good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral on this morning of friday the 26th of june we woke this morning early to the sounds of an amazing thunderstorm and the rain was coming straight down it's been hot for some days now so we opened all the windows and doors of the deanery to let in the good fresh air which the the rain was bringing and now coming out after the storm has subsided there's a wonderful feeling of freshness about the garden as we come to say our morning prayers wherever you are in the world please feel welcome and have in your hearts and minds those whom you would want to pray for on this day oh 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 does 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 morning son on this day of the month is a section of psalm 119. i'm beginning at verse 105 [Applause] your word is a lantern to my feet and a light upon my path i have sworn and will fulfill it to keep your righteous judgments i am troubled above measure give me life o lord according to your word accept the free will offering of my mouth oh lord and teach me your judgments my soul is ever in my hand yet i do not forget your law the wicked have laid a snare for me but i have not strayed from your commandments your testimonies have i claimed as my heritage forever for they are the very joy of my heart i have applied my heart to fulfill your statutes always even to the end righteous are you o lord and true are your judgments you have ordered your decrees in righteousness and in great faithfulness my indignation destroys me because my adversaries forget your word your word has been tried to the uttermost and so your servant loves it i am small and of no reputation yet i do not forget your commandments your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness and your law is the truth trouble and heaviness have taken hold upon me yet my delight is in your commandments the righteousness of your testimonies is everlasting oh grant me understanding and i shall live so we come to the reading of the section of sint luke which we are reading consecutively each day on sunday morning at the eucharist i was talking about the way in which the lectionary can quite often compare one lesson with another which is exactly the same except in different gospels so one or two differences help us to understand it better today because of the confluence of lectionaries between sundays and weekdays we're reading the same lesson absolutely from sin luke as we read on sunday afternoon but here's a chance to place it in a new context and hear it again which never does any harm so we read the parable of the great banquet chapter 14 verse 12. jesus said also to the man who had invited him when you give a dinner or a banquet do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters or your relatives or your rich neighbors lest they also invite you in return and you'll be repaid but when you give a feast invite the poor the crippled the lame the blind and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just and one of those who reclined at table with jesus heard these things and said to him blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of god but jesus said to him a man once gave a great banquet and invited many and at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited come for everything is now ready but they all alike began to make excuses the first said to him i have bought a field and i must go out and see it please excuse me and another said i have bought five yoke of oxen and i am going to examine them please excuse me and another said i have married a wife and therefore i cannot come so the servant came and reported these things to his master then the master of the house became very angry and said to his servant guard quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame and the servant returning said sir what you commanded has been done but still there is room and the master said to the servant go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in so that my house may be filled for i tell you none of those who were invited shall taste my banquet it's a wonderful lesson of hospitality but it's also an image and an icon of the ministry that jesus himself knows himself to be accomplishing and probably the most important phrase in that whole lesson is come meaning come now for everything is ready the kingdom of heaven isn't something to be waited for the richness of the feast which god is supplying is not something to be waited for claim it now for everything is ready otherwise and here's the other hugely important sentence and it's not a sentence of anger it's a sentence of result none of those who were invited shall taste my banquet because they haven't come and this is a sense of sadness it's also a sense of the generosity of god that again and again his messengers go out and come back and say we've we've brought in more and more as the lines go out and still there's room there's room there's room and the message come now but those originally invited thinking well i didn't quite want to go yet and began to make rather paltry excuses but the parable is a lovely one and it's one about the freshness of the gifts that god daily provides no better morning than this to be speaking of it when the scent of the garden is overpowering because of the rain on the hot ground and the the lawn around me is already greener where yesterday it was looking dry so we have this wonderful sense of freshness and we can't wonder that often in poetry and in image the gifts and graces of the holy spirit given now are likened to showers falling on the earth and causing things to spring up in a wonderful way different in different parts of the world today is the anniversary of the birth of the writer and to some extent poet laurie lee i know him best from his wonderful book cider with rosie written about life in gloucestershire he was born in 1914 and so that life that he's describing as a child is really taking place in shall we call it the new normal after the great war and all that that meant at that time in the 1920s as a lad growing up in the little very little community of slaad overlooking gloucester cathedral well away in the plain an area i know well but later on his home he found in kent and we know that she even wrote a play for us in the cathedral in the years when the canterbury festival was still totally run by the dean and chapter here and then became bigger and bigger so that it became an event for the whole city the whole county and now becomes a an international festival but in those days the dean and chapter commissioned laurie lee to write a play called the peasants priest which was performed here in the cathedral in 1947. he knew kent in those days as home and there was a time when he was coming back from time spent in the levant and was lamenting as we often do that he had to go home and to him the county of kent didn't seem very promising compared with all the color and riches and the flavors of the levant so he wrote a poem at his reaction warning us that what we expect isn't always the case that god's gifts are often waiting for you when you least expect it it's called home from abroad here it is far-fetched with tales of other worlds and ways my skin well oiled with wines of the levant i set my face into a filial smile to greet the pale domestic kiss of kent but shall i never learn that gawky girl recalled so primly in my foreign thoughts becomes again the green-haired queen of love whose wanton form dilates as it delights her rolling tidal landscape floods the eye and drowns chianti in a dusky stream the flower-flicked grasses swim with simple horses the hedges choke with roses fat as cream so do i breathe the hay-blown airs of home and watch the sea green elms drip birds and shadows and as the twilight nets the plunging sun my heart's keel slides to rest among the meadows a beautiful poem of homecoming but also a sense of delight and wonder in what is around him we can take that back to the parable for jesus invites us to see the kingdom of heaven of course beyond in the infinite for there are no limits to this and the richness of the beyond is far greater and we can only wonder at that but the spirit allows us to sense all that even now in human situations joyful or sad wonderful in their freshness or puzzling in what we are being offered the word though is come now for it's ready otherwise you will not taste of the banquet it's always worth reading these parables again and again so that we fit them into different situations and none better than this morning when all kinds of new beginnings await us as this lockdown begins to cease or else we find ourselves still at a point where maybe we're wondering where those gifts are live in expectation and always hear the voice of jesus himself saying come now for all is ready now and since the fresh rain of the holy spirit with all the holy spirit's graces on the dry soil of our soul ready to burst into life let's say our prayers on this day and we remember on this day in the anglican communion the diocese of north carolina in the episcopal church of the united states and pray for samuel rodman the bishop there and we think also in canterbury cathedral of bishop peter lee and his wife christy the retired bishop of virginia now living in north carolina and very much a friend of ours because for years he was the chair of the friends of canterbury cathedral in the united states so we ask god's blessings upon him at this moment in in poor health but we don't forget our thanksgiving for him and his wife and also we pray for the diocese of asaba in nigeria and pray for justice morgekkwu who is the bishop there and pray for his community in this diocese the chaplains of so many different kinds of communities giving spiritual counsel ask us to pray for those financially affected by the kovid 19 crisis and the list of those and the the different configurations and different needs will be too long to list but in your hearts you will know those in your own area who need our our help and our prayers at this time as this crisis goes on so we say the prayer for today and then the psalm collect as we remember those whom we know to need our prayers and we offer ourselves to god lord you have taught us that all our doings without love are nothing worth send your holy spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love the true bond of peace and of all virtues without which whoever lives is counted dead before you grant this for your only son jesus christ's sake amen and the psalm collect oh god save us from ourselves from double standards and divided hearts and give us light and life in jesus christ our lord amen as we say the our father together in whatever language and in whichever way you like to say it and we we remember all those who need our prayers we also give thanks to god for his invitation to taste the pleasures of the banquet he spreads before us in this world and the next 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 for ever and ever see a 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 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 this day now and always amen you