good morning and welcome on this thursday the 22nd of april not to the cathedral today but certainly to morning prayer as we gather as a garden congregation but in a very different spot we've come out into the woods and i'm sitting here on a hillside just above the village of kingston and above the bourne valley the most beautiful area we came here to get some trees at the weekend to plant this is earth day and it's also arbor day the planting of tree day in which started in nebraska in in the middle of the 19th century but earth day is something that 193 nations keep and it's become even more important as we see the dangers to our planet when we came out to get the trees we came through mali lane here it's a famous lane because the the sculptor henry moore lived here for seven years of his his life and no more beautiful place to live but what i'm looking at is a complete field in the coppiced wood of bluebells and wood anemones sometimes called wind flowers and the blue and white well they're canterbury colors blue and white but we came out here because we thought it was so beautiful and that that would be something that we wanted to share with all of you the hill rises uh above me the little river neoborn runs along below and that runs only when there's water enough to run it as any born does and then the the the woods beyond where fletcher is filming go down down down they're coppiced woods and we'll talk about that in our reflection but for the moment we think about this earth day the 22nd of april and it's here to remind us of our absolute necessity to demonstrate environmental protection in the care of the planet we've been talking in the deanery garden about the the the layering of various uh different areas and my goodness the tree canopy here at the moment is very high the trees are at the moment without leaves there are creeping things growing up some of them and taking life from trying to get upwards to the air and then below are shorter things but at the moment because there are no leaves the sun is getting through and the wooden anemones which close at night are beginning to open as the sun comes up to my left here i wish you could all be here with us because it is the most beautiful morning of spring and uh wherever you are in the world please feel welcome as we say our prayers in a different location we've so many things to to think about in terms of what is happening to our world and the desperate situation in india at the moment with the pandemic and other areas and so you will have different concerns on your minds please bring them to our prayers this morning and feel the presence of one another in your thousands around the world as we gather in this very special spot on this earth day so let's begin our prayers o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise in your resurrection o christ let heaven and earth rejoice alleluia blessed are you lord god of our salvation to you be praise and glory forever as once you ransomed your people from egypt and led them to freedom in the promised land so now you have delivered us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your risen son may we the first fruits of your new creation rejoice in this new day you have made and praise you for your mighty acts 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 o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this 22nd morning of the month is psalm 107 and we read some of that psalm now o give thanks to the lord for he is gracious for his steadfast love endures forever let the redeemed of the lord say this those he redeemed from the hand of the enemy and gathered out of the lands from east and from the west from north and from the south some went astray in desert wastes and found no path to a city to dwell in hungry and thirsty their soul was fainting within them so they cried to the lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress he set their feet on the right way till they came to a city to dwell in let them give thanks to the lord for his goodness and the wonders he does for his children for he satisfied the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with good those who go down to the sea in ships and ply their trade in great waters these have seen the works of the lord and his wonders in the deep for at his words the stormy wind arose and lifted up the waves of the sea they were carried up to the heavens and down again to the deep their soul melted away in their peril they reeled and staggered like a drunkard and were at their wits end then they cried to the lord in their trouble and he brought them out of their distress he made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were calmed then were they glad because they were at rest and he brought them to the haven they desired let them give thanks to the lord for his goodness and the wonders he does for his children let them exalt him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the counsel of the elders the lord turns rivers into wilderness and water springs into thirsty ground a fruitful land he makes a salty waste because of the wickedness of those who dwell there he makes the wilderness a pool of water and water springs out of a thirsty land there he settles the hungry and they build a city to dwell in they sow fields and plant vineyards and bring in a fruitful harvest he blesses them so that they multiply greatly he does not let their herds of cattle decrease he pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes they are diminished and brought lows through stress of misfortune and sorrow but he raises the poor from their misery and multiplies their families like flocks of sheep the upright will see this and rejoice but all wickedness will shut its mouth whoever is wise will ponder these things and consider the loving kindness of the lord it's the psalm for the 22nd morning of the month always but it's a fitting sound for today as we consider our planet it talks about areas which were fruitful areas which were full of water being turned into a salty waste because of the wickedness of those who dwell there well all that is about caring for our planet we become stewards of this beautiful place and nothing more beautiful than everything that is around me this morning feeding on the light of the sun and also the protection of other plants around and creatures too here as we mentioned along to get here this morning we would have been here much quicker but that at this time in the morning rabbits and wood pigeons and pheasants were all over the lanes and unused to any kind of traffic at this time in the morning so we went gently and came here gently and it's the way that we need to think on this particular earth day we need to live sustainably with our planet caring for its atmosphere its water cycle its forests its fields its cities its climate its ice caps and in the context of all that all life on earth a really important day and we're asked during this day to take action just a little action a moment when you do something for the care of the planet you might not want to plant a tree but if you can that would be a nice thing to do but what you might want to do is something even of intention on your walk of picking up some piece of plastic and and making sure it's properly disposed of so that the earth is allowed to breathe the one thing about the pandemic has been that there has been a space when human activity has ceased and even the depths of the ocean have become quieter from the great noise which is going on because of the stillness of ocean traffic and the stillness of the earth and scientists have been able to observe how the planet behaves with this pause all of us are seeing a clearer sky at the moment and here this morning we have a very clear sky as the sun begins to shine now the day before yesterday and we were a bit late going on so some of you may have missed that morning prayer when we were among the primroses in the garden i explained that we were going to begin the gospel of saint matthew as our project that matthew had been rather left out of our reckoning all through last summer we were doing luke and acts and uh then we've concentrated on mark and then on john now on matthew if you want to access that first reading of matthew and you you missed the the tuesday broadcast that we made the film of of morning prayer then you can still access that by typing it into youtube so that you will see the introduction and most importantly the reading which began the gospel of matthew the genealogy of jesus and matthew begins saying this is the book of the genealogy of jesus christ and if you want that in the greek it it sounds just like the beginning of the bible for it's saying really this is the bible of the genesis of jesus and we spoke also about the way in which matthew as a writer as an evangelist was wanting to earth himself for his jewish christian community in the old testament scriptures and show how important they were so he orders his gospel in that way we plenty of time to think of that day by day through the spring as we go through the gospel of saint matthew and perhaps in your notebooks again make a journey towards pentecost just taking a sort or plucking a sprig like one of these but i'm certainly not going to pluck a bluebell there so uh so wonderful um we have this morning on our journey brought to fetch's backpack so that i'm not here without uh tea there is not the white teapot this morning it's our traveling flask for when we come out on occasions like this but i did bring one of the the mugs from the the collection that we have and the emma bridgewater mug this morning has birds and and well actually berries all over it berries aren't at this time of year but uh the bluebells around us certainly are and the scent of them is beginning to be wonderful as the morning begins so now this morning we have got to uh verse 17 and read that on tuesday of matthew's gospel and verse 16 ends and jacob the father of joseph the husband of mary of whom jesus was born who is called christ then almost in brackets matthew puts in verse 17 so all the generations from abraham to david were 14 generations and from david to the deportation to babylon 14 generations and from the deportation to babylon to the christ 14 generations and the brackets so go back to jacob the father of joseph the husband of mary of whom jesus was born who is called christ and we're ready to begin today at verse 18. now the birth of jesus christ took place in this way when his mother mary had been betrothed to joseph before they came together she was found to be with child from the holy spirit and her husband joseph being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame resolved to divorce her quietly but as he considered these things behold an angel of the lord appeared to him in a dream saying joseph son of david do not fear to take mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the holy spirit she will bear a son and you shall call his name jesus for he will save his people from their sins all this took place to fulfill what the lord hath spoken by the prophet behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name emmanuel which means god with us when joseph woke from sleep he did as the angel of the lord commanded him he took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name jesus note that when we were doing luke luke concentrated on mary matthew is wanting to root all of this and that's what the genealogy did root all of this in the davidic royal line he is the son of david who was the son of abraham says matthew and that royal line goes back only to abraham remember that in luke the genealogy goes all the way back to adam and it starts in a different direction and that is because luke the greek writer was wanting to embrace the whole of humanity and matthew will want to do the same but he is saying that we must rest on the foundations of the scriptures and of the law and of the prophets and jesus himself was brought up in that kind of community in nazareth and knew the law and the prophets and the psalms and saw them of speaking of his own vocation as the anointed one the christ the messiah but here in this little section at the end of matthew chapter one and chapters one and two are shall we call them a prelude to the ordering of matthew's book but here we're seeing the importance of the way in which not only has the law to be obeyed but justice sorry joseph were told was a just man a righteous man and needed the dispensation of the angel in order to receive the fact that god in him was doing something entirely new something so fresh it was springing up for the sake of the whole world like this huge field in the woods of bluebells and wood anemones there's something new moving here by god's holy spirit in joseph's life but joseph has to be reassured of that because he is anchored in the law and even the evangelist says everything that's happening is according to what was said in the prophecy of isaiah chapter 7. behold the virgin will conceive and bear a son and shall call his name emmanuel god with us it's a little aria in handles messiah and the music will be in many of your heads behold the virgin will conceive but this is what joseph is receiving as almost vocation and permission from heaven to embrace a new beginning and all that freshness that is going to come is a step for the future of the world this righteous man's dream with the angel saying it's all right that which is to be born of your wife mary is of the holy spirit and you are the one who will name him jesus very different beginning from luke very different beginning from mark very different beginning from john but as i've said the particularity of all the gospels give us is the same as the particularity of these flowers and plants and trees and creatures for the earth is full of particularity and one particularity complements another in uh the way in which the the the world proceeds according to god's plan but here is a new beginning for joseph well let's just think a little bit about the way in which the earth is cared for on this earth day we're actually sitting in a wood which is an ancient wood but for many many generations it has been coppiced and that means that there is a rotation in allowing the trees to grow sometimes for 20 years or so and then leaving some standing as the framework and coppicing the rest down low so that the light comes in again now bluebells depend on light for their flowering but not necessarily for their whole life so there are sequences and at the moment with the um trees letting in much light but there's behind fletcher i can see areas of of new uh coppicing going on and trees being cut down and at the same time um as the trees allow in the light then the bluebells respond to the light as it gets darker but sometimes coppicing will go on for five years ten years twenty years but what is happening is it's giving areas of the world chance to develop in a companionship we're back in the forest garden but this is a very very big garden in terms of the trees and coppicing will take place in different areas of woodland this is a way of being patient and it's a way of really waiting for life to develop and it happens within the compass of human communities there are little human communities all around us and there's also not too far away the old roman road which went from dover through to canterbury and on to london but around the communities went on with their life and nearest to us is is a lovely community of kingston with its 12th century church st giles it's black robin public house named after the 18th century highwayman black robin but the pub itself dates from the 18th century too and as i said the little river nailborn going down into the the the bourne valley and joining the the little star river beyond wickham brew where fetter tells me he used to go ealing as as a boy um and uh the the bourne valley was a place where several writers lived most famous probably um joseph conrad but most famous to anglicans and episcopalians richard hooker who was the parish priest of bishops born when he was writing his laws of ecclesiastical polity which is really the the foundation of the of the life of the anglican church as we know it and the balance of scripture tradition and reason that we talk about in that way we don't want to go into that this morning but it is actually again a companionship in that way and and and hooker was simply the the parish priest down in the little village beautiful village of of bishops born there was also a man there called jocelyn brook who's whose famous book was called the military orchid but he used to walk up onto the hills here and uh and see the orchids growing up here all of those things going on over the centuries and on this day when we're thinking of restoring the earth it's a good thing to sit with these woods with lovely names like featherly and quilters would uh classified as ancient woodlands and to think that also when julius caesar arrived here in 55 bc he found already a civilized tribe of kantiaki hence our name kent and canterbury living here and farming in a way that had gone on since in a farming culture since 4000 bc and probably well back before that too the kenji's tribes were actually jutes and the saxons um uh from the anglo-saxons that came from them but by then things had gone on but that care of the earth in rhythmic way went on and joseph and mary in their life in nazareth would have had the same patterns and what one has learned about these earth days is that there is much indigenous knowledge wherever you are in the earth which has to be listened to to help us look after our planet planet at a time when the earth is warming as we know but that has to be watched in a great way and we can do so much to what watch that the climate crisis with wildfires increasing and all kinds of uh storms and tsunamis all of those things have been helped a bit by this what's being called an anthropos a pause in human activity so that scientists can actually look during this pandemic at the amazon basin and see what's happening there or at areas of the world which normally are busy without some things are being harmed because the the the uh the fact that no one can now travel into the protected wildlife parks of africa means that no money is going into there to provide rangers to stop poachers and who are a threat to the wildlife but at the same time we can use any situation for good or for evil and we think all the time of god's capacity to regenerate so we need to look together at the way in which god wants us to use his world on this particular day of of uh of stewardship of the planet earth's day and we give thanks for the earth and thanks for god's humanity on the earth the this story we we read in the gospel of saint matthew is a very shall we call it trinitarian story it talks of god the father's creative powers and also the laws set in the old testament it talks of the work of the holy spirit within the womb of mary and it talks also of the births of the humanity the physicality the particularity of jesus and matthew is about to begin his story and it will grow and develop like all these things around me in the sunshine this morning as the sun comes up i felt it was a day um before we say our prayers to read a poem and the um poem that always springs to mind at this time of year which is a poem for late april early may is gerald manley hopkins poem spring so let's just read that and for those areas of the world watching where it is not spring in the southern hemisphere then enjoy the fact that spring will come to you as the seasons progress but every season brings some kind of joy here's hopkins poem spring nothing is so beautiful as spring when weeds in wheels shoot long and lovely and lush thrush's eggs look like little low heavens and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and ring the ear it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing the glassy pear tree leaves and blooms they brush the defending blue that blue is all in a rush with richness racing lambs too have fear their fling what is all this juice and all this joy a strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning in eden garden have get before it cloye before it cloud christ lord and sour with sinning innocent mind and mayday in girl and boy most o maid's child thy choice and worthy the winning so we say our prayers on this lovely day here in uh canterbury and we ask you to bring your own intentions we're praying today for the diocese of boar in the province of the episcopal church of south sudan and when i remember it when back in the late 1970s and early 1980s and the dinka people there with their cattle um of which they were so proud that they would write poetry to them and sing so we give thanks for all of that in a land which has known such warfare such bloodshed and such devastation pray for the work of the church there and for the communities there and also we pray for justin our archbishop who begins his study leave today so we pray for him and his wife caroline at this time and we pray for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth and today for our near neighbor the church of all saints canterbury for phil greg in the ministry there and lucy henderson the assistant current the life of that parish right in the middle of the city of canterbury let's say the prayer for this day bring your intentions and concerns to this prayer for easter tide almighty father who in your great mercy gladdened the disciples with the sight of the risen lord give us such knowledge of his presence with us that we may be strengthened and sustained by his risen life and serve you continually in righteousness and truth through jesus christ our lord amen say 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 silence in these beautifully coppiced woods where the blue bells and wood anemones spring up from the ground in the morning light the god of peace who bought again from the dead our lord jesus christ that great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight 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 are men uh [Music] [Music] um um ah oh good so here oh [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign uh [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so so um [Music] so you