so that's you signing up there mr robin i can hear you now one of the few birds still singing for us here in the orchard but you're actually having to share the orchard with the guinea fowl who've come up here and you guys i know are glad that russell's not yet been let out so make the most of it because very soon we'll let him out good morning uh welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral to the orchard this morning on the 27th of october wednesday morning the 27th of october wherever you are in the world feel welcome and we both want to apologize that things were eventually put online so late yesterday it was an extremely frustrating day for fletcher not for me i'd finish by about nine in the morning my work generally begins at about five in the morning when i set the alarm and make a mug of tea in the bedroom and then for a couple of hours think what we might be doing today with the lesson that we're going to read and then explore areas that we might be going into and at that time um then i'll take some tea into fletcher there's cathedral matins to do and then we will discuss exactly and sometimes argue about the way in which we are going to present this and what kind of teaching and theology and pictures we're going to be using and he will then uh prepare the the scene here and that itself takes a deal of thought and again sometimes some discussion about where we should go so we've shown you most parts of the garden but we try and he is is very very keen to put things where the lessons will be illustrated and after that then when i've gone about my work then he sits down and puts everything onto the computer now that has become extremely complicated and he stitching all the scenes in but deciding and i don't help because in the middle of things that i'm doing here this morning i'll suddenly think of something else and make a reference that he had no idea i was going to do so he's then going to search for something that helps you understand better in an illustrative way and the the more that she he gets into that and and works it through the the the better the explanations become now that's a complicated uh um amount of work enough to do and normally would take about uh two to three hours and then things go online there's other work to be doing here but yesterday the whole system of the computer and putting it online seemed to be affected with what we might call gremlins and still our i.t department and our comms department who were all called in to help don't understand what happened in the end at about three o'clock in the afternoon after much frustration and and annoyance fletcher got the program itself and that technical word for everything that has been edited and re-edited and taken out and stitched together got the program into a shape that could go online but of course some of you were were saying where is this where is this i i do ask you to be patient we we do get things on as quickly as possible um but with all the work of the cathedral as well then our determination to have a really excellent morning prayer for you right across the world as the garden congregation sometimes gets stalled so some mornings it's simple and slips on but even that's taken a couple of hours or more of work in at the computer long after we've made the film but some days it becomes more complicated and then when there are problems as there were massive problems yesterday then it becomes late but it's all there for those of you who haven't yet seen yesterday and the great incident of the leo bee sting when he came back feeling so very sorry for himself uh and sat beside me kneading and licking his paw uh having gone off to explore and got his paw stung by a bee and we felt very sorry for him well he won't be around today i know because we've actually come into the orchards to be near the beehives and that actually will help our reflections about a particular aspect of things today but as we begin our prayers um we remember that yesterday at the french window doors as we were coming out into the garden leo was determined that this was one of his mornings not tiger not russell and we opened the windows the french windows and there outside was russell waiting and leo's eagerness turned to a look of deep frustration so we walked across the lawn followed by russell and the gang and then eventually leo was brave enough as you know to follow and came and sat beside me and then a bit later on went off to explore and rushed back having stung his paw so all of that if you haven't seen you can find yesterday but now we start again this morning in a different way uh the other frustration that fletcher was having was the fact that russell who also wanted to be on was standing beside his his chair there and fetch wearing shorts had bare knees here which russell actually if breakfast isn't given can be quite quite cross about so he was trying desperately to film and protect himself from russell uh and uh then take a sip of tea and and go forward and so yesterday it's not a day we want to repeat in any way and i don't think leo would want to repeat it anyway um so this morning here we are by the beehives and we're going to begin our prayers so um be welcome wherever you are in the world oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise in your resurrection o christ let heaven and earth rejoice blessed are you lord god of our salvation to you be praise and glory forever as once you ransomed your people from egypt and led them to freedom in the promised land so now you have delivered us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your risen sun may we the first fruits of your new creation rejoice in this new day you have made and praise you for your mighty acts 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 o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm this morning we've now completed psalm 119 and we've five little pilgrim psalms and i'm going to read one two two psalm 122. i was glad when they said to me let us go to the house of the lord and now our feet are standing within your gate so jerusalem jerusalem built as a city that is at unity in itself the tribes go up the tribes of the lord as is decreed for israel to give thanks to the name of the lord for there are set the thrones of judgment the thrones of the house of david oh pray for the peace of jerusalem may they prosper who love you peace be within your walls and tranquility within your palaces for my kindred and companion's sake i will pray that peace be with you for the sake of the house of the lord our god i will seek to do you good a happy pilgrim psalm of pilgrims coming up to the city of jerusalem which would have been sung often in our lord's time and he would have known that psalm very well and possibly he and his disciples would sing a song like that these pilgrim psalms are all tending to be songs which are sung on the way to the temple which was the heartland of that nation in jesus's time in the heartland also of their faith as they came there and we remember him coming there expecting the fruits of the kingdom of heaven and finding himself with disappointment at the conflict and and boiling seething anger which you found in jerusalem at that time well i'm going to read this morning from where we left off yesterday and chapter 12 of the exodus it's a longish section but i think it needs to be read right up to verse 28 and then we'll talk about it afterwards because it is full of interest the lord said to moses and aaron in the land of egypt this month shall be for you the beginning of months it shall be the first month of the year for you tell all the congregation of israel that on the tenth day of this month everyone shall take a lamb according to their father's houses a lamb for a household and if the household is too small for a lamb then they and their nearest neighbors shall take according to the number of persons according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb your lamb shall be without blemish a male year old you may take it from the sheep or from the goats and you shall keep it until the 14th day of this month when the whole assembly of the congregation of israel shall kill their lambs at twilight then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the little of the houses in which they eat it they shall eat the flesh that night roasted on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water but roasted its head with its legs and its inner parts and you shall let none of it remain until the morning anything that remains until the morning you shall burn in this manner you shall eat it with your belt fastened your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand and you shall eat it in haste it is the lord's passover for i will pass through the land of egypt that night and i will strike all the firstborn in the land of egypt both man and beast and on all the gods of egypt i will execute judgments i am the lord the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are and when i see the blood i will pass over you and no plague will before you befall you to destroy you when i strike the land of egypt this day shall be for you a memorial day and you shall keep it as a feast to the lord throughout your generations as a statute forever you shall keep it as a feast for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread on the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses for if anyone eats what is leavened from the first day until the seventh day that person shall be cut off from israel on the first day you shall hold a holy assembly and on the seventh day a holy assembly no work shall be done on those days but what everyone needs to eat that alone may be prepared by you and you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread for on this very day i brought your hosts out of the land of egypt therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a statute forever in the first months from the 14th day of the month at evening you shall eat unleavened bread until the 21st day of the month that evening for seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses if anyone eats what is leavened that person will be cut off from the congregation of israel whether they are a sojourner or a native of the land you shall eat nothing leavened in all your dwelling places as you shall eat unleavened bread then moses called all the elders of israel and said to them go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans and kill the passover lamb take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning for the lord will pass through to strike the egyptians and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two door posts the lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you you shall observe this right as a statute for you and for your children forever and when you come to the land that the lord will give you as he has promised you shall keep this service and when your children say to you what do you mean by this service you shall say it is the sacrifice of the lord's passover for he passed over the houses of the people of israel in egypt when he struck the egyptians but spared our houses and the people bowed their heads and worshipped then the people of israel went and did so as the lord had commanded moses and aaron so they did this passage is of course crucial in the festival liturgy and life of the nation in which our lord grew up and he would have been used to the customs of the passover set out there in the book of the exodus as we read it we need to keep all those images in our minds because of course those images are not only images of the old covenant but from that old covenant and our lord lived out his earthly life within the terms and in the the customs of the old covenant as no doubt taught him by mary and joseph and the teaching of the synagogue in galilee at that time and all his classmates and everyone would have been learning all of this and they no doubt looked forward to festivals as we look forward to festivals to christmas and easter and all these things that we keep in the new covenant but they are all touched and particularly lent and easter and the the taking away of the 11 aspects of that are given to us as we begin the engine fast at trove tuesday when our cupboards are supposed to be clear and the simplicity of a of a desert fast goes forward but particularly in holy week when we come to mourn d thursday itself and the sacred triduum begins we we've together as a garden congregation two years running have gone through on particularly on good friday the journey that takes us through holy week and in thinking of all of that we're thinking of how our lord himself went up to jerusalem for the passover we also think about the symbolism of the lamb we were talking yesterday about the offering the first offerings of the harvest being always connected to a festival of thanksgiving and the first offerings of the flock are hereto signified but also it's rooted in an historic event for the people of that nation it binds them together in a thinking and retelling of the story over and over and over again and an acting out of that story year by year in their homes and i would say wherever they are in the world now is it history is it the past is it the present is it liturgy is it rules for worship some of those instructions remind me of and and i've been a dean now for almost 30 years and i'm used to lists which the presenter will offer me and say now here are the rules for worship and you stick by them and you won't go wrong and tell me um be very aware that when i'm in the middle of an enormous uh act of worship in the cathedral particularly especially in the darkness of holy saturday as we're lighting the easter flame i need those instructions in my head but i also need a little bit help of of saying no this is what happens next and it feels a little bit like that but at the same time we're back in a period of history oh so long ago and long before there was a temple in jerusalem in that way said that they're also looking to the future and moses is talking to them of god's command and what they must do but that command must be acted out with speed then and from then on the having their sandals on and that their belts fastened and their outdoor clothes around them and eating with haste is because they're about to be told to flee the land of egypt so in this chapter we have a complete mixture of times and seasons and history and customs and liturgy and if we ask in so far is is it past is it present is it instruction for the future that we're hearing red there you would have to say well it's all three and many many more things too because there are many symbols which jesus himself in his teaching will give us which root themselves just there and then root themselves in the worship of the temple solomon's temple which was destroyed and the temple which was rebuilt after the babylonian exile and all these as we've said are given touches by different hands as they go through but root themselves in a historical story which has to be told from memory really over and over again year by year just as so many of the other festivals of that nation and the festivals of any nation and our faith get told over and over again to root them into the present day for god is always the god of i am the god of the present but all times and seasons are his a a thousand years about his yesterday we're here we're looking back far more than a thousand years to the historic event far more than two thousand years far more than 3 000 years and there we are with that but at the same time we're seeing the thing unfold so that it was present tense for our lord himself very present tense with the last passover when he himself offered himself in a sacrificial way and was lifted up to draw all nations to himself but also present tense year by year as we of the new covenant celebrate that and the people of the old covenant still celebrate that and all those things come together and as we saw uh in our our holy week liturgy which we did together and we had the rising of that lovely paschal moon which was the the thing which bound us together at that passover time so all of that in symbols of resurrection we shall go forward with but at the moment we're looking at it as a piece of history in the book of exodus and gleaning from that chapter all the historical threads that are there as they prepare to make a journey and that journey is going to be a an important one but a very long one so now let's think of some of the dates that we have today because they too are important ones on this day on the 27th of october 1469 erasmus the greatest scholar of the northern renaissance in europe was born he's born in rotterdam and died in 1536 which was just before the dissolution of the monastery here now erasmus was a great scholar and uh he's known for many many scholarly writings but i like to think of him as the one who really sifted through the greek of the new testament and gave it his his best understanding and became an editor par excellence of the greek as he had it of the new testament the renaissance actually was profiting from the way in which constantinople had now ceased to be the capital of the um holy remnant not the holy room the eastern roman empire and lots of scholarship has come to the west and and and erasmus is is actually looking at that and seeing how important that aspect of life is and he sees the greek and sees a freshness there and and and gives it his best now he came to canterbury and he recorded in his journal we've said this together before that he found the shrine of saint thomas at that time before the reformation too gordy but at the same time when he went downstairs into the crypt where is the chapel of our lady undercroft he found a chapel much more to his taste there i found an altar fairer far and so whenever i stand in front of that altar i think of erasmus being there now he was one of the the people who looked also greek writers like plato particularly and it's that that connects me to our next thinker and this time it's a poet we were thinking of elizabeth jennings the parrot and being someone who who gave us natural images in the image of the garden and all that is in yesterday's morning prayer but today it's sylvia plath who was born on october the 27th 1932 and died only age 30 on the 11th of february 1963. she was what you might call a confessional poet everything in her poetry speaks of aspects of her life and her constant wrestling with mental distress and the the sense that she she brings out in her poetry is not only strongly filled with images of love and death and joy and birth and violence and the the breakdown of her her mental stability and and the the passionate love she has for people and the way in which that has been uh tortured because of the way she has related or the person that she's in love with his relation that well you know all of this and the way in which she writes the poetry is utterly heart-rending she met um first met ted hughes in 1956 and his life of course went on beyond her suicide but she had already fallen in love with but i don't think she knew him with dylan thomas who also has a significant date in this day and one of her boyfriends said that as far as uh as dylan thomas was concerned servio plus loved him more than life itself but it was a sort of a a distant type of love whereas for ted hughes it was a passionate type of love and they they got married and she spoke of ted in a sentence saying he was a singer a storyteller a lion a world wanderer with a voice like the thunder of god and there were happy times but there were tragic and desperate times and they were in separation in 1963 in the middle of one of the hardest winters that anyone in the northern hemisphere who was alive then can remember it was a desperate winter i remember it well there was frozen snow on the ground from from boxing day the day after christmas day right through till march and it was the coldest winter for a hundred years and she was trying to keep herself warm with very few resources and with her two children uh a boy and a girl at the time now uh there were happy times and she tried to remember them in her poetry and a lot of her poetry was was actually published after after her death and in she became in 1981 she she died in 63 remember uh because of her uh collected poems being published in 1981 she was awarded the pulitzer prize for poetry posthumously very very rare i wanted to read just a couple of her poems this morning they found happiness in part of their life in becoming beekeepers that's why i've come here i'm i'm please be aware i'm sitting out at the flight path of of the bees i'm not like leo so the bees are active this morning and i can see them here in front of me going in and out of hive 11 here beside me and beside behind me on the wall are the vestiges of the the bee bowls in the bricks there which the monks would have used as their beehive with thatched beehives in there and those thatched beehives had to be destroyed to get the honey out now of course it's very different the top is lifted off but everyone has to be protected totally with the white beehive suits that we were and gloves and and otherwise you are in great danger because the bees will protect their honey within an inch of their life and you're in great danger i'm okay here at the moment because i'm not in their flight path and they're going on a flight path which won't be for more than three miles over the wall and out there to do their work and then they're coming back and both hives are active as i'm sitting here and it was uh i don't think one of these yesterday that gave leo his sting because he was rattling around in the in the bushes down there but when um when people gather and sometimes there are beekeeping societies and they ask to come here and and uh you will find that when they're all together uh they are each of them of of an opinion which quite often differs from other and when we have them here it's lovely to to welcome them as individuals but when they come as beekeeping societies very often you're so surrounded by rather sort of headstrong information from one and then a disagreement from another that that uh the the beekeeping societies are are all the the the groups and clubs that meet uh and come and come with us to see the hives here uh are are uh quite difficult to to keep peaceful bit like the guinea fowl here who will be going around because they're all full of massive information and fletcher himself has long ago decided that there are certain people that he will get in touch with for information should he needed about the bees or about any aspect of the garden or the creatures that we have and you know instinctively who are the ones you go to for advice well that's so in any part of life but in some of her later poems sylvia plath wrote and this is very late in her life when just just really bit the autumn of the the year before she died in february um poem is about beekeeping and i'm going to read one of those because it's not really about beekeeping it's actually about what that shows you about life and remember that she's talking about the white suits that people put on over their clothes to hide themselves from danger and each then becomes almost anonymous you can't even see the expression on their faces through the the masks that we wear here smoke guns are used as well just to make the bees more tranquilized that honey is removed but at the the same time um sylvia plath is going and she knows nothing about it and she's feeling nervous and she's interested but she's feeling nervous and also feeling a bit endangered because she doesn't know whether the bees are going to sting her and they have to dress her up in all this this clothes and they themselves lose their personality as she does it so this is just called the bee meeting and uh it's a wonderful parent it's longish but it is magnificent and you can think of the characters it's it actually was in a village in north devon who are these people at the bridge to meet me they are the villagers the rector the midwife the sexton the agent for bees in my sleeveless summery dress i have no protection and they're all gloved and covered why did nobody tell me they are smiling and taking out veils tacked to ancient hats i am nude as a chicken neck does nobody love me yes here is the secretary of bees with her white shop smock buttoning the cuffs at my wrists and the slit from my neck to my knees now i am milkweed silk the bees will not notice they will not smell my fear my fear my fear which is the rector now is it that man in black which is the midwife is that her blue coat everybody is nodding a square black head there are nights in visors breastplates of cheesecloth knotted under the armpits their smiles and their voices are changing i am led through a bean field strips of tin foil winking like people feather dusters fanning their hands in a sea of bean flowers creamy bean flowers with black eyes and leaves like bored hearts is it blood clots the tendrils are dragging up that string no no it is scarlet flowers that will one day be edible now they are giving me a fashionable white straw italian hat and a black veil that molds to my face they are making me one of them they are leading me to the shawn grove the circle of hives is it the horsehorn that smells so sick the barren body of hawthorne etherizing its children is it some operation that is taking place is it a surgeon my neighbors are waiting for this apparition in a green helmet shining gloves and white suit is it the butcher the grocer the postman someone i know i cannot run i am rooted and the ghours hurts me with its yellow purses its spiky armory i could not run without having to run forever the white hive is snug as a virgin sealing off her brood cells her honey and quietly humming smoke rolls and scarves in the grove the mind of the hive thinks this is the end of everything here they come the outriders on their hysterical elastics if i stand very still they will think i am cow parsley a gullible head untouched by their animosity not even nodding a personage in a hedgerow the villagers open the chambers they are hunting the queen is she hiding is she eating the honey she is very clever she is old old old she must live another year and she knows it while in their finger joint cells the new virgins dream of a duel they will win inevitably a curtain of wax dividing them from the bride flight the up flight of the murderess into a heaven that loves her the villagers are moving the virgins there will be no killing the old queen does not show herself is she so ungrateful and i am exhausted i am exhausted pillar of white in a blackout of knives i am the magician's girl who does not flinch now the villagers are untying their disguises they are shaking hands whose is that long white box in the grove what have they accomplished why am i cold amazing poem with so many images in it there's one more that i'd wanted to read and it's a lovely one it's called morning song and it's full of the joy of the new births of one of her babies and around me i've got the robin flying around so that's lovely to have him here this morning morning song she's talking to her baby just born love set you going like a fat gold watch the midwife slapped your foot cells and your bald cry took its place among the elements our voices echo magnifying your arrival new statue in a drafty museum your nakedness shadows our safety we stand round blankly as walls i'm no more your mother than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow effacement at the wind's hand all night your moth breath flickers among the flat pink roses i wait to listen a far sea moves in my ear one cry and i stumble from bed cow heavy and floral in my victorian nightgown your mouth opens clean as a cat's the window square whitens and swallows its dull stars and now you try your handful of notes the clear vowels rise like balloons the voice of her newborn baby and a lovely poem there by sylvia plath well sylvia plath was someone who admired plato because plato and we think of erasmus admiring plagiocho plato said that honey was an essence of distillation from the bee poetry had to wait for the essence of distillation from the gods and uh our friend jeremy hopkins would say the same in his little sonnet to robert bridges he was waiting for that inspiration and he very much believed that that came from christ himself with the poetry he was giving so let's say our prayers this morning and we will be praying for the diocese of gujarat in the united church of north india and here in this diocese for the missional learning communities of the area dinery of elam before we start praying for the parishes themselves from tomorrow onwards so we pray also of course for archbishop justin for bishop rose of dover and uh bishop emma in uh lambeth bring your own prayers across the world it's a day when we feel because of there are many of our friends waiting for diagnosis and and and all of that is rather tense or going for consultants to uh tests and all of that sort so we're we're going actually at this this time to to pray for any of you across the world who know people who are nervous about their health at the moment and you will have them all in your imaginations and minds as we do so let's say the prayer for today blessed lord who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning help us so to hear them to read mark learn and inwardly digest them that through patience and the comfort of your holy word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which you have given us in our savior jesus christ amen the prayer our savior taught us each in our own language 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 image of silence now for your own prayers this morning so so so [Music] 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