good morning and a very warm welcome to the garden of the dinery at canterbury cathedral on this morning of the 22nd of june it's saint albans day and we will very much think about that in our reflection the first martyr of of uh this kingdom and he was martyred we think in the year 209 it may have been a bit later than that but certainly it was in the midst of what was then roman occupied britain and before the roman empire itself became christian when persecution could happen at a moment's notice so we'll think about that and also pray for our friends at the cathedral and abbey church of saint albans on this particular day we said yesterday that we were having times at the end of each day when we might have to go and search for small birds that like the the hens who might have got themselves lost it doesn't happen too often but sometimes at the count they're not there well last night it wasn't a small bird that was discovered to be missing when we came out to shut the particular shed where the little group that you've just been looking at actually live at night particularly locked away because of foxes it was darcy himself earlier in the day and it was a pouring wet day and whoever opened the shed in the morning thinking to shelter them a bit left the door a jar so that he could go in and out but not enough a jar for a big bird like uh darcy to get back inside so when we came out and it's safer to wait till late because then in the darkness when the shades of night have fallen they will go inside without too much trouble darcy wasn't there so we had an anxious i think probably 20 minutes as the night grew uh darker and darker thinking that by the morning darcy would be fox food and we called and normally if you make the turkey noise that sort of he'll he'll answer back but it was past the time when birds were making calls and so at that point we were getting no response we searched all around we searched outside the chicken shed in the walled garden because sometimes he struts his his feathers in front of that to impress the hens but no nothing nothing and just as we were despairing up by the fern garden on the bastion steps in the darkness going up to the bastion garden there looking very sad was the dark shape of darcy we missed him i think once or twice because of his dark feathers but our relief was massive that we could actually carry him then and and put him down and just outside the door and he he went inside i think very grateful so darcy is still here with us the sheep that was lost is found and he's back with the flock this morning which is a very good thing indeed i'm sitting here um in front of the peace tree the the dove tree here and i've got leo with me um he probably doesn't remember but his father otto we buried here under the peace tree and on the other side of me uh there's the lovely magnolia and the medler uh and what else are you looking at um beyond the beginning of the rose arbor in in flower and around of course the lawn which we've let um grow this year so that there's plenty of green grass uh later on in in the summer so let's say our prayers this morning and i'll see if the birds begin to wake up early in the morning it's one of those days when it's not quite raining it is spotting with rain on me but not enough to use the umbrella which is here beside me as my friend but it's it's not quite fine either and so we'll see how we go oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your faithful servants bless you they make known the glory of your kingdom blessed are you sovereign god ruler and judge of all to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of this age that is passing away may the light of your presence which the saints enjoy surround our steps as we journey on may we reflect your glory this day and so be made ready to see your face in the heavenly city where night shall be no more 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 psalm on this 22nd morning of the month is psalm 107 a long sum a beautiful sound but we'll read most of the verses of that now o give thanks to the lord for he is gracious for his steadfast love endures forever let the redeemed of the lord say this those he redeemed from the hand of the enemy and gathered out of the lands from the east and from the west from the north and from the south some went astray in desert wastes and found no path to a city to dwell in hungry and thirsty their soul was fainting within them so they cried to the lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress he set their feet on the right way till they came to a city to dwell in let them give thanks to the lord for his goodness and the wonders he does for his children for he satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with good those who go down to the sea in ships and ply their trade in great waters these have seen the works of the lord and his wonders in the deep for at his word the stormy wind arose and lifted up the waves of the sea they were carried up to the heavens and down again to the deep their soul melted away in their pedal they reeled and staggered like a drunkard and were at their wit's end then they cried to the lord in their trouble and he brought them out of their distress he made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were calmed then were they glad because they were at rest and he brought them to the haven they desired let them give thanks to the lord for his goodness and the wonders he does for his children let them exalt him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the counsel of the elders the lord turns rivers into wilderness and water springs into thirsty ground a fruitful land he makes a salty waste because of the wickedness of those who dwell there and he makes the wilderness a pool of water and water springs out of a thirsty land and there he settles the hungry and they build a city to dwell in they sow fields and plant vineyards and bring in a fruitful harvest he blesses them so that they multiply greatly he does not let their herds of cattle decrease he pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes they are diminished and brought low through a stress of misfortune and sorrow but he raises the poor from their misery and multiplies their misery their families like flocks of sheep the upright will see this and rejoice but all wickedness will shut its mouse whoever is wise will ponder these things and consider the loving kindness of the lord a wonderful psalm as dos as russell greets the morning and the little gang have appeared here but as we say that psalm we remember we used it as part of our sunday worship which was very much the story of the storm at sea and jesus saying peace be still bringing them to the haven they desired so let's read our passage from the gospel of saint matthew continuing from yesterday in chapter 18 and let's think again about the the structure of chapter 18. it's generally called saint matthew's discourse for the church or on the church and it's the result of two questions asked by the disciples the first question was asked by the group of disciples as you will remember and that question was who is the greatest of us all in the king that was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven we saw how that was answered by jesus and then how he ended that very fierce answer with a parable the parable of the lost sheep and now we continue again and a question from the disciples starts everything off again i'm at verse 21 of chapter 18. then peter came up and said to jesus lord how often will my brother sin against me and i forgive him as many as seven times jesus said to him i do not say to you seven times but seventy times seven therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants when he began to settle one was brought to him who owed him 10 000 talents and since he could not pay his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made so the servant fell on his knees imploring him have patience with me and i will pay you everything and out of pity for him the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt but when that same servant went out he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii and seizing him he began to choke him saying pay what you owe so his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him have patience with me and i will pay you but he refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt now when their fellow servants saw what had taken place they were greatly distressed and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place then the master summoned the first servant and said to him you wicked servant i forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as i had mercy on you and in anger his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt so also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart a question an answer in one sentence and then a whole parable an unforgettable parable full of exaggerations and i think a little bit of irony from jesus looking at peter lord how often do i have to forgive my brother when he sins against me are we talking about andrew we know who simon peter's brother is or are we talking about the the extended brothers of the the family around him the disciples or are we speaking to the church in matthew's gospel because matthew is meaning this gospel for his own community to anyone who is a brother or sister within that community how often do we have to forgive one another is the import of the question and then peter gives what he thinks is a pretty generous amount seven times do i have to forgive and jesus looking at him says not seven times but seventy times seven meaning really as often as they sin against you and then ask forgiveness that forgiveness is the right course of action for those within the community the little community of the twelve we're speaking of or the little community of peter's own family or the much wider community of matthew's group of christians so many years later or the gospel and good news has given to us just one sentence and then the parable and the parable is a wonderful one and that will then conclude uh the the whole discourse on the church there's a little bit of explanation at the end but the parable is everything here just as the lost sheep the parable was everything those parables these pictures stay in the mind and would have caused smiles amongst the disciples and i hope in matthew's community too when that gospel was first shaped in that way and the source material was placed by matthew in the way that we have seen the question the answer the parable the question the answer the parable and then at the end a little closing section and the parable this time is probably not a real situation it's jesus imagining how something might be the sum that the servant owed the master or the king is colossal the son which the other servant owed the first servant is in comparison minute and jesus sets that in the context of all that we owe to our heavenly father to the creator for the mercy he shows and the new beginnings each day as we remember john keeble's hymn and that is taken from a verse in the lamentations of jeremiah his mercies are new every morning new every morning is the love our awakening and uprising prove and here we are given so many fresh starts how many times are you going to forgive us as many as seven times jesus extends that and then in a parable shows the immensity of the love and mercy of god which we've also seen in the answer to the first question at the beginning of chapter 18 by being shown the parable of the lost sheep 99 the immense number safe and the one searching for darcy in the darkness finding him on the wet steps of the bastion garden which we've sat on so often in morning prayers on dry and sunny days there thinking he'd been forgotten and the joy of finding him and putting him in and closing the door and coming across the wet grass back to the deanery and shutting the door behind us on a cold and wet night which was the end of our longest day the summer solstice we remember also in this chapter that the sentence which i said was one for the knapsack yesterday jesus saying when two or three are gathered together there am i in the midst of them in the cathedral crypt uh right at the east end in the eastern crypt a mobile hangs from the roof of the the crypt itself and it's a mobile created by anthony gormley in the iron of the nails of the medieval roof of the transept when it was being restored it's in the shape of a figure and it's called transport a human figure and it lies where beckett lay first in the first tomb for the first 50 years before being moved upstairs anthony gormley planned it so that it would lie east west in fact if no one is standing underneath it gradually when you go in it begins to turn itself i've watched that happen in a a recital maybe a string quartet or something playing when many people are sitting underneath that slight uh movement begins to happen and the movement which fletcher explained and has a theory about he went in and found that it was not east-west but had swung round to magnetic north so that the pull on the iron of the earth was enough to bring the figure around to magnetic north if two or three gather underneath it and this he noticed especially taking people in there if two or three were there then gradually and it doesn't happen quickly their own magnetism as a little group will bring that original access by its waiting back to what you might call the heavenly access from sunrise to sunset east west it's really a living parable which is discovered of this when two or three are gathered together then the heavenly access axis is is restored back from the pull of the earth to magnetic north i say that as a piece of interest because you can find that that mobile which attracts so many transport in the eastern crypt here and it it is another way of remembering that sentence where two or three are gathered together there i am in the midst of them because also it's not a figure reminiscent on beckett is reminiscent also of our lord himself so let's think about this particular day it is saint orban's day and as i said on june the 22nd 209 is the date that is given many think it was a bit later than that maybe in the mid third century certainly before the roman empire became christian that alban who was himself not a christian and living in the town which is now the city of sindh albans um suddenly found himself giving shelter to a christian priest on the run and he gave shelter and gave shelter in his house for some little time and began to get to know not only the christian priest but the the god that the christian priests worshiped and no doubt in their conversations alban himself was moved himself to receive the gospel message and to have the the sense of the creator given him in the anointed one in jesus himself the day came when the door was hammered by people who had discovered that the priest was there and had come to take him away for execution and this is all set out in the venerable beads ecclesiastical history with many many details but let's just do the story simply alban caring for the priest and now believing himself took the priest's robe and without i think without the priest knowing gave himself instead and so taking him to be the priest he was led away to execution the giving of one for another is something which has happened so many times in human history someone has substituted themselves or someone who was more in need of protection one thinks of pope john paul ii lighting the candle for maximilian colbert the roman catholic priest who gave himself for another in auschwitz and died instead and the young man he gave himself for then grew up and raised a family and was present with john paul at culber's canonization in rome all of that we remember on saint albans day as we remember the vibrant life of the abbey church and cathedral church of saint albans and pray for all the people there at the moment after the the moving of geoffrey john after many years of of ministry that as the the dean of saint albans and now jeffrey's gone to to paris to minister there um they're now searching for a new dean for saint albans and so we remember all those whose responsibility is to find a new leader for that christian community in saint albans on this sid albans day and may their celebrations be wonderful around the shrine of saint albans at cinder in dorban's abian cathedral there and then on this day i wanted to think and this is the the last of the the the dates the 22nd of june in 1910 sir peter piers the tenor singer who was the long-term companion and partner of benjamin britain the composer was he was born on this day and his voice as a tenor singer is very distinctive those of you who know it in in a few notes will think that's peter pierce but what we give thanks for is that it became the vehicle for so much creativity of benjamin britain as a composer and on this day we remember that how one in a creative partnership can assist another to find their true vocation in creativity peter pierce and and benjamin britton who began to create things together went in 1938 i think uh but early in 39 before the war broke out to the united states somewhere over there when war broke out and the british ambassador there said to them i think it's probably best for you to stay here and be ambassadors for the united kingdom for great britain and and others in this war well they did for a while but then i think having read an article by ian foster about the suffolk poet george crabb everything from that part of england called them home and together they made the most fearsome journey in a a cargo and passenger ship across the atlantic in 1942 which was lethal and could have been sunk at any time at that time in the war and what we have to give thanks for is that deep down in the bowels of that ship benjamin britain composed his beautiful ceremony of carols which we know so well a piece sung by uh treble voices accompanied by the harp when they came back it was then that the real partnership in singing the songs of of others because peers had a great voice for narrative and when he spoke when he sang the clearness and clarity he'd first been inspired by an evangelist singing the part of the evangelist the narrator in the matthew passion but that clear voice which is being given to us loud and strong by russell this morning giving thanks for the morning in peers was the touchstone of the creativity also of benjamin britain and together that of course fed into the founding of the albra festival and everything that went on there but the stream of creativity and i i often think that that three sort of pillars of benjamin britain's creativity are are the the the writing of peter grimes that that strange and weird character which was an opera composed and performed just at the end of the second world war and became almost at once part of the repertoire of opera that the voices of peter grimes is always associated with peers and then much later on in uh i think 1942 the war requiem for written for the opening of carpentry cathedral and again the tenor part written for piers's voice and finally just a year or two before britain died death in venice and the disintegration of gustav von archenbach played again by peter piers in that such clarity the same clarity you hear in their recordings of folk songs written by britain for the voice of peers and also by the performance much recorded of their music of others the songs of schubert and schumann and so on i also want to mention the fact that at the aubry festival many of the pieces were written for performance in churches and we think then of things like noise flood and the burning fiery furnace and the prodigal son all those things a stream of creativity with one helping the other to be imaginative and to create piers lived on for 10 years after britain died but that partnership has given us so much music and creativity so we give thanks for the ability not only of one to give their life for another likes in auburn but for one by their creative giving in partnership and companionship can further the creativity of another and make it all possible let's remember both those things with immense thanksgiving on this particular day the 22nd of june so let's say our prayers on this day and as we do so we think first of all of our anglican communion and pray for the diocese of christ the king in the anglican church of southern africa let's pray also today for the dioceses and albans in the church of england and in the diocese here in canterbury as we pray for the archbishop justin for bishop rose of dover and for bishop tim at lambeth we pray for the life of the church of saint peter in sanet and pray for jan duran's and the assistant curious alice bates in their ministry there our colleague today is the collect for saint albans day bring your prayers for those who in creative partnership encourage you in ways of being creative and also let's remember with the chapter 18 of matthew all those who in vulnerability need our help today we pray for those suffering from the pandemic and uh let's remember because the the news has has been given today of the the the difficult stage for for monks in monasteries in northern india sikkim the buddhist monasteries there where the pandemic has suddenly begun to cut like a swaze through the monastic communities where they live of course in community and say their prayers together so let's pray for those who are in danger from the pandemic across the world here's the colic for saint auburn eternal father when the gospel of christ first came to our land you gloriously confirmed the faith of alban by making him the first to win a martyr's crown grant that following his example in the fellowship of the saints we may worship you the living god and give true witness to jesus christ your son our lord amen so each in our own language 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 moment of silence 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