[Music] good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this tuesday the 2nd of march we've come to the lower part of the orchard on this particular morning so feel welcome wherever you are in the world and bring your prayers and intentions you're looking at the bright form of a marsh marigold an early one blooming in the upper of the two ponds here and those of the celandine family called in other parts of the world king cups as well um are about to flower in profusion and give us little sunshine by their own shining petals and colours in front is a is a water hawthorn an early one which will be scented with a great fragrance when those flowers begin to bloom and sadly to its right in your picture is the aram lily which has actually suffered from the snow and frost but it's beginning to recover that will soon look good again into this pond the streamlet the brill runs right down through the the little uh form of the stream that fletcher has created here which is covered in moss and it it comes down here but the stream itself gives an opportunity for creatures to drink for slow worms to be those hedgehogs to drink all kinds of things and even our pigs when kemi and the girls come up here to the dean's walk for the morning then they stop and have a drink just there but it runs into the pond you're looking at which is now full of frog spawn and that will begin slowly to to to hatch into tadpoles and all the things that we used to collect when we were young and put in jars and then down into the lower pond a much deeper pond where the fish are but the fish aren't allowed in this pond you're looking at because of the danger to the frogspawn so all of these things little waterfalls feed it so the birds can have a wash as well this is a great area for wildlife and when water was brought into the garden here then the wildlife increased and the birds came in profusion with many different types i'm sitting in front of the old roman wall of the city and of the of the precincts now and we have to amend that from time to time but its foundations date back to roman times it's uh a gray morning but the the mist has come off the sea and uh bell harry was even hidden from me the cathedral tower when i went to matins very early this morning and i couldn't see which way the the the wind was blowing but i see now just through the mist as it clears to allow the sun through that the wind is now coming from the west and that will bring a warm wind but it's very still this morning and we're promised a good warm day bring your prayers from wherever you are in the world we are praying for his royal highness prince philip who has been moved from king up with the seventh hospital as you will have heard to sin bartholomew's hospital but we pray for those looking after him and pray for all those who are caring for people in sickness at present i wanted to apologize for making mistakes yesterday i'm always making mistakes but i got the name of our friend who ministers in south wales carys arwin i said hughes it's of course carries our win jones i'm i'm i'm growing too old and forget these names and uh it's because we have a friend who was called by the other name but on the other hand carris i'm really sorry getting your name wrong yesterday and at the same time this morning we are remembering the people of burma myanmar in their situation there and we've had news also of the death of michael gordinski the who has died and the news has just come through of that michael was a great icon of australian music and a promoter of australian music he promoted people like kylie minogue and jimmy barnes and his frontier touring brought stars to australia in the 1980s and 90s frank sinatra the rolling stones bruce springsteen who said this morning in 50 years of touring the world i've never made met a better promoter than michael gordinski and russell crowe i mean the actor not our our rooster said michael was a towering figure on the australian cultural landscape so we remember that i wanted also uh and our psalm will will touch on the activity of those who are powerful uh feeling that they have the right to menace and bully and be violent towards those who are poor or frail i wanted to mention something that came out on our friend paul o'grady's website and he was lamenting the fact that here in kent near lid ann cowlard was taking her 11-year-old pug dora for a walk now anne suffers with breathing difficulties and dora has been her companion throughout this lockdown and a man walked up to her in a mask friendly and uh with a hat on and said what a nice dog and then uh stooping down to pat the dog unclipped the collar and picked up dora and run away with him with her other and uh and of course devastated she's suffered a mini stroke she couldn't follow the man because of her breathing difficulties he run off and this kind of of stealing of of pets has become quite a feature of the lockdown not because the people want the pets themselves usually because they want to sell them at quite a price now so we pray for for anne this morning and uh pray that dora will be found certainly everyone is hunting and we're sad about such things happening well let's say our prayers and bring all these situations which you will know many more of in your your areas and in heart and mind we come together to begin our prayers on this morning o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise hear our voice o lord according to your faithful love according to your judgments 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 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 our psalm is psalm 10 on this second morning of the month and it perhaps reflects on the way in which those who are powerful in strength can bully harass or be violent towards those who don't have that kind of power why stand so far off oh lord why hide yourself in time of trouble the wicked in their pride persecute the poor let them be caught in the schemes they have devised the wicked boast of their hearts desire the covetous curse and revile the lord the wicked in their arrogance say god will not avenge it in all their scheming god counts for nothing they are stubborn in all their ways for your judgments are far above out of their sight they scoff at all their adversaries they say in their heart i shall not be shaken no harm shall ever happen to me their mouse is full of cursing deceit and fraud under their tongue lie mischief and wrong they lurk in the outskirts and in dark alleys they murder the innocent their eyes are ever watching for the helpless they lie in weight like a lion in his den they lie in weight to seize the poor they seize the poor when they get them into their net the innocent are broken and humbled before them the helpless fall before their power they say in their heart god has forgotten he hides his face away he will never see it arise o lord god and lift up your hand forget not the poor why should the wicked be scornful of god why should they say in their hearts you will not avenge it surely you behold trouble and misery you see it and take it into your own hand the helpless commit themselves to you for you are the helper of the orphan break the power of the wicked and malicious search out their wickedness until you find none the lord shall reign for ever and ever the nation shall perish from his land lord you will hear the desire of the poor you will incline your ear to the fullness of their heart to give justice to the orphan and the oppressed so that people are no longer driven in terror from the land [Music] the psalms take us through every human mood and in reading them sequentially as we go through the various moods and the feelings that we ourselves have even towards god when the heavens seem shut to our prayers are all there in that hymn book of jesus himself the psalms he would have known by heart and often quoted from and helped they helped him to develop his ministry well let's go on with our reading from the fourth gospel the gospel of saint john and today a short passage we're continuing in chapter six i say a short passage it's a totally crucial passage to our sacramental understanding of jesus himself and the gift he's giving us 52 of chapter 6 the jews then disputed among themselves saying how can this man give us his flesh to eat so jesus said to them truly truly i say to you unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and i will raise them up on the last day for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and i in them as the living father sent me and i live because of the father so whoever feeds on me will also live because of me this is the bread that came down from heaven not like the bread the father's yet and died whoever feeds on this bread will live forever jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught at capernaum this is his public teaching but it confounds them it's the way in which he is attempting to show that his physical self his humanity not simply mind and spirit but his physical bodily humanity getting older day by day as our humanity is in the limitations of all our humanity those temptations he set aside in the wilderness which satan drifted in front of him and and said you can be much more than this no he lives out the human life as it is and it's that humanity he wills to give us and that's why now not simply in metaphor that bread which he has nourished the people with is in reality said to be the humanity of jesus himself there is no story in john's gospel of the breaking of the bread and the the giving of the cup in the last supper the last supper is written of in full but we have to remember that the details of that last supper were being enacted by christians to absolutely establish their identity and two let's use this word because it'll come again and again it's the greek word meno which has just come terribly difficult to translate for us and so we resort to the word which we rarely use in ordinary language in in english in modern terms abide abiding with me it could be remain but remain doesn't have the same quality of entering absolutely into the physicality of jesus abide in me we'll come to that when we come to the the i am the vine you are the branches whoever abides it's that same word um if you if you watch carys's sermon she says that there's a welsh word that she's trying to explain but in in english it's very difficult to explain i've had that with the the germans talking about gamutly is that you don't have a word which really covers that in english and the the the dutch say the the word casselic you don't have a word which covers that sense of home and the comfort that home brings well it's the same word with this meno abide and we're using that because we stay with that abide in me but the bread which christians break and consume and the cup which christians drink that is set out in stark form in this chapter 6 of st john's gospel we are taking christ physically into ourselves with the bread that we share and from very early times christians met on what became known as the lord's day um and that in the revelation chapter one i was in the lord's day says the writer of the revelation and that first day of the week christians met early in the morning to take the bread and to share the cup and to sing their hymns and to read the ancient scriptures and to tell because so much was not in written form of the the new way followers of the way they were to tell the stories of jesus's teaching and of his life and of his giving of his very self so that in the synoptic gospels taking the bread whenever you do this do it in remembrance of me and they did and it was a physical sign of their being christians joining together and that joining in a eucharistic the word meaning thanksgiving the sacrifice of thanksgiving and the sacrifice of jesus himself in reality taken into the very bodies of those who abide in him well it's hard teaching and as we say even the next day in we'll see this tomorrow in chapter six there are some who just can't accept it it's too hard the ways in which christians have received the bread and received the cup have been many and varied and so many disagreements have taken place on what that actually means in human terms but what we do know is that that fact has been the hallmark of being a christian gathering together to break the bread and to receive the cup and to receive christ himself not just in spirit not just in uh thought but actually in the humanity of christ in ourselves so that our bodies can be co-creators with our creator as the father abides in jesus so he abides in us that word which has a depth of being and it needs many theological lectures but actually it can be acted out in the simplest of activities and let's go back to pliny writing to the emperor trajan in those early years and say these christians i i describe them that they always meet together to to share a meal and sing hymns to christ to god and all of that and this is the roman governor saying i can't seem to find any harm in them they they make a covenant from their scriptures not to do wrong and yet at the same time they seem to pose a threat to order but the sign of them the meeting together to break bread and here in st john's gospel is the very depth of that abiding in jesus don't worry about thinking about it too deeply today act it out but we'll think about it again tomorrow and all the way through in john's gospel for john's gospel is deep sacramental teaching and we use the synoptic gospels to help us in that with the stories of the ministry of jesus himself let's look at some of the things that have happened on this day well now what i want to say first of all is this since saint chad's day and if you're puzzled by that name saint chad don't worry he died in 672 and was the bishop of the navy in mercia in the middle of england in the midlands i didn't know that name really until when i was ordained i was sent to the church of sint chad in shrewsbury there to break bread with other christians in my year as the deacon receiving them that's 49 years ago receiving uh our lord in the bread and thereafter the year after from 1973 onwards actually celebrating for them and giving the bread the body of christ as we said yesterday the importance of the physicality of us to be christ in his world and when i say sin chad well i could tell you all the stories of chad the bishop in saxon times read the venerable bead and you learn about sin chad and his brother said both of whom were bishops but this is chad's day and he's buried in litchfield cathedral where i was ordained both priests and as i said in 1972 49 years ago deacon the the church in litchfield is saint mare the cathedral mary and chad say we pray for that today that i was sent to the church of saint chad alone in i mean that's the only dedication of that church in shrewsbury great big georgian church built by thomas telford it's round and the glory of it and it was there was a very ancient church of some chad which uh fell down at a particular time and instead of building it up again the the the congregation built a new church in the new style and it's round and the advantage was that when you were preaching your sermon and i cut my teeth preaching sermons in sinchance then i actually uh watched the people looking at each other because they were in circles and there was a large gallery as well huge church set there on the quarry which sounds like a quarry it isn't it's the most beautiful garden going down onto the river seven uh and and there in the dingle lovely flowers uh so i'm talking about shows free but in my mind a host of people come into my mind when i say some chads and my first incumbent comes at this particular time into my mind christopher spafford who taught me he was he was very practical uh and i remember him saying to me very early on the most important word that you'll learn to say robert is sorry and of course i've said it this morning to caris for getting her name wrong yesterday and i need to say it to you all the time because facts will come out of my head in the wrong order or something of that kind but sorry in in in a deep way and admitting that you're to blame when a relationship has gone wrong or you you you've left undone things that you ought to have done part of daily life that word is very important you said it's a healing word sorry and then also i remember him taking a more humorous place on a cold night when the boiler had broken in the church as it's being mended in the cathedral at the moment because he was fairly cold at present uh he took me down where the engineers had been working and and and had fired the boiler again and he said robert this is your best friend if this isn't working no we'll be listening to what you're saying they'll just be feeling cold in the building and so all those kinds of things i remember from lovely christopher stratford and his family who became another family to me as did a lovely family called the bromlos and i wanted to to send out a a greeting to vivian bromolo her husband david died a very musical person singing in the the choir of simchads and utterly loved music and then also their their children uh james who's my godson uh and uh and emma and i have to mention also with thanksgiving but also may she rest in peace and and being enjoying the the worship of the new jerusalem with with her father now who's there too um little sarah who who died of leukemia uh was already suffering that when i i left the parish happy times sad times embraced into a family of christians who i mean the wide family of the church of saint chads and i can make a circle because that's how they worshipped who broke bread together on sunday mornings and when i remember on a monday morning following my old nation as priest that was the first place that i was to celebrate the eucharist and give the people the bread and the cup and they all turned out on a monday morning for my first communion so i give thanks for chad in a very special way and pray for that church and it's very powerful ministry there in shrewsbury well now there are some other lovely things to think about this morning and most of them are aspects of creativity because i said abiding in christ means also abiding in the creator and trusting that the gifts given are the gifts that the creator means you to use as the father sent me even so i send you says jesus and that is something now in this list of wonderful things and far too many to go into but i will give you images as we go through first of all understand in 1921 christopher lloyd was born and he inherited great dixter a lovely house well within driving distance from here um it's it's on the road you go to tenterdon and and go on to the let me get my directions right to the west and not far away you come to great dixter and there he formed a wonderful garden he made of the house something absolutely beautiful and the garden is very special indeed it's herbaceous border it's wild flower gardens it's gardens with what he called exotic plants and so many things to give ideas all these places at the moment you can see virtually by means of the world wide web if you go on to it and look up great dixter and we send out a hooray to fergus garrett who worked with uh christopher lloyd on the garden and he still is the head gardener there and a great friend of our own head gardener in the precinct steve edney so thanks be to god for great dixter and fergus garrett and the garden there this morning it will be coming springing into life like our own one is then i want to mention these are in no particular order uh it's just the way they've come out uh in 1970 alexander armstrong who is a a broadcaster who always cheers us up was born so it's his uh 51st birthday today which is which is wonderful so happy birthday to alexander armstrong we watch his pointless uh um which is a wonderful television game where the ones who who get the the the least points tend to score i can't explain it all this morning but it's one of those things that puzzles the mind and you get pleased when you get the question right but also his voice has now become very familiar to us on classic fm and he's on most days of the week and always has lovely stories to tell and we watched him in a programme on television i think it was called meet your ancestors or something of that kind i can't think what it was called but it you went down um through your family trees all the way back and uh they they researched it for you and he was the the person on that day they were recording and they got him back first of all down through the civil war to the to the markers of worcester who became duke of beaufort and and took him to badminton house and so on and went all the way back into the grimaldi family who are of course the the the the uh uh prince of monaco and and and live in monte carlo there and then before that because the grimaldi family traced their heritage back to one of the three kings balthazar so he's got a really royal lineage if he wants to claim it and and he would take that with amusement but he's someone who again lifts the spirit with the creative activity of of of all that he gives her 1965 the sound of music was premiered that film based on the rogerson hammerstein musical and it it's become one of the great iconic films i remember going to see it in 1965 with my mother at the odeon cinema with this huge screen in bristol that was wondrous to me at that time and sitting there with my mother and her eldest brother leonard um we saw the screen open up to all the hills of austria and those songs which have become second nature quite often people will sing them round the piano here and learn the musical notes of what mother used to call tonic so far do remy so far latido uh and uh that that kind of thing in the song do a deer a female dear well we can sing it all through or the song praising the little austrian flower edelweiss and think of the the water hawthorne as you as you think of that in 1933 king kong had been premiered on this day and that in those days in black and white was a wondrous thing but the sound of music opening up all of that to other films of course it now feels a long time ago 1965 but the music keeps it in our heads and we give thanks for it 1939 the archaeologist howard carter died sometimes people are known for just one thing that they've said and the the uh the answer to uh the question what do you see when he looked into the two and two in common is the phrase is always remembered with howard carter i see wonderful things well that's something we can say day by day because i can look around and at every flower and say i see wonderful things and the scent of things developing 1797 horace walpole died and he is well known for strawberry hill house and the gothic um or the prelude to the gothic revival and strawberry hill house which is it trichonom and the shape of the windows and everything else but our own stained glass department was used to restore some of the windows there and to go there and see the sunshine shining through them is a wonderful thing but if you see a strawberry hill gothic house then you know it at once and i think stars house used to be like that here but it sadly was a complete devastation i was hit by a high explosive bomb in the terrible bombing raid here the baideca raid in 1942 uh 1930 i'll come back to this d.h lawrence died of consumption we think of his ability to um express the way in which a human being body mind and spirit can love another human being and all the difficulties and pain as well as joy that that that expresses and then in 1923 basil hume was born who became cardinal archbishop of westminster from 1976 to 1999 a very very popular and powerful spiritual teacher but always so full of humility whenever you met him and i still treasure his books to be a pilgrim and searching for god and think of him preaching at the westminster cathedral great anniversary with the flower festival all around him i've never been to such a flower festival in my life they had made it as though the flowers were bursting through the those of you who know westminster cathedral it's dark up there and uh the the interior is a bright gold and all kinds of things but as you look up generally it's dark and the flowers were cascading through around him and he preached a beautiful sermon about what we're talking about today the spirit of christ and our creative powers and the fact that places where christians meet together to share the bread and the cup in whatever way they do it in our different denominations become the identity sealer of abiding in christ and in one another uh and then on this day 1791 this we're really touring the denominations john wesley died and one thinks of him in the phrase a brand plucked from the burning he saw himself as having a vocation when he was saved from the fire as a babe and then in 1544 thomas bodley was born founder of the bodleian library and the 871 early date again the battle of martin defeating the saxons defeating the danes opened the way for alfred the great to be king of the west saxon and use all his gifts in education and we were always taught he was called burning the cakes by someone when he was escaping from the dates but alfred was a great founder of educational places and a great scholar himself and that battle opened the way for his gifts quite often it's one event which will open a completely different way i wanted to mention in 1867 the incorporation of howard university in washington dc and to send a greeting and many prayers to our friends yolanda and simone yolanda is the chaplain of uh howard university in washington dc 1945 the canadian painter and writer emily carr died i can only suggest that you again look her up because emily carr is really wonderful at portraying the life of the indigenous population of the southwest pacific there but at the same time she travelled later and painted areas of europe but went back to her home place and used her gifts there and last of all i wanted to say how lovely it is to see our monarch queen elizabeth ii using zoom to be um in conversation with people throughout the world we saw it with her talking to the four chief medical officers the other day informally but now we've seen it talking to the governor of south australia and also the um sculptor robert hannaford of the new statue of her which is in adelaide at government house in adelaide in the garden and being amused by it and and when the governor said it's it people feel near to you uh when when they come and have their photograph taken there it's a really popular place of public photographs and and the queen says gracious you know are they just surprised it's it's almost as you're saying they'd be saying where has she come from but it's a completely new dimension and uh it shows once again how there's no physicality there can be intimacy in these ways of connecting with each other once again one could go on and on on days like this and we will be thinking of communities of our own in which we have broken bread in the past and with with whom we now break bread and declare ourselves those who are being sent by christ creatively to be his people in the world with imaginative encouragement we're praying today for the diocese of aruchukwu and ohafia in the church of nigeria in the abba province of the church of nigeria and we give thanks for the communities there and in the diocese we pray for archbishop justin for bishop rose of dover and bishop tim at lambeth and pray today for the parish of margaret at cliff with westcliff and east langdon with west langdon a new priest is to be licensed kaz reeves on the 17th of march st patrick's day and uh we pray for that new ministry and all the people there and give thanks for that community which breaks bread together and receives christ so let's say our prayers first the collect for sin chad's day bishop of litchfield and missionary died in 672 almighty god from the first fruits of the english nation who turned to christ you called your servant chad to be an evangelist and bishop of his own people give us grace so to follow his peaceable nature humble spirit and prayerful life that we may truly commend to others the faith which we ourselves profess through jesus christ our lord amen and the colic for this week of lent almighty god you show to those who are in error the light of your truth so that they may return to the way of righteousness grant to all those who are admitted into the fellowship of christ's religion that they may reject those things that are contrary to their profession and follow all such things as our agreeable to the same through our lord jesus christ amen i wanted before we say the our father together to read a poem by d.h lawrence i've read it before but some months ago and this is called the song of a man who has come through and here's lawrence writing not i not i but the wind that blows through me a fine wind is blowing the new direction of time if only i let it bear me carry me if only it carry me if only i am sensitive subtle oh delicate a winged gift if only most lovely of all i yield myself and i'm borrowed by the fine fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world like a fine an exquisite chisel a wedge blade inserted if only i am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge driven by invisible blows the rock will split we shall come at the wonder we shall find the hesterides oh for the wonder that bubbles into my soul i would be a good fountain a good wellhead would blur no whisper spoil no expression what is the knocking what is the knocking at the door in the night it is somebody wants to do us harm no no it is the three strange angels admit them and meet them so let's say the prayer our savior taught us and admit him as we say it 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 limit of silence now for you to say your own prayers [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 amen [Music]