good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of october the 6th tuesday october the 6th and the rain has gone away for the moment and the sun is shining again so we've come out in to the garden in front of all this burgeoning of mikamos daisies behind me telling us what time of year it is wherever you are in the world please feel welcome to bring your own prayers and intentions as we say our morning prayers together on this lovely morning in england as the sounds of work all around us begin to start early in the morning here so on this day if we look back to other september the october the sixth in the past it was the day on which james cook first set foot on new zealand deity aurora and we'll think a little bit about that and that lovely land in our reflection it's the day on which british astronaut michael fowle returned safely to earth aboard space shuttle atlantis after four and a half months in the russian space station in 1997. it's the day in which in 1895 the henry wood began the promenade concerts and also sadly it's an anniversary in 1854 of the great warehouse fire in newcastle and gateshead the fires in explosion where many were killed and many more injured and it causes us to remember again in our prayers the citizens of beirut following their similar experience as they are reconstructing and dealing with all that damage in our calendar on this day we commemorate the death of william tyndale in 1536 he was strangled and burned at the stake by the forces of the holy roman emperor charles v but we remember him as a great translator of the scriptures whose work lies at the base of so much of the great bible published and also later the 1611 bible published in the reign of king james the first all of those things we remember on this day some beginnings some endings but i should have said also that this was the day in florence in 1600 when the very first opera as we now know opera was performed well the one that we still have the score and script of by it was uh written the music by a man called jacopie jacobo perry and comes from the story of uh orpheus and eurydice in in uh of its metamorphosis so this opera yoradiche not to be mistaken for the the one by gluc much later on was the first form of that art form causes us to remember again the difficulties that performing arts have at this time of pandemic let's say our prayers 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 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 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 sixth morning of the month is psalm 30 i will exalt you o lord because you have raised me up and have not let my foes triumph over me o lord my god i cried out to you and you have healed me you brought me up o lord from the dead you restored me to life from among those that go down to the pit sing to the lord you servants of his give thanks to his holy name for his wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye his favor for a lifetime heaviness may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning in my prosperity i said i shall never be moved you lord of your goodness have made my hill so strong and then you hid your face from me and i was utterly dismayed to you o lord i cried to the lord i made my supplication what prophet is there in my blood if i go down to the pit will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness hear o lord and have mercy upon me o lord be my helper you have turned my mourning into dancing you have put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing o lord my god i will give you thanks for ever so we return now to the acts of the apostles and we remember that paul has been brought into the tower of antonia but has been strengthened by the sense of god telling him go for i will send you far away to the gentiles and the moment he says that what follows from the crowd is an eruption of anger verse 22 of chapter 22 of the acts of the apostles up to this word the crowd had listened to him then they raised their voices and said away with such a fellow from the earth for he should not be allowed to live and as they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air the tribune ordered him to be brought into the barracks saying that he should be examined by flogging to find out why they were shouting against him like this but when they had stretched him out for the whips paul said to the centurion who was standing by is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a roman citizen and uncondemned and when the centurion heard this he went to the tribune and said to him what are you about to do for this man is a roman citizen so the tribune came and said to paul tell me are you a roman citizen and paul said yes the tribune answered i bought this citizenship for a large sum paul said but i am a citizen by birth so those who were about to examine him withdrew from him and drew back immediately and the tribune also was afraid for he realized that paul was a roman citizen and that he had bound him but on the next day desiring to know the real reason why he was being accused by the jews the tribune unbound him and commanded the chief priests and all the council to meet and he brought paul down and set him before them looking intently at the council paul said brothers i have lived my life before god in all good conscience up to this day and the high priest ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike paul on the mouse then paul said to him god is going to strike you you whitewashed wall are you sitting to judge me according to the law and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck those who stood by said would you revile god's high priest and paul said i did not know brothers that he was the high priest for it is written you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people now when paul perceived that one part was sadducees and the other pharisees he cried out in the council brothers i am a pharisee a son of pharisees it is with respect to the hope of the resurrection of the dead that i am on trial and when he had said this a dissension arose between the pharisees and the sadducees and the assembly was divided for the sadducees say that there is no resurrection nor angel nor spirit but the pharisees acknowledged them all then a great clamor arose and some of the scribes of the pharisees parties stood up and contended sharply we find nothing wrong in this man what if a spirit or an angel spoke to him and when the dissension became violent the tribune afraid that paul would be torn to pieces by them commanded the soldiers to go down and take paul away from among them by force and bring him back into the barracks the following night the lord stood by paul and said take courage for as you have testified to the facts about me in jerusalem so you must testify also in rome it's an interesting sequence of events there in the tower of antonia which is used as a fortress for the roman occupying army overlooking the temple and with the staircase going down into the colonnades of the outer courtyard of the temple where all this is happening paul is in the hands of lysius the tribune who himself is climbing up the ranks and with a large sum has bought roman citizenship for himself for it would be impossible for him to go higher unless he were a roman citizen and now suddenly that that the tables turn is he's about to do what the romans would normally do and get the truth out of paul the prisoner by flogging and it's a centurion that paul asks the simple question knowing what the answer will be is it lawful for you to be doing this to a roman citizen and the atmosphere changes completely and lysius the tribune comes down with a deal of alarm at what he was about to allow to happen contrary to all roman law we're back again with the pax romana the roman law keeping peace as far as possible right across the eastern mediterranean region where paul has been traveling and will continue to travel until he reaches the city of rome so we see what happens next the tribune really does want to know what this accusation is and the only people that can tell him are the jews themselves and the jewish authorities so he summons them and has them come ananias the high priest comes we know from josephus what kind of man ananias was he was a brute and a bully nothing like the rather aristocratic caiaphas of the sadduceon party when jesus himself was being tried ananias on the other hand is someone who is used to getting his own way and from all accounts the law mattered little to him his brute force was enough and when he orders paul to be struck and paul turns and says to him god will strike you too you whitewashed wall this is a piece of real prophecy which luke sets down for this high priest was indeed to be assassinated by the knives of the assassins the sikari later on and his members of his family his palace was burned and members of his family killed two but for the meanwhile paul's spots that there are within the company of the council both sadducees and pharisees and the pharisees believed in the concept of life after death and angels and spirits whereas the sadducees didn't they wanted only things which were absolutely said in plain black and white in the scriptures so he throws this grenade in the middle of them and says i'm on trial because of my belief in resurrection and the pharisees instantly are on his side and the sadducees aren't and the dissension breaks out again and the young tribune has had enough he brings paul back into the barracks for paul's own safety it's worth pausing just for a moment to look at those wall those words god will strike you you whitewashed wall he's talking to ananias who's one of the pharisees he's of that party not the sadduceean party and as he says so there's a sense of that sentence of jesus said they are like whitewashed tombs the whitewash obscures the corruption within them now we have to remember that at that time there were no gospels written down that paul could be reading as we do this was all developing so there are words of jesus that are being carried around in some way or another in people's memories or bits and pieces written down we simply have to to guess at that rather but what we do know is that we've already heard in the acts of the apostles one sentence of jesus that the four gospels don't doesn't record they they they never push the sentence it is more blessed to give than to receive but here's another of the the the memories of jesus saying that the pharisees are like white-washed tombs clothing the corruption within them and paul flings this at ananias the high priest but that night he is told that he has witnessed in jerusalem remember in greek the word for martyrdom means the same as witness a martyr is a witness say that persecution is something that paul is ready to face gladly but the voice of the lord says you've witnessed in jerusalem past tense now it's time to go and do the same in rome it's that journey that will exercise us on the way through across the mediterranean until at the end of the acts of the apostles we find paul in rome so we we give thanks for all that on this particular day when we remember others who have adventured far let's start maybe with james cook on this day in 1769 james cook set foot on what we now call new zealand ayaterowa and he wasn't the first european to do so for in 1642 abel tasman had landed in new zealand he'd got a hostile reception and he eventually went away and new zealand was then known about and got its dutch name really new zealand this comes from the dutch east india company name given for it but nothing much was was done about it the maoris had settled there having come from polynesia in the 13th century so they'd uh come from that time between 1200 and 1300 and then from then on until tasman came we know little about it but he found an agricultural settlement there across these beautiful islands cook came in 1769 but still nothing much was done about that except that from that time onwards traders and and and people who came for the what what was in the oceans there began to come and life over those years began to be rather lawless so that the treaty of waitangi in bringing a british administration there was something that was to to give peace there to all those settling now and i remember going there for two months in 1992 in the new zealand winter it was it was july august at that time to help with a little team of anglican communion folk from across the world helped plan the next 10 years and we were entertained by the three strands of the church in atro new zealand and there were the the it was a maori strand a polynesian strand what was called the pakehasta and the europeans all seeing how together they could uh live and enjoy these living and enjoy these beautiful islands there we pray for new zealand today and pray for its life there and give thanks for the life there same time and we remember cook's ship was called the endeavor endeavour's a good word because it talks about journeying to find things out michael foale i said the british astronaut returned safely to earth after four and a half months on the space station that was in 1997. in 2003 he was named the commander of the international space station expedition 8 for a six-month tour of duty and in the winter of 2004 when this he was the commander of the space station uh a link was set up with his old school king's school canterbury and on a winter night communication was established here it was a very wintry night and snow fell in quantities but a group were talking to michael fell asking questions and he up there in space in the space station and my partner here remembers that night standing on the the steps outside the medieval steps as we call them outside the old school room having closed the conversation and then looking across the green court outside the deanery here which was covered in snow there was a dickensian scene of the whole of the king's school borders having the most wonderful snowball fight which could have been taking place in any century before of young people enjoying the snow from the space station in outer space down to should we call it a dickensian scene which we see or it could even be a medieval scene of people enjoying the snow people like journeying endeavouring but there's always danger paul knows that he's endeavoring for the good news of the gospel and today we remember the dangers inheriting that but his prophecy that he will go to rome is going to be fulfilled not quite in the way he had imagined so we give thanks for all those things as we say our prayers today in the anglican communion today we're praying for the diocese of fulbani in north india and bj nayak the bishop there and his people the diocese of christ church ayatiaro new zealand and polynesia and peter carroll in his ministry there we remember all the damage suffered by the earthquakes in christchurch and pray for the life of the the church there and then we also pray for the diocese of kolhapur in north india and sandeep suresh vibhuti the bishop there and his people in this diocese we pray for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover and tim bishop at lambeth we continue to pray for the parishes of the recover area deanery and today for the parish of saint martins hearn with st peter greenhill uh where the priest is carol smith who's also the area dean and pray for the assistant current cat darkins in the life of that parish so let's say the prayer for this day bring your own prayers and intentions to this almighty god you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you pour out your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself and so bring us at last to your heavenly city where we shall see you face to face through jesus christ our lord amen so together in whatever language you like to use we say 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 from silence now for your own prayers and intentions on this day 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 [Music] you