good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of monday the 24th of january we are looking around the world so be welcome from wherever you are and bring your own concerns but our concerns are very much with situations of political tension and buildup of of military forces uh first of all let's just look at the west african nation of burkina faso where reports of all kinds of disturbances around the president's palace have been uh coming through and so we think of the people there and those in leadership and military positions and all those who are in any kind of danger and we pray for all those with influence for good to be able to exert in in situations of that kind and let's turn our mind also to the border between the ukraine and russia at this time and pray for an easing of the tension there and again for any with influence across the world influence for good in that situation to be wise in their decision-making on this day or rather solemn things at the beginning of this uh week when tomorrow we shall be celebrating the feast of the conversion of sinful but today this is an ordinary monday uh but it's not ordinary for someone and i just pick out it at random uh a big o birthday for megan hogan who is one of our daily regular uh garden congregation and megan has today reached the grand age of 30. and so we give you many congratulations on that very young big o and i hope you have a happy day and i'm saying that to cheer us all up on a day when we're thinking seriously about the the leadership needed throughout the world but here's someone celebrating a wonderful thing and there will be people that you know of course across the world celebrating very happy events because human life is such a mixture of emotions now we've come as we were with the turkeys uh yesterday we've now come into the chicken run because we thought the the chickens might cry foul because we concentrated on the turkeys rather than them well here we are in their lockdown and what you're seeing is the remains of christmas spread around for their entertainment truly for their entertainment for chickens are curious birds and like to go to discover places and in the difficulty of this lockdown of all birds because of the avian flu where they have to be covered and separated from from birds outside then this becomes very boring but all of them get used to it but flesh puts into the chicken run different things to interest them and nothing more interesting than the remains of the christmas trees we've kept one inside the house for candle mass on february the second but the rest have now been recycled shall we say in various different ways and here are some of them and the chickens are pretending or actually thinking that this is a bit of woodland as they would be exploring out if the ordinary time was there so i'm going to give them their breakfast as we did with the turkeys i'll throw some around here and then they'll have a hopes happy house sorry happy feeding time and uh so i'll put a lot of it here now the pheasants rather like these lovely white pheasants rather like the other end of the of the run and uh some of the chickens are melting but i'll take some down there come on pheasants let's let's give you corn over there that's the way there we are and then i'll i'll take it take it back through and around so that they can search and put them there there we are and uh let's put the wrist up here keep them here all right okay good done there we are girls sorry there we are fine let me come through sorry interrupting your interrupting your breakfast now here we are okay that will give us a little quiet time to enjoy our morning prayers together with the contented sound not only of the chickens and pheasants having their breakfast but also of outside winnie and clemmy in the muddier part of their field they've got a nice dry section on the other side but they've come across here to explore what food that is around at breakfast time so we've got them as part of our company but beyond the wires this morning of the chicken's enclosure so let's say our morning prayers on a monday morning as we pray together bring your own concerns from wherever you are in the world on this day oh 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 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 our men it's always a bit of competition between them all at feeding time and uh in the middle of all the chickens trying to look after them is uh bruce brewster the rooster uh he's small but he's quite plucky and uh things will settle down when everyone has had their breakfast so we're going to our psalm now which this morning is psalm 100 and sorry 116. i love the lord for he has heard the voice of my supplication because he inclined his ear to me on the day i called to him the snares of death encompassed me the pains of hell took hold of me my grief and sorrow was i held then i called upon the name of the lord o lord i beg you deliver my soul gracious is the lord and writers our god is full of compassion the lord watches over the simple i was brought very low and he saved me turn again to your rest o my soul for the lord has been gracious to you for you have delivered my soul from death my eyes from tears and my feet from falling i will walk before the lord in the land of the living i believe that i should perish for i was sorely troubled and i said in my alarm everyone is a liar how shall i repay the lord for all the benefits he has given to me i will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the lord i will fulfill my vows to the lord in the presence of all his people precious in the sight of the lord is the death of his faithful servants o lord i am your servant your servant the child of your handmaid you have freed me from my bonds i will offer to you a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call upon the name of the lord i will fulfill my vows to the lord in the presence of all his people in the courts of the house of the lord in the midst of you o jerusalem hallelujah so a lovely psalm of invocation i will fulfill my vows to the lord and perhaps that's a good psalm as we go back to the story of samuel and saul where we we left them when we stopped our reading yesterday you'll remember that saul began all this a young man going out simply to find the wandering donkeys of his father kish and that has led to a meeting with samuel the seer and at this time it becomes a crucial meeting but saul has no idea and you'll remember that he questions samuel and asks why then have you spoken to me in this way i'm one of the the least of the tribes benjamin and the smallest of the clans of that tribe and yet you're speaking to me why but samuel doesn't answer he takes saul and brings him to the place where they're all eating and gives him a fine meal and takes saul and his servant to sleep and a bed on the roof of samuel's own house which i'm imagining is it rama and so we're carrying on from verse 25 of chapter nine as the story continues so saul etched with samuel that day and when they came down from the high place into the city a bed was spread for saul on the roof and he lay down to sleep then at the break of dawn samuel called saul on the roof get up that i may send you on your way so saul arose and both he and samuel went out into the street as they were going down to the outskirts of the city samuel said to saul tell your servant to pass on before us and when he has passed on stop here yourself for a while that i may make known to you the word of god then samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed saul and said has not the lord anointed you to be prince over his people israel and you shall reign over the people of the lord and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies and this shall be the sign to you that the lord has anointed you to be prince over his heritage when you depart from me today you will meet two men by rachel's tomb in the territory of benjamin at zelda that you went to seek the donkeys that you went to seek are found and now your father has ceased to care about the donkeys and is anxious about you saying what shall we do about my son i could have i could have imagined it was going to be you it's always you isn't it oopsie you're watching dropping everything you're worse than tiger aren't you it's always you let me go on um the donkeys that you went to seek are found and now your father has ceased to care about the donkeys and is anxious about you saying what shall i do about my son then you shall go on from there further and come to the oak of table three men going up to god at bessel will meet you there one carrying three young goats another carrying three loaves of bread another carrying a skin of wine and they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread which you shall accept from their hand after that you shall come to gibeath elohim where there is a garrison of the philistines and there as soon as you come to the city you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp tambourine flute and liar before them prophesying then the spirit of the lord will rush upon you and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man now when these signs meet you do what your hand finds to do for god is with you then go down before me to gilgal and behold i am coming to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings seven days you shall wait until i come to you and show you what you shall do when he turned back to leave samuel god gave saul another heart and all these signs came to pass that day when they came to gibeah behold a group of prophets met him and the spirit of god rushed upon him and he prophesied among them and when all who knew him previously saw how he prophesied with the prophets the people said to one another what has come over the son of kish is saul also among the prophets and the man of the place answered and who is their father therefore it became a proverb is saul also among the prophets when he had prophesying he came to the high place saul's uncle said to him and to his servant where did you go and saul said to seek the donkeys and when we saw they were not to be found we went to samuel and saul's uncle said please tell me what samuel said to you and saul said to his uncle he told us plainly that the donkeys had been found but about the matter of the kingdom of which samuel had spoken saul did not tell him anything i've read it up to there because it takes us right back to the ordinary beginning the ordinary beginning that saul started out with his quest was not to find himself anointed as king his quest was not even to see samuel his quest at that time was to find the donkeys an ordinary rural exercise and notice how they're living in an occupied land now you go there that is the place where there is a garrison of the philistines says samuel so that they are a subject nation to the philistine lords and they have asked samuel to give them a king and a military leader and his prophetic eye has settled on saul but saul is still in uh ignorance of much of that but what has happened on the way back and epiphany is a time of signs what has happened on the way back is the fact that saul has been filled with the spirit of the lord it's almost a pentecost experience the spirit of the lord will rush upon you and you will find those prophets with their musical instruments who are singing and prophesying and you will join them and you too will have a new heart to be the servant of the lord and not only a king but a prophet that's the inference so that there is something of samuel and something of the leadership that a king needs being infused into seoul with the new heart that is being given to him by the coming of the spirit of god on him and this is a time of enormous joy and exhilaration for saul he's got seven days to wait for samuel at gilgal but he's no idea what all this is about still although he's been anointed and the kissing of saul is still very much part of that uh connection which people make at the anointing and crowning of a monarch uh that has happened at that in that private ceremony on the road so many things happen on the road in the scriptures in both the old covenant and the new so here we are again and where will this road take saul well right back to the place where he first started still being conscious that something really amazing has happened and being filled with this sense of a new heart you will become a new man says samuel but the whole vocation of what that will mean for him is still to be opened up so let's think what this is meaning first of all it's meaning that samuel needed god's gift of wisdom to choose the moment to choose the moment to find saul and then saul needed the wisdom and the spirit of god to receive that moment to embrace that moment and that is what we shall see opening out in the day not tomorrow because we shall be dealing with the conversion of another soul on the road to damascus tomorrow the conversion of saint paul as he became but the day after we'll see how this soul's vocation opens out in a particular way and we see also his puzzlement and his at the moment reluctance and that'll become more apparent when we come again to this on wednesday morning uh his reluctance to accept this role which is destined for him by the wisdom of samuel and the spirit of god working through samuel in choosing saul and then we see the joy and exhilaration which is mixed in with all of this and then the return to what we might call ordinary time it's like when the season of christmas ended we returned to ordinary time and when the uncle asked so what did samuel say to you saul simply replies he told me that the donkeys have been found and we've come home and there's much more to come well let's look then at that choosing of a moment and sometimes a moment in someone's life becomes the right time and that time itself then passes on now today in 1965 sir winston churchill died age 90. and i remember i was 17 at the time i remember the event very very well i think i remember the the sadness of the nation of course and the the the sense that fell of of silence on that day and in schools and in communities the the war was not too long ago for people like my parents at the time and he had stepped forward at a particular moment and in word and action had become a leader at that time and so that on the saturday which followed his funeral a state funeral i think the the only one in the the uh 20th century for a politician until one got much later on with with uh politicians in the late 20th century but at that time there hadn't been a state funeral for a politician and here was a state field there was a lying in state and people queued and queued because they felt that he had been the focus of their struggle against nazism and the uh domination of europe by hitler's forces at that time and he had a way with his words of speaking about that well on the saturday which followed which was the 30th of january everyone simply tuned in to their television set and watched the solemnity of the nation's farewell to this man of his time he had a very very long history he'd been born when he was aged 90 in 1965 and so he had been serving in the forces at the time even of the south african war uh and at the same time had been an mp for probably longer than than one there are others probably have done this but he was 1900 to 1964 with a gap of a couple of years he he was a member of parliament and he was a great parliamentarian he had all the the uh attitudes of people of his time we remember all of that but we remember him on that day and i remember another occasion when people gathered round their television sets now it wasn't like the coronation which had been in 1953 which i just about remember and uh sitting then with neighbors watching a television set where people had televisions which was rare in those days in 1953 and so people gathered and had picnics in one another's houses to watch the same set it wasn't like that in 1965 everyone then had a television set black and white television very much but i don't think we left the television all day long as that unfolded and the voice of that famous bbc announcer for royal and solemn occasions and also the uh the weekly news program panorama richard dimbleby for four hours took that particular role of being the one who commentated and explained meaning for the nation of the ceremonies that were going on and then eventually uh winston churchill was buried beside his father randolph cheshire who who strangely had also died on the 24th of january but in 1895 who'd been a politician you could say with lord randolph churchill that his moment never came whereas with winston churchill very much in 1940 his moment came and he was called back first he'd been called back to be first order of the admiralty uh and then he was called to be prime minister through those war years and his his use of the english language was one of his best weapons and best encouragements to the nation and those speeches that he made at the time have gone down in the the annals of people's memories it seems a long time ago now but that day in 1965 brought the nation and nations of the world together remembering once again the dark days of the second world war right across the world and at the same time here giving thanks for the leader now i said the moment came this there is i've mentioned this film before the most wonderful uh bbc film called the gathering storm with albert finney playing churchill in the years when he didn't think his moment would ever come and uh uh we we have the lovely vanessa redgrave playing clemmy his wife at chartwell uh and and uh sorry i think that this is a sneezing going on as she blows out some some dust that's got into her her nostrils that'll end in the moment so don't worry about her this is a regular event so um the the that that film the gathering storm shows the frustration of churchill in the nation not realizing the danger as it builds up and albert finney plays it magnificently and there's a moment there when his black depression which churchill suffered from he was an artist who relaxed in painting but he he couldn't get rid of his black dog and uh the the black depression took him into uh the an area where they couldn't find him at luncheon if you've seen that film his agent goes down to find him at the pigsty uh and churchill replies i'm fond of pigs dogs look up to us cats look down on us but pigs treat us as equals or sometimes it's been remembered as pigs look you in the eye and there is that great sense of of that being so very true his moment came and then his moment went which must have felt like a massive rejection because the election which took place before ever the war was completed it was it was it was after the uh the the the sense that this is this is ending now but when the election took place uh and uh churchill said a farewell to stalin and and roosevelt at one of the conferences that they were having for the planning of things after the war and it was as though stalin was saying we'll go and fix that and come back but that's not how things work here he lost that election catastrophically and having been the great war leader gave over to clement atlee to be the one who would take the nation through the years after the war of rebuilding and becoming a different kind of nation churchill came back and in 1951 became prime minister again so had the pleasure in old age of being the prime minister for the accession to the throne of our prison queen and also during her coronation but we remember all his particular gifts and being put to the service of the nation at that time particularly his gift of the english language and his ability with courage to choose moments even when things seem that they're bleakest to go forward and think maybe that's the way forward in that any leader makes mistakes but also if the right one is chosen just for that time then they then they go on and and fulfill you might call it their destiny waiting for the moment this is a day also in much more um brief detail that the emperor hadrian was born here's another leader and he was born in a.d 76 very early years of the christian church he became the roman emperor in the year 117 and was roman emperor for over 20 years and he visited britannia britain at that time and in a way defined the extent that the roman empire would go to and not beyond whether for financial or military reasons or things being overstretched and the empire getting bigger and bigger and there not being enough forces and control to look after it but you drew a line 80 miles long uh it in the the right in the north of england and it's called still hadrian's wall that wall was built she didn't stay to see it finished he came here in the year 122 and spent some time here and that was amazing for an emperor of rome to come to britain but he's remembered by that wall bearing his name hadrian's wall a defining line a good leader thinking we can go this far if we go further we'll be stretching our resources too far and like churchill and like somebody else who was uh born today 24th of january frederick the great of prussia he hadrian was someone who reveled in greek culture and and literature and had a wide-ranging wisdom churchill did frederick of prussia did frederick the great he at the time of the enlightenment at the end of the 18th century dying only three years before the french revolution so all those leaders finding their moment when their gifts would be used become an important emblem of what's happening to saul who will become king and then after that i just wanted to mention uh and with happy memories of my sister that in 1986 the beginning of the end of geographical fleet street as the road where all the press offices were began to happen and the sun and the news of the world announced that all their staff would be moving to whopping in dockland because it was easier for the distribution of newspapers pauline as the page of the editor of the guardian absolutely loved the culture of fleet street and reveled in those old pubs where uh people would come in with the and phone through uh their their article it was before any kind of digital world was opening up and yet she she had to she was a radical herself but somehow very conservative about the way things were done and she would talk very happily about the days in in the the fleet street area there and so i remember that a beginning of an end it's gone much much further than that of course because now so much of that is online and media right across the world can be accessed straight away a new beginning and causing completely different habits of behavior and who knows what the pandemic having been with us for this long will do to our habits of behavior when eventually things begin to open out again well let's say our prayers after all that this morning and then we'll come back to this soul when we get to wednesday following the conversion of the other soul the feast of that tomorrow we are thinking today in our prayers for the anglican communion of the diocese of kafanchan in nigeria in the abuja province and within this diocese we are saying our prayers for all the parishes of the town of whitstable and those include all saints whitstable and st john swailcliff sint elfidge sea salter she's on the coast not very far from here at all we pray for rachel webley paulette stabbings and simon tillerson in the various churches of whitstable so we pray for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover and also for uh emma bishop at lambeth and we use the collect for this week this is the first time we've used this one um i don't know because we used it yesterday for sunday here we are the third sunday of the epiphany bring your own prayers from wherever you are in the world almighty god whose son revealed in signs and miracles the wonder of your saving presence renew your people with your heavenly grace and in all our weakness sustain us by your mighty power through jesus christ our lord amen so we pray the prayer our savior taught us in whatever language you like to use 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 reflection now for our prayers as we think about qualities needed in leadership [Music] um yes [Music] so they shall grow not old as we that are left grow old age shall not weary them nor the years condemn at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them when you go home tell them of us and say for your tomorrow we gave our today remember o lord those who have died the death of honor and are departed in the hope of resurrection to eternal life especially the officers men and women of our sea land and air forces to whom it was given to lay down their lives for the cause of freedom and justice in that place of light when sorrow and mourning are far vanished give them rest o lord the lover of all grant this for thine only son jesus christ's sake amen [Music] foreign [Music] yes [Music] foreign [Music] free [Music] foreign foreign [Music] 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 peace 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 the birds are very conservative creatures and quite territorial and uh i think are wondering why they're locked in and it's impossible to tell them but fletcher and i have rather disturbed their territories this morning and the pheasants tend to occupy that far end of the run so we'll take some breakfast down to them especially because they will then settle down into their own area and brewster the rooster who's standing beside me making a big crowing all the time we'll be able to have this side because i shall vacate this end but it's good for you to be able to see them but i long to have them outside again and enjoying the fresh air i hope you enjoy your day