good morning and welcome to the dinner garden on this sunday the 6th of june it's a lovely spring summer morning and just a crossover between spring and summer and you're looking at the back gate of the january garden which leads into the orchard i'm sitting between the old city walls now the walls of our precincts made of flint and bricks and bits of stone and the old monastic wall made of brick and this we call the dean's walk which is alive at the moment with wild flowers you're able as you look towards the back gate of the deanery and the beginning of the orchard to see the flowers here the moon daisies the alkanet the pulmonary the achillea which will start to flower soon and it's like a little country path leading into the orchard which we know well but it's a day when we should be talking about new beginnings and so this is the beginning of the garden from the back gate that you're looking at this morning so let's say our prayers and as we do so let's make a special intention for the people of burkina faso suffering so much violence and all attempts by international aid is being and and also pressure on those who are being so violent is trying to do its best but our prayers can add to that on this morning as we say our prayers together bring your own intentions on this first sunday after trinity as we pray together oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the day star dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night blessed are you creator of all to you be praise and glory forever as your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation may we rejoice in this day you have made as we wake refresh from the depths of sleep open our eyes to behold your presence and strengthen our hands to do your will that the world may rejoice and give you 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 as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our son on this sixth morning of the month is psalm 30 i will exalt you o lord because you have raised me up and have not let my foes triumph over me o lord my god i cried out to you and you have healed me you brought me up o lord from the dead you restored me to life from among those that go down to the pit sing to the lord you servants of his give thanks to his holy name for his wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye his favor for a lifetime heaviness may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning in my prosperity i said i shall never be moved you lord of your goodness have made my hill so strong then you hid your face from me and i was utterly dismayed to you o lord i cried to the lord i made my supplication what prophet is there in my blood if i go down to the pit will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness hear o lord and have mercy upon me o lord be my helper you have turned my morning into dancing you have put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing o lord my god i will give you thanks forever this is a sunday morning and so we're not in our regular reading of saint matthew's gospel we are instead given a special lesson and that lesson is from the acts of the apostles and we're taking up in the acts of the apostles in chapter 22 and verse 22 but let me put some context in so you see where we are in the story of the early church the very early church for paul has come back to jerusalem he's come back with some friends and he is thinking that he will go to the temple and enjoy the hospitality of the temple to say his prayers and instead people have spotted him there and have made a riot about his coming into the temple accusing him of bringing people who should not be there into the temple itself and you'll remember how when the the riot becomes really serious the tribune in the nearby barracks the fortress of antonia sends people down the steps to bring paul into the safety of of the barracks and when paul comes uh he begins to talk to the tribune this isn't part of our lesson this morning it it's a prelude to it he comes to the tribune and says may i say something to you and the the tribune says do you know greek so paul is speaking to the tribune in greek and not in aramaic or in hebrew and the tribune says do you know greek meaning you're not who i thought you were and there's a new respect and he allows paul to speak to the people which paul does in their own language they're hebrew languages the act says possibly aramaic possibly hebrew but he speaks to them in their own language and that makes matters worse really so we join chapter 22 as verse 22 shows the riot beginning again from what paul has said and the people start to shout here we are up to this word they listened to him then they raised their voices and said away with such a fellow from the earth for he should not be allowed to live and as they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air the tribune ordered paul to be brought back into the barracks saying that he should be examined by flogging to find out why they were shouting against him like this but when they had stretched him out for the whips paul said to the centurion who was standing by is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a roman citizen uncondemned now when the centurion heard this he went to the tribune and said to him what are you about to do for this man is a roman citizen so the tribune came and said to paul tell me are you a roman citizen and paul said yes the tribunal said i bought my citizenship for a large sum paul said but i am a citizen by birth so those who were about to examine paul drew back from him immediately and the tribune was also afraid for he realized that paul was a roman citizen and that he had bound him on the next day desiring to know the real reason why he was being accused by the jews the tribune unbound him and commanded the chief priests and all the council to meet and he brought paul down and set him before them and looking intently at the council paul said brothers i have lived my life before god in all good conscience up to this day at which the high priest ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouse and paul and said god is going to strike you you whitewashed wall are you sitting to judge me according to the law and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck those who stood by said would you revile god's high priest paul said i did not know brothers that he was the high priest for it is written you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people now when paul perceived that one part were sadducees and the other pharisees he cried out in the council brothers i am a pharisee a son of pharisees it is respect it is with respect to the hope of the resurrection of the dead that i am on trial when he said this a dissension arose between the pharisees and the sadducees and the assembly was divided for the sadducees say that there is no resurrection nor angel nor spirit but the pharisees acknowledge them all then a great clamor arose and some of the scribes of the pharisees party stood up and contended sharply we find nothing wrong in this man what if a spirit or an angel spoke to him and when the dissension became violent the tribune afraid that paul would be torn to pieces by them commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into the barracks the following night the lord stood by paul and said take courage for as you have testified to the facts about me in jerusalem so you must testify in rome the very sentence to which they objected right at the beginning of that the lesson up to this word they listened to him then they raised their voices and shouted against him what did he said he said that the message after the stoning of stephen to him was go for i will send you now far away to the gentiles paul has accomplished that ministry so far of course we read about that in the acts of the apostles and also were very aware of it from the letters that paul writes to the various churches that he finds in the mostly eastern part of the mediterranean his letter to the romans is written to a community of christians he's not yet met but his massive desire was to go back to his own people in jerusalem to come home if you like and it's the crisis of this riot and also the way he's dealt with by the sanhedrin the council of his own people that cause him first of all to shall we say lose his cool with the high priest and then to make a a division between the two parties of the parliament that the sadducees and pharisees and he knew easily how to do that he'd been brought up as a pharisee at the feet of gamaliel and knew all of the different dissensions between pharisees and sadducees all of that but what we're looking at here is a very interesting juxtaposition amongst the various dimensions with which paul is going to work in the years which follow the first clue of that is when the tribune who is speaking to him in the common greek is addressed by paul in greek and the tribune says do you speak greek i thought you were the egyptian rebel and paul says no i'm not the second clue is when the centurion is about to beat paul at the orders of the tribune and paul says is it is it legal for you to do this to a roman citizen knowing full well that it isn't he's left it this long before he says this and the tribune really now frightened of the imperial rule being broken comes down first of all to release him and then give him a chance so the tribune himself can begin to understand what the cause of dissension is and it gets no farther than the disagreement almost to violence with the council so once again the tribune for paul's protection and he's even more conscious of this now now he knows he's guarding a roman citizen brings him back in to the barracks we have the hebrew culture and paul has come back to the center of all that in jerusalem we have the greek culture the common language spoken right across the eastern mediterranean the koine greek and we have the latin dimension because here is paul as a roman citizen one goes back in um two pilots notice written along the pet of the cross because it was near the common way and they wanted people to um to to read it as they went past so he wrote that the inscription the king of the jews in latin and hebrew and greek paul is dealing with different cultures but it took this act of instant violence in the temple which he wasn't expecting in order for that crisis to move him forward and what he what we have here is a gateway into ministry to the gentiles that's why we put the gate to the garden just as a visual image behind the journey leads that way through now i wanted to uh in a bit i'll i'll look at various dates but there's something that we watched on bbc news we watched it yesterday but it goes well today it's a little item which you can possibly possibly find because it's there about two people claudia and richard their name are two hungarians paddling in kayaks on the river danube and it is part of their film just a couple of minutes showing what happened to them one morning now they are paddling there from the black sea right up to the black forest it's over 2800 kilometers but one morning early and it's a beautiful shot the sky is as it is this morning and instead of the dean's walk it's the huge river danube in all its stillness but in the water are two beautiful large white-tailed eagles and they're clutched together and sogged down by the water and can't fly it's obvious that they've been fighting and are clinging together and richard first of all with a lasso a long lanyard managed to separate them and get one of them to climb on to his kayak so that he can save the eagle and just paddle him to the shore it's quite a risky business it's a light kayak and it's a huge eagle but it is a wonderful shot and the sound of the water and the eagle jumps into the water and goes on now the next one the other eagle um is being pursued by claudia and she can't do it because it keeps going away from her and so what they do is paddle beyond it with both the kayaks having saved one of the eagles both the kayaks and make up a sort of pincer movement ahead of the eagle so it can only fly into the v shape of the two kayaks and the second of the drenched white-tailed eagles goes onto the kayak and then richard begins to paddle that eagle which keeps jumping off and then jumping back on again when the kayak gets near and flat and swimming as richard says like a butterfly but making pretty heavy weather so in the end richard takes this eagle to to the bank and then there's a little interview with them and they say what are you doing paddling and they say we are we are actually on a a quest with others to make people aware of all the human rubbish in our beautiful river and we've started in romania and uh then have come through serbia and now we're here in hungary and we'll go on right through to the black forest through vienna and the black forest because it's not romania and serbia's fault there's rubbish in the river it's our river and everyone is responsible for the cleanliness of the way this huge and beautiful waterway which means so much to that area of europe and then the interviewer says so why are you paddling upstream and claudia says in an amusing exchange why not only dead fish go with the stream and the paddling they're doing is against the flow so it seems a good thing to bring to your notice on a day when here is paul who has drifted back to jerusalem and now is going to paddle very much against the flow he himself will become waterlogged in shipwreck but the lord's voice has said you've testified to me in jerusalem that's that's the past now you will speak for me in rome the center of the imperial world at that time it's a really telling story but it shows and we're of course we're in the middle of crisis now with the pandemic it shows that the way forward sometimes is where we least expect it to be and that these crises can actually cause new beginnings and this was a beginning which opened up the whole of the mediterranean world both rome and latin west and greek east and then the world itself to the good news that jesus had brought in uh his nether is nazareth manifesto to begin with right at the beginning well there are other things today which speak of beginnings this june the 6th in one's mind is always d-day and d-day was the time when in 1944 the x the force of allied troops led by general eisenhower landed 155 000 allied troops on the beaches of normandy and began to drive nazism back and release europe once again so d-day speaks of new beginnings just as the gate does and just as our story of crisis for paul in the acts of the apostles and expectations against the flow of what he was expecting which would drive him in a hard and different direction the lord's will that he should testify in rome on this day also some other dates in 1844 the ymca was founded and in 1949 george orwell published his novel 1984 where the whole world was ruled by big brother who oversaw them all well there are warnings all over that novel which one might look at but i wanted to look at three other people just quickly um in 1599 on this day diego velazquez was born in seville the most important spanish painter of the 17th century and certainly a giant of western art i could talk about many of his paintings but i simply wanted to talk about his style which is called a bodega style which is reality in an ordinary human place and i'll pick two paintings an old woman frying eggs and christ in the house of martha and mary the one christ in the house of martha and mary is in the national gallery in london and the old woman frying eggs is in the scottish national gallery in edinburgh which i've spoken about before but if you look at those and you can easily call them up you'll find the clarity of reality about the kitchen and the look on martha's face is very much of someone who is not only concentrating on cooking but also is really peeved at the fact that through the open doorway you can see mary sitting at jesus's feet but the biggest things apart from martha in the kitchen are the fish and the the pestle and water that she is using to crush herbs there are half broken open garlic bulbs on the table there and there are beautiful pure white eggs it's a kitchen scene as is the other one with the lovely shimmering eggs in the pan and the magnificent old lady's face in in that painting so that reality really takes us to the way in which jesus uses pictures and stories in words not with his paintbrush to do the same to point out things about ourselves and about the things which god gives us for our nourishment and for the beauty of the earth to inspire us by his creation this is a day also in 1875 when thomas mann was born a german author of huge works got a nobel prize for literature some of his works are monumental tones things like uh button brooks in the magic mountain the one that i know best of those monumental tones are the story of joseph and his brothers oh so beautifully told i wish i could speak german in a way that i could read it in german but even in translation everything comes forward but he's not best known for that he's best known for his short story death in venice simply because it was made into the most marvelous film by visconti in 1971 with jack bogard playing gustaf von ashenbach and the music of the adagietto of mahler's fifth symphony giving it atmosphere it's fairly accurate to the book except it changes von ashenbach from a writer into a composer and then at the same time of course benjamin britain's last opera which was performed in 1973 was in the same way death in venice it inspired those two artists britain and visconti to put the thing before us visually and in britain's case with music and with visconti's with others music so let's give thanks for that and give thanks also for me for a much more ordinary person though very much honored as a musician in his time sir john steiner was born today in 1840 and while his music we sang an anthem of his yesterday the full choir sang his trinity ansem i saw the lord and there's that the wonderful buildup of isaiah's vision of the lord with the angels with their six wings and then the the temple beginning to fill with smoke as each line of the choir builds it up and the simple trinity him at the end but what he's best known for by most is his not quite oratorio you could call it a cantata if you like but it's something that's often performed in churches his crucifixion and the reason i give thanks for that is that having sung it many times um steiner gives us scripture in our heads from his arias and his his music uh god still of the world that beautiful quartet and that it means that scriptural sentences are in our minds so i would give thanks for that first because when i'm reading his music comes to mind because it's so simple it's like samuel sebastian wesley you get huge amounts of scripture that are in your head simply neat not metrical but scripture and that is an important gift a knapsack gift but there are three hymns also that stana is um perhaps remembered for two of them are from the crucifixion because there's congregational singing in that one is generally sung to uh come now long expected jesus these days cross of jesus cross of sorrow and the other one all for jesus all for jesus and those two hymn tunes and the four line version of a tune love divine or love's excelling simply called love divine so thanksgiving for creative gifts on this beautiful morning thanksgiving for the the reality of velazquez bodega style with the old woman frying eggs and martha in the kitchen and mary through the the doorway the open doorway like our gate into the garden but we also give thanks for new beginnings which come to us all unwittingly when suddenly a crisis strikes and we have to think our way forward and be brave if it's god's will we should be so and swim against the flow remembering um claudia's words when asked why are you paddling upstream on the danube and she answered why not only dead fish go with the stream say let's say our prayers on this lovely sunday morning and we're thinking this morning of the church of the province of burma myanmar in our anglican communion and also for archbishop justin bishop rose of dover bishop tim at lambeth and today for all the parishes of the sanet deanery which once again we shall come to the time when we go through village by village but for today we pray for them all and pray for the area dean richard brady in his ministry there and all the officers of that deanery and the people of those parishes let's then say our prayer on this day when we've considered gateways and new beginnings and how they begin i'm going to use the prayer for the first sunday after trinity bring your own intentions your own concerns your own prayers on this day oh god the strength of all those who put their trust in you mercifully accept our prayers and because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without you grant us the help of your grace that in keeping of your commandments we may please you both in will and deed through jesus christ our lord amen so we say our own in our own language 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 are men moment of silence for your own prayers 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 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 oh leo you're in the sunshine now and you've left me in the shade but i think both of us can go and perhaps seek some fried eggs like the velazquez painting maybe not that you want that but i'll find you something i'm sure [Music] me [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] you