good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this wednesday the 17th of february it's ash wednesday and the 17th of february is also the day on which we remember the murder the martyrdom of archbishop jannani lawum by the orders or maybe even by the hands of president idi amin in 1977 this maquette in terracotta is made or was made in 1947 and when the sculptor who was rosemary namuli and later rosemary karuga made it she did it at mccarrary art college under the tutelage of margaret trowell and it was made as the burial of christ from it later four bronzes were cast and one of those now stands in our chapel of modern martyrs the trinity chapel at canterbury cathedral it has always been seen since the murder of janali lewm and since the maquette was given to my predecessor dean victor davao in 1982 it's always been seen as a sign of the murder and martyrdom of archbishop luon because this is very much an african burial made in uganda it's macarei and full of grief we can talk a little bit more about it in our reflection and we will have a reflection which very much respects ash wednesday as the beginning of a journey we're going to make together let me say to all of you as we one of you styles are coming together each morning as the garden congregation and we've rather adopted that from the time that she first named it thus when she wrote in um i have a project for you which will take us day by day through lent it's an individual project only for you each of you and i'll discuss that with you as we come to our reflection but i think if we do this together it may help us in our journey and the development of how things will go forward but for the moment let's let's begin our prayers wherever you are in the world and bring your own intentions and all your thoughts for this morning as we begin morning prayer for ash wednesday and begin lent together oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise hear our voice o 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 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 are men our morning psalm on this 17th morning of the month is psalm 87 her foundations are on the holy mountain the lord loves the gates of zion more than all the dwellings of jacob glorious things are spoken of you zion city of our god i recalled egypt and babylon as those who know me behold philistia tyre and ethiopia in zion were they born and of zion it shall be said each one was born in her and the most high himself has established her the lord will record as he writes up the peoples this one also was born there and as they dance they shall sing all my fresh springs are in you a wonderful song of the heavenly jerusalem and the ability of humanity to make communities each one born in the image of that heavenly jerusalem with the possibility of reflecting the qualities of the kingdom of heaven all my fresh springs are in you so we come to our reading special one this morning we shall continue just where we left off with the gospel of saint john on chapter four tomorrow but for this morning our reading comes from the first letter to timothy the sixth chapter and i am beginning at the sixth verse of course there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment for we brought nothing into the world so that we can take nothing out of it but if we have food and clothing we will be content with these for those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the face and pierced themselves with many pains but as for you timothy man of god shun all this pursue righteousness godliness faith love endurance gentleness fight the good fight of the faith take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and for which you were made for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses in the presence of god who gives life to all things and of christ jesus who in his testimony before pontius pilate made the good confession i charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our lord jesus christ which he will bring about at the right time he who is the blessed and only sovereign the king of kings and lord of lords it is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light whom no one has ever seen or can see to him be honor and eternal dominion amen it's a wonderful lesson with which to begin lent for it's a list of the qualities that we should strive after not a list of what we should be giving up or anything of that sort but those list things that we should be embracing and to embrace them we have to give certain things up and set them aside and never more so that in the weeks of lent and passion tied leading up to easter so before discussing this what i wanted to do was to set before you a sort of project for the garden congregation it's in a way like the planting of a garden in the northern hemisphere of course we during these weeks that lead up to easter are welcoming the coming of spring it will come all too slowly but it will come inexorably towards us and hopefully bring great joy of growth but at the same time we want to do the same thing with our own lives and that is northern or southern hemisphere any time of year at any time because that growing in those qualities set out for timothy in the lesson we've just read become very important so what i'm going to suggest is that if you take a piece of paper or a notebook and just in a list down write the days of lent it's not just 40 days and 40 nights because if you add the six sundays it makes up to about 46 days until we get to easter just write them down and each day as if taking up a young shoot from the garden anywhere take a word or an image or a sound or a phrase or a sentence or an idea or a person that has come up into your mind fruitfully and creatively as you've heard or seen something during this time together mostly in the garden and when you do that simply write first of all that word against the date or that phrase or that person's name or the image the sound the object a bird or whatever you like and then think about it again and try and do something creative with it during the day i don't know what your gifts are but it may be listening to a piece of music or playing a piece of music or writing a letter or writing something a poem or drawing or even going for a walk and thinking of something as we always say encouragingly imaginative to do for someone else all those things but let that little sprig whatever it is just blossom for that day and begin something like a garden of your journey through lent i'll do it as well and we'll see how the various springs and ideas complement one another everything is individual it will be your garden but be conscious that we're making a worldwide garden of a journey through lent with these little ideas i'll remind you every day so as we come to our reflection on this little lesson from timothy and we remember the psalms with its lovely verse beginning with a hymn line glorious things of the unspoken zion city of our god or the lovely last sentence which i can never resist repeating all my fresh springs are in you psalm 87 and when we have thought at the end just let the idea or the words bring up let it be a little parable for you to think about and then later on you can get back to it and see how your journey develops through through lent it makes of it something of a journey body mind and spirit as we go through together and i'll explain it once or twice uh as we go through day by day so that everyone can join in if they're not with us this morning i wanted to say that i never read that uh lesson from 1 timothy 6 which i i love just those verses of instruction for timothy as to what to concentrate on and the qualities that are set out there but at the same time i never never read it without first thinking of the hymn and its tune fight the good fight with all thy might christ is thy strength and christ thy right lay hold on life and it shall be thy joy and crown eternally it's a wonderful verse because it encapsulates the first part of the instruction to timothy and when i hear that verse in my head being sung my mind instantly goes back i can't help it to that little cameo scene in the film chariots of fire where ian charleston the actor who is playing eric liddle who later became a missionary in china and died on in 1945 in a japanese internment camp there and we remember at that time that little was a runner and was wanting to run and there's that scene with his sister on arthur's seat in edinburgh where she is saying but god wants you for a missionary and he says to her if you remember yes i am going back to china but i got a lot of running to do first for god made me fast and when i run i feel his pleasure and if i cease to run i shall be contentful of the gift he's given me well we know how that developed and how he used his running to express the inner quality that he felt christ had given him by the spirit he went back to china he only returned to scotland twice for two fellows but died there in china and just aged about 40 41 something like that in the in the internment camp and charleston plays that magnificently well and we remember first let's just remember the instructions given in that hymn by the writer fight the good fight lay hold on life run the straight race cast care aside lean on thy guide lean and his mercy shall provide faint not nor fear his arms are near instructions lovely sentences given us by the hymn writer with a tune in our head and later one sees charleston running and winning with that hymn being sung run the straight race through god's good grace lift up thine eyes and see his face life with its ways before thee lies christ christ the prize all of that and at the same time charleston's own life which was a tragic one but he was the most wonderful actor and he played right at the end of his life he died of aids and wanted it to be known that he did to lift that condition before people's eyes in a way that they could understand but when he was playing hamlet knowing that he was going to die the sunday times wrote of his hamlet the masterful new hamlet ian charlson technically he employs clarity combined with a powerful dramatic drive his delivery is steely but delicate the words move with sinuous elegance and crackle with fire his hamlet is virile and forceful he oozes intelligence from every pore the way charleston can transform a production is a reminder that actors are alive and well that directors can only draw a performance from those who have one in them and that in the last analysis the voice of drama speaks to us through actors well the voice of creativity speaks to us through the creator maybe the one who created this maquette rosemary namuli karuga when she did so she formed faces of grief and they really are powerfully of grief this maquette which is rather fragile for years after it was received by victor my predecessor as a gift was in our chapel of modern martyrs but because of its fragility we were glad when one of the bronze casts from it one of the four came here as a gift to the cathedral and that now stands in the chapel but here's the original the burial of christ or the burial of janani the womb or simply a sign of martyrdom and the face that always moves me so much they're all showing grief and their body language is of grief but the face which moves me so much is this one with the hand right over the face unable even to show the grief everything in body language and in silence a beautiful tribute to archbishop lewin who was martyred by the hand of cruelty of a state at that time which was cruel and vicious to its people and it was a lovely thing that in 1981 when pope john paul ii knelt with archbishop robert runcie and candles were lit by both of them for modern martyrs archbishop runcie littiest flame and said the words janani lawoon so we remember him on this day and remember the church in uganda in all aspects of its life at this particular time and gives thanks also for rosemary namuli karuga at this time so um we then go on in our thinking at this time for our own journey and begin to embrace creative qualities there are other dates that we could look at they're mostly creative dates quickly going through the 17th of february giordano bruno was martyred on the campo de fiori favorite place of ours in rome in 1600 he was a philosopher who actually believed that heretically at that time that the stars were other sons with the possibility of planets encircling them too it's a common place for us to think and yet he lost his life for it and as he was going to his martyrdom his tongue was pegged so that he couldn't utter any more heresy to the people on the way in 1904 madame butterfly was first premiered at la scala that tragic and wonderful opera where the music itself speaks of the tragedy of someone being forsaken and left after so much promise so many promises given the capacity of one human being to let down another in 1772 the powerful nations of austria prussia and russia partitioned poland a nation that has suffered so much in history and in 1776 edward gibbon published the first volume of his decline and fall of the roman empire monumental work chasing how a great culture began to topple and fall so much through corruption as it went through our capacity of humanity to go for good or ill 1925 the new yorker the magazine was first published it's a magazine that we both enjoy hugely and particularly the cartoons which make us laugh but always have great meaning in them and this is a day also i wanted to remember two comedians first of all barry humphries born in 1934 and those of you who know this australian comedian will have in your mind's name edna everedge one of his characters and celeste patterson the australian politician and those those cause great humor the world over and uh then patricia routledge who was born in 1929 and made us laugh in that long series keeping up appearances where she played the lady of the house hyacinth bouquet which was of course spelt bucket but she insisted it was bouquet my own memory of her and she came to speak at a dean's conference as a very faithful christian and but my own memory of her was a little cameo performance on the television which was called miss pims day out where she played the novelist barbara pym going on an adventure to receive an award for her novel writing so also this day in 1652 an important one allegri the composer died and of course he is much remembered in lent for his music to the misery which will be i'm sure played and sung again and again mostly this year on recordings we have also the verse of william cadbury the chocolate maker in 1867 a family whose high principles was lived out in the way in which they created the places where chocolate was made and we remember today even his uh daughter or granddaughter or great-granddaughter uh felicity loudoun cadbury who's still holding to those principles in what she intends to do in making uh chocolate in a particularly new way so we give thanks for the fact that one can pick up from the past and and go on in in this way well so much there and uh another composer 1944 carl jenkins born and his music too inspires and causes us ourselves to be creative there's so many things that we could talk about today but let me take you back to looking again at the little passages we've read perhaps or just remembering them or remembering something even the wind blowing through on this day of sunshine blue sky and wispy crowds or the grief-stricken maquette of the martyrdom of jananilum and the suffering of humanity which also inspires others in their creativity begin the journey and i'll begin it too and let's say our ash wednesday prayers today as we remember our frailty and mortality but know that we bear the image of our creator and are full of the ability ourselves to be creative we're praying today in our list of prayers for the anglican communion for the diocese of antananarivo in madagascar but it's in the church of the province of the indian ocean this diocese has the most astonishing the warm link with madagascar and so that diocese is known known to us and we remember not only the the life of the church in madagascar but the rich life of creatures and vegetation and plants which is special to that huge island and we give thanks for it and then in this diocese we pray for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover and uh tim bishop at lambeth as we all begin lent together each individually and in our communities beginning the lenten journey and we simply pray for every parish and christian community of all kinds other denominations in this diocese of canterbury as we go forward on our lenten journey pray for each other as we say the special 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 obtain from you the god of all mercy perfect remission and forgiveness through jesus christ our lord who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen so we say the prayer our lord taught us 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 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 our own prayers the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and if 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 two three me [Music] is [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] is is [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] yes is [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me me [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] so [Music] [Music] yes [Music] r [Music] is [Music] is [Music] god [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] r is [Music] oh [Music] [Music] for me r [Music] me [Music] you is [Music] two [Music] foreign [Music] i