good morning and welcome to the dinner at canterbury cathedral on this morning of january the 14th thursday morning january the 14th wherever you are in the world please feel welcome outside the rain as in the last couple of days is unremitting and so today we've come inside and we've come to this little reading room that we use uh at the bottom of the south tower of the medieval tower of the deanery it used to be the dairy of the old medieval kitchen but now it's a comfortable little room where guests can come and find privacy and can read there are no television screens in here it's just books and a comfortable place to be and it's a very quiet room with very thick medieval walls so as we say our prayers please feel welcome bring your own concerns and intentions the situation here with the lockdown is very serious in england and we're all taking care of each other during this lockdown and giving each other encouragement oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your light springs up for the righteous and all the peoples have seen your glory blessed are you sovereign god king of the nations to you be praise and glory forever from the rising of the sun to its setting your name is proclaimed in all the world as the son of righteousness dawns in our hearts anoint our lips with the seal of your spirit that we may witness to your gospel and sing your praise in all the earth 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 the psalm this morning is psalm 71 in you o lord do i seek refuge let me never be put to shame in your righteousness deliver me and set me free incline your ear to me and save me be for me a stronghold to which i may ever resort send out to save me for you are my rock and my fortress deliver me my god from the hand of the wicked from the grasp of the evildoer and the oppressor for you are my hope o lord god my confidence even from my youth upon you i leaned from my birth when you drew me from my mother's womb my praise shall be always of you i have become important to many but you are my refuge and my strength let my mouth be full of your praise and your glory all the day long and do not cast me away in the time of old age forsake me not when my strength fails as for me i will hope continually and praise you more and more my mouth shall tell of your righteousness and salvation all the day long for i know no end of the telling i will begin with the mighty works of the lord god i will recall your righteousness yours alone o god you have taught me since i was young and to this day i tell of your wonderful works forsake me not o god when i am old and grey-headed till i make known your deeds to the next generation and your power to all that are to come your righteousness so god reaches to the heavens in the great things you have done who is like you o god what troubles and adversities you have shown me and yet you will turn and refresh me and bring me from the deep of the earth again increase my honor turn again and comfort me therefore i will praise you upon the harp for your faithfulness so my god i will sing to you with the liar oh holy one of israel my lips will sing out as i play to you and so will my soul which you have redeemed my tongue also will tell of your righteousness all the day long for they shall be shamed and disgraced who sought to do me evil so we come again to the gospel of saint mark having almost finished that breathless first chapter with all its immediatelys and moving us on so fast in one day and the next morning of our lord's ministry mark has chosen to begin their moving us on fast with few words to tell stories but pictures which gleam with both apostolic witness and also the sense of the haste with which his ministry is beginning to unfold and the authority with which he speaks and the way in which he is able to put the disordered frame of people who are suffering into a state of order and calm and bring healing to body or mind or spirit or all three and now we go on and i'm still at the end of chapter one but i'm starting at verse 40 and a leper came to jesus imploring him and kneeling said to him if you will you can make me clean moved with pity jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him i will be clean and immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean and jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once and said to him see that you say nothing to anyone but go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what moses commanded for a proof to them but he went out and began to talk freely about it and to spread the news so that jesus could no longer openly enter a town but was out in a desolate place and people were coming to him from every quarter well a little section and a little picture really of something going on in rural galilee as jesus goes about from place to place no definite location is given for this particular story we only know that the man is suffering probably appallingly from leprosy and leprosy meant more than a lockdown with restrictions it meant an absolute total separation for all those from all those that you have had known and loved and would so much want to be with there was no method of communication other than standing at a great distance but people shunned you for they feared this incurable disease now it's quite likely that many skin conditions were enfolded in the term leprosy but of course the real leprosy and this seems to have been a case of that was an incurable disease the others are the ones that might cure themselves and there was ample provision in the law for what you did when you sensed yourself to be cured or that the disease had righted itself in some way and there was a ritual cleansing well lepers were totally unclean and tended to live well apart from everyone else no one went anywhere near them leave alone touch them this little passage is filled with strong words and there's even a slight sort of scholarly argument about which word is used when the immense amount of pity and compassion is shown by jesus in different texts a different greek word is used and some of the texts showed the word meaning strong almost anger as if jesus is enraged at the sight of this human figure so disfigured by this disease challenging the beauty of the creation which god intended whatever happens jesus chooses to give this leper solace and when the leper asks kneeling if you will you can make me leave if you choose you can make me clean jesus i do choose be clean and then he said but don't say anything about this to anyone for this is not the content of the ministry the content is the good news and jesus doesn't want that overshadowed by everyone thinking that he is simply a wonder worker and you have this exercise going on all the way through st mark of keep this secret and you might say for now even the disciples take some time as we shall see to come to that startling conclusion that this is indeed the christ but for now jesus is developing his vocation and here is one of those moments when that happens i have a very strong memory of being with uh those suffering from appalling leprosy in the south of tanzania in the village of kindwichwii which was founded first by the tanzanian government in the 1950s to send those with leprosy i'm saying proper leprosy not just skin conditions to be separate from everyone else it's a long way down south in tanzania beyond the great river rufiji and the charitable institution which keeps that very fine uh care uh village for those suffering from leprosy going is called the refugee leprosy trust and it's very much in memory of the missionary from the universities mission to central africa father robin lamban who gave his life right up to the age of 89 he died in 1993 and in the early 90s in going there it was an extraordinary journey in the diocese of masasi you made it by land rover going down down south until you came to the massive river refugee and people went across in little dugout canoes but the river is also a place for hippopotamuses and crocodiles both of which are very dangerous and we needed also to take the land rover across so there was a ferry and people sitting there said well i'm sorry but the the battery is is dead so the ferry can't get you across so our driver quick as a flash said well you can use the battery from the land rover and then that will drive the ferry and then we'll replace it back again and you can then recharge your own battery at uh perhaps which is the nearest town on the other side and so much to my amazement the the land rover was driven on board the ferry the battery was taken out became the ferrymasters uh ferry and then at that point um the ferry was able to take us along across the the river rufiji and into kinder which we and we spent some time there and father lambern's motto which was work and pray and leave the rest to god was very much alive in that little community but we had a mass on the second day and by chance the lesson was the lesson of doubting thomas and it was telling the short story from st john's gospel of jesus saying thomas reach forth your finger and touch my side and be not faceless but believing and i looked and was aware of the man next to me actually having new fingers because his leprosy by the time he got there was so advanced that it could be halted but couldn't be replaced and so that sense of being amongst that joyful community being so cared for by father lambert's vision was one that stays very very much in my mind and the sense of our ability to to touch and at the moment of course that's something that we are learning how coming near to one another is something that we miss so much and value so much perhaps this little pericappy this little story in st mark's gospel which has been put in in no particular order except that mark has gathered together all the galilean stories and this is one of them and also the sense of jesus saying let's let's concentrate on the real good news and don't make a a a big story about this but do go and obey the law which sets you back into society and makes the offering commanded by the law in this first chapter we see jesus very much adhering to the law the sabbath law the going to synagogue and now to the leper go and show yourself to the priest and certify the proof and do what moses commanded in the law well this day this january the 14th is a day when i know not anyone to remember robin lambern and give thanks for his wonderful ministry in uh refugee and witchwei and but it's also a day which on the 14th of january in 1886 hugh lofting was born now hugh lofting is remembered for his stories of dr doolittle with uh all his creatures and various friends dr john doolittle of puddlebee in the marsh and we remember tommy stubbins and matthew mugg the cat meat man polynesia the parrot gubgub the pig the dog dab dab the goose chichi the monkey and all of those who made up the characters in those stories where did those stories have their foundation they had their foundation in the mud and horror of the trenches in the first world war for it was there when he wrote to his children that hugh lofting deciding that what he could write about was either too horrendous to write his children about or too boring in the ordinary slogging desperate rhythm of being in the trenches and so instead he reused his he used his imagination to create the doctor do little stories and eventually he put those stories into a book in 1920 the story of dr doolittle and that's quite an important step because of course he then wrote more and more and more books i've never seen a film which actually gets the flavor of the books properly for the flavor of the books are the intention give the intention of of hue lofting to make creatures have their own voice and this world to be a place where sensitivities in learning comes from god's creation in creatures and all the surround and as those books continue you get that but as i said yesterday uh about films that the films of of anything at all have to concentrate whether it be paddington bear or dr doolittle have to concentrate on the the bits which are are dramatic and sensational and the next film has to be more so in the next film and more so and so to go back to the books good thing to think about in this room where there are only books and and the quiet uh and uh i think that that that therefore is something that we need to to remind ourselves when we're reading and also when we're learning things from the scriptures and holding up our imagination now this takes me on to the next point on the 14th of january 1898 lewis carroll died and we could talk long and long and hard about alice in wonderland and through the looking glass for once again lewis carroll uses his imagination to make of human logic and human wisdom something which can be made to look ridiculous i'm thinking of things like the the white rabbit's poem in the court is evidence to the king and all the conversations at the mad hatter's tea party which have at their base an illogicality based on logic now i've got some quotations from lewis carroll and of course the the the best thing is to remember the rhymes you have in your head like the jabberwocky was brillig and the slidey toad did gyro and gimble in the way or the walrus and the carpenter if seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year do you suppose the walrus said that they could get it clear i doubt it said the carpenter and shed a bitter tear we could we could do those rhymes all morning but these are quotes and this is where i want to take it this morning the first quote is imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality how hugh lofting must have felt that in the deep mud and separation and horror of the trenches in the first world war in 1916 when he found himself there and imagination is something that helps us and other people's imagination which turns things on its head we're back with father william actually we could go there couldn't we your old father william the young man said and your hair is turned very white and yet you continually stand on your head do you think at your age it is right the rhymes stay in your head but here's a conversation with the cheshire cat we've got leo here but not a cheshire cat but leo here this morning he's our creature for today and uh here's alice talking to the smiling cheshire cat would you tell me please which way i ought to go from here that depends a good deal on where you want to get to said the cat hm i don't much care where said alice then it doesn't matter which way you go said the cat well so long as i get somewhere alice added an explanation oh you're sure to do that said the cat if you only walk long enough those kind of logical conversations are peppered through lewis carroll's books and you find yourself sometimes in the conversation with humpty dumpty questioning your own uh logic but but it's also alice constantly questioning herself and one of louis carroll's famous quotes is if you don't know where you're going any road will take you there well jesus is good news is our goal very much our goal and we not only know where we're going when he guides us and find ourselves on a really definite pathway but also have to keep reminding us ourselves as we reflect and think about ourselves and imagine for imagining can give encouragement and we do that constantly as we think of all those scenes that mark has set out for us we have to imagine imagine ourselves there or imagining what that would mean now if the same kind of scene was reenacted and at the moment with many many examples of people putting themselves in danger to give healing to others just as father robin went down to his ministry at kinderweetwe and those kinds of imaginings give us encouragement at a time when we ourselves might be tempted to despair our psalm asks us to continue to tell the good news and it takes us from the moment we're taken from our mother's womb until we're old and grey-headed and can still pass on in song and in story and in the example of our own lives the good news to others now it's not a road that we don't know where to go the way is given to us very clearly here's the last bit of a quote from lewis carroll alice generally gave herself very good advice though she very seldom followed it well from sin paul down to us that's true of human nature but every day we set out on a new journey a new pilgrimage of imaginative encouragement for ourselves and also for each other let's say our prayers on this particular morning and we see that on this morning we have the diocese of agra in the united church of north india to pray for and we remember the people there and we have also in this diocese archbishop justin and bishop rose of dover bishop tim at lambeth in our prayers but also today that the parish of shepherds lees and peter newell the parish priest and pray for him and all the people who live there so let's say our prayer for today and then pledge ourselves to use imaginatively use our imaginations to encourage each other with things that we shall plan and do today here's the colic for this week eternal father who at the baptism of jesus revealed him to be your son anointing him with the holy spirit grant to us who are born again by water and the spirit that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children through jesus christ our lord amen so we say each in our own language the prayer that jesus 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 of silence this morning the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and if his son jesus christ our lord 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 sorry little boy this is for a day inside isn't it i'm not going to go far in this wet weather are we look a bit disgruntled leo's an explorer but i think this wet weather is even too much for him