good morning and welcome to the dinery garden on this morning of sunday the 27th of february welcome to canterbury cathedral as we sit in the deanery garden here at a place really where um you'll be more used to on warmer days but we want first of course to say that our prayers continue constantly for the people of ukraine also for the people of russia but as we think of the people of ukraine we we concentrate our prayers on the city of kiev at the moment and that is is holding through the courage of the ukrainian people and we we are heart and soul with them as they defend their city and their land at this time we've said so much uh and this morning the the courage of those people is astonishing but the the world leaders that can make decisions about how influence might be brought to bear are still in our prayers also as we say our prayers on this sunday morning this is the sunday just before lent and this morning we're going to complete our time with the second book of samuel and we'll find king david at home in his palace now in the city of jerusalem anointed king over all israel and it's there we shall base our reflection as a character who becomes known to us in all sorts of ways makes his entry for the first time so let's say our prayers on this morning and prepare ourselves not only to constant prayer for the ukraine and we say again slava ukraine but at the same time prepare ourselves for the journey through lent and into passion tide and up to holy weekend easter 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 of all 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 as you 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 so i said we've come here to a spot which normally we would come to in warmer times of spring and summer and autumn and really the the um temperature of the weather and the wind is still winter but above me is a pure blue sky and as you can tell the sun is shining down on me as it rises above the wall here and next to me on my right is a daphne in full flower and the scent of the daphne these winter flowering shrubs are so often highly scented and the scent of the daphne is a most wonderful fragrance in the air but we're sitting here because we're thinking about the the palace of of king david which he's built in jerusalem and our psalm this morning is psalm 122. it's one of the psalms for the morning the 27th morning of the month and it could not be more apt for what we're going to do both in the reading from to samuel but also in our reflection psalm 122 i was glad when they said to me let us go to the house of the lord and now our feet are standing within your gates so jerusalem jerusalem built as a city that is at unity in itself that the tribes go up the tribes of the lord as is decreed for israel to give thanks to the name of the lord for there are set the thrones of judgment the thrones of the house of david o pray for the peace of jerusalem may they prosper who love you peace be within your walls and tranquility within your palaces for my kindred and companion's sake i will pray that peace be with you for the sake of the house of the lord our god i will seek to do you good well that's a pilgrim song and it would have been a psalm that would be sung by pilgrims going up to jerusalem remembering mary and joseph with their 12 year old son going up to jerusalem as the law commanded at feast times coming to jerusalem and then the sense of their feet being being actually standing in jerusalem when the pilgrims arrive many of you will know that feeling of standing on those vast blocks of stone left over from the destruction of the temple and sensing oneself in the center of jerusalem well let's then go to our lesson short psalm this morning but long lesson because it's quite an important one and it's in two sections it's the whole of chapter seven of the second book of samuel and as i read it then it's a story about david and what david thinks he's going to do next so let's read this chapter seven of the second book of samuel and that's the last chapter of this book of samuel that we'll read now when king david lived in his house and the lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies the king said to nathan the prophet see now i dwell in a house of cedar but the ark of god dwells in a tent and nathan said to the king go do all that is in your heart for the lord is with you but that same night the word of the lord came to nathan go and tell my servant david thus says the lord would you build me a house to dwell in i have not lived in a house since the day i brought up the people of israel from egypt to this day but i have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling in all places where i have moved with all the people of israel did i speak a word with any of the judges of israel whom i commanded to shepherd my people israel saying why have you not built me a house of cedar now therefore thus you shall say to my servant david thus says the lord of hosts i took you from the pasture from following the sheep that you should be prince over my people israel i have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you and i will make for you a great name like the name of the great ones of the earth and i will appoint a place for my people israel and will plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more and violent men shall afflict them no more as formally from the time that i appointed judges over my people israel and i will give you rest from all your enemies moreover the lord declares to you that the lord will make you a house when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers i will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body and i will establish his kingdom he shall build a house for my name and i will establish the throne of his kingdom forever i will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son when he commits iniquity i will discipline him with the rod of men with the stripes of the sons of men but my steadfast love will not depart from him as i took it from saul whom i put away from before you and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me your throne shall be established forever in accordance with all these words and in accordance with all this vision the prophet nathan spoke to david it's not going to be you who do this it will be your offspring so david then and this is part two of chapter seven we've not finished our reading yet leaves his own palace built of cedar and goes to the shall we say temporary dwelling tabernacle or tent but nevertheless not a solid building of stone and wood where the ark of god is so we carry on from verse 18. then king david went in and sat before the lord and said who am i o lord god and what is my house that you have brought me thus far and yet this was a small thing in your eyes o lord god you have spoken also of your servant's house for a greater while to come and this is instruction for humankind oh lord god what more can david say to you for you know your servant o lord god because of your promise and according to your own heart you have brought about all this greatness to make your servant know it therefore you are great so lord god for there is none like you and there is no god besides you according to all that we have heard with our ears and who is like your people israel the one nation on earth whom god went to redeem to be his people making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people whom you have redeemed for yourself from egypt a nation and its gods and you establish for yourself your people israel to be your people forever and you o lord became their god and now o lord god confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house and do as you have spoken and your name will be magnified forever saying the lord of hosts is god over israel and the house of your servant david will be established before you for you o lord of hosts the god of israel have made this revelation to your servant saying i will build you a house therefore your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you and now oh lord god you are god and your words are true and you have promised this good thing to your servant now therefore may it please you to bless the house of your servants so that it may continue forever before you for you o lord god have spoken and with your blessings shall this house of your servant be blessed forever it's an extraordinary chapter and it's the chapter that we use to complete our reading of these chapters from the first and second book of samuel but let's think a little bit about this extraordinary chapter first and foremost it talks about david now king david anointed over all the people of israel and in his capital of jerusalem he's brought the ark of god into the capital and he has set up over it a temporary covering tent a tabernacle whatever you like to call it but nothing like his own house built of stone and cedar and his vocation he feels next what shall we do next let's go and build a house for the ark of the covenant and for the lord god of israel and into the story now enters the prophet nathan of course we know that mostly from handel's anthem zadok the priest and nathan the prophet anointed solomon as king david's son that's much much later we have 33 years of david reigning in jerusalem on mount zion in the holy city before solomon becomes king but that's a coronation anthem and we'll come back there's a a coincidence about this this morning we'll come back to that a bit later on in the next part of our reflection for the moment let's think of david he's actually drawing his own vocation but of course vocation is a calling and very often the vocation comes through intuition or another prompting us or god in our prayers seeming to speak to us but this is not his david deciding this will be my vocation now built my house built a permanent house or i now build a permanent house for the lord and nathan the prophet who later on in the story and you all know this well um in later years when david transgresses it's nathan who comes in to tell him the story of the rich man and the poor man the rich man with flocks of sheep and the poor man with just one ulam whom he and his family loved and the rich man seizes the lamb and uses it for his own family when he has plenty already and david says tell me the man and he shall surely die and nathan says you are the man. and then he talks about what david has done to uriah the hittite and how he has taken bathsheba to be his wife instead that's a different story but it shows how nathan has absolute access to the king the prophetic figure the prophetic voice coming in and having access to the king is always a feature that and here's nathan coming back having himself been spoken to by god and saying no this shall not be your vocation the lord god says i took you from following the sheep to be the shepherd king of my people israel and i was with you in your journeying and really the the temporary tabernacle the temporary tense the moving of god with david was the ark traveled with them all of that is a sign of david's vocation as the shepherd king being there for his people it certainly won't be the last of david's wanderings because when his son absalom rises against him it's david who finds himself once again the outcast and uh in is is traveling and in danger but that's a story for much later in the second book of samuel for now nathan is saying this temporary tent which can be picked up and moved is a sign of gods traveling with you and as the shepherd king and as really he doesn't say this one but but you know for us uh david having his name linked to so many of these psalms the psalms of people going into exile the psalms being sung by the waters of babylon where they sit down and weep this is later in their history but this is a sign of the way in which the leadership has to exercise this quality of care and that image of the shepherd king goes right through into the gospels and certainly we shall be looking at that as we travel through the gospels in in lent and that's very near us now i'll say more about that at the end this morning so first of all this is not your vocation said to david it is god who chooses vocation and you do well to listen to his voice and david accepts that and respects what nathan is saying and then as the chapter halves and then we came on from verse 18 david goes from his own solid palace of cedar and stone to the temporary dwelling where the ark of the covenant is and speaks in prayer to god and in that conversation first of all he accepts his vocation and humbly gives great thanks that the lord is choosing to bless the royal line of david and he himself is prophesying far far far forward to the one who in the royal line of david is the one whom the blind man at the gates of jericho as jesus goes up to his vocation in the holy city at the end of his earthly journey the blind man shout son of david have mercy on me the royal line of david and david himself prophesying far far forward and not knowing he does so but thanking god for what he has done to bless his royal line at the same time notice the word and i gave it a special emphasis in this god is magnified the soul of david magnifies the lord just as the soul of mary and accepting her vocation magnifies the lord here is david's magnificat if you like and the very word is there and at the same time there are blessings abounding here both he feels himself blessed and god being the one who is blessed above all others then in in terms of the utter holiness of the one with whom david is speaking um he feels also that his house can be a sign of blessedness which reminds us of the benedictus of uh of zechariah holding john the baptist blessed be the lord god of israel for he has visited and redeemed his people and then he talks about raising up a mighty salvation was in the house of his servant david and here we are again so we have here a magnificat and a benedictus which is perfectly wonderful as david prays before god and recognizes the temporary dwelling as a sign of his own journeying towards vocation and listening to the voice of the lord in nathan and the situation that he will find himself in himself so as we go on then think of lent as a journey i've just celebrated the early morning communion according to the book of common prayer and this is quincu jesus sunday in the book of common prayer uh the epistle is that marvelous hymn of sin paul exalting love in 1 corinthians 13 but the gospel from sin luke began with jesus saying to his disciples behold we are going up to jerusalem and there the son of man will be and then he explains what he has to suffer in the city of jerusalem behold we are going up to jerusalem and all that has been prophesied will be fulfilled he tells that to the twelve and they hardly are understanding but as the lesson goes on we come to the blind man in jericho and the blind man in jericho who is shouting son of david have mercy on me son of david have mercy on me david says that the people say shut up be quiet and jesus stands still and calls bartimaeus as we know his name in mark's gospel i was reading from saint luke this morning bartimaeus comes forward and dave and jesus says what do you want what do you want me to do for you and bartimaeus says lord to receive my sight and jesus could have said as we've said so many times before but you're the only ones who's one who is seeing what's going on and he knows that from the shout son of david have mercy on me and then he says receive your sight your faith has healed you and we're told that the blind man followed him on the way a journey for which he was the most sighted people even without his human being a sighted person even without his human vision and follows jesus on the way together with the twelve who are still puzzled by what jesus is saying is going to happen to him when he gets to the city of jerusalem behold we're going up to jerusalem well that's a good sentence for us as we are on this verge of going on that journey right up to jerusalem in holy week let's then look at another date this morning and it's i think a complimentary date really but it's the the birthday of a particular person the 27th of february 1848 the composer sir charles hubert hastings parry was born and his family were of heinem court in gloucestershire very beautiful country house the family was not without means shall we say but that countryside and its home country for me and i might describe how when i was the dean of hereford if i was coming back in the car from london i would uh motor along the the m4 and then stop at a particular point and and cross the crosswords going past siren sister and places like that until i came to the site on a ridge of gloucester cathedral's tower below me and then would go down the hill and the the ring road at gloucester would take me with a beautiful sight of gloucester cathedral's tower all the way around and very much into home country for me into the county of gloucestershire but there was a point where i knew i had to go on a little bit and then take a country road which would take me to the city of hereford which is where i was going and as i did so i would pass the gates of heinem court the country home of sir charles hubert hastings parry and parry himself was urged by his family early in life i'm not going through many details of his life but he was urged to become something in commercial life but he resisted that because he felt the urge to be a musician and to write music and he did and became very much recognized but not just as a composer but as a teacher and he clearly was the most lovely man in terms of personality and he and his wife and she was called elizabeth maud herbert she was a herbert of wilton house another great country house but only to the isle of pembroke just outside salisbury in wiltshire and of course that's the herbert family to which george herbert belonged um and she was a herbert brought up in the same kind of countryside but she married sir charles parry and she became of course his his lifelong and loving companion they had two daughters but she outlived him and all the time they they had the same kind of background but also the same personality of great hospitality but also the desire to help people on the way through and in a way that was the way in which parry developed of course he wrote great pieces of music but if we look at the things that he did right on the way through so many of them are commissions that people asked him to write so many are once suggested you ought to write an oratorio and he did write oratorios he wrote job and judith and even king saul and yet they're not remembered the one thing probably from those days in 1887 which is remembered is the choral work blessed pair of sirens voice and verse an an ode written by milton but not many things have survived in the popular mind until we get to 1902 when he was moved to write a coronation ansem for edward vii whose coronation had had to be postponed because the king fell ill with appendicitis but that coronation anthem rather like handle zadok the priest and nathan the prophet the coronation anthem which he wrote i was glad when they said unto me we will go into the house of the lord as our feet shall stand in thy courts of jerusalem that coronation anthem has become a coronation anthem for every coronation since a grand and wonderful piece and the minute the chords sound we we know that that anthem i was glad was going to be sun but apart from that all those years saw him busy teaching others busy responding to commissions busy fulfilling vocations that he thought he ought to have because others were asking for it and he really wore himself out he became the director of the royal college of music in london he became the head of professor of music at oxford and at the same time he tried to respond to everything being asked of him of course his family lives in three choir festival country gloucester worcester hereford cathedrals hold that festival in rotation year by year a great festival of church music and of coming together of so many commissions and composers but she had little time to spend at heinem court with his beautiful gardens and i've said before how in order to get around that he would ask his gardener to put on the early train to london roses from his garden at heinem said that they might be brought to him where he was staying and he would wear one in his coat and so many of the pictures of of sir hubert parry actually have in the coat a buttonhole that he could sniff rather i can sniff the daphne this morning and remind himself of the beauty of the countryside and of his gardens at heinem and then in 1908 the doctors took a hand for he was ruining his house and they advised him for medical reasons to resign most of his positions and just go more quietly and so for the last 10 years of his life he saw more of heinem and and was able to write and think in a different way and he was there with his wife and enjoying a different kind of life but not knowing what a terrible thing was just about to happen to the whole of europe for in 1914 of course the great war as it was called the first world war broke out and parry was devastated to the very depths of his soul devastated because germany was utterly beloved by him for him it was the home of bach it was the the place where where so many of the composers he respected had had really thrived and he'd had so many pupils and so much influence coming from that he never thought that a war with germany would be at all possible it was unthinkable in that shall we say civilized time or we recognize those feelings this morning very much with all this happening in ukraine but at the same time it actually caused parry to be both thoughtful and very sad and yet in the middle of that one day in 1916 he sat down and wrote the tune which we know so well to blake's jerusalem that vision for england which reflects what might happen if the qualities of the kingdom of heaven can be transplanted to this green and pleasant land and also the sense of um self-commitment with that bring me my bow uh and all of that comes up uh and these are spiritual gifts these are um the facets of the whole armor of god which were given in the letter to the ephesians parry wrote that and i remember sitting in sherman where there was a lady of the panzenbee family which was a a sort of great niece of sir perry who i think had a diary uh of paris and in it uh she showed us the entry this morning something like this morning before lunch i wrote a tune to blake's jerusalem it's it's an extraordinary thing having spent his whole life responding with oratorios and operas which didn't take off uh and now suddenly this morning i wrote a trend at a tune to blake's jerusalem and that that him and did those feet in ancient times walk upon england's mountains green becomes a vision of the incarnation of christ himself which we ourselves might absolutely um uh take up and people love to sing it we had it at the the the great cricket service here the other day when we were remembering derek afton i said cricket it was football as well because he played not only kent county cricket but also for the football team charlton athletic and on that day people filled the cathedral and they wanted at the end to sing jerusalem and my goodness we did in a great way and it was a wonderful thing because we've been held off from gathering together in those numbers for so long but at the same time this was the middle of the first world war 1916 and things like the three choirs festival couldn't happen because of the war and parry became more and more despondent about that and i just want to mention and this is the heartland of everything he suddenly felt it was a vocation of his to write just for voices acquire voices songs of farewell and one thinks of things like richard strauss's four last songs but parry wrote six songs of farewell between 1916 and 1918 the first probably the best well-known my soul there is a country far beyond the stars it's others or more of us is actually by henry vaughan a 17th century welsh mystical poet but you have to remember how near gloucestershire is to wales and the influences are through here are the words because they're worse they're worth um reading totally think of europe at war my soul there is a country far beyond the stars where stands a winged century all skillful in the wars there above noise and danger sweet peace sits crowned with smiles and one born in a manger commands the beauteous files he is thy gracious friend and o my soul awake did in pure love descend to die here for thy sake if thou canst get but there grows the flower of peace the rose that cannot wither thy fortress and thy ease leave then thy foolish ranges for none can be secure but one who never changes thy god thy life thy cure notice it's like a conversation with his own soul and saying reach out even now for those qualities which one came here born in a manger to give us and gave his life for that vision for us good news and then open the gate of heaven to all who believe that's the first of the songs of farewell the second is by john davis who's a wiltshire english poet from the both the late 16th and early 17th century i know my soul have power notice the emphasis again on soul not mind or physical strength but so i know my soul has power the third the words i know well because my friend my late friend richard shepard said it and we sing that as an anthem never whether beaten sail more willing bent to shore versus from the again late 60s early 17th century english poet thomas campion then there is one called this is number four there is an old belief and that is written by john the words john gibson lockhart and 19th century scottish we dot around the kingdom scottish poet and i'll give you the words of that too there is an old belief that on some solemn shore beyond the sphere of grief dear friends shall meet once more beyond the sphere of time and sin and fates control serene in changeless prime of body and of soul that creed i fain would keep that hope i'll never forgo eternal be the sleep if not to awaken so wonderful verses and as carrie sets them that creed i feign would keep he gives to the the old plain song notes of the creed and then the next one written by john dunn very famous dean of saint paul's famous poet as well again late 16th early 17th century at the round earth's imagine corners and finally verses from psalm 39 in the book of common prayer the psalter of the book of common prayer and that was translated by miles coverdale uh and uh the verses for this one are from verse five to the end you can read that for yourselves in in in any of the the books but he's using the book of common prayer lord let me know mine end and the number of my days and those verses are once again sort of going forward on a journey and so verse 5 onwards of psalm 39 but uh we will put on for you our own choir singing it um as part probably of the reflection and that the first my soul there is a country far beyond the stars and no instruments just a choir of human voices singing that and these are six songs of farewell which parry knew to be his vocation then to write having given us jerusalem then the six songs are farewell and that the last were published after his death he sadly died just before the first world war ended from the pandemic the spanish flu pandemic so so many connections with the situations we're facing an unthinkable war in europe where so many of his pupils his best pupils like george butterworth had died in the trenches and young people giving their lives for a cause in that way and at the same time a pandemic which was spreading across the earth which would take more lives than the war itself and parry was one of those who succumbed to that and the whole world of english music if you read the letters of elgar and stanford they all adored parry as a personality and uh there was huge sadness when he died so this is a morning when we think of the way in which the soul receives vocation and everything we've spoken about tends towards that but we have to hold a certain kind of silence and discipline for the soul to hear that soul music shall we say i'm not meaning music literally i'm meaning the voice of the spirit for we can drown it out by the voices of others saying this is what you must do that's what you must do or the voice of our own self saying i feel this is what i must do my cell weight is what the psalmist says and we remember once again that psalm in god alone on god alone my soul in stillness waits it's a great line and we have to give ourselves time day by day and especially in lent to do that well let's say our prayers this morning now and we are using uh the prayer for the sunday next before lent and we're praying in the anglican communion on this day for the where are we the diocese of the anglican church of kenya and at the same time for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover for emma bishop at lambeth and the diocese gives us as a title listening and discerning growing in holiness so no specific parish to pray for so pray for your own and here we bring our own concerns and our constant concern for the ukraine almighty father whose son was revealed in majesty before he suffered death upon the cross give us grace to perceive his glory that we may be strengthened to suffer with him and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen so we say together each in our own language 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 brand 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 moment now for your own reflection on this sunday before lent soul [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] my grace oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] please is [Music] my [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] is [Music] my god [Music] my [Applause] [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 we wanted to say that we we didn't mention uh uh the rugby i'm going on to lent in a moment don't worry yesterday because we find ourselves torn because uh england and wales are both beloved nations for us uh and thinking of parry of course you can you can walk over the into wales from gloucestershire quite easily and um so it was a lovely thing that the rugby match between england wales yesterday hung in the balance and could have gone either way even to four minutes into injury time at the end england just won it but it certainly wasn't uh uh ever a foregone conclusion and we give thanks for that uh and uh um we think uh of the way um in which this afternoon italy will face the might of the irish rugby team and and uh once again um our our prayers have to be for a match that is being played in the best spirit of of the game but uh there'll be excitement here there now let me talk about lent for a moment um and say that uh as i said i think two or three days ago all you'll need to do is to arm yourself with a notebook easier if it's lined inside but a simple notebook because we showed you the book which our lovely head of visits chris pascal gave to uh fetcher as a gift and it's one good thing each day and uh it could be of course something that you you pluck like a like the metaphorically the daphne flower from something we're doing or something else that's happened but as we go through lent it's it's that now if you want to do a bit more well of course you can do that but as i said the other day small is best because so often if you if you think too big there'll be days when you can't do it and it has to be done on the day itself if you don't do it leave it blank because any kind of diary diurnal is the is daily and you have to be feeling that on that day it's no good trying to remember how you felt because that won't be the you of today the gift of this new day and to remember what the gift of the new day gave you is important and we'll do that together as we go through lent day by day now i'm thinking that we are going to begin our readings on monday only because in the lectionary at evensong on monday in the cathedral we begin readings from the gospel of john and so i'm i'm going to start where that starts and read those readings together morning by morning and listen to what jesus is saying and also putting ourselves in the place of those people that to whom he's talking and to try and then see what the voice of jesus the activity of jesus the presence of jesus is saying to us and we might just reflect as we go through on aspects of other gospels but we'll keep ourselves with the fourth gospel mostly as we go through and we'll start that on uh tomorrow morning and then we'll only break with special lessons on ash wednesday but after that we'll go through and then the special lessons will be on sundays as we go through that uh and then the last thing of course to say is that keep your prayers at top level for ukraine and learn that sentence slava yokaini as that dreadful conflict goes on and god bless you all at this time as you prepare for lent [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] you