[Music] [Laughter] and [Music] oh [Music] now [Music] now [Music] time [Music] oh [Music] now [Music] [Music] good morning and welcome to the deanery garden on this morning of sunday the 25th of october to all intents and purposes it seems the loveliest still morning and there's sunshine on the lawn but you may have noticed yesterday how the wind was getting up when we were having our morning prayers and last night we had the most fearful wind and rain and it has done an enormous amount of damage it was a really fierce wind and even in the 14th century tyre here with its enormously thick walls where we were sitting the buildings seemed to shake and the noise outside was incredible you will see some of the damage in the garden because the lovely marquis which we had been using to have outside conversations at a social distance at this time when outside meetings are rather easier than inside meetings in lockdown then the friends lent us their lovely marquis and it has literally been lifted off the ground and taken into the elantra's tree underneath it and and we were very nervous for that is a lovely amalanchia tree which was planted in memory of robin lee kingston um robin lee pemberton lord kingstown great friend of ours who was governor of the bank of england and a tremendous supporter of the cathedral but that tree is happily very safe and is snug under the the um tent i don't think the coverings of the monkey are are damaged but everything else has been lifted off and you can see by we've we've changed nothing since we stepped outside we came out to look at the trees and mercifully none of the trees have been very badly damaged the elantis has lot lost lots more leaves but this old meddler in front of which i'm i'm sitting is is looking just like any autumn morning but i i fear for damage of trees across kent we'll see um this is the 25th of october is a sort of important day for all sorts of reasons and the most important reason we shall come to in our reflection but for canterbury it's very significant it is sin crispin's day and that is a memory of 1415 shakespeare gives us that memory the battle of agincourt and shakespeare gives that wonderful speech to henry v with gentlemen of england now a bed in the future will be sorry that they weren't with the happy few that were there on that day i think of lawrence olivier declaiming that speech in the marvellous black and white film it's also uh the day in 1760 when king george iii began his long reign from 1760 to 1820 and sadly the last 10 years of that were bedeviled by mental illness and given over to the prince region you'll remember all of that but also in 1800 macaulay the ups the the uh the poet and philosopher and politician thomas babington macaulay was born no i think of macaulay again we thought of shakespeare with henry v i think of macaulay as having written those lays of ancient rome some of which we used to have to learn lars porcina of clusium by the nine gods he swore that the great house of tarquin should suffer not wrong no more i'd forgotten it for a long time until that film three years ago which was was uh called darkest hour came out and it seems the unlikely picture of winston churchill uh using an underground train to get to the uh to get to the meeting that he needs to because the traffic is so bad and he at this darkest hour he he quotes that verse which we all used to declaim then outspoke brave horatius the captain of the gate to every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late and how can man die better than facing fearful odds for the ashes of his father or the temples of his gods i think it most unlikely that churchill sat in an underground train to claiming that but uh the memory of that kind of poem is is is in the head forever because of its rhymes and its strong imagery and this also is the day when the charge of the light brigade happened that enormous blunder in 1854 which was made immortal by tennyson in his charge of the light brigade half a league half a league half a league onward into the valley of death rose the 600 is always used humorously by deans of english cathedrals because of the verse cannons to right of them cannons to left to them cannons in front of them volleyed and thunder but of course uh we're talking about a different kind of cannon and they don't volley and thunder believe me on this day in 1978 the queen opened the anglican cathedral at liverpool who which had taken years and years to build and and we give thanks for that cathedral church today and pray for its life it's world opera day because bizet was born who wrote carmen it's international artist day because picasso was born in 1881 and so we give thanks for all that creativity but we're going to begin our prayers and then come back to the great date when we come to the reflection o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the true the only light banish all darkness from our hearts and minds 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 and 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 so god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever our amen on this 25th morning of the month is a section of psalm 119 and i'm beginning at verse 33 teach me o lord the way of your statutes and i shall keep it to the end give me understanding and i shall keep your law i shall keep it with my whole heart lead me in the path of your commandments for therein is my delight incline my heart to your testimonies and not to unjust gain turn away my eyes lest they gaze on vanities go give me life in your ways confirm to your servant your promise which stands for all who fear you turn away the reproach which i dread because your judgments are good behold i long for your commandments in your righteousness give me life it's a sunday morning and so the sequence of our readings is different and the reading for morning prayer from the new testament this morning is taking us back to familiar ground the gospel of luke it's chapter 14 and i'm reading from verses 1 to 14 one sabbath when jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler of the pharisees they were watching him carefully and behold there was a man before him who had dropsy and jesus responded to the lawyers and pharisees saying is it lawful to heal on the sabbath or not but they remain silent then he took him and healed him and sent him away and he said to them all which of you having a child or an ox that has fallen into a well on a sabbath day will not immediately pull him out and they could not reply to these things now he told a parable to those who were invited when he noticed how they all chose the places of honour saying to them when you are invited by someone to a wedding feast do not sit down in a place of honor let someone more distinguished than you be invited by your host and the one who invited you both will come and say to you give your place to this person and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place but when you are invited go and sit in the lowest place so that when your host comes he may say to you friend move up higher then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you for everyone who exalts themself will be humbled and the one who humbles themself will be exalted jesus also said to the man who had invited him when you give a dinner or a banquet do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid now 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 lessons on hospitality and lessons on humility as we saw again and again in the way in which jesus spoke there were always oblique lessons and some of them exaggerated lessons so that they stay in the heads very clearly strong pictures and we are to reflect on them day by day for that kind of reflection on the scriptures means that the scriptures enter into our life and the words of jesus and those scriptures he knew the sentences of the psalm teach me o lord the way of your statutes and i will keep it to the end our psalm said this morning all those things but essentially it's a lesson in humility an important lesson in humility and all of that is constant and i believe that luke as we've seen in all those weeks that we were going through his gospel and the way he wrote the acts of the apostles i believe that luke who was rather self-effacing and didn't draw attention to himself but was meticulous in collecting the words and the pictures of jesus told these stories so that we would know that humility and also generosity in hospitality that means not in hope of anything being repaid for the real giving is giving us part of one's natural instinct to be generous to another not just in resources but in personality and the way that we encourage and help one another and we might call to mind these stories particularly at this time of pandemic in being noticing of those who need that kind of encouragement and that kind of help for the types of people that we come across during the day will be many and varied well that perhaps takes me uh to our main date for today for on this day october the 25th in the year 1400 jeffrey chaucer died and that name chaucer is inextricably bound with canterbury cathedral because of course he wrote his canterbury tales of that group of pilgrims coming here from london and coming all the way to canterbury when april had given them the kind of weather they would like to travel in and the most wonderful thing about chaucer's story is that he mixes all kinds of personalities together and gives them a story to tell and we've seen how telling one story is the most powerful way of giving encouragement and good news and throughout the whole of the acts of the apostles and the epistles of st paul and others the telling of the story is everything for chaucer it must have been very amusing jose himself was a a civil servant if you like he he he'd served edwards the third even in military ways and was once at reims taken prisoner and edward the third valued him and had to ransom him for the princely sum in those days of 16 pounds enormous amount of money he must have valued chaucer a great deal and jose entered into the royal service of edward iii and of richard ii let's remember that the years of richard ii were the years of the peasants revolt and what tyler and all kinds of troubled times but these pilgrims on the way to canterbury don't tell very often political stories they tell stories of characters and very often they have a moral to them we're very used to the pro-la prologue which sets out all the characters one after the other the knight and the squire and the page and the wife of bath and the nun and the nuns priesthood the partner and the summoner and the miller and the reeve you can do it with me and those characters are given strong characters but so often in their stories the stories like esop's fables have a moral to them if one thinks of the partner's tale well known of the three men who are going to kill death and they go out to find death and they find death by themselves quarreling under a tree and in some way or another killing all three of them the one who goes off you remember to get the food thinks i'll poison it then i'll have all the money that they find under the tree and the other two are dicing as to who will kill the one who comes back so when the one comes back he gets killed they eat the food and both are poisoned and they find death under the tree there's a moral there it's a moral of temptation and greed but the nicest story of course is the nuns priest tale which is the tale of chanticleer the beautiful rooster who keeps having terrible dreams and he says to his wife petalot in the garden of the widow's cottage i have these terrible dreams of a fox coming to kill me and pertilot says that's absolute nonsense oh no says sean declare men in the past have had dreams and they've come true and pestilence says it's real nonsense and then the fox arrives and in the cabbage patch he flatters uh chantelle who's not opposed to a little bit of flattery i'm sure russell wouldn't be but uh he actually says you're such a fine rooster stretch out your neck and show me how you crow and there's no trouble with russell crowe doing that this morning i'm sure he'll do it again before the morning's out but as he stretches out his neck the fox grabs him you remember and runs and runs and in turn on the way the cockerel shatters the fox and says well you've beaten them all you may as well go haha to all those pursuing you and the fox in order to say that to them drops the cockroach who flies up into a tree it's a lesson about pride the pride of the rooster which causes his almost disastrous death at the mouth of a fox and the flattery to the fox which causes him to lose the booty that he's gained in the life of the cockerel all these tales though are tales of people enjoying hospitality together and also the company of very different people that they wouldn't have met if they hadn't been on pilgrimage to canterbury it's still the same today i know that during lockdown pilgrimage ceased for a while and many of people did it virtually in their own homes doing the number of miles they would have done but now pilgrimage is back up and running shall we say well certainly up and walking that i've seen people arrive on bicycles on horseback in a multitude of different ways and on the way whether they're coming here or going to rome along the via franciscana or to santiago along the camino they meet one another and the life-changing pilgrimage very often when it gets to the end is something that has happened on the way by the interaction and also the fulfillment of arriving at one stage in the goal of their earthly pilgrimage well we give thanks for all of that but i'm bound to say that the very best copy of the chaucer an illuminated manuscript of intense quality and beauty is the elsmere chaucer and that was created for the earl of oxford probably in the early 15th century not long after chaucer's death with illuminated pictures of each of the characters and it belonged in the end to the out of ellsmere who sold it in 1917 to henry huntington it now is in the huntington library in san marino near pasadena in california and we've had the pleasure of seeing it twice the first time when it was on display the second time at the invitation of the curator there going down into the very vaults it had been taken off display to rest and we then had the chance not only of handling it but of turning the beautiful pages of that illuminated manuscript and all the little pictures from our school textbooks of chaucer came alive in all their colorful beauty oddly it's the ones that aren't very famous that are most beautiful because they've not seen the light of day so much justice in luke in the augustine gospels because that page wasn't opened much the great picture of st luke is fresh well holding this book is fresh and we think of the life of that wonderful library and all the gardens surrounding it on this morning the huntington library in san marino near pasadena which you can explore on their website but we can also perhaps show you some pictures of the elsmere chaucer which we were allowed to take as we handled it on that precious day so let's say our prayers on this morning of memories of pilgrimage memories of poetry and memories of completely different characters who teach us in our lives but above all our lord's message of humility and generous hospitality body mind and spirit given to others on this day this sunday morning we are praying for discernment in our diocese and all those who are discerning what their particular service to the church in that parish or their community of faith is and so we do that not just for the diocese but for the world over and in the anglican communion uh a special prayer for the church in wales today for that's the the province that we're speaking of and uh we remember wales at this time of lockdown we have friends a particular one called carys who actually watches us each day and sends us encouraging messages and uh we pray for the the primates the artificial whales and bishop of swansea and reckon john davis and all the people of wales at this time [Music] so we pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover and also for tim bishop at lambeth in his work there we say the prayer for this week and in the modern calendar this counts as the last sunday after trinity and the conic the special prayer for this day which teaches us to value the holy scriptures which is what we were saying earlier um is one again that will stay in the heads of many from the days when we learn those comics by heart blessed lord you've called all holy scriptures to be written for our learning grant that we may in such ways hear them read mark learn and inwardly digest them that by patience and comfort of your holy word we may ever embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life given to us in our savior jesus christ amen so let's say together the prayer our lord taught us to say whenever we meet together in whatever language you like to use 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 as we say our own prayers for this day the peace of god which passes all understanding and 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 upon those whom you would pray for today and always amen well done in santa clara [Music] ah