good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral to the deanery garden here on this thursday the 24th of june it's mid-summer day here in the united kingdom and it's one of the what we call quarter days the church set this 24th of june back in the fourth century when we had an undivided east and west and the date was set as the feast of st john the baptist but has been taken as a quarter day because it's not the astronomical midsummer day which happened at the solstice on the 21st but it's always been seen as mid-summer day this area of the year so 24th of june and if we look at the other quarter days that's the 25th of march the feast of the annunciation and the 29th of september the feast of st michael and all angels on the 25th of december christmas day you'll see that they are all days when earth and heaven seem to touch each other and that's marked by the presence of angels so that today at the nativity of saint john the baptist we shall be thinking of the message given to zechariah and to elizabeth by the angel gabriel on the 25th of march we think of the message given to the blessed virgin mary by the angel gabriel and on the 29th of september is the feast of sin michael and all angels and on the 25th of december well of course we're at christmas and angels are singing to working shepherds in the fields below so it's as though the quarter days which were days set as important days in the calendar of the nation the quarter days allow heaven and earth to touch well certainly it feels as though that's happening today with the beautiful landscape and creativity all around me so wherever you are in the world please feel welcome on this mid-summer day but for all of us the feast of the nativity the birth of st john the baptist let's begin our prayers on this day o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise reveal among us the light of your presence that we may behold your power and glory blessed are you sovereign god to you be praise and glory forever in your tender compassion the dawn from on high is breaking upon us to dispel the lingering shadows of night as we look for your coming among us this day 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 does 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 we're choosing to move around the garden a little bit this morning because uh there's so much to see on this beautiful midsummer day and also not only to see but to experience because i'm sitting now um by the other rose arbor but you won't see that but beside me our beautiful honeysuckle and the fragrance of the honeysuckle you can see why their name is given is overpowering at the moment it's the scent of midsummer as it twines itself and flowers in this little area but also the light of the sun on the grasses and the delight of our friend here we have a new friend we had leo to begin with and now we've got tiger uh the delight of our friend on this lovely morning with no rain and no wind and the the warmth of the day just beginning to come we're going to say our psalm which is a lovely psalm i'm not going to say it all this morning it's psalm 118 and i'll start it off and then go to verse 14 oh give thanks to the lord for he is good his mercy endures forever let israel now proclaim his mercy and yours forever let the house of aaron now proclaim his mercy endures forever let those who fear the lord proclaim his mercy endures forever the lord is my strength and my song and he has become my salvation joyful shouts of salvation sound from the tents of the righteous the right hand of the lord does mighty deeds the right hand of the lord raises up the right hand of the lord does mighty deeds i shall not die but live and declare the works of the lord the lord has punished me solely but he has not given me over to death open to me the gates of righteousness that i may enter and give thanks to the lord this is the gate of the lord the righteous shall enter through it i will give thanks to you for you have answered me and have become my salvation the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone this is the lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes this is the day the lord has made we will rejoice and be glad in it come o lord and save us we pray come lord send us now prosperity blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord we bless you from the house of the lord the lord is god he has given us light link the pilgrims with chords right to the horns of the altar you are my god and i will thank you you are my god and i will exalt you oh give thanks to the lord for he is good his mercy and yours forever well you'll notice that the first verse of that psalm is the same as the last verse of that psalm but meanwhile we've been given many many reasons to give thanks to the lord for he is good and perhaps the best knapsack verse which might be a verse for every morning is verse 24 this is the day that the lord has made we will rejoice and be glad in it another green and flowery location for this midsummer morning here and this feast of saint john the baptist which takes us to a very special lesson in the first chapter of the gospel of saint luke it's a long chapter the gospel of saint luke with 80 verses but i don't know what we would do without luke 1 and 2 because many of the songs that we sing are found there and also the characters there give us enormous lessons so we're thinking of the nativity of john yesterday at evensong i read the first 25 verses of the chapter one and that spoke of zechariah the old priest whose wife elizabeth had never born a child and was was past childbearing years in his mind was on duty in the temple burning the incense and you'll remember how the angel gabriel comes with the message from the almighty that zechariah and elizabeth are to bear a son who will be the herald of the one to come and zechariah doesn't believe he almost laughs at the angel because he considers himself and his wife as long past childbearing and there's that very powerful i am gabriel i stand in the presence of god and i've been sent to give you good news but because you've not believed it you'll be silent until the time for the child to be born and then you will call him john so we now come to the time nine months later when john the baptist is born his father the priest zechariah back at home now but utterly mute is uh in this story as mute and elizabeth is about to give birth i'm in verse 57 and i'm reading to the end of the chapter now the time came for elizabeth to give birth and she bore a son and her neighbors and relatives heard that the lord had shown great mercy to her and they rejoiced with her and on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child and they would have called him zechariah after his father but his mother answered no he shall be called john and they said to her but none of your relatives is called by this name say they made signs to his father inquiring what he wanted him to be called and zechariah asked for a writing tablet and wrote his name is john and they all wondered and immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed and he spoke blessing god and fear came on all their neighbors and all these things were talked about through all the hill country of judea and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts saying what then will this child be for the hand of the lord was with him and his father zechariah was filled with the holy spirit and prophesied saying blessed be the lord god of israel for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant david as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant the oath that he swore to our father abraham to grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days and you child will be called the prophet of the most high for you will go before the lord to prepare his ways to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our god whereby the day star from on high shall visit us to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace and the child grew and became strong in spirit and was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to israel between the lesson from yesterday and this the song of mary has also happened because we have the lovely story of the visitation of mary to elizabeth and she responds with her magnificat and also the foretelling of jesus birth as i say it's a wonderful chapter and full of music this long first chapter of the gospel of saint luke which we went through all the way through last summer is full of the usual color and almost portrait painting of characters in which luke excels he began with a few verses of explanation of how he was going to set out his gospel and we've been looking at how matthew set out his gospel and what order he gave but here luke becomes really poetic and is giving us wonderful scenes of characters and moments when as we said before on these quarter days heaven seemed to touch earth and open people's hearts to the dimensions of which our humanity is possible and also to their own vocation given first of all to people who doubt their capacity to fulfill them and the lovely thing is that the messages come to them just in the middle of daily life and they come to to elderly people zechariah and elizabeth who believe that all their useful time is almost over and zechariah almost laughs at the angel gabriel at the message that's been given because to him it seems so far-fetched so ridiculous but gabriel is solemn for he has been sent from the most high to give good news and the silence it follows is a silence of nine months of reflection for zechariah who is unable to speak and when the child is born and on the eighth day of the child it's the act of obedience on the writing tablet following the angel's instruction his name is to be john which releases him for his own vocation and that vocation is instantly and i always think of benedictus that that uh canticle we call it but it's very much like a psalm of prophecy i always think of zechariah old zechariah with the child john in his arms because just about two-thirds of the way through he speaks to the child a new child will be called the prophet of the highest for you will go before the lord to prepare his ways and the way in which the child is going to prepare the way of the lord is by making people conscious of their shortcomings and baptizing them ready it's a baptism of repentance and the forgiveness of sins it's jesus who will come with the gifts of the holy spirit and with fire as uh as zechariah's message and john the baptist's message is to us but we give thanks that the first thing that the loosed tongue of zechariah did was to bless god and then to give us a musical prophecy which has enriched the music of the church ever since just as in the passage before when the angel comes to mary and she goes to see her cousin elizabeth the joy that mary feels at the greeting of elizabeth is released in a song which we call magnificat truly we have so much to be grateful for in the first two chapters of luke but if we concentrate on this one it's of zechariah and elizabeth and the young mary both of whom shocked by their vocation and really doubtful as to whether they can carry that forward for mary herself how can this be for i am a virgin and then the angel gabriel says the holy spirit will come upon you the power of the most high will overshadow you and therefore the one to be born of you will be called holy and then all the the the magnitude of of what is being being prophesied to her and in that also the connection with elizabeth is established and mary goes to visit her and in that meeting there is great joy the joy which again we rehearse and often sing daily in magnificat yep let's give thanks on this morning for those who are unexpectedly and they're the ones who are most surprised by what's being offered and challenged in their own lives but surely my time for that is over surely i don't have the gifts for this surely that can't happen because and gabriel's answer to zechariah is simply the ego amy i am which jesus loves so much i am gabriel i stand in the presence of god and i've been sent to give you good news there's a resonance of all that luke is going to be doing for us in his gospel and acts of the apostles i am luke and i've been sent to bring you good news in gospel and in the early chapters of the life of the church i am say your own name and hold yourself open whatever stage of life you're at young or old whatever at the moment seems to limit all you're doing in terms of resources i am the name and uh i am the lord's servant that comes over and over again and when that is fulfilled there's a blessing of god because it's done in most unexpected ways and it can happen in that chapter in joy or in sorrow in in um hidden quality or in open glory all of all of the things that are there the contradictions but what we do know is that zechariah and elizabeth are considered righteous fulfilling the the duties that they've been given in an ordinary way despite their disappointment and mary and joseph of the house of david is as zechariah's song says mary and joseph are considered or joseph is labeled a righteous man and uh the the sense of all of those that little quartet zechariah elizabeth mary joseph being blessed named by god and given a special vocation and yet it's in the ordinary ways of our humanity to be able to embrace that by the lord's grace here in the northern hemisphere in this country mid-summer day following mid-summer night and the minute i say midsummer night only one thing comes into our minds well actually perhaps two things for me a musical one as well as a shakespearean one the shakespearean one for all of us and for the whole world it's one of his most popular plays a midsummer night's dream the capacity of humanity to dream but also the capacity of drama to entertain and set out different characters both for our amusement but also for our learning it's beautiful in the sense that it brings in front of us the capacity of people to to make relationships with each other and to enjoy them but all the difficulties of sorrow often and pain that that loves brings with it and shakespeare is is of course the absolute i'm going to say a magician really with that he's he's the the person who can look at the landscape and the characters and really convey all of that in beautiful words and like luke can paint with those words beautiful pictures of what is going on around and midsummer night's dream of course is in mid-summer in almost an imaginary landscape but we're either at the court the very proud court of king theseus and the queen to whom he gets married at the end of the play hippolyta or we are in the greenwood with the flowers of midsummer all around and the presence throughout of another dimension well we can use that as figurative language for all that we've been speaking about today the capacity for not only our bodies and our minds to do their work but also for our spirits to reach out for the vocation and also for the dimensions that god has made us capable of receiving if we are courageous in faith and reach out to accept the invitation which may come at any time sometimes after years of waiting when we think that our best years of energy and thinking or activity are over sometimes so early you think well how can i do this that's why i wanted to go to the music as well because the minute i hear the words midsummer night's stream i think of felix mendelsohn with both the overture to midsummer night's stream with all his beautiful fairy music and the proud court of of king theseus and the the um sense of being there in the night in the forest and the themes of both fairies and mortals and all of that the imagination of him as a very young man creating that lovely overture concert overture not meant to be an overture to anything at all but it did become so because in 1842 then he was asked in um older years to create incidental music for the play midsummer night's stream so that then gave us completely different music and probably of course um the wedding march of theseus and hippolyta but by then of others too as we'll we'll remind ourselves in a moment has become most famous so that the sense in shakespeare of joy and sorrow of tragedy and pain of love and happiness and the capacity to celebrate all those things come in the midsummer night's stream together with the beautiful poetry you remember how the at the court of king theseus there is the very sensible and elderly father aegis a counselor much respected by the king who insists that his daughter is going to hermia is going to marry demetrius whom she doesn't love she loves lysander and uh instead hedena her friend loves demetrius but demetrius doesn't love her and in the middle of all that mess because of the father's insistence then hermia and lysander take off and and believe that they're about to run away and find happiness but all the while another dimension is going on and here's the metaphor for we have oberon king of the fairies and titania who are having their own marital difficulties and uh difficulties in relationship which will all be resolved by the end of the play but at the same time we have oberon's servant puck who is introduced into our landscape in anyone who knows the play because puck stays with us forever after as that one and um i wanted just to to give a sense just as sin luke gives us a sense of the beauty of the the poetry because do you remember uh oberon wants to play a trick on titania and is is wanting to squeeze a love potion into her eyes but first park has to find the flower that gives that love potion and then uh he will be back with it and and uh when he comes back with the flower oberon says give it to me and then he says how he will find titania and here's the very very beautiful set of verses which go with that where he will find her i know a bank where the wild time blows where ox slips and the nodding violet grows quite over canopied with luscious woodbine with sweet musk roses and with egglantine there sleeps titania sometime of the night lulled in these flowers with dances and delight and then at the end of that poem park says fear not my lord your servant shall do so he's going to put the juice into the eyes then we go to a different scene and there is the beautiful titania wife of abraham queen of the fairies it says with her train here is the direction and her train is the most beautiful sense of a a mingling of flowers and and fairies of wonderful names and titania says come now around and a fairy song then for the third part of a minute hence some to kill cankers in the musk raised buds some wore with rare mice for the leather wings to make my small elves coats and some keep back the clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders at our quaint spirits sing me now to sleep then to your offices and let me rest and the fairies sing you spotted snakes with double tongue thorny hedgehogs be not seen newts and blind worms do no wrong come not near our fairy queen fill a mel with melody sing in our sweet lullaby lullaby lulla lullaby never harm nor spell nor charm come our lovely lady nigh so good night with lullaby weaving spiders come not here hence you long leg spinners hence beetles black approach not near worm nor snail do no offense philamel with melody sing in our sweet lullaby lola lullaby lullaby it's the tale of night and it's the tale of day and i've missed out the characters who are also being creative and that's the group of those normally called mechanicals there to give us humor but also speaking by their humor some plain truths as well and they're given lovely names by shakespeare peter quince and nick bottom and francis flute and tom snout and snug and robin starvilling and they have lovely jobs like being a weaver or a bellows mender and all of these things um are in shakespeare's groups of people and by mixing everything up just as the flowers at this time of year and their opulence are all mixed up and listed in that lovely poem which oberon speaks all of that gives us thanksgiving on this mid-summer day and the sense of our human capacity not only to dream but to receive that which is feeding our spiritual dimension to embrace it and each day to wait this is the day the lord has made we will rejoice and be glad in it but it also may be a day when there's a special task for us and if that intimation is given to our spirituality then mind and body must seize it because uh zechariah in smiling at the impossibility was actually speaking to gabriel who stood in the presence of god and with god as jesus says in the gospel nothing is impossible so we give thanks for our capacity for joy and sorrow for love and laughter and pain and our capacity also to do god's will in any situation and at any time of life we remember the young and the old mendelson composing that magnificent overture which later on is recrafted into several moods for the play itself but also shakespeare giving us all those scenes and also dimensions of our humanity and most of all st luke the master craftsman in so many ways who like gabriel is here on this midsummer day this feast of st john the baptist to give us good news so we come to say our prayers on this feast day of the nativity of st john the baptist bring your own intentions and concerns to our prayers wherever you are in the world in the anglican communion today we're praying for the diocese of chubu in the nippon seiko kai which is the anglican church in japan and we pray for all the people there and pray also for this diocese of canterbury for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for tim bishop at lambeth and today we're praying for and giving thanks for all involved in lay ministry across the diocese so we use the collect the special prayer for this day and then we'll save the our father together almighty god by whose providence your servant john the baptist was wonderfully born and sent to prepare the way of your son our savior by the preaching of repentance lead us to repent according to his preaching and after his example constantly to speak the truth boldly to rebuke vice and patiently to suffer for the truth's sake through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language we say 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 limit of silence now for your own reflections on this day wow thank you [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