the brother of john is killed first of the twelve to be a witness in martyrdom and then because it seemed to herod this seems to please the people he arrests peter also now what happens next is by an agency divine or human you can take it as you will the angel is someone or a divine being releasing peter we've seen before how many people in the soldiers in authoritative positions are secretly and now even after all the work done by the the newly named christians in jerusalem how much work has been done there there are many who have great gratitude whether or not it was a human agency of some authority which released peter herod was not popular with the chief priests either no one was going to hold a candle for herod or an angel the church certainly knows and we know it was by divine agency which released peter at that time and peter very much says the lord has sent his angel to release me from all that headed and the jewish people were expecting well where does he go and here again new characters are introduced by luke some of them one feels he assumes his readers know already peter goes to the house of mary the mother of john mark and there he finds all of them gathered but this is swift and this is secret be silent because people will be searching for him and their life is in danger if he stays with them he tells the story and then says and here's another character being introduced to us a very significant character indeed tell james now obviously this is not james the apostle he has been killed this is james the brother of jesus who has now become the leader of the church in jerusalem and peter goes away to another place that other place will take him right across the world to rome the known world even bigger than he'd imagined at that time across the mediterranean sea to rome not yet not yet but nevertheless this is the beginning of peter's journey which will end in him too drinking of the cup of suffering and sacrifice which our lord gave to him let's think for a moment of that word sacrifice because we read in our psalm the lovely psalm 50 where the lord says offer to me the sacrifice of thanksgiving it comes twice in that psalm whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me when we say that phrase which i always find quite moving the gift of this new day we begin it whatever is intended for us this day in a spirit of thanksgiving that is our morning sacrifice we embrace what god has in store for us with thanksgiving i wanted to mention those two names alexander kramel and i just mentioned him briefly because he in the middle of the 19th century was holding aloft the torch of african americans and also looking at the culture that they had brought with them to enrich the american people and the new world he went off himself across the oceans and not only went to africa but he studied in cambridge becoming the the first uh black african to graduate at cambridge university and then back to the united states to hold the torture loft and now the church of st luke's in washington is his heritage but there's much more to his heritage than that with the development that has gone on since that episcopal priest first but the second edmund peck even less well-known he was born in 1850 and was uh a lot had lost all his parents by the time he reached his base his parents by the time he'd reached teenage years and he joined the royal navy and then at the age of 25 he left all that and went to a college in reading to learn greek and theology and was then ordained and went to canada and was sent to the very difficult area at that time and remote area around hudson bay on the quebec coast but then to baffin island for much of his ministry there the only contact he had with the outside world was a ship which came once a year to bring supplies and news he soaked himself in the culture of the inuit people believing that language was the key to everything if you learned a person's language you knew their thoughts if you received their stories told from the past from the ages and embraced them and gave the good news to that then not only they were enriched the inuit peoples enriched but also the church was enriched by the diversity of things being embraced cultures being embraced god's people being embraced and the sacrifice of thanksgiving as the sun rises would go right across the world so he spent his time not only devoting himself to the people there living that life building a church out of seal skins which the dog's at so he had then to start again with precious wood but he did and at the same time translating translating that the bible new testament and the psalms he affected so that they were published and making a dictionary so that the language could be explored and those people play their part not only within the church but within the worldwide community i give great thanks for edmund peck but i remember an occasion in my own ministry when in the uh early 80s i think 1981 i was in the southern sudan in juba at a meeting where both the archbishop of the sudan elena who had the whole of the sudan that vast tracks of land and hot land as well and sitting next to him was fred krabb the archbishop of rupert's land all that area which involves uh baffin island and i thought at the time as i took their photograph and had my photograph taken with them as well that these two are ministering and soaking themselves in the culture and stories of people very different people right across the sudan for so many different cultures in in that great land and at that time it seemed almost impossible that one could be the archbishop of such a frozen in terms of temperature land administered there and the other such a hotland and minister there and i give thanks for all the conversations i had with them and the diaries i kept at that time and i give thanks for their ministry my mother read a book in 1967 and she handed it on to me after i became ordained it was called i heard the owl call my name and it was written by margaret craven it's a beautiful book about a young episcopal priest called mark bryan who is dying of an unknown disease but his bishop sends him in canada to a remote community in british columbia and the story of how he knows and loves and really becomes part of that nation is an amazing one i won't say more about the book because you may want to read it called i heard the owl call my name and that is the story of how peter left on that journey and his center is no more in jerusalem james james the just we call him will take over the leadership there but taking with them the small amount of equipment needed and beginning to learn different languages becomes absolutely crucial to the way in which we know and love people and the way in which day by day we open the gift of a new day and offer in our hearts minds and activity the sacrifice of thanksgiving thanks be to god for alexander krummel and for edmund peck on this day let's say our prayers on this particular day in the anglican communion we pray for the diocese of osun north in nigeria and the bishop there abiodun and his people the diocese of cape town and the primate there and bishop of that diocese archbishop tabo matt gober a great friend of canterbury and very significant in the planning of the lambeth conference which is now set to happen in 2022 and the diocese of carlisle here in the church of england and james newcomb and all his people there in that diocese here we pray for archbishop justin and for rose bishop of dover for tim bishop at lambeth and today for in this city the parish of since stephen's canterbury for kevin maddy and stephen ladd in their ministry there and all their people so near us here in canterbury cathedral within the bounds of the city of canterbury bring your own prayers we continue to remember those fighting forest fires and here is restrictions closing again in in england we remember all those fighting this pandemic and trying to control its spread throughout the world almighty god who called your church to bear witness that you were in christ reconciling the world to yourself help us to proclaim the good news of your love that all who hear it may be drawn to you through him who was lifted up on the cross and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen and to the sound of a robin song beside me here we say our prayer which our lord taught us in whichever language you would normally say rejoicing in our languages and knowing that language is an expression of who we are 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 silence now for our own prayers today robins are very territorial birds and this morning he's singing his song but we have been guests in his territory and we give thanks for that 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 you would pray for today and always amen so you