[Music] good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this wednesday the 12th of january we've come out into the garden very early this morning because we have a busy morning in the cathedral today we have the funeral of our friend we've been talking about judge nigel vanderbilt who was the recorder of the city and his wife loba and children antonia and alex will be coming to the cathedral for a service where we shall pay tribute and give thanks for his faithful service to this city but in the company of friends and intimate family and so we've started early the sun was not up when we came and it hardly is yet but the lamps are less necessary now and in front of me to the uh west the sky is pink and beautiful over the cathedral so it should be a nice day we shall go on from the funeral this morning to the lovely churchyard at nackington little country church for the burial of nigel there and we're sitting aptly under the elantra's tree which is the tree of heaven in an ancient chinese designation but in english the tree of heaven and the tree is opening its branches to the uh heavens above as they dawn in a moment i think in great glory when the sun comes up it's promised to be a nice day so wherever wherever you are in the world please bring your own concerns and prayers as we pray together 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 son 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 oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm this morning on the 12th morning of the month is psalm 62 on god alone my soul in stillness waits from him comes my salvation he alone is my rock and my salvation my stronghold so that i shall never be shaken how long will all of you assail me to destroy me as you would a tottering wall or a leaning fence they plot only to thrust me down from my place of honour lies are their chief delight they bless with their mouth but in their heart they curse wait on god alone in stillness o my soul for in him is my hope he alone is my rock and salvation my stronghold so that i shall not be shaken in god is my strength and my glory god is my strong rock in him is my refuge you put your trust in him always my people pour out your hearts before him for god is our refuge the peoples are but a breath the whole human race a deceit on the scales they are altogether lighter than air put no trust in oppression in robbery take no empty pride though wealth increase set not your heart upon it god spoke once and twice have i heard the same that power belongs to god steadfast love belongs to you o lord for you repay everyone according to their deeds we've been reading this week the book of ruth and as we've said each morning it is a country tale setting a scene at bethlehem and the fields around and setting a scene of ordinary rural life the rhythm of the seasons the barley harvest the wheat harvest the reapers going out to take the harvest so we've come here on to the lawn of the deanery which as you know last year we allowed to grow up and seed and have lovely meadow orchids and all kinds of flowers now it has to be prepared for a year when we expect to be giving hospitality on it again so much to uh fletcher's uh disappointment that the wildness of the lawn will begin to disappear as the grass is cut and rolled and prepared and we can watch that happen through the early months of the year up until the time when again hopefully and with god's blessing the lambeth conference will gather here at the bishops of the anglican episcopal world in july and august and the lawn will then become as it will on other occasions a place of mighty hospitality but for the moment it's what we should call tosaki and it needs to be reaped not with reapers but with a high mower to begin this so we do it properly and i'm going back now to the book of ruth and we are in chapter 2 and i shall read chapter 2 verses 1 to the beginning of verse 17. now naomi had a relative of her husband's a worthy man of the clan of elimelech whose name was boaz and ruth the moabite said to naomi let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight i shall find favor and naomi said to her go my daughter so ruth set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to boaz who was of the clan of elimelech and behold boaz came from bethlehem and he said to the reapers the lord be with you and they answered the lord bless you then boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers whose young woman is this and the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered she is the young moabite woman who came back with naomi from the country of moab she said please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers so she came and has continued from early morning until now except for a short rest then boaz said to ruth now listen my daughter do not go to glean in another field or leave this one but keep close to my young women let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping and go after them have i not charged the young men not to touch you and when you are thirsty go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn then ruth fell on her face bowing on the ground and said to him why have i found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since i am a foreigner but boaz answered her all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before the lord repay you for what you have done and a full reward will be given by the lord the god of israel under whose wings you have come to take refuge then ruth said i have found favor in your eyes my lord for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant so i am not one of your servants but at meal time boaz said to ruth come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine so ruth sat beside the reapers and boaz passed to her roasted grain and she ate until she was satisfied and she had some left over when she rose to glean boaz instructed his young men saying let her glean even among the sheaves and do not reproach her and also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean and do not rebuke her so ruth gleaned in the field until evening it's a story we'll continue and it's a story of good faith in the fields in the middle of the barley harvest a seasonal story of beginnings in bethlehem and today we see simple rural qualities of good faith and gratitude being exercised by boaz ruth a woman and a foreigner says why should you why should you care for me like this and say such things and he says because i have heard of how faithful and loyal you have been to your mother-in-law he simply says after your husband's death but he might also have said and after her naomi's husband's death as well how you left your mother and father and come to a people you had never never known and here you are in a foreign land gleaning and we shall show you kindness so don't leave my fields but glean here the gleaning is one of the rules and laws in the book of deuteronomy particularly that people are allowed to glean after the reapers pick up ears which have fallen and deuteronomy goes further because it it says just leave the edges as well leave some grapes on the vines so that people who come who are more needy have something of the generosity that the lord is supplying in the harvest field so ruth begins to glean in safety among the women of that land of bethlehem but also amongst the young men there who are servants of boaz now she's been told to stay on his property and notice how when boaz goes to the workers the young workers he says it's a very familiar greeting to us the lord be with you and they answer the lord bless you it's a godly morning greeting at the beginning of a a harvesting day as berez's young workers reap the barley field how many of our lord's parables are set in a context like this of sowing and reaping and people about their business seasonally of trees which grow and give shelters to the bird of leaven giving life to the the flower of the dough all of those things of of country folk and the ordinary rhythm of life and we remember how many people in the world are still involved in that kind of life i think probably a a much lower percentage in this country much much lower but in some areas of the world very much those rhythms of life and hard work with very early mornings and late nights seizing the opportunity and being patient for the crop jesus uses those images and parables so many times and in the context of the creator's good gifts in rural galilee or even in judea around the area of jerusalem though bethlehem is very much a city of judah and boaz is of that tribe and clan the tribe of judah so he has come to his field and made a discovery in a settled landscape but perhaps to give this context let's go back to genesis chapter 8 where the verse is god's first promise after the ark comes to rest and noah offers a sacrifice and god returns the promise while the earth remains cold and heat summer and winter day and night shall not cease it's a lovely harvest anthem we used to sing and still is sung i'm sure in places so it it happens today that we have an event which i only really was conscious of very early this morning that an actor gary waldhorn has died and we have many memories of him he was a royal shakespearean company actor and played henry iv in that and and acted with judy dench i think in all's world it ends well and was in many television programs and very well known to us but the one thing that marked his career for years really because he was in every episode all the way through from the 10th of november 1994 is his role as shall we say the local big house and and the squire almost the the the chief man in the village of dibley as the vicar of didley of dibley's chairman of the council that the parish council is called which is actually an amalgamation in their terms of a parochial church council and a parish council and uh of course dawn french is the vicar of dibley and he at first can't get his mind around the fact that a woman has come to be the parish priest of the parish in dibly and when that series began in 1994 so often a a comedy series will last for a short time and then one remembers it but this just took the nation by storm and it was one of dawn french's greatest roles she's been in so many wonderful things but this is how we remember her as and think of her and uh sadly um uh gary walthorn has died so i wanted just to think of why this series took the nation by storm because it's set in just such a community that we've been thinking of and some people are massively conservative and don't want any change at all and others are thinking oh come on let's let's give this a go and uh the vicar of dibley dawn french is is uh in the middle of all of that with great good humor and tremendous vocation and tremendous faithfulness you remember howard goodwall wrote a lovely setting to be sung of the son the 23rd psalm the lord is my shepherd i shall not want he maketh me lie down in green pastures and green pastures symbolizes the the story of ruth but also the the life of the village of dibley which became the nation's property year in year out there were christmas specials they were easter specials and it went on and on until really quite recently because uh the the cast there were quite small and we got to know them all the vicar played by dawn french geraldine granger she was called and she and the virger lovely alice who was played by emma chambers uh who has sadly died now um and emma chambers and dawn uh fringe would actually meet in the vestries the verger and the vicar at the end of each episode and the vicar would tell a joke and the virtual would never ever get it and you could see the puzzlement on her face on the vicar's face but the jokes often beca because of her not getting it became utterly hilarious and yet dawn french trusted alice's loyalty as with all of them it's a a series in a rural setting of enormous affection of great kindness of mighty impatience with one another and of people posing in a way that our friend who has died on the 10th of january uh gary walthorn played david horton who was himself a very conservative english country gentleman and his rather dim sum hugo the young man played by james fleet uh in all of that uh you you you had a a a knockabout between father and son and the son occasionally trying to rebel and dawn french coming in with one idea after another as the vicar and uh the expressions on on david's face david uh horton's face um were just extraordinary and uh it gave us enormous pleasure with the seasons of the year christmas and easter and harvest and people began to understand something of the rural life of the english church in the countryside and also what it cost i don't mean in terms necessarily of financial resources i mean in terms of service and and of of people singing choirs playing organs being the center of a community in all sorts of ways not just in worship but in all manner of ways in life we had the meeting always in the in the series the meeting of the the council would take place with dave and david horton uh chairing it uh and uh then of course we had uh frank pickle the clerk who was played by john blutol who was uh pedantic about the minutes of everything and a farmer who really cared about nothing much owen knew it and would come in he cared about his cattle and his sheep and his pigs and would come in um from generally from the farm telling some story or other and then who else did we have we had oh yes trevor peacock as jim trott who prefaced every sentence even one that was going to be affirmative with no no no no no no no no yes and it became another catch word with all of these things different characters different personalities within a community that knew itself not necessarily agreeing falling out fighting coming together again reconciling spotting the qualities of each other and encouraging and uh last of all perhaps i should mention lovely liz smith who who died some years ago now who played leticia cropley and she was a lady who sat at the parish council knitting and always brought delightful things in her mind that she had cooked in the kitchen and she had a radical way of adding ingredients so that uh we tease one another sometimes because i'm very conservative about food and don't like too many things being added to it and so experiments in the kitchen are not something that i generally approve of but sometimes like of course but uh one's remembers that she brought her victoria's sponge cake with its sweet jam in the middle and uh cut it and gave it round and the the faces as they bit into it uh were an absolute picture and dawn french says oh that's a very interesting taste and she said yes well i thought it needed spicing up so i put some marmite in it and then on another occasion she brought chocolate sandwiches and the same thing happened and the somebody asked what is this flavor and she said well it's a chocolate sandwich but i added some tara marcelata and this kind of thing goes on well that's something that we so much give thanks for that series now so i think six of the eight actress and actresses have now died um but it went on for so long from 1994 and did great good for understanding the ways of the rural church and i would want to say this morning that the rural church at the moment the little parish churches we're going to nackington this afternoon for the burial a beautiful country church and when i was in the countryside in wiltshire way back in the late 70s and early 80s and was the uh rural dean as it was called there were priests in every parish more or less i had a big country church and two little ones which was easily managed with help and two retired clergy who helped out there but now that the royal dean there uh or the area d19 or they call them in salisbury but but uh the parishes that are staffed with a priest those priests will be looking after huge groups of parishes it's not only so in england in france there's priests looking after 25 parishes or something of that sort which means you can spend very little time getting to know the life of each small community and financial resources are one thing but human resources very much another and the sense of musicians being available to come and sing and play and teach the children to sing and the sense of rural schools and rural resources we as a church have always had a strong line in that pastoral ministry and this is a perhaps a moment to flag that as the pandemic has hit that ministry hard with those country churches and the church needs to take a responsibility for that as is as the the months of this year unfold this is a day also i just mentioned this because it's the same kind of delight that english people feel uh and people across the world feel uh for those small communities it's the day that day magatha christie died in 1976 and she in the guinness book of records is the best-selling novelist of all time but one of her favorite characters of course is miss marple the detective ordinary lady uh not to unlike they're very different from mrs cropley that i was talking about but sitting knitting and not pretending to to not to notice anything but noticing absolutely everything and set in the small community of mary mead another idyllic rural place where all kinds of things are happening and people notice one another and encourage one another and greet one another in the street well there's one other thing that i wanted to mention this morning and this is the story of a creature because we're told that magawa the heroic rat he was an african giant pouch rat who was trained by a belgian charity called apopo to alert human handlers to landmines and where they were and he became absolutely expert he was so light that in walking across the landmine he wouldn't set it off but he would recognize where it was and we are told that uh magawa could search a field the size of a tennis court for land mines in cambodia we're talking about where there are there are thousands of land mines dropped from earlier wars um and we were told he could search the a field the size of a tennis court in 20 minutes and it would have taken uh human beings with metal detectors up to four days safely to do that so that after a life of clearing 141 000 square meters of landmines safely magawa was allowed to retire last june and was given the pdsa gold medal for heroism it's like a george cross for creatures so that sometimes our ways of doing things are done better by creatures who have a sensitivity and the right size for for doing all of those things so we remember magawa and the patient people who trained him and apparently until uh a few days ago he was quite healthy and then began to slow down and died quietly after his months of retirement so i'm glad he had a a time of retirement between last june and now all those things in a settled rural community and the qualities of that there are qualities of urban life there are qualities of life all over the world in different kinds of communities but this morning the vicar of dibley and the story of ruth has actually given us a chance to think of settled english rural communities which are really under threat so let's say our prayers at this occasion and the sun is now actually the sun is beautifully now on the delhi tower so it's rising but it's not got high enough not to come into the garden yet we're praying this morning in uh our diocese sorry let's start with the anglican communion we're praying for the diocese of jamaica and the cayman islands the church in the province of the west indies and we pray in this diocese for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover and for emma bishop at lambeth and on this day we're praying as a diocese for all children and young people in the diocese well we would think of that especially here because our cathedral school our king's school and our choristers who are trained to to sing down here and who who live here i can see the smoke of their chimney uh ascending as i sit here um our choristers who go up to sin edmund school in in the city here are all back now so there's the noise of children about their work and uh they have returned mostly uh despite the pandemic and and life is beginning to be ordered in a regular way again so we're praying together as a diocese for children and young people and those who have a special ministry with them here is our prayer for today so bring your own intentions and concerns eternal father who at the baptism of jesus revealed him to be your son anointing him with the holy spirit grant to us who are born again by water and the spirit that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children through jesus christ our lord are men so a moment when we say our the prayer that our savior taught us in whichever language we like to use and then a moment for reflection our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come i 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 let's see a moment for our own reflections and concerns [Music] the lord is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] is of my life [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] it's hard to think back now to 1994 but at that time women priests in the church of england had not been able to be ordained for very long and i should say that the vicar of dibley opened people's eyes to the way in which they were thinking about that and david horton by um embodying uh what you might call simply a conservative way of thinking well i don't want any change and then getting to know in a a knock about way in humor with dawn french's scripts and gradually over the years a completely different perception began to open up but at the same time of course over the years the service of women who had been deacons for many years in the in the parishes and and now uh were ordained as priests and now it we take that absolutely for granted throughout the ministry of the church of england but as that happened uh at the same time there was a humor going on at at the the in the background of this extraordinary series which did some um wonderful things for changing attitudes not only with the royal church but with the the ministry of the church of england itself so we give thanks for all of that christ the son of god perfecting you the image of his glory and gladden your hearts with the good news of his kingdom 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] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] this is a shortened version of a show that we've done a few times um over the last um 10 years um the original show was called the labourers year and then we've um recently sort of write um reformed it slightly and changed a few songs around and then we call it labour's year two and this is the shortened version so this is labour's year two and a half [Music] 1860 and 1900 um so a year in the life of a labouring man about that period and we're just going to sing some of the songs that sort of uh tells you about the the sort of period and the some of the songs and some of the things he would have got up to throughout the year so can we start in september and we start in september best time to start as as can be told from halfway through the first line of this song come out is now september the hunter's moon began and through the weeds of stubble we'll hear the frequent gun [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the spring is like a young maid who does not know her mind the summer is a tyrant of most and gracious kind the autumn is an old friend who pleases all he can and brings the beardy barley to glad the heart of man [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] who would not be [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Music] together we will go all in [Music] is [Music] is [Music] love and harmony around us to be seen and when it's done we'll take our nails jack on the green [Applause] [Music] somewhere [Music] home [Music] is [Music] you