good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this tuesday the 29th of march the month is almost over but uh feel welcome wherever you are in the world to join us in our prayers and bring your own concerns your own pictures of distress or happiness and joy from across the world to join in with this act of worship we continue of course to hold the people of ukraine in our prayers and all those who can influence that situation for good and for reconciliation and for a peace which is just and right for the peoples there and that of course is uh an undergirding of that situation with our prayers right across the world but you will have other prayers there are many people who are in serious lockdown we think of the lockdown in shanghai for example with the pandemic which is still very much a feature of danger for our human kind at the moment but all these things tend to focus our planet together as one family and we today right across the world say our prayers for that one family in this beautiful creation which the creator has given us we pray for a right use of that now i've come to a special place in the garden and i'm feeling that special place because my seat is rocking and you'll guess that i'm sitting on the swing underneath the ash tree on the south side of the garden we quite often have sat by the massive trunk of the ash tree on the north side of the garden and here i am with this one i would say just a little bit younger but nevertheless a strong tree with its branches spreading out and me uh swinging from one of the branches on this swing which was given to us by two of our friends uh nancy and andy mead are living in rhode island now but i'm enjoying the gift that they gave us as i'm speaking to you there's a sense of relaxation always sitting on a swing but the branch i'm sitting on is strong and yet the ash trees throughout these islands are threatened by ash dieback disease and we fear for them and we'll speak a little bit about that in our reflection also but for the moment let's begin our morning prayers on this tuesday the 29th of march under a gray sky but a perfectly still day with no cold air about it and we see the scenes around us of the beginning of the dying back of the daffodils the yellow flowers there but it's hard actually to walk across the lawn even to this place and not tread on wild flowers which are popping up absolutely everywhere and as we came across this morning fletcher had to keep saying mind your foot mind your foot because there are little flowers everywhere popping up amongst the grasses i can see from here for artilleries and cow slips and a most beautiful dark purple primrose primula here and some great parts as well lots of things and bluebell leaves of course are plenty they will come later primroses and all the things that we have been enjoying looking at with the viper's view gloss with its beautiful blue and other things which will come to us with their sense as well as their color let's say our prayers on this day o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise hear our voice so lord according to your faithful love according to your judgment 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 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 one of the great pleasures of the 29th day of the month is in the reading of the psalm psalm 139 for this morning of the month o lord you have searched me out and known me you know my sitting down and my rising up you discern my thoughts from afar you mark out my journeys and my resting place and are acquainted with all my ways for there is not a word on my tongue but you o lord know it altogether you encompass me behind and before and lay your hand upon me such knowledge is too wonderful for me so high that i cannot attain it where can i go then from your spirit or where can i flee from your presence if i climb up to heaven you are there if i go down into hell you are there also if i take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there your hand shall lead me your right hand hold me fast if i say per adventure the darkness will cover me and the light around me turn to night even darkness is no darkness with you the night is as clear as the day darkness and light to you are both alike for you yourself created my inmost parts you knit me together in my mother's womb i thank you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are your works my soul knows well my frame was not hidden from you when i was made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth your eyes beheld my form as yet unfinished already in your book were all my members written as day by day they were fashioned when as yet there was none of them how deep are your counsels to me oh god how great is the sum of them if i count them they are more in number than the sand and at the end i am still in your presence search me out o god and know my heart try me and examine my thoughts see if there is any way of wickedness in me and lead me in the way everlasting a beautiful psalm of god's knowledge of us and really reflections of things like the prophet jonah who fled across the sea and into the deeps to escape the presence of god and what god had in store for him as his particular jonah-like vocation and yet as we know wherever he went he could not escape god but better still that sense of climbing up to heaven or going down to hell and still being in the presence of god and that going down to hell can sometimes happen in the course of human life how often have we said i was heard people say i was in hell at that time and yet god's presence is absolutely there with them to be perceived so we're going to go back now to our reading from the gospel of saint john and today we're starting chapter 10 chapter 10 is a really favorite chapter for so many and it splits itself into quite short sections because the images which jesus is is using about himself those images are each so powerful that the i am statements come sick and fast and we need to savour each one and let that sign of the i am presence of christ infiltrate our whole being body mind and spirit and the thought out and prayed out and pondered in silence in order that we can really get the full quality different as we grow older and older through life different every time we read it but chapter 10 of st john's gospel needs constant reflection so here i am beginning with verse 1 which begins with the statement of jesus which always means now listen hard truly truly i say to you the one who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way that one is a thief and a robber but the one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep to him the gatekeeper opens the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out when he has brought out all his own he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they know his voice a stranger they will not follow but they will flee from him for they do not know the voice of strangers this figure of speech jesus used with them but they did not understand what he was saying to them so jesus again said to them truly truly i say to you i am the door of the sheep all who came before me are thieves and robbers but the sheep did not listen to them i am the door if anyone enters by me they will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy i came that they may have life and have it abundantly and there at verse 10 we'll stop for today as i say each of the images deserves pondering in a good way and today's image is not only of jesus as the door but of jesus as the shepherd now that image is given full power when we carry on tomorrow but for the moment we're thinking of the door of the sheepfold and the way in which that access is through the words and that jesus is speaking and the life that jesus is living as one of us the word made flesh and still notice at the end of that first paragraph which ends at verse six the evangelist writes this figure of speech jesus used with them that but they did not understand what he was saying to them why because of course he's still working on the two planes and we've seen how difficult it is for us who are people of flesh and blood to enter not just through thinking but through a spiritual reflection into that world of the spirit good morning mr robin here you are you found us you always do wherever we come in the garden here you are now belgrade and i can't ever escape your beady eye on me and we're really glad to have you with us so we have that little paragraph to begin with and those that jesus are speaking to those just not understanding so he tries again we do this in sermons i always look down from the pulpits and see if people are listening it's why i hate using scripts because rather like someone who drops a stitch in knitting you can see if the image that you are using is actually being understood by the particular people you have in front of you and first of all you have to judge what kind of people you have in front of you of course because they will be interested in different things we use it to on candlelit pilgrimages if we go around the cathedral in the evening different people different groups are interested in different things and you see it by their faces and you see it even from the high pulpit of canterbury cathedral with a full knave you're looking around and body language will tell you if the image you've just used is being understood or is puzzling the people and if it is well then what do you do you go back pick up the stitch and use another image which might be more relevant to them and here's jesus doing exactly the same thing with his words so jesus again said to them truly truly i say to you i am the door of the sheep there's our i am statement for this morning i am the door of the sheep all who came before me are thieves and robbers the sheep did not listen to them the sense of jesus knowing the sheep by name spreads out in this gospel in a great way we've said how very often people are not named in this gospel i think quite often so that you might think it's you or me that jesus is talking to in the words that he is saying to an unnamed person like the woman at the well but at the same time when people are named it's very often a sign of the affection that jesus has for them and certainly the knowledge not only of their physicality and the way they present themselves but deeply this is like our sun this morning that the lord knows us inside out from top to bottom and in body mind and spirit there is no hiding and that name calls and of course there will be significant moments in this gospel particularly in the resurrection narrative when jesus uses the name calling his sheep by name and there is recognition mary rabboni wonder and joy or simon son of john do you love me more than these three times the name and three times an answer expected not so uh much a sense of unreserved gladness but a sense of first nervousness then receiving forgiveness and then a sense of almost desperation when peter finally says lord you know everything that's that's the truth jesus already knows but he wants the answer from the one he's named and here we have it in this lovely image the sheep go in and out and find pasture but then the sense of i know my own and i call them by name and that following of the shepherd becomes part of this particular image and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep he is also an image which is which is coming if the sheep are in danger and the sheep are very much in danger of of the sin which besets them on every side and also their lack of understanding then from those dangers around them and from the sins that beset them the shepherd is willing even to give up his own life i am the good shepherd we shall read tomorrow but for today i am the door if anyone enters by me he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture or earlier on the sheep hear the shepherd's voice he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out he doesn't follow them he leads them and they follow gladly because they trust the shepherd who knows them inside out and that following means that jesus has already trod the path that he's calling us to try to tread each one a different way but nevertheless jesus himself has walked that human way before well then we come to verse 10 and this i may have said before it's difficult over the two years to remember what i have spoken to you about and what i haven't but this john chapter 10 and verse 10 reminds me so much of john oliver who was the bishop of hereford all the time i was dean of hereford through those years and i remember that a shared ministry with enormous thanksgiving john and muriel his wife dear friends and their family too but john always had a way when he was taking confirmation of saying to those he confirmed remember the numbers 10 10 at that time it was also a fizzy drink i don't know if it still is but uh the the children and the young people knew it as did the advance 10 10 and then they'd look puzzled and he'd say and then turn to the fourth gospel chapter 10 verse 10 and remember that and read it i came that you might have life and have it in all its fullness the word used in this translation is abundantly you can use it how you like all its fruitfulness all the flowering of your particular creative gifts all those things i came that you might have life and have it in abundance 10 10 in john's gospel and then he would say to the confirmation candidates now whenever you see me around the diocese and he'd talk about agricultural shows because hereford was very much a farming diocese and south shropshire the same wherever you see me maybe we pass each other in one of the little towns of south shropshire then touch my sleeve and say bishop 10 10 and i shall know that you've remembered that verse which is one of the most crucial verses in the whole of the new testament i came that you might have life in all its abundance in all its fruitfulness in all its glory in fulfillment of the gifts that you've been given particularly your own as the psalmist says in that long and beautiful psalm this morning hello tiger you've come now are you coming over here i think he'll come across in a minute so i wanted to mention this morning two particular dates and yeah really it's it's one of them the reasons that i'm sitting under this ash tree and uh as we mentioned them i'm thinking of two particular people first of all this is the day in on the 29th of march 1788 when charles wesley died aged 80. he'd been born in 1707 and he had been a great scholar in his youth so that he had great learning and his older brother john and he set off to across the atlantic to the most beautiful city you'll know this if you if you have ever been there of savannah in georgia and that is a a city which still has a statue of john wesley there from the ministry that took place there charles was there a short time but he came back to england and never crossed the atlantic again but in 1738 like his brother john he had an experience he was already a deeply devout person but he had an experience which was life-changing experience of the spirit which which caused him to know his own vocation even better and we ask first of all how do we know him now and we know him best of course as a hymn writer and that knowing him is something that we know through singing his hymns but at the same time i know of him and his brother john and george whitfield by the fact that because of the shall we say dynamic preaching which is a word which means powerful preaching a preaching of power they became not welcome in the parish churches of others and church wardens would say you're staring up the people too much and so what did they do well they took to the fields and began to preach in the fields to people who really had no concept of entering a church they'd been too embarrassed even to enter the church you want to come up here um and as they did so i don't think that's going to work for you tiger is it this morning should we put that on the floor is that the best thing or over here maybe hey didn't want to just do it i'll put it this side yeah let's do this we know our creatures and we know them by name here we are come over here in there said that's better still you are tracker hey come up here that's better good boy um so i'm thinking back now to my childhood my bedroom here in the deanery uh which i can see from where i'm sitting looks out to the sunrise and to the moon rise as well it's spoiled these days by great sodium lights of christchurch university on the on the hill but when i came here first it was a perfect sunrise a perfect moon rise but my bedroom at home in the mornings were was facing not the sunrise but in the evening were facing the sunset and from that window and it was one of the smallest of the rooms in the house i would look out not only to the sunset but at certain times of year to the planet venus which i used to call my star and father when he came to say prayers uh would always look out and if venus wasn't shining he would say good night in welsh no star but the only worst world wars he knew but we used to have that as a joke between us that if the star was not shining father would say no star and at the end of that um another light was shining too but i could only see that through the branches of a great ash tree which stood between me and this distant light and in wintertime of course i saw it quite clearly all the time it was always there not like the planet venus was always there and that light was a beacon which had been erected on a site where charles and john wesley and george whitfield spoke to a multitude of coal miners who were around at that time in the 18th century are mining coal in the forests around the kingswood forest which spread all over and beyond that i could see the city the lights of the city of bristol just to glow if we looked out on the other side of the house we would see the kelston top of trees and the city of baths glow but city of bristol that way and that beacon was actually a sign of charles wesley and john wesley choosing to preach in the fields and finding there a fit place as we do in the garden and many signs of what to say about our lord's message i give thanks for that and think of it quite often but i give thanks even more for charles wesley's hymns for he wrote can you believe this at least 6 500 hymns we know that for a fact but it's estimated he probably wrote almost 10 000 hymns he was a complete flood of hymnady in words and that sense of i have come that you might have life and have it abundantly fruitfulness no one showed that more than charles wesley in beautiful hymns we could think of so many of them and we think of love divine or love's excelling joy of heaven to us come down the one i wanted to read a couple of verses from this morning is also a hymn about the gifts of the spirit for wesley probably his his most popular hymn and can it be that i should gain an interest in my savior's love talks about feeling a total sense of freedom once that gift has been accepted my chains fell off my heart was free my rose went forth and followed thee following the shepherd along the way but this is a completely different kind of hymn it's talking about the imparting of the gift of the spirit daily o thou who came is from above the pure celestial fire to impart kindle a flame of sacred love on the mean altar of my heart jesus confirm my heart's desire to work and speak and think for thee still let me guard the holy fire and still stir up the gift in me ready for all i perfect will my acts of faith and love repeat till death by endis mercies seal and make my sacrifice complete [Music] my [Music] is [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] [Music] me [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] a perfect passage from this life to the next and good to remember on this day when we commemorate his year's mind 29th of march 1788 so many more hymns we could we could use from charles wesley but let's go on to someone else who also died on this day i'm talking about john keeble who died on march 29 1866 another hymn writer but very different from charles wesley for as charles wesley was at the formation of a completely different and radical movement of the church so he himself remained a priest of the church of england through the whole of his days until his death and he's buried in maryland churchyard um john keeble i mean the movement went on of course to form the methodist church giving life to all kinds of new dimensions and now very much a communion with with which we are in close fellowship but um john keeble on the other hand was what they called a high church man and he and his father who was also a priest just followed out the dictates of the book of common prayer and said their offices daily and and the old mr keeble john's father looked after the parish there in gloucestershire this was fairford and fairford church is known for is multitude of wonderful stained glass but we think of it as the place where john keyboard ministered and he would also go over to the other parish when his father grew very old to minister there too john keyboard could have had a a life in oxford because he was a great scholar and became a fellow of oriole college but he went home to be his father's curate and would on horseback go from their house in fairford over to the parish and go under the trees and into the morning air and sometimes as he was visiting it the evenings and as he wrote as he as he rode rather he wrote hymns in his mind he wasn't thinking of them as hymns he was thinking as poetry and it came into his mind that to have a spiritual contemplation in rhythm he would write one for every special day of the christian year every sunday and every saints day and also hymns for baptism confirmation visitation of the sick things mentioned in the book of common prayer morning and evening with morning prayer he was riding over to say and if we think now of john keeble he was of an absolute former formative power in the oxford movement a different movement of discipline and regrowth in the church fruitfulness of that kind but he was someone who didn't like the center stage and the fact that on the 14th of july 1833 he preached a sermon at what we now call a justice service but was then called nassai's service in the church of saint mary the virgin in oxford and that sermon was seen as a trumpet call for the nation to wake up it was a sermon on national apostasy calling them to remember that the authority of the church came from christ and not from the power of the state but as far as john keeble was concerned this was some ordinary teaching that he and his father had always believed in and he couldn't understand why it caused such a storm he went back and became one of the formative people within the oxford movement with john henry newman and edward pusey but keeble was always really at heart a country parish priest who like the good shepherd knew his folk and they knew him and friends had to persuade him first of all to publish all the verses he'd written and then to allow them to be sung right through his life he retained that love of being simply a parish priest knowing his people not just knowing them in their spirit but knowing the way they thought each one of them and knowing what their hands were good at doing having an intuition and that sense which george herbert had in earlier centuries of going around and talking to them over the garden gate and speaking to them about their families and being there long enough for them to know that he had conducted their wedding baptized their children taught in the school all of those things and yet at the same time his hymns became beloved by so many and one of my absolute favorite hymns is his mourning hymn because it deals with our vocation each of us following the way the gift of this new day given new every morning well that's given the game away because that's the first line of the hymn and taking that passage from strangely from the book of lamentations and keyboard giving that real heart and we'll read that hymn now because to me it is a favorite prayer which i tend to know by heart and can say myself when i remember the tune particularly lovely tune called malcolm very simple tune but here we are john keeble's mourning him new every morning is the love our awakening and uprising proof through sleep and darkness safely brought restored to life and power and thought new mercies each returning day hover around us while we pray new perils past new sins forgiven new thoughts of god new hopes of heaven if on our daily course our mind be set to hallow all we find new treasures still of countless price god will provide for sacrifice old friends old scenes will lovelier be as more of heaven in each we see some softening gleam of love and prayer shall dawn on every cross and care we need not bid for cloistered cell our neighbor and our work farewell nor strive to wind ourselves too high for sinful man beneath the sky the trivial round the common task would furnish all we ought to ask room to deny ourselves a road to bring us daily near a god only o lord in thy dear love fit us for perfect rest above and help us this and every day to live more nearly as we pray [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] jesus [Music] r [Music] oh r [Music] is [Music] it's one of the best prayers of the morning and quite often because the tune helped me know it when i've been going along in the morning in the car i've sung it as a hymn which reminds me that old friends can through the gift of grace give us new insights every day will give us new treasures in terms of the insights that heaven given us that heaven will give us and the fact that each day resources restores us to life and power and thought there again is the total humanity being raised up to offer to god a new day new sins forgiven but off we go on that day and where do we find the the material for living out what god wants from us well all around us in the creation but at the same time that is driven with good decisions made by our thoughts but an entry in our prayers to that world which is beyond all that in keeble's hymn and uh it's the the trivial round the common task will furnish all we ought to ask very much like herbert's hymn who sweeps the rumors for thy laws makes that and the action fine so let's say our prayers on this particular day sitting under the ash tree and we're praying on this day the 29th of march for the diocese of koforeidua in the church of the province of west africa the ghana province and in this diocese for archbishop justin for rose bishop of dover for emma bishop at lambeth and the parish church of saint paul at maidstone for chris lavender and anthia mitchell in their ministry there and the whole life of that parish pray for your own communities of faith wherever you are in the world and we will use the connect for today and then the colic for lent bring your own prayers and intentions merciful lord absolve your people from their offenses that through your bountiful goodness we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins which by our frailty we have committed grant this heavenly father for jesus christ's sake our blessed lord and savior the collect for lent almighty and everlasting god you hate nothing that you have made and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent create and make in us new and contrite hearts that we worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness may receive from you the god of all mercy perfect remission and forgiveness through jesus christ our lord amen say we say each 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 so we're going to have a moment of reflection now but during that reflection we have some music from an ex-choruser of ours who will be known to you his name is ben priest and you've seen him conducting not only the services in the cathedral when our own choir are away but at the same time um we've seen him uh conducting his own school choir at the duke of york's royal military academy in dover and this morning he is conducting his voluntary choir caritas who often sing for us here in a folk song a beautiful folk song so often folk songs have a sadness but also are of the countryside of where they come from and that's so in any culture and this folk song is called the ash grove i'll just read you the first verse down yonder green valley where streamlets meander when twilight is fading i'd pensively move or at the bright noon tide in solitude wander amid the dark shades of the lonely ashgrove twas there while the black bird was cheerfully singing i first met that dear one the joy of my heart and near us for gladness the blue bells were ringing are then little sort eye how soon we should part so many of these songs have sadnesses in them as well as joy but the way in which the creators gifts around us can help us be poetic or thoughtful or pray with the gifts god has given us is absolutely evident so sitting under the ash tree this morning we say our prayers [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] [Applause] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] sure [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 now and always amen so as we go through the day let's not only remember the presence of the good shepherd who knows us absolutely by name and calls us as his own but also keeble's lines the trivial round the common task will furnish all we need to ask and probably you're asking for a little breakfast at this point as well do you think