good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of tuesday the 28th of october it's the day the feast day of the apostles since simon and saint jude and we've come out into the garden because it's a beautiful autumn morning not any hint of strong wind just a tiny breeze rustling the leaves but the sun shining down from a pure blue sky onto the turning leaves of autumn so we've placed ourselves particularly underneath one of the trees which rewards us most with its colors it's an oak tree it's an american oak tree and quite a young one growing up beside this great ash tree which is coming towards the end of its life and the american oak will take its place in many many years to come but this morning we're enjoying the light of the morning sun from a blue sky shining onto these leaves as they turn beautiful colors you get a taste of the way in which colors across the world and one thinks of new england at this time as colors change with blue sky and the leaves beginning to fall now there's rain on the way so we've come this morning because rain may destroy the leaves in natural progression it's the way that the earth revives itself and the leaves will come down with the with the rain as it comes so this morning let's take advantage of it and wherever you are in the world we give glory for the loveliness of creation on a morning like this as we begin to say our prayers the feast of sin simon and saint jude oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your faithful servants bless you they make known the glory of your kingdom blessed are you sovereign god ruler and judge of all to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of this age that is passing away may the light of your presence which the saints enjoy surround our steps as we journey on may we reflect your glory this day and so be made ready to see your face in the heavenly city where night shall be no more 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 say may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen so our psalm on this 28th morning of the month is psalm 132 and it's a psalm about king david and his intention to build a house for the lord in jerusalem his in fact it was built later by his son solomon but this psalm speaks of david's intention and almost his guilt at having a house of his own but no fit dwelling for the lord in the city of jerusalem lord remember for david all the hardships he endured how he swore an oath to the lord and vowed a vow to the mighty one of jacob i will not come within the shelter of my house nor climb up into my bed i will not allow my eyes to sleep nor let my eyelids slumber until i find a place for the lord a dwelling for the mighty one of jacob now we heard of the ark in ephrathah and found it in the fields of jar let us enter his dwelling place and fall low before his footstool arise o lord into your resting place you and the ark of your strength let your priests be clothed with righteousness and your faithful ones sing with joy for your servant david's sake turn not away the face of your anointed the lord has sworn an oath to david a promise from which he will not shrink of the fruit of your body shall i set upon your throne if your children keep my covenant and my testimonies that i shall teach them their children also shall sit upon your throne forevermore for the lord has chosen zion for himself he has desired her for his habitation this shall be my resting place forever here will i dwell for i have longed for her i will abundantly bless her provision her poor will i satisfy with bread i will close her priests with salvation and her faithful ones shall rejoice and sing there will i make a horn to spring up for david i will keep a lantern burning for my anointed as for his enemies i will clothe them with shame but on him shall his crown be bright such a weaving of different images it would have been a psalm that pilgrims sang and of their joy at standing as jesus and his family would as they traveled up to jerusalem to the temple and we can think of many times in the gospels from the time of his being presented in the temple to the time as a 12 year old boy when he was questioning the doctors of the law and they were amazed at his answers to his time of coming to cleanse the temple or coming on the donkey to enter into the city and wanting to find the fruits of righteousness and justice in the temple itself and here we have this lovely pilgrim psalm it was david who had the vision that the city of jerusalem would be the great holy place the holy place where the lord would be worshipped and pilgrims would come but oftentimes those who have the vision hand over to those who have to effect the project and david's vocation was to have the vision but of course he is counted as the founder of the royal line of david the anointed one and from that royal line our lord will be born later but at this time the vision of jerusalem as an earthly city then blossoms into jerusalem as the sign of all community in the way in which we think of the new jerusalem and at the same time the vocation to build is handed on to solomon who builds that temple an earthly temple which was destroyed and then another at the babylonia at the end of the babylonian captivity and so on and so forth but actually a sign always of the royal line of david and also of the place of jerusalem in the hearts and lifes of those whom among whom jesus grew up well um when we say all that perhaps our best illustration of that is and the belief that the anointed one would come from the royal line of david was in sunday's gospel at the eucharist where blind bartimaeus who had no sight for earthly things but sat at the gate of jericho shouted and shouted and shouted son of david son of david have mercy on me and you remember how jesus stops and calls bartimaeus to him and restores his sight but knows that in so many different ways bartimaeus in his physical blindness has had more sight than all those around him including the apostles himself at times well let's go on this morning with our lesson it's not exodus this morning this is a holy feast day of since simonis and jude so i'm going to read both the matins lessons which we've already read in the cathedral one of them is uh from the prophet isaiah and then a very short one from the gospel of saint luke but they complement each other so i'm reading first from the prophet isaiah verse 45 sorry chapter 45 and verse 18 to the end of the chapter for thus says the lord who created the heavens he is god who formed the earth and made it he established it he did not create it empty he formed it to be inhabited i am the lord and there is no other i did not speak in secret in a land of darkness i did not say to the offspring of jacob seek me in vain i the lord speak the truth i declare what is right assemble yourselves and come draw near together you survivors of the nations they have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols and keep on praying to a god that cannot save declare and present your case let them take counsel together who told this long ago who declared it of old was it not i the lord and there is no other god besides me a righteous god and a savior there is none besides me turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth for i am god and there is no other by myself i have sworn from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return to me every knee shall bow every tongue shall swear allegiance only in the lord it shall be said of me our righteousness and strength to him shall come and be ashamed all who were incensed against him in the lord all the offspring of israel shall be justified and shall glory a lesson from the prophet isaiah that the second lesson for morning prayer was taken from the gospel of luke chapter 6 and verse 12. it's very short here it is in these days jesus went out to the mountain to pray and all night long he continued in prayer to god and when day came he called his disciples and chose from them 12 whom he named apostles simon whom he named peter and andrew his brother and james and john and philip and bartholomew and matthew and thomas and james the son of alpheus and simon who was called the zealot and judas the son of james and judas iscariot who became a traitor just a short lesson but first of all an explanation of how that prophecy of isaiah is to be fulfilled first in a tiny way and then growing growing growing like the oak tree growing and the tree ferns growing and beginning to flourish and be fruitful throughout the earth but here we read the twelve names of those whom jesus chose from many others who had followed with him and he chose them after a night all night in prayer we see him often early in the morning getting up before the break of day to go out and say prayer or we see him leaving the disciples and going up into the mountain as they take off in the boat in the on the lakeside there are so many stories of that but this is all night long in prayer for this is a hugely important human and divine decision how is this prophecy of isaiah to be fulfilled that the whole earth shall walk in the new light and clarity of the gospel itself the good news that the anointed one through his human life has brought but now has to hand on to those who will take it forward i said that those were the two lessons read in matins which they were and we have been saying our morning prayer all through the days when we've been allowed in after lockdown of the pandemic in the jesus chapel uh which is the far end of the crypt in the cathedral those of you who know it will know that you can walk all the way through the crypt and our crypt is not one that is below ground it holds up the um choir and the trinity chapel above it but light comes through and right at the end is the jesus chapel and it gave us space to be sitting in safety with one another and with those who began to come and join us when worship in the cathedral was allowed again now it's beginning to grow dark in the mornings and as things have eased we shall move back to the chapel of our lady martyrdom which is where most of the time we always say matins and so as we gather in the morning at some time before 7 30 and sit in silence and then wait for the time to say matins together then the most important thing of course for people is to have light to read the words by uh and that light in the mornings is failing so we made a decision to go back to the the chapel of our lady martyrdom but not until november the 22nd because on sunday when the clocks change and although we shall have more darkness in the evening we shall have more light in the morning and that means we've just got a little bit more time in the jesus chapel which pleases me hugely because as i've said before the window the uh late um 12th century window in the jesus chapel has the most beautiful scenes on it just four scenes but surrounded by colored flowers in in a great almost rosette around and at the top is the white dove descending out of all those flowers representing the creator's power and the creator's presence onto first of all a scene of the virgin mary holding out the christ child who is holding in one hand the gospels and in the other his hand is lifted up to bless and on each side angels are swinging sensors as a sign of the prayers offered up but the next panel down shows patriarchs and prophets prophets like isaiah telling of the the good news to come and the next panel down and that's where i want to rest in the morning the bottom panel is the crucifixion of our lord that's the one that you're actually facing and showing what all this cost in terms of his human life and and many who have followed him afterwards but the next one up is to me and i'm not certain that's what he's meant to be but there are two people at a doorstep and two people receiving them from their own home and the two on the doorstep are there with their hands out telling something of and it looks as though it's being told with energy and it always reminds me of the mission of the twelve and then afterwards of the mission of the seventy let's stay with the mission of the twelve for now because jesus sends out his apostles two by two to go out to proclaim the good news only for the moment to what he calls the lost sheep of the house of israel this is where it will all start recalling them to the vocation to give that message of good news from the creator and we read of that in the prophet isaiah one of the greatest messages there is that one has to receive all created things with thanksgiving but worship is for the creator the father as jesus calls him so you look beyond and through the creatures and beauties of creation and find in depth the life force of the creator which the holy spirit gives us within ourselves to effect the good news as we hand it and live it for one another two by two companionship on the way you know how important that is and the way in which things can be shared and argued about and the lessons are learned in that way and here are two on the step now this morning this is good news really because the two apostles that we're celebrating today are not well known since simon and sint jude they were mentioned almost last in the list and in it it says simon who was called the zealot that might have meant that he belonged to the fierce political party so anti the roman occupation and was actually a zealot with a capital zed or it might mean that he was someone who like a zealot was always massively enthusiastic with for for everything that was going on nevertheless here's one character and then a sort of tranquility of the other judas since i'm an innocent jude and we know him as not iscariot and in the gospel of saint john at the last supper when this judas asks the question of the lord and says how lord how is it that you're you're showing yourself to us but not to others and jesus is giving them the task of spreading that fruitfulness but we say when we hear that and the writer of the gospel of saint john is is actually saying that judas and then so that he could be identified not iscariot strange thing to identify someone in a negative way obviously the more powerful image is of judas iscariot here is judas not his carriers and yet simon and jude are linked together in the same way as philip and james are linked together when the month of may begins and those two by two are an important message of how the gospel is transmitted and how we ourselves evolve it in conversation and in prayer with companions and they might be different companions at other stretches of the way but here are two simon the zealot and jude not iscariot judas not iscariot and we give thanks for today but we remember that isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled by the handing on and planting of that seed just as david had the vision solomon affected it and it was then lived out and then here we have the the anointed one sen son of david have mercy on me the anointed one there in jericho in sunday's gospel but now we have jesus having made a critical decision handing on handing on the good news and the life force and promising in that last message when jude noticed judas not iscariot asks the question how is it that you're revealing yourself to us but not to to the world handing on the gift of the holy spirit i will not leave you orphans i will come to you but the advocate will come and teach you all truth but it's not truth to keep to oneself it's truth which blossoms and on this day we give thanks rather like the american oak tree here is bursting into fire and the in with the sun shining on its leaves and that gospel which is handed on by the power of the holy spirit who is received in wind and fire by the apostles on the day of pentecost then that image of fire means something that from a tiny spark can set a light and that metaphor of how the gospel is passed in terms of growth becomes important well we're surrounded by all kinds of falling leaves but we're also surrounded by opulent examples of this year's growth as the leaves have their full glory and go on and this day as we begin to think of the dates attached to the day there is a great coincidence and i'll come to that in a moment but first of all i want to remember that that this on the 28th of october 1955 bill gates was born and so we wish him a happy 66th birthday and give thanks not only for the vision which is co-founding of microsoft with paul allen has given to the world but also his warnings about the dangers of anything of that kind which has a life force all of its own can be for humanity and also all the aspects of charitable giving with the the long years of of being a in a a philanthropic uh foundation with melinda and we give thanks for all of that but we also take heed of bill gates's warning and there are warnings about the way in which the artificial intelligence could take us over and deny our own humanity and the control we have as humanity he he has been quoted as saying first the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent that should be positive if we manage it well a few decades after that the intelligence will be strong enough to be a concern i agree with elon musk and some others on this and don't understand why some people are not concerned if we manage it well that's good advice but he's now giving that advice also about climate change and about sustainable energy and care of the planet and another good piece of advice coming from bill gates is the sentence governments throughout the world are there to think ahead about bad things that might happen and plan and resource their nations for the future and he's spoken also about other pandemics that might arise and this one is a warning that one needs both research but also resources to plan for bad things that might happen and i'll go back to that advice to humanity with any powerful gift if we manage it well so let's um think also that on this day the polar research ship called sir david attenborough has come to greenwich and is there anchored on the thames at the place of the prime meridian at greenwich to mark the start of cop 26 climate conference which starts on sunday in glasgow the ship is there before its first voyage and it will go um on a a huge voyage to the the the summer in the south in antarctica and and have all kinds of expeditions with its submersible craft that can go below the waterline conscious of the fact that in greenland and in antarctica ice loss is accelerating and sir david attenborough himself has of course given us all that kind of information too and the warnings if we manage it well says bill gates if we manage it well says sir david attenborough talking about the care of our planet so both those dates and those those facts are really important but the final date i wanted to talk about today and this is the coincidence because yesterday we were looking at the poetry of sylvia plath and today this is the day 28th of october 1998 when ted hughes died and he at that time was poet laureate and massively honored by the nation but at the same time still had his house in north torton devon where he and sylvia plath had lived uh for a while and where yesterday when we were uh reading the beekeepers poem it was the villagers of north torton that sylvia plath was remembering and writing about we we mark the the tragedy of of her death yesterday but also today we mark the immense creative skill of that of ted hughes himself and we could read many of his poems because ted hughes was someone who was deeply deeply moved and inspired by the natural world and also sought back to see how even in classical times those images of the natural world could speak to humanity body mind and spirit and one of his one of his lovely books is the tales from ovid where in tales from ovid he in blank verse translates some of the poems of his metamorphosis and all about trees and rocks and stones and everything else into poetry for today but at the same time his children's stories like the iron man a children's story for five nights which he wrote for his two children uh nicholas and freda after sylvia platt's death he wrote it in 1968 and it's become of course a very famous novel for children but it is also about environmental pollution and the saving of the countryside and in his years as poet laureate he continued that kind of mission but at the same time in private life he's in devon now he's become president of farms for city children after that and i think was probably that until his death a friend of michael morpergo and wrote so many animal poems for children and became also a trustee of the west country rivers trust everything feeding in but ted hughes was never over romantic about nature you took the rough with the smooth the cruel with the kind and looked at the whole hole um picture of natural life on earth and we see it of course day by day constantly but we thought this morning we would having read some sylvia plath yesterday read some ted hughes today and first of all as i was talking about uh climate change care of the planet and was sitting under an oak tree i wanted to read a poem one of his etc found this morning and it's like a little legend it's meant to be a child's dream and it's fed by images from fairy stories and everything else but it has a real real message and here it is it's it it's called my own true family and here's the dream once i crept in an oak wood i was looking for a stag i met an old woman there all knobbly stick and rag she said i have your secret here inside my little bag then she began to cackle and i began to quake she opened her little bag and i came twice awake surrounded by a staring tribe and tied me to a stake they said we are the oak trees and your own true family we are chopped down we are torn up you do not blink an eye unless you make a promise now now you are going to die whenever you see an oak felled tree swear now you will plant two unless you swear the black oak bark will wrinkle over you and root you among the oaks where you were born but never grew this was my dream beneath the boughs the dream that altered me when i came out of the oakwood back to human company my walk was the walk of a human child my heart the heart of a tree the identity of hues with life and the way it was being destroyed and here's a piece of advice to us which we are being given over and over again by the the queen's green canopy for the platinum platinum jubilee next year the trees need to be guarded because our humanity and the life of the planet is also bound up with them and we could then read so many of the poems that he writes for the animals and it would be interesting to do so but i think probably while i'm sitting here under the oak tree if i've read a poem about the oak i ought to read a poem about my friend here the cat leo here is ted hughes's poem simply called cat you need your cat when you slumped down all tired and flat with too much town with too many lifts too many floors too many neon lit corridors too many people telling you what you just must do and what you must not with too much headache video glow too many answers you never will know then stroke the cat that warms your knee you'll find her purr is a battery for into your hands will flow the powers of the beasts who ignore these ways of ours and you'll be refreshed through the cat on your lap with a leopard's yawn and a tiger's nap well leo would like that probably except for the reference to tiger at the end but it's quite true how much comfort that battery-like purr gives and it's one of ted hughes's lovelier poems of the animals and there's a whole book of them collected poems for children by ted hughes there was a quote i wanted to give from when ted hughes died seamus heaney one of his great friends another poet uh wrote said in his tribute to him at his funeral no death outside my immediate family has left me feeling more bereft no death in my lifetime has hurt poets more ted was a tower of tenderness and strength a great arch under which the least of poetry's children could enter and feel secure his creative powers were as shakespeare said still crescent by his death the veil of poetry is rent and the walls of learning broken well one remembers the kaleidoscope of ted hughes's life and i first came across him with a a a book of a farming year of a definitive farm with black and white pictures of how the year went on and uh between each chapter was a poem by ted hughes and i remember how um in the way in which he wrote it he would imagine in wintertime all the little seeds waiting to plant and he said the sun sometimes warms them as they begin to spring up and says they are father with them which is which is a wonderful kind of image as they grow as a wheat field so let's say our prayers on this particular morning with thanksgiving for all kinds of creativity so as we come to say our prayers on this since simon and saint jude's day we're praying in the anglican communion today for the diocese of central gulf coast in the episcopal church of the united states province iv and in this diocese for the parishes of cheraton with newington and for stephen crofts in his ministry that pray for justin our archbishop and also for rose bishop of dover and emma bishop at lambeth and we use the special colleagues for this day of sin simon and jude almighty god who built your church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with jesus christ himself as the chief cornerstone so join us together in unity of spirit by their doctrine that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you through jesus christ our lord amen so moment of silence after we've said the our father together 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 so [Music] so so 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 are men i can't resist uh just one more short uh ted hughes poem because the robin is singing for us and the robin is always our companion in the garden even in winter time deepest winter time you'll remember him back in the time of the snow when the whole garden looked like narnia for c.s lewis and it was the robin with his bright red breast it was standing on the branch just singing to us still and keeping us company so here's his poem robin when wind brings more snow to deepen deep snow robin busies his beak but the pickings are bleak he stands at your open door asking for more anything edible he stares towards the table the cat can't believe a bird could be so naive half shut eye why dear she prays let him come near then with his flaming shirt telling him nothing can hurt and that he will always win robin bounces in so true of the robin as well totally courageous and his red beaks as his red breast seems to say don't you touch me so just reading the poem about the dog he obviously didn't like dogs much you're not using sand are you no here's the listen to this it's good this is dog asleep he wheezes at his ease he only wakes to scratch his fleas he hogs the fire he bakes his head as if it were a loaf of bread he's just a sack of snoring dog you can lug him like a log you can roll him with your foot he'll stay snoring where he's put take him out for exercise he'll roll in cow clap up to his eyes he will not race he will not romp he saves his strengths for gobble and chomp he'll work as hard as you could wish emptying the dinner dish then flops flat and digs down deep like a miner into sleep that's very very insulting compared with the cat the squirrel with a rocketing rip squiddle will zip up a tree bowl as if down a hole he jars to a stop with tingling ears he has two gears freeze and top then up again plucky as a jockey galloping a racehorse into space um one two eight at the junction of beauty and danger the tiger's scroll becomes legible in relief he moves through an impotent chaos the creator is his nearest neighbor the mild frosty majestic mandala of his face to spirit hospitable as to flesh with easy latitude he composes his mass he exhales benediction male addiction privileged at the paradoxical cross-junction of good and evil and beyond both his own ego is unobtrusive among the jungle babblers his engineering faultlessly secure in a fate like an allegory of god all but forgotten he balances modestly the blood marks of his canvas and the long grass dawn beauty as the engraved moment of lightning on the doomsday skin of the universe i think that's a very different kind of perimeter i didn't like that much not for this trying to find something that's sort of cheerful in the same way that all this was hang on woodpecker okay woodpecker is rubbernecked but has a nose of steel he bangs his head against the wall and cannot even feel when woodpecker's jackhammer head starts up its dreadful din knocking the dead bow double dead how do his eyes stay in pity the poor dead oak that cries in terrors and in pains but pity more woodpecker's eyes and bouncing rubber brains the defenders with the apple in his strengths and the quince his wise advisor and the pair his thoughtful brother with the blackberry and his thorn so ready to shed his blood and the plum with his stony bone with the wheat in his millions the barley and the rye we shall hold our own against all winter's armor with the pumpkin in reserve the turnip and the marrow we shall hold our fire we shall go guerrilla asleep among the squirrels over open ground will go in the likeness of a crow when the gale comes we shall claw it with a claw like a tree then we'll hide down in the roots or in a fox's footprints escape across the snow and nightly underground will prepare the secret hero the little honeybee whose drum when it begins we'll bring back all the blossom and sink the iceberg winter in the bottom of the sea autumn leaves who killed the leaves me says the apple i've killed them all fat is a bomb or a cannonball i've killed the leaves who sees them drop me says the power they will leave me all bear so all the people can point and stare i see them drop who'll catch their blood me me me says the marrow the marrow i'll get so rotund that they'll need a wheelbarrow i'll catch their blood who'll make their shroud me says the swallow there's just time enough before i must pack all my spools and be off i'll make their shroud who dig their grave me says the river with the power of the clouds a brown deep grave i'll dig under my floods i'll dig their grave who will be their parson me says the crow for it is well known i study the bible right down to the bone i'll be there parson who'll be chief mourner me says the wind i will cries through the grass the people will pale and go cold when i pass i'll be chief mourner who'll carry the coffin me says the sunset the whole world will weep to see me lower it into the deep i'll carry the coffin who'll sing a psalm me says the tractor with my gear grinding glottal i'll plow up the stubble and sing through my throttle i'll sing the sound who toe the bell me says the robin my song in october will tell the still gardens the leaves are now over i'll tell the bell you