[Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] and [Music] [Music] [Music] this [Music] good morning and welcome to the dinery garden in canterbury cathedral on this sunday the 11th of october a lovely morning after a night of really heavy rain but the sky is now blue and the sun is beginning to shine as it rises on to belharry tower which i can see from here the worship of the cathedral has already begun with the early communion and later on we shall be worshiping in there and live streaming the sun eucharist and also coral even song but welcome wherever you are across the world bring your own prayers to our morning prayers here in the garden where a few flowers are still blooming as autumn or fall really sets in and the leaves are beginning to change color and the temperature are showing that summer has been left behind this weekend we have been remembering and are continuing to do so today world mental health day and world homeless day like so many areas of the world this county of kent faces a mental health and housing emergency because of the coronavirus and so all of that we are concentrating on across this weekend and the local charities here like porchlight and that the connections for that are given below set out all the things that folk can do to help at this time but the enormous uh message is this is don't wait to ask for help until things become desperate get in touch now and one charity can put you in touch with another to help now i'm saying that for this area of england but locally you will have the same kinds of problems and also the same kinds of people wanting to help if only they know that the problem is there with you whatever that be so let's remember that as we come to say our prayers on this day there are of course if one remembers our lord's statement there will be wars and rumors of wars earthquakes and famines in many places well this is a day in history when the two huge earthquakes happened but some long time ago 11 38 in aleppo a quarter of a million people almost were killed by a massive earthquake and in calcutta in 1737 the city was almost destroyed and 300 000 people were killed at that time wars and rumors of wars in 1899 the boer war started between the um between britain and the the the dutch the burs in south africa these wars which punctuate history but also things which are creative we remember on this day that uh in 1521 pope leo the tense conferred the title defender of the faith on henry viii i don't think quite he knew what was about to follow but uh that title defender of the faith has been taken very seriously by those who have been kings and queens of england since and it still appears that the the letters fd on our coinage and at the same time um we remember that in 1852 we were thinking the other day of the founding of yale university today we think of the founding of the university of sydney in australia and that we give thanks for and pray for the life of that university today two very important births eleanor roosevelt born in 1884 an amazing first lady between 1933 and 1945 she came here as a guest of the city and of my predecessor dean hewlett johnson and we've put below a connection to the black and white newsrail which was shown on the day of her visit but she became so much more important as a humanitarian and united nations ambassador right up until her death in 1962. and we give thanks for her and also we give thanks for the actress dawn french born in 1957 on this day and to us in the church of england she will always be the vicar of dibley and an ambassador for women's ministry in the church of england done with so much humor and uh iconic in its in its uh impression on people at the time and since and still gives us much pleasure well all of those things on this international day of the girl child meaning that when that initiative was started the same opportunities in every culture were encouraged for girls as well as boys and that initiative still goes on on this day always october the 11th the international day of the girl child well enough for the moment of dates of the past let's start our prayers on this lovely morning here oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise blessed are you sovereign god king of the nations to you be praise and glory forever from the rising of the sun to its setting your name is proclaimed in all the world as the sun of righteousness dawns in our hearts anoint our lips with the seal of your spirit that we may witness to your gospel and sing your praise in all the earth 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 so god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this morning of the month the 11th morning is psalm 57 it's a psalm which begins with a sense of heaviness and suddenly suddenly breaks into music be merciful to me oh god be merciful to me for my soul takes refuge in you in the shadow of your wings when i take refuge until the storm of destruction has passed by i will call upon the most high god the god who fulfills his purpose for me he will send from heaven and save me and rebuke those that would trample upon me god will send forth his love and his faithfulness i lie in the midst of lions people whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword be exalted o god above the heavens and your glory over all the earth they have laid a net for my feet my soul is pressed down they have dug a pitch before me but will fall into it themselves my heart is ready oh god my heart is ready i will sing and give you praise awake my soul awake half and liar that i may awaken the dawn i will give you thanks o lord among the peoples i will sing praise to you among the nations for your loving kindness is as high as the heavens and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds be exalted oh god above the heavens and your glory over all the earth sometimes just one or two sentences in the psalms awaken everything in our minds and it always does me good to think that these were verses that jesus in his time knew by heart and used and must have comforted himself with them but identified so often with them so that as we read the psalms we treasure those insights and they are new every morning let's read our passage today this of course is sunday morning so we've left the acts of the apostles but we've not left the words of saint luke for our lesson is taken from the 13th chapter of the gospel of saint luke and we're beginning at the 22nd verse jesus went on his way through towns and villages teaching and journeying towards jerusalem and someone said to him lord will those who are saved be few and jesus said to them strive to enter through the narrow door for many i tell you will seek to enter and will not be able when once the master of the house has risen and shut the door and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door saying lord open to us then he will answer you i do not know where you come from and then you will begin to say we act and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets but he will say i tell you i do not know where you come from depart from me all you workers of evil and in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see abraham and isaac and jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of god but you yourselves cast out and people will come from east and west from north and south and recline at table in the kingdom of god the whole some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last it's a wonderful passage jesus's own eyes are set towards jerusalem and some of the questions that are asked which sometimes smack of a a deal of self-interest jesus answers obliquely as he always does when he's talking about the kingdom of heaven he hands the matter back to you to think about and that thinking might take a lifetime and be answered by things which go on in your life for my life day by day the opportunity will be there but jesus jesus says it's not an easy opportunity to respond to god's call it's a narrow door what a wonderful image a narrow door to get through and therefore sometimes people shirk it or put it off or say of course we remembered you in in when you were teaching in our village but and then jesus doesn't exactly say so what did you do about that he answers by saying strive to enter through the narrow door which is wide open be it ever so narrow and day by day respond to that and you will see that the invitation is given to the whole world people will come from east and west and north and south and this is a day when not only this lesson but also the gospel at the eucharist is full of invitations but they're invitations which must be claimed and they may not be an easy path and yet the invitation like all the passages of the pilgrims progress ends in an eternal glory rather like the psalm where things began with difficulty and then suddenly everything broke into music and the person telling the sound was inspired to join in today there are in our calendar two people whom we think of but rarely one of them is called james the deacon and the other philip the deacon now let's begin with the second because philip the deacon has become well known to us in the acts of the apostles day by day first of all we saw philip the deacon with the ethiopian hearing the ethiopian reading the prophet isaiah and then going down into the water with him and baptizing him and then we found philip the deacon living in caesarea and giving hospitality and encouragement first to barnabas and saul as that christian community began to awaken and now we are looking at the time when paul is again in caesarea and philip is living there with his daughters and that we've seen in a little story when philip said to paul we warn you if you go to jerusalem there's suffering and and terrible things in store but paul knows he has to go on that is his narrow way now he finds himself in caesarea in imprisonment if you remember from the days of this week when we were looking at it and uh festus has given him total freedom to see his friends one of those friends would be philip the deacon who never became anything else but the deacon and that we've thought of through the year the ministry of a deacon in service being so important jesus's towel that he wraps around himself is always seen as a sign of the deacon in foot washing but there's another james the deacon who was one of the second group who came from gregory the great to england and he came here as a deacon and went with paulinus on the northumbrian expedition when things grew quite hard in the north and the christian king was replaced by someone with a backlash poor linus came back and became bishop of rochester james the deacon stayed and we read about him in beads history of the church at that time clearly he was a man of courage but he was also someone who was influential in uh prompting a synod of whitby which would accommodate both the celtic and the roman dimensions which had grown up since the roman mission of augustine had come here and there was a little conflict with those who had gone west who were already christian and so one thinks of james the deacon and philip the deacon doing their work as deacons and serving the church at that time now i could have read this morning instead of the new testament lesson part of the prophet isaiah we know that our lord loved to read that because it was the reading he chose when he went to his own home synagogue in nazareth and read them a passage from isaiah and then said today in your very hearing this prophecy has come true well the passage we would have been given today contains some of my favorite verses in the whole of the bible and i'm talking about isaiah chapter 50 verses 4 to 10. they begin the lord's god has given me the tongue of a teacher that i may know how to entertain the weary with a word morning by morning he awakens awakens my ear to listen as those who are taught the lord god has opened my ear and i was not rebellious i did not turn backwards well those are important words and morning by morning he awakens he awakens my ear has always reminded me of the great bell of the places that i've served sounding for the rhythm of prayer which will also inaugurate a rhythm of daily work and daily opportunity of course but notice what happens after verse 1 the tongue of a teacher but morning by morning he awakens not my ability to speak but my ability to listen he awakens my ear to listen as those who are taught and we listen with all our five senses and then we respond with a word to entertain the weary and to give encouragement and to help as people strive along the narrow way to reach the open gate that the narrow way is signaling well that's a little lesson from isaiah which again jesus would have known well and is full of daily opportunity to be the body of christ in a world which is full of difficulty at this time to serve as peace served and those opportunities were never more needed than now at this time of pandemic when so many are facing those issues of homelessness and also mental difficulty because of all the pressures that they are under at this time so let's say our prayers together wherever we are in the world and pray that to our own ears will be awakened each morning to be the body of christ and serve our neighbor as we would want to be served ourselves today we are praying in our anglican communion for the church of the province of uganda and for the primate there stephen samuel qasimba and all the the people of uganda uh stephen is the archbishop of uganda but he's also the bishop of kampala and so we pray for his diocese also pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover and for tim bishop at lambeth and for this diocese and today we're asked to pray for all residential care homes in the diocese where we can extend that to the whole world and pray for those who are looking after those who need residential care i'm massively grateful to the staff of the red house here in canterbury who for six years looked after my sister as she uh was suffering from very severe parkinson's disease she died last november but i still feel intense gratitude for the life of that residential care home and we think of all those at this time of pandemic who are struggling to care for people to the best of their ability when they have ceased to be able to care for themselves so let's say our prayers and we use the prayer for this day a new collect on this sunday almighty and everlasting god increase in us your gift of faith that forsaking what lies behind and reaching out to that which is before we may run the way of your commandments and win the crown of everlasting joy through jesus christ our lord amen let's say together on this sunday morning the prayer our lord taught us uniting our different languages in that prayer 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 now for us to bring our own prayers and think about the opportunities which this day brings 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 so you