good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of the 30th of march wednesday the 30th of march the month almost over and uh welcome wherever you are in the world bring your own prayers and concerns and all of us still praying very hard for a resolution to the conflict between ukraine and russia and all those who can influence that for good amongst the leaders of the world we've come this morning into an area which you will recognize under the mulberry tree just on the other side of the orchard here and we've done so for a particular reason and we're going to think about this on wednesdays and fridays from now on because we have two areas that are beginning to develop and flowers will begin to grow and the bluebells here will develop uh week by week and so this morning it's mostly green leaves but we're calling this here in the woods woody wednesday and on fridays we'll go on to the front of the house where the the the uh bulbs are growing up and you can watch those grow and that will call forest friday such a very keen on alliteration and so you can remember those those things woody wednesday today forest friday because only because the the uh former canon librarian christopher irvin used to call that patch of woodland the forest of dean and so we'll sit in that on friday morning and see how things develop and grow as the spring comes on but for the moment this is a bluebell patch and we'll watch that coming up too we're here with tiger and have no doubt that our friend the robin will be popping about so let's begin our prayers on this particular morning he's here already he's sitting up there high looking at us i don't think he's in any danger from tiger oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise hear our voice o lord according to your faithful love according to your judgment give us life blessed are you god of compassion and mercy to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of our sin your light breaks forth like the dawn and your healing springs up for deliverance as we rejoice in the gift of your saving help sustain us with your bountiful spirit and open our eye our lips to sing your 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 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 amen tiger more interested in the ribbons on the book our psalm this morning is psalm 144 and that's the first of the psalms for the 30th and the 31st morning so tomorrow we'll say 130 on 145 but for this morning 144 blessed be the lord my rock who teaches my hands for war and my fingers for battle my steadfast help and my fortress my stronghold and my deliverer my shield in whom i trust who subdues the peoples under me oh lord what are mortals that you should consider them mere human beings that you should take thought for them they are like a breath of wind their days pass away like a shadow bow your heavens o lord and come down touch the mountains and they shall smoke cast down your lightnings and scatter them shoot out your arrows and let thunder roar reach down your hand from on high deliver me and take me out of the great waters from the hand of foreign enemies whose mouth speaks wickedness and their right hand is the hand of falsehood oh god i will sing to you a new song i will play to you on a ten-stringed harp you that give salvation to kings and have delivered david your servant save me from the peril of the sword and deliver me from the hand of foreign enemies whose mouth speaks wickedness and whose right hand is the hand of falsehood so that our sons in their youth may be like well-nurtured plants and our daughters like pillars carved for the corners of the temple our barns be filled with all manner of store are flocks bearing thousands and ten thousands in our fields our cattle be heavy with young may there be no miscarriage or untimely bursts no cry of distress in our streets happy are the people whose blessing this is happy are the people who have the lord for their god a lovely psalm a son of david and of music but also of an agricultural rural society where blessing is counted in really good and fruitful harvests and the flocks bearing thousands and tens of thousands in our fields a lovely image and jesus picks up on that kind of rural image as we read this morning from saint john chapter 10 taking up from where we were yesterday and beginning at verse 11. jesus said i am the good shepherd the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep the one who is a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees and the wolf snatches them and scatters them the wolf flees because the the hireling flees because he has a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep i am the good shepherd i know my own and my own know me just as the father knows me and i know the father and i lay down my life for the sheep and i have other sheep that are not of this fold i must bring them also and they will listen to my voice so there will be one flock one shepherd for this reason the father loves me because i lay down my life that i may take it up again no one takes it from me but i lay it down of my own accord i have authority to lay it down and i have authority to take it up again this charge i have received from my father there was again a division among the jews because of these words many of them said he has a demon and is insane why listen to him others said these are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon can a demon open the eyes of the blind probably that i am statement is one of the favorite i am statements because it comes with such a multitude of literary support from the old testament from the psalms and it also comes with a multitude of artistic support of jesus portrayed as the good shepherd and the sheep following him because they know his voice and then that wonderful sentence where his arms seem to open wide and he says and other sheep i have that are not of this fold i must bring them also and they will listen to my voice so there will be one flock one shepherd that prayer for the unity of the whole church and also the encompassing of all people which charles wesley would have loved his universal invitation to the love of god that thought is going to be part of jesus's last prayer to the father in saint john's gospel before he goes out to be betrayed and arrested and crucified and opens his arms wide for the whole world i will draw all people to me he says well here's a full taste of that in this lovely image of the good shepherd the pasta for that word is very definitely from a rural economy the one who knows their sheep and is known by them that's the absolute vocation of anyone who sees themselves as a pastor caring for the sheep looking after them and in this way that i am sentence is one of the most picturesque but also one of the most true that because the shepherd is trusted then the sheep trust the shepherd in danger too he makes no bones about the fact that there are wolves about there is evil lurking waiting to devour the sheep and if we go into the old testament pictures which this image come from then we find very much that the evil isn't just from the outside it's also also an evil of shepherds who fail to do their duty and if you look at the prophet ezekiel that woe to the shepherds of israel who have only profit for themselves in their minds and can nothing for the sheep all of that is part of this image but of course that's not where we instantly go if we start thinking about our images in the old testament of the good shepherd i think we would go to that psalm which is probably the most favorite of all psalms if you ask people which is your favorite psalm some people who never visit the psalms still know this sound and of course it's psalm 23 the lord is my shepherd i shall not want he maketh me to lie down in green pastures he leadeth me besides still waters all of that in that that was the king james version if one goes to the coverdale version which the book of common prayer has in its psalter the lord is my shepherd therefore can i lack nothing and then of course we know it in a great selection not only of music set to those words but also hymns written in a metrical version of those words and each of them is in some sense a favorite probably the one that people tend to know best now is the lords my shepherd are not want he makes me down to lie in pastures green he leadeth me the quiet waters by and my soul he does restore again and meet you know it well and it goes to that tune crimins and it's sung so often when people are wanting to remember someone else we sing it at funerals at remembrance services but we also sing it as an ordinary hymn in our worship [Music] is [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] r [Music] my [Music] is [Music] [Applause] please [Music] and it is not the only hymn that is written as a metrical version of psalm 23. people have poets have visited and revisited that so maybe another favorite the same psalm but in poetry and with a tune that helps us remember the words the king of love my shepherd is whose goodness faileth never i nothing lack if i am his and he is mine forever and a simple tune in fact one knows it to two different tunes and they give a different emphasis to the words but again a metrical hymn helping us know in our hearts and minds and in musical form psalm 23 why is it so wonderful because the sense of the lord as the shepherd is one that really is not only an intimate one but speaks so much of jesus's relationship with all those who became his disciples and his friends and also were called by him so this passage is speaking about all that but later on when the sheep hear the sound of his voice with their own name particularly in the resurrection narratives in saint john mary or simon son of john we were speaking about that yesterday how jesus calls them by name but oftentimes when john doesn't mention the name jesus is calling us through those same words uh there is another of these hymns which is less well known but i always used to enjoy singing it is here my little blue school hymn book um it's here as him 656 and it's written by the late 17th century early 18th century poet joseph addison and it's very different but it's actually simply a metrical version once again of psalm 23 here it is it's a wonderful piece of 18th century poetry the lord my pastor shall prepare and feed me with a shepherd's care his presence shall my want supply and guard me with a watchful eye my noonday walks he shall attend and all my midnight hours defend when in the sultry glee by faint or on the thirsty mountain pant to fertile veils and dewy meads my weary wandering steps he leads where peaceful rivers soft and slow amid the verdant landscape flow though in a bare and rugged way through devious lonely wilds i stray thy bounty shall my pains beguile the barren wilderness shall smile with sudden greens and herbage crowns and streams shall murmur all around though in the paths of death i tread with gloomy horrors overspread my steadfast heart shall fear no ill for thou o la lord art with me still thy friendly crook shall give me aid and guide me through the dreadful shade early 18th century poetry and more florid than the 19th century poetry of the king of love my shepherd is or the scottish metrical psalm which was sung first i think i'm writing saying at the queen's wedding um and we're coming to her in a moment or two on this particular date but it became instantly with its tune criminals something that everyone wanted to sing and has become very very favorite piece but it was well known after that that marriage and that sense of the pastor goes right to the limit in jesus's vocation for the essence of it all is that the shepherd is there to give up his own life for the sake of the sheep whom he knows each by name and loves as his own and longs to gather more in and one thing's then of course of the parable of the lost sheep and the shepherd going out to find that the one that had strayed whereas the 99 which was safe he knew he could leave in the safety of the fold and go out and search on the mountainside for the one that was lost all these images and maybe last of all the image the pastoral image we've mentioned dawn french's wonderful vicar of dibley before that series of a woman priest in the country village which was a tremendous hit in on television and and still it resonant in our minds of cheerfulness and pastoral ministry and everything that went on there but what was the signature tune for that well of course it was a a new setting of the lord is my shepherd i shall not want he maketh me lie down in green pastures and that too is very significant in the way it goes i think also of handel's messiah for there is that moment in the early part of the messiah in part one when the soloist suddenly sings that beautiful aria he shall feed his flock like a shepherd and that tune just interrupts with that pastoral image that magnificent oratorio how many images i could go on with this morning is quite evident because there are so many but this image of the i am statement and think always i am is a verb in the present tense so that all the pastoral images about the good shepherd giving up his life for the sheep is as relevant of the hours today that you and i will live through where wolves of all kinds prowl around us in terms of temptation and sometimes in terms of people who are negating their own vocation and not being good leaders in their walk of life all of those things are going on but jesus is the image in the present tense and the reality in our life of walking not only beside us but also causing us by his the shepherd's voice to follow him and that promise i am the good shepherd i lay down my life for the sheep well let's see what dates we have today 2002 i'm starting with on march the 30th 2002 at the age of 101 the queen mother queen elizabeth the queen mother died and she died in her sleep at windsor and this was holy saturday and the next day was yesterday now we remember that occasion here very well because on the thursday before so if we count back if the 30th was early saturday then 29th 28th thursday her majesty the queen came to distribute the royal maundy here in canterbury cathedral it was the occasion of the year of her golden jubilee and we knew that queen elizabeth the green mother was was ill and each of us was thinking perhaps the royal maundy won't happen because if the queen mother dies then but it did and our queen came and in the most cheerful day of early spring sunshine and she was wearing all gold that day for the golden jubilee and carrying the flowers of a royal mundi service and the people outside the deanery here as she stepped out of the deanery gate were cheering and cheering but all had flowers that they wanted to be given to queen elizabeth the queen mother for the queen mother was a very dearly dearly loved person a legend really of the way in which the royal family became part of the heart of the nation during the years of the war sharing everything that the people of london share were suffering and and being there and then all through the time following following the death of her husband king george in 1952 she became for all those years how many years is that almost uh another 50 50 years or so um so 52 to 2002 yes 50 years exactly um so in that she became as her vocation a motherly figure for not only the whole nation but also for her majesty the queen herself and to the royal family and so we remember all those things but i will remember the sense of joy of the crowd but also their their love for the queen mother and their their encouragement for the queen and the queen would receive all these and from children just outside the deanery gate there before going in and then hand them back to memphis her staff all done very tenderly and so that is a a a memory and then the memory also that we were broadcasting on that easter day which was the 31st of march and on that day the clocks changed and that meant we all had to get up an hour earlier and we were broadcasting i think it's six o'clock in the morning so we were up really early and the night before when we were rehearsing the archbishop of canterbury who was then george carey stepped over to me in the rehearsal and said can you come with me a moment we sat over on the side he said the queen mother has died and we thought for a bit about what we needed to do because we were the first ones broadcasting on the radio the next morning what we needed to do about changing the script or and the hymns maybe and we decided that it was easter day and the queen mother for 101 years had lived in the faith of our lord and his resurrection nothing in the music needed changing it was a wonderful day to sing jesus christ is risen today alleluia and know that that resurrection encompassed queen elizabeth the queen mother so a heartfelt day here on that day all those years ago as i remember well um 20 years ago and that's our first date and as i say that scottish tune cremant and the scottish version in metrical form of psalm 23 with very dear to the queen mother's heart now then the next person i want to talk about is uh vincent van gogh who were born on this day march the 30th in 1853 and died in july 1890 he committed suicide at the age of 37 sadly but his landscapes and still life and portraits and self-portraits are really part of our own artistic mental landscape and on this day in 1987 his one of his pictures of sunflowers was sold at christie's for 24 million 750 000 pounds it was a an astonishing record at that time and at the same time we remember professor and i know the the area well and love the the the town of owls and uh in going there you find so many of the scenes that van gogh love to paint and i've got here um one of a series of mugs now this is not emma bridgewater it's a series of van gogh mugs which fletcher's mother gave us some time back now but it's showing simply a bedroom and until the the war damaged the house completely in our with with the uh with a bombing at that time this bedroom was recreated there and the bedroom is now in the rebuilt house recreated again but on this mug it was the one i chose to bring but any of the scenes would have been of ireland around it uh the the little chair is there with the wash stand and the table and the extraordinary thing is that van gogh made of the ordinary things of life that you and i use he simply painted them and people felt a warmth towards those ordinary things we're back in ordinary pastoral ministry again that if the pastor is interested in all the things of ordinary life as the artist wants then people respond in that way in a wonderful way because they can then begin to say how important this particular piece of furniture this room is in their life and stepping into that room was an amazing thing for the first time and seeing it recreated there and the actual place that van gogh was painting and so many of the scenes around all on the river roan there and the starry night and the night at the the cafes there and the sunflower fields but we also had that wonderful experience i think i've said this before that when we were driving out of sarami de provence once up a hill and were going past some remains on the right hand side some arches in the woods and i was anxious to get on and fetch always wants to stop and see absolutely everything and i said i'm sure they're just you know victorian um ruins and off we went and then crested the hill on the other side and i opened the green guide and i realized i'd been really wrong the temptation not to say anything was very great but i didn't i resisted the temptation and said i actually think we better turn around and go back they are the most important roman remains in the area so back we went and he didn't say i told you so too much i don't think but we we parked there and then crossed the road and went along a little track and suddenly found ourselves in the hospital where van gogh had been taken after his serious depression and then we entered another space of his found ourselves in his hospital room and looked out at all the fields beyond and instantly we knew them because through his art they were part of our mental landscape and the way in which those scenes recreated themselves suddenly in reality is something we are really grateful to artists for grateful to musicians grateful to those who by their words can tell stories which remind us of the ordinary things and their importance and the way in which we are surrounded by ordinary things and jesus's own ministry in the fields just looking around at things become massively important to the people he uses the ordinary things of the olive tree the fig tree that the woman baking bread all of these things and so as we um look around at the trees growing and the bluebells growing up the ordinary thing is that van van gogh loved to to to paint my third date is someone we've spoken about before and it's alistair cook not the captain of english cricket but the broadcaster who lived most of his life in the united states of america but was born here in england and began his career as a journalist and radio broadcaster here in england and he was given in england uh a a london letter to broadcast and he did that from 1936 he broadcast the abdication crisis and this london letter was broadcast across the atlantic to the united states and people not only that that but on world service could hear it in in now commonwealth countries and wherever they want to do throughout the world but then just before the war in america uh had had begun in 1941 he had gone across the atlantic again and become an american citizen there in 1941 and that's how we think of him not broadcasting london letter from here to the states but broadcasting letter from america from the states to here now his voice is a voice that i i know absolutely to the very fiber of my being because he actually began an american letter broadcast in 1946 on the 24th of march 1946 which was to be on 13 episodes in fact it didn't come to an end for 58 years and in march 2004 when he was 95 he still broadcast his last letter having carried on all the way through after 2869 installments letter from america i remember so well on sunday mornings at breakfast uh they would say here is aleister cook with letter from america and he would describe just ordinary scenes in the united states sometimes there were special scenes and he was absolutely quite near when uh bobby kennedy was assassinated all of those things but mostly it was just ordinary things and one god sitting at an english breakfast table a whisper of the united states and that voice just for i think quarter of an hour or something like that ev every every week for 58 years but at the same time and this i don't think i did know but many of you watching from the other side of the atlantic will know that he was the voice of masterpiece theater in the states now that's a television program and that voice introduced so many of the classic series which were made here by the bbc and by itv uh and things things which like brides had revisited or the palaces or uh um sherlock holmes all sorts of things from british television being portrayed over there and alastair cook then became the voice introducing what was being produced the other side of the atlantic here that way too so he became a bridge between the two nations and that masterpiece theater dropped that and dropped the theater but it it's not now i think still being done as masterpiece and continues to relay things like downton abbey and things which people are are actually enjoying but alistair cook did that from 1971 to 1992 so we give thanks for in words the way in which his ordinary voice saying ordinary things gave a picture of the different kinds of nations in their various different cultures and he became compulsive listening and it's a wonderful way of describing things in words and just being noticing and looking around and seeing how important things are in people's lives as i say that's the heart of the pastoral ministry going into people's lives and sharing their homes as the parish priest the pastor went around and goes around the parish and talks about the things in the garden talks about the things in in their own homes and at that point uh knows their troubles too because they're they're listening as much as they're telling and i hope they also say some prayers with people as they go around too all of this in the image of jesus the good shepherd as we read this wonderful passage from saint john and and think of our lord as the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep so let's say our prayers on a day when we could say so much more um but you can carry those thoughts on as we sit here on what uh we're calling woody wednesday as the blue bells here are just beginning to show blue uh with the green leaves and uh so here we are going to say prayers on the 30th of march for the diocese of kolapur in the united church of north india and in our own diocese there are just general prayers today and so no parishes to name but we do name justin our archbishop and rose bishop of dover and emma bishop at lambus here's the collect for this week followed by the collect for lent itself bring your own prayers and concerns merciful lord absolve your people from their offenses that through your bountiful goodness we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins which by our frailty we have committed grant this heavenly father for jesus christ's sake our blessed lord and savior amen almighty god you hate nothing that you have made and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent create and make in us new and contrite hearts that we worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness may receive from you the god of all mercy perfect remission and forgiveness through jesus christ our lord our men so each in our own way and in our own language we use the prayer our savior taught us our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever amen moment is the thrush is singing this morning um a moment for your own prayers and reflections now as we hear some music which is very much associated with psalm 23 and also the pastoral ministry [Music] is [Music] just [Music] is is [Music] hey [Music] me [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] christ give you grace to grow in holiness to deny yourself take up your cross daily and follow him 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 so we'll return here next week on woody wednesday and see what the bluebells have been doing but on friday we'll go to uh forest friday in the front garden in the forest of dean and we'll take possibly somebody else with us rather than you but we'll see it's we've just escaped the rain actually it's going to rain all day we're told but the rain is just beginning to fall and so i don't think my friend here will stay out long your fur's already getting wet right should we go in and find somewhere dry you're not anxious to go yet are you quite it's a bit sleepy still i didn't you'll stay here long let's go shall we come on careful not to tread the blue belts