good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral on this very gray and slightly rainy saturday morning of july the 4th this is the beginning of a weekend when we begin to go back into the cathedral for some of our worship but we will continue to stream morning prayer at this time each morning through the week from our gardens as we use the cathedral from time to time but certainly tomorrow morning at 12 we will be streaming the eucharist as celebrated by the archbishop of canterbury and he is preaching also in the cathedral itself but for this morning from the deanery garden we join in our prayers together o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise visit us with your salvation and sustain us with your gracious spirit 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 refreshed 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 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 on this fourth morning of the month is psalm 19 the heavens are telling the glory of god and the firmament proclaims his handiwork one day pours out its song to another and one night unfolds knowledge to another they have neither speech nor language and their voices are not heard yet their sound has gone out into all lands and their words to the ends of the world in them has he set a tabernacle for the sun that comes forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber and rejoices as a champion to run his course it goes forth from the end of the heavens and runs to the very end again and there is nothing hidden from its heat the law of the lord is perfect reviving the soul the testimony of the lord is sure and gives wisdom to the simple the statutes of the lord are right and rejoice the heart the commandment of the lord is pure and gives light to the eyes the fear of the lord is clean and endures forever the judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether more to be desired are they than gold more than much fine gold sweeter also than honey dripping from the honeycomb by them also is your servant taught and in keeping them there is great reward who can tell how often they offend oh cleanse me from my secrets faults keep your servant also from presumptuous sins lest they get dominion over me so shall i be undefiled and innocent of great offence and let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight o lord my strength and my redeemer in our regular reading of the gospel of saint luke this morning the lectionary gives us sin luke chapter 17 beginning at verse 11. on the way to jerusalem jesus was passing along between samaria and galilee and as he entered a village he was met by ten lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices saying jesus master have mercy on us when he saw them he said to them go and show yourself to the priests and as they went they were cleansed then one of them when he saw that he was healed turned back praising god with a loud voice and he fell on his face at jesus feet giving him thanks [Music] now he was a samaritan then jesus answered one not ten cleansed where are the nine was no one found to return and give praise to god except this foreigners and he said to him rise and go your way your faith has made you well it's another little story found only in the gospel of saint luke and one feels that luke took a delight in it in different ways it's noticeable to me that first of all they're standing at a social distance because they are convicted so to speak by that society and community of having a very contagious disease indeed and therefore they are forced to live outside society together as lepers no one could come near them when they approached they gave people a sense of fear and their physical appearance could be very startling because of what leprosy did to the body and still does to the body so they stand at a distance and they lift up and our translation says their voices the ancient languages the greek says their voice a united voice asking asking shouting because they're at a distance and at the same time we notice that again in the greek they call jesus by a particular form of name giving a particular form of respect it's hard to translate but they don't call him lord and they don't call him rabbi and they don't shout as the blind man at jericho son of david have mercy on us they say and it's translated master episata master and that means someone who is a skilled leader for the occasion it's used from time to time in the storm at sea master you're the one who knows how to do this a very very significant kind of title and a different kind of title they're asking for skilled help which is beyond the doctors and here again luke is interested in what is going on he's interested for another reason too as we'll see later on and jesus simply says go and show yourselves to the priests again in the plural because he knows he'll go back to their own communities to do that for a certification that they are no longer lepers and only a priest can do that as we saw with zechariah the priests lived in different villages he wasn't expecting them and they're on the border between galilee and samaria to go all the way to jerusalem to find priests there were plenty of priests and they would go back to their community and as they went they found themselves healed and one of them only one runs back turns about and runs back and now the voices are separate no longer a single voice of asking now they become diverse voices and those voices are running away back to the life they'd had and all that was behind them is forgotten but one voice of the ten turns back and comes back praising god and kneels in gratitude and thanksgiving at the feet of jesus and jesus says simply one not ten cleansed where are the other nine has no one returned to give thanks to god except this and it's quite clear what he's saying except this foreigner and he's a samaritan as we've been told and to the jews of galilee and judea the samaritans were not just foreigners they were despised foreigners renegades who had made themselves unclean over the years by their intermarrying and everything else that was going on to disturb the purity of what they were this despised foreigner has come to give thanks and that act of gratitude is commended by jesus and at the same time he gives that one who said thank you two commands and their significant commands again which will interest luke one rise up an imperative and in the ancient languages it has connotations of resurrection and secondly go on your way we spoke about that the way yesterday on the feast day of saint thomas he doesn't say come and follow me he says go on your way restoring him to his community life and then most significantly your faith has made you well and it's much more than that it's not just the cleansing of his leprosy it's the deep change that has happened because he has recognized that his thanksgiving is to god and also to another human being whom he's called master and whom he's only just got to know rise up and go on your way and this nameless foreigner goes away healed forgiven and made new with the easter sense of that word rise up well so many lessons for today and so many lessons for luke himself a foreigner who had joined sin paul's mission and now is collecting these stories and some give him immense pleasure and this i'm sure is one of them the outcast is commended above all others simply for an act of thanks it causes us to remember how many times in the new testament and in the ancient scriptures our prayers are advised always to contain an act of thanksgiving but at the same time jesus is commending a simple act of gratitude from one human being to another how often i have failed in that i know a multitude of different times and i wish now i could go back and say thank you to people who did so much for me and didn't know they were doing it but their act of thanksgiving also is an act which blesses them we think of that at the eucharist he took bread and gave thanks it's enfolded in the act of blessing something that we can do day by day simply acts of saying thank you by email by phone by physical words are so easy and they not only encourage and give a sense of gladness to the one we're thanking it they actually do things which heal encourage and renew us to rise up and go on our way we give thanks to god for this little story in the gospel of saint luke as we say our prayers on this saturday morning we are praying this morning in the anglican communion for the diocese of north bali in uganda and for bishop samuel gedudu there and his people the diocese of awarial in south sudan and david akha kuwal mayam the bishop there and his people and the diocese of cadoogly and the nuber mountains in sudan itself nuber mountains were a place of intense genocide at one stage of the civil war and one remembers the charm of those people the newborns as they fled at that time the bishop there is andudu adam el nail in the north of sudan and we pray for him and his people in the nuba mountains today we pray also in our own diocese for justin archbishop of canterbury for rose bishop of dover and for tim bishop at lambeth and today for all our diocesan ordinance as they are given the first steps of authority virtually but there will be an occasion soon when that can happen as a physical sacrament i am sure thanks for all of those in their ministry and we say our prayers for today first the special colleague for this week almighty god you have broken the tyranny of sin and have sent the spirit of your son into our hearts whereby we call you father give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service that we and all creation may be brought to the glorious liberty of the children of god through jesus christ our lord amen and also we pray this morning the psalm collect for psalm 19 crown us oh god but with humility and robust with compassion and thanksgiving that as you call us into the kingdom of your son we may strive to overcome all evil by the power of good and so walk gently on the earth with you our god forever and ever are men so we say on this saturday morning the prayer our savior taught us in whatever language and in whichever way you like to say it 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 on this windy morning for our prayers to 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 to 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