[Music] jesus said to his disciples it is written i will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of friday the 23rd of july that sentence of jesus to his disciples will over arch the reading the short reading which we shall use this morning from matthew's gospel as the next part of chapter 26 later but meanwhile welcome from across the world i'm sorry we've got no real sheep uh in the general garden but we do have a little gift given to us at easter tide and it reminds us of the fragility and the wandering nature of sheep and lambs and that becomes a huge image of all that is going on in our lord's mind at this particular time of the gospel of saint matthew so we have so many different things to think about this morning in terms of our world and i think probably we want to focus our prayers in certain ways of course we shall have images of terrible fires in both western canada and in the western united states of appalling flooding in northern europe in china and of the the kind of situations that governments are facing in south africa and other areas of the world we continue to pray for myanmar burma but at the same time let's hold in our hearts the nation of japan and as we think of that nation and pray for the emperor and his government as the olympic games are about to start with so many problems that they have had to face with regard to the pandemic and the stop start nature of decision making so let's just hold them in our hearts as we go through the next few days because the olympics are a time of the breaking down of barriers throughout the world and of people enjoying coming together let's hope there can be something of that so much of it virtually for us so let's say our prayers on this day and give thanks and also pray for all those who are close to our hearts on this morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise send your holy spirit upon us and clothe us with power from on high alleluia blessed are you creator god to you be praise and glory forever as your spirit moved over the face of the waters bringing light and life to your creation pour out your spirit on us today that we may walk as children of light and by your grace reveal your presence 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 so god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this 23rd morning of the month is psalm 111 alleluia i will give thanks to the lord with my whole heart in the company of the faithful and in the congregation the works of the lord are great sought out by all who delight in them his work is full of majesty and honor and his righteousness endures forever appointed a memorial for his marvelous deeds the lord is gracious and full of compassion he gave food to those who feared him he is ever mindful of his covenant he showed his people the power of his works in giving them the heritage of the nations the works of his hands are truth and justice all his commandments are sure they stand fast forever and ever they are done in truth and equity he sent redemption to his people he commanded his covenant forever holy and awesome is his name the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom a good understanding have those who live by it his praise endures forever our lesson as i said at the beginning is the continuation of the 26th chapter of the gospel of saint matthew we interrupted that yesterday with the feast of saint mary magdalene so we return now to verse 30 of chapter 26 in the gospel of matthew and when they had sung a hymn they went out to the mount of olives then jesus said to them you will all fall away because of me this night for it is written i will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered but after i am raised up i will go before you to galilee peter answered him though they all fall away because of you i will never fall away jesus said to him truly i tell you this very night before the crows you will deny me three times peter said to him even if i must die with you i will not deny you and all the disciples said the same it's almost word for word the account which matthew has from mark and here he really feels no need to alter or change the order of anything that is being said those words he goes before you are of course resurrection words as well from the young man whom the women in mark's gospel find at the tomb he goes before you to galilee remember he said that and say those words this morning we're seeing in this context as they go towards the garden of gethsemane leaving the supper table and bravely singing a little hymn together and then going out through the streets of jerusalem towards the garden of gethsemane and on the way jesus says to them all of you will fall away from me tonight for it is written i will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered he sees that prophecy is coming true already at the supper table he has said one of you will betray me and now here they are going towards the garden of gethsemane but the disciples are feeling brave they have one another they're feeling strong they've just enjoyed their meal and their leader their master their lord is with them and they're walking along so that it almost confounds them that you should say this of them and uh not only peter but also all of them so said all of them and there's this sense of a community saying oh no we won't we we'll always stand by you whatever being brave at a particular occasion before the danger is perceived but jesus says to peter immediately no before the crows and the inferences you will not only not support me and fall away you will actually deny even knowing me three times and all of that is set down in the gospel it must have been set down with the permission of peter himself for mark who sets this down is the very one that was the companion of peter in the church's tradition and in rome there and was using the authority of peter in that short first gospel that's how we receive it as the church and it makes all the sense in the world for the teaching which peter receives in terms of jesus giving himself up is also a a teaching of the loneliness of jesus because peter wants people to know how many times he as the great rock in human terms failed failed in understanding failed in giving the right answer failed in attempting to give comfort which turned out to be a dreaded temptation for jesus and now failing to realize that when danger came it will be too much for them all and they continue to go towards gethsemane i've chosen to read just this little passage because it gives us that image of the sheep and the care of the shepherd an image which is so precious throughout our old testament scriptures particularly in the psalms and in the prophecies of isaiah but it's there and then constantly in the gospels and the gospel of saint john where jesus says i am the good shepherd or i am the door of the sheepfold this sense of safety being given but that the safety being offered is a safety much wider than simply physical safety which sometimes is in jeopardy when the call of the particular vocation of a person has been heeded and it's resulted in suffering and many times in persecution and death and yet that gift of the care of the shepherd is an eternal gift and the image the church has always treasured and individuals have always treasured i think it's probably true to say that the psalm 23 is the best known of all psalms the lord is my shepherd therefore i can lack nothing and the sense of being led into green pastures and beside still waters it's been translated so many different ways it's also been converted into hymns in a metrical way the lord's my shepherd i'll not want he makes me down to lie in pastures green you leadeth me the quiet waters by or in another way same same thing of translating it into a metrical verse the king of love my shepherd is whose goodness faileth never i nothing lack if i am his and he is mine forever this sense of the shepherding of the flock is an image which is precious and is used and the lovely arya in handel's messiah he shall lead his flock like a shepherd and carry the lambs all of this and in the context of that this this statement this prophecy is an horrendous one which the disciples can't really receive or comprehend it is written i will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered so these 11 will run on this night but at the moment they're being brave and bravery is easy in easy times later on in the new testament it's an image which gives place to many other images of leadership and also other metaphors that are used for the life of the church metaphors are building and planting and growing and the the sheep culture of the chosen people in that rural society in galilee is not so prevalent and yet the image has remained strong so that our bishops carry a shepherd's crook as a sign of that pastoral they are another word attached to this whole image the pastoral care of their flock that people and the tenderness with which the flock must be cared for and the knowing of each member of the flock by those who are helping to pass to them in the pastoral ministry of the parishes of every place and the christian communities in every place it's a great responsibility for the leader but the leader must be also aware that quite often people will be brave around them until the danger shows itself and they themselves may find themselves brave until the danger shows itself and here is jesus giving them that but there's also the corollary which becomes the resurrection statement but after i am raised from the dead i will go before you to galilee and that promise is the one that is shouted through the gray dawn by the young man in st mark's gospel in the earliest account of that resurrection visit which we looked at in full yesterday with mary magdalene to be brave in easy times but also the sense of john the baptist saying behold the lamb of god and all the essence of sacrifice being lifted up and giving himself as the sacrificial lamb in the book of resurrection the lamb bearing the marks of slaughter all these images which feed into one another and feed in also to our care for uh things which need protection and uh it's a lovely thing to see how the whole of new zealand has gone uh really uh um overboard with their attempt to protect the baby orca uh tower who has been separated from his mother and the pod and was found after a great storm on the beach i think near wellington and uh it's it's it's beautiful to see him being fed and to having his white white belly rubbed afterwards and making excited noises but there is huge danger for him if the pod is not found and people are looking for that all the time there at the moment in new zealand i've not seen any new news about that but it does show how images of fragile creatures and human beings needing care touch our hearts in a particular way there's only one date that i want to talk about this morning and that is the fact that uh on this day 23rd of july in 1980 the writer olivia manning was born and i died i'm sorry and she was a writer found her her true vocation quite late she wrote many many things but what we know her for what you will probably know her for if you know the name olivia manning is the six novels which she wrote under the heading the fortunes of war you may have read them they're generally thought of in three books at a time two sets of three and one the first set of books is called the balkan trilogy and the second is called the levant trilogy now i use her because of course it's a it's a a year's mind she died on this day in 1980 um and i i use her because she is someone who describes what happens to societies in cities at times when danger is threatening and how different people react in different ways some of you will have seen all of this in a television adaptation of this i i think that um the the heroine harriet pringle was played by emma thompson and uh i have not seen it for years so i i better not guess as to who was playing what but certainly the books i have read and enjoy all the characters now where once again with someone who like jane austen used characters in her life and situations in her life in order to portray situations which were fictional but set in a real context and those books were written between 1960 and 1980 but the events she was describing were taking place just after her marriage in 1939 and for the years up to the time in the midpoint of the second world war following the battle of el alamein and things begin quite hastily because guy and and harriet have to go all the way to bucharest by train suddenly almost immediately after their wedding and it's all unexpected and all of this is perfectly true from her own life her husband was a member of the british council and also the english department of the university of bucharest at that time in romania under the reign of king carroll the second at the time and suddenly uh harriet and guy find themselves and this too is true from olivia manning's life in a hotel with lots of other people who have come out for different ways in the middle of old bucharest now her ability to describe cities is absolutely wonderful and she has absolute opportunity because of the way the story unfolds and you will remember that in the background of life for guy and harriet and members of the english legationer and of the british legationer and also the british council there you'll remember that there is news of war over the horizon and terrible things keep being reported you go through being reported the fall of poland the assassination of the romanian prime minister the russo finnish war the invasion of norway and denmark the invasion of the low countries the fall of france dunkirk the entry of italy into the war by now things are getting very close france had always protected romania until that time and now france has fallen but what do guy and harriet do with the various people they find there some very eccentric and some belonging to the university some belonging to the legation and some like prince yakimoth who was an english educated but a russian prince of great eccentricity just happened to be there washed up at that particular point as war gets nearer and nearer and people react in different ways in trying to be brave or trying to forget it and what do they do in that volume one of the the six books which is set in bucharest guy pringle organizes the acting of troilus and cressida and danger gets nearer and nearer and the play is performed and the romanian citizens are thinking these people are mad acting shakespeare at this time and yet that's what happened and then in the end it becomes quite clear that people are going to have to escape for their lives and you find them like the sheep without the shepherd the legation is closed down and everyone is is going wherever they can get and it's then that olivia manning comes into her own in describing the scenes and the way people react in athens first thinking well it'll never come here and of course it does the german army come down through and athens greece has declared itself against the axis powers and once again they find themselves fleeing in desperate circumstances and they go across then to palestine and to cairo alexandria and damascus all these places as people go from place to place and find all kinds of new friends that they make on the hoof with the possessions they've managed to take and the way in which their resources shall we say their intellectual and uh knapsack and and their memories and if they have one a spiritual knapsack as well most of the goods and possessions have been left behind and they're lucky to have got away with their lives all of that is given us through those war years but what is happening in northern europe is an echo of that all this is set in the balkans and then in the levant so once again we're finding ourselves giving thanks for someone's ability in words to paint pictures and give us snatches of characters as much as we need to know but also so much the pain not only of themselves but of the citizens and those who are fleeing with them in nations that find themselves caught up in that terrible conflict of the second world war it took her until 1960 to realize that she could write this down but not just as a narrative of her own life but in a fictional way that would cause people to read the whole thing as a story and digest this sense of how people find themselves brave when they least expect it find friends when they least expect them face dangers but also have to embrace the fact that terrible things also have happened to their friends and they will see them no more or terrible things are happening back at home and there there's no news because it can't get through all those things of danger encompassed by jesus saying i will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered tomorrow will be in gethsemane but for the moment we remember the brave statements of those who are brave when danger isn't yet perceived and what happens and then the beyond in the reconciliation and the giving of forgiveness and jesus coming to them with the words peace be with you with another prophecy fulfilled and after i am raised i will go before you into galilee and will remember that lakeside scene when those three denials are once again forgiven and what is the image that is used for peter's role from then on well of course it's the image of the good shepherd feed my sheep tend my lambs all of those images before us on this day here in the peaceful orchard and we are giving thanks for our lord's gift and for the image of the shepherd and the sheep as we say our prayers this morning for the church throughout the world and also for anything that you know needs our urgent prayer at this time through different situations or personal things happening to folk you know far too many to name but all of us carrying our hearts many many names from conversations we've had and offer them now with our prayers so on this particular day the 23rd of july we're praying in the anglican communion for archbishop dustin of course and the diocese of davao in the episcopal church of the philippines and at the same time um perhaps i should say we we know of people in the philippines who tune in as members of the garden congregation but in their time zone they tend to watch morning prayer the day after because the day is well advanced by the time anything that we do here on this particular day is is in their hands and then in the diocese today as we pray for bishop rose and bishop tim we are remembering the parish of all saints maidstone and saint philips with since stephen tovil now maidstone is the enormous county church down in maidstone all saints and at present it is in vacancy so we pray for chris lavender as the area dean giving pastoral care at that time until a new uh shepherd of the flock shall we say on this morning when the image is before us is is appointed and and then others will be there to to help and we pray for the whole life of the church in maidstone today ensues the colic for today bring your own prayers from across the world lord of all power and might the author and giver of all good things graft in our hearts the love of your name increase in us true religion nourish us with all goodness and of your great mercy keep us in the same through jesus christ our lord amen so we say the prayer the good shepherd taught us to say whenever we meet together or whenever we say our prayers 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 to deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever are men maybe in the silence today not only our concerns but also our thanksgiving for those who shepherd us whoever they may be across the world and also thanksgiving for the fact that there will be opportunities for us to be good shepherds to someone today [Music] so hey so so this little trap has been roaming around in the grass but now he's come home and we remember our particular care for all those whom we need to give protection help and encouragement for 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 you