good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral on this sunday morning the 28th of june it's a blowy blustery day with blue sky and clouds but that as you will see when we get to st luke suits our purpose very well this sunday as we broadcast the eucharist or put it on online for you it will be done as we have in the last three months from different places but uh next sunday of course we should be back in the cathedral i i wanted to say because some of you have have written worried that although the lockdown continues we shall be ending these services please don't worry at all we shall continue with morning prep like this on shall we call it a mixed economy of services within the cathedral in a limited way and also services online as we have been doing so wherever you are in the world be welcome and say prayers with us for those whom you love and would want to pray for on this sunday morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise bless the lord all you works of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you heavens sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you angels of the lord bless the lord all people on earth o people of god bless the lord bless the lord you priests of the lord bless the lord you servants of the lord bless the lord all you of upright spirit bless the lord you that are holy and humble in heart bless the father the son and the holy spirit sing his praise and exalt him 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 on this 28th morning of the month is psalm 132 it's a song of the holy city and god's promise to david the great king but also the one who played the liar and made beautiful music and i is the inspiration for so many psalms the promise that of his royal line there would be a continuity and this psalm speaks of that not really realizing how great a continuity in the birth of messiah from that royal line that prophecy would prove psalm 132 lord remember for david all the hardships he endured how he swore an oath to the lord and vowed a vow to the mighty one of jacob i will not come within the shelter of my house nor climb up into my bed i will not allow my eyes to sleep nor let my eyelids slumber until i find a place for the lord a dwelling for the mighty one of jacob the lord has sworn an oath to david a promise from which he will not shrink of the fruit of your body shall i set upon your throne if your children keep my covenant and my testimonies that i shall teach them their children also shall sit upon your throne forevermore for the lord has chosen zion for himself he has desired her for his habitation this shall be my resting place forever here will i dwell for i have longed for her i will abundantly bless her provision her poor will i satisfy with bread i will clothe her priests with salvation and her faithful ones shall rejoice and sing there will i make a horn to spring up for david i will keep a lantern burning for my anointed as for his enemies i will clothe them with shame but on him shall his crown be bright so we turn to our reading from this morning sunday morning a special set of lessons the acts of the apostles but still of course the writing of luke and we had arrived i think a week ago now when we read the morning prayer lesson on sunday with the storm at sea as paul is being taken as a prisoner with a centurion guard and many others on a trading ship which is sailing to rome but the seas have become heavy and the wind is blowing strong and as the day dawned the weather got no better as day was about to dawn paul urged them all to take some food saying today is the 14th day that you have continued in suspense and without food having taken nothing therefore i urge you to take some food for it will give you strength for not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you and when he has said these things he took bread and giving thanks to god in the presence of all he broke it and began to eat then they were all encouraged and at some food themselves we were in all 276 persons in the ship and when they had eaten enough they lightened the ship throwing out the wheat the cargo into the sea now when it was day they did not recognize the land but they noticed a bay with a beach on which they planned if possible to run the ship ashore so they cast off the anchors and left them in the sea at the same time loosening the ropes that tied the rudders then hoisting the foresail to the wind they made for the beach but striking a reef they ran the vessel aground the bough stuck and remained immovable and the stern was being broken up by the surf the soldiers plan was to kill the prisoners lest any should swim away and escape but the centurion wishing to save paul kept them from carrying out their plan he ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and make for the land and the rest on planks or on pieces of the ship and so it was that all were brought safely to the land we were speaking when jesus was talking on the road to jerusalem and calling folk to discipleship and then looking at what would happen to the twelve in his prophetic intuition forward about the dangers which all would endure and about counting the cost here today is just one little picture of what simple had endured if you go to the second letter he wrote to the corinthian church you'll find a whole catalogue of things he had to endure including before this shipwreck three shipwrecks and a night and a day on the open sea after a shipwreck all of those things he suffered for the gospel and he above all others knew the cost and luke has written all this down for us in the acts of the apostles i always feel that if you want to know what a shipwreck was like in the mediterranean at that kind of time the odyssey that great adventure story of odysseus's massive desire to return home to ithaca gives vivid pictures of that for not only was odysseus shipwrecked on calypso's island and lost all his men and the ship and barely escaped with his own life but at the same time again seven years later trying to get home to ithaca on the ship he had built himself when hermes had ordered calypso to let him go he himself was wrecked again by the reefers the huge waves off the coast of the phaetians and he describes all of this to king arsinoeus the king of the phaecians as they sit and eat how he almost lost his life on so many occasions and the descriptions of the sea battering him into the rocks and his hands almost in ribbons as he tried to clutch and the the the wave coming back taking him back out to sea once again all of that is described and also the very fragile quality of the ships it's an amazing thing that in 2017 in the black sea uh a group of british scientists with a remote controlled submarine at the depths of a hundred of 1.7 miles down below and and the the waters right down there in the black sea are very dark and they're also anoxic which means there's no oxygen in them at all and so things can survive that have been wrecked down there without any kind of disintegration and they have found a complete ship a greek trading ship 2400 years old just the sort of ship that paul would have been sailing on we have an idea of what that looked like and it was a great discovery but of course it's a little bit of it's been carbon tested but apart from that i think they'll probably leave it there and photograph all they have but it takes us all the way back but we also have that from the writings of homer we hear odysseus praying to what ever god's uh trying to help him get ashore at that point lord whoever you are and there was a sense in those days that there were gods of particular locations all of that saint paul has dealt with in athens at the the uh areopagus when he's preaching about the altar of the unknown god that which you worship and do not know i have come to proclaim to you but all the dangers are still there we give huge thanks for all of that and we give thanks that the black sea which from the fall of constantinople in 1453 right through to the treaty of paris which ended the crimean war in 1856 was closed to foreign trading the ottoman empire kept it closed which actually protected so much underneath from then on it's become a place where people trade but that spot 50 miles off the bulgarian coast where this piece of the past was found is actually something which gives us perspective and also a connection with the story that luke is telling in the acts of the apostles of the dangers of apostleship and the counting of the cost in the acts we learn to know a new group of people but as one goes on in christian history the dangers are still there even to this day i said this yesterday morning in our chapel of modern martyrs in the cathedral church here we add names constantly from different cultures martyrs of today the cost is great and jesus understands the diversity of calling but here is paul in shipwreck what he found on malta is our story for next week but today we give thanks for the courage of his apostleship and the apostleship of the others who met death i won't say gladly but i will say bravely and their vocation to carry the good news was much more important to them than their own life and that also gives us perspective on this sunday morning so let's say our prayers and we say prayers today in the anglican communion for the church of north india united church of north india which contains many denominations we pray for the moderator of the church of north india and bishop of jabalpur the most reverent dr prem chan singh and we pray for all the diversity of people who worship within the church of north india and we also continue to pray today for the wheeled deanery that's an area of kent yesterday i read the names of the towns and villages it contains and because they're so lovely and have so many memories attached i'll do it again it's quite a little list this is staplehurst cranbrook hawkhurst gautest kilndown sutton valance chart sutton sandhurst east sutton hedcorn frittenden sittinghurst and marden and we pray today with that wheeled deanery for all those clergy with permission to officiate and and and help the ministry in all those villages and we continue to remember rodney dreyer the so we also pray of course for all those whom you know and love and situations that you would want to hold in your hearts on this sunday morning the prayer for this third sunday after trinity almighty god you have broken the tyranny of sin and have sent the spirit of your son into our hearts whereby we call you father give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service that we and all creation may be brought to the glorious liberty of the children of god through jesus christ our lord amen so we say the psalm college remembering the promise to david that one anointed from his royal line would be glorified by god and we call that name jesus here's the sound collect jesus son of david make us a priestly people clothe us in righteousness make us fruitful and give us hearts to shout for joy in your salvation we pray in the power of the spirit amen so we come to say our prayers up here in the bastian garden where greek tortoises athene and achilles are here having their breakfast and reminding us of those islands that paul visited sometimes not expecting to but for all those in danger for all those whom we love and would pray for let's say the our father in whichever language you would like to say it 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 ever and ever amen moment of silence for our own prayers 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 and upon all those whom you love and pray for on this sunday morning today and always amen okay