good morning and welcome on this monday morning the 17th of august to the deanery garden after a night of rain but the rain has cleared it's nice and fresh here wherever you are in the world be welcome looking at significant anniversaries today this was the day in 1945 that george orwell's animal farm was published we've read one or two books where in the parable writers have used animals to express what they feel about a human situation and right from esop in earliest times that has been the case in teaching lessons our lord himself very fond of parables but here we have orwell setting out what he felt about the soviet regime at the time of of stalin and i remember having this book read to us when i must only have been 10 and the master reading it had us all enraptured by the way in which the animals took over the farm and in the break time i remember all of us singing the great anthem of the animals which goes to the tune of oh my darling clementine beasts of england beasts of ireland beasts of every land and climb hearken to my joyful tidings of the future coming time soon or late the time is coming tyrant man will be all thrown and the fruitful fields of england will be trod by beasts alone now that's out of memory simply because the tune helped me remember it but it was exciting i had no idea really what the political message was in it but the parable was powerful and i remember characters like old benjamin the donkey who was pessimistic about any glorious news from a revolution it'll all turn out to be the same in the end he says so let's begin our prayers for all situations throughout our world on this particular day and bring your own thoughts and intentions as we come together at the beginning of this working week oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise visit us with your salvation and sustain us with your gracious spirit o come let us sing to the lord let us heartily rejoice in the rock of our salvation let us come into his presence with thanksgiving and be glad in him with psalms for the lord is a great god and a great king above all gods come let us worship and bow down and kneel before the lord our maker for he is our god we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand 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 oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this 17th morning of the months is psalm 86 incline your ear o lord and answer me for i am poor and in misery preserve my soul for i am faithful save your servant for i put my trust in you be merciful to me o lord for you are my god i call upon you all the day long gladden the soul of your servant for to you o lord i lift up my soul for you lord are good and forgiving abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you give ear o lord to my prayer and listen to the voice of my supplication in the day of my distress i will call upon you for you will answer me among the gods there is none like you o lord nor any work like yours all nations you have made shall come and worship you o lord and shall glorify your name for you are great and do wonderful things you alone are god teach me your way o lord and i will walk in your truth knit my heart to you that i may fear your name i will thank you o lord my god with all my heart and glorify your name forevermore for great is your steadfast love towards me for you have delivered my soul from the depths of the grave o god the proud rise up against me a ruthless horde seek after my life they have not set you before their eyes but you lord are gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and full of kindness and truth turn to me and have mercy upon me give your strength to your servant and save the child of your handmaid show me a token of your favor that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed because you o lord have helped and comforted me then we return to the max of the apostles and we rejoin peter and john as they have entered the temple with the lame man who has been healed by the name of jesus and has entered the temple leaping and joyful with them and they're standing in solomon's portico here where it's verse 11 of chapter 3 of the acts of the apostles as luke continues his story while the man clung to peter and john all the people utterly astounded ran together to them in the portico called solomons and when peter saw it he addressed the people men of israel why do you wonder at this or why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety we have made this man walk the god of abraham the god of isaac the god of jacob the god of our fathers glorified his servant jesus whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of pilate when pilate decided to release him that you denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you and you killed the author of life whom god raised from the dead to this we are witnesses and the name of jesus by faith in his name has made this man strong whom you see and know and the faith that is through jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all and now friends i know that you acted in ignorance as did also your rulers but what god foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that his christ would suffer he thus fulfilled repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out and that times of refreshment may come from the presence of the lord and that he may send his messiah appointed for you jesus whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all things about which god spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago moses said the lord god will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers you shall listen to him in whatever he tells you and it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people and all the prophets who have spoken from samuel and those who came after him also proclaimed these days you are the children of the prophets and of the covenants that god made with your forefathers saying to abraham and in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed god having raised up his servant sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness let's just reflect for a moment on peter's third speech let's remember what we said about that verb atenezo which which luke keeps using gaze upon in a deep way and to remember how we said that in the courtyard in luke's gospel by the fire light the little maid does that to peter and says this man was with jesus it's a deep gaze and at that time peter denies it strenuously this is just 40 days after and here are peter and john filled with the power which was the gift of god the spirit of jesus in them now absolutely plain and saying so in front of all the people that he was with jesus we are witnesses to that ministry and to the fact that and remember the the early church is now trying to piece together in their minds and hearts with the power given to them and the inside but it will be a lifelong study as it is for us they're trying to piece together what they want to say about jesus and what's the teaching of the infant church will be and there are two things that come out of this this morning one is that they have healed the man in the power of the name of jesus in the name of jesus christ of nazareth rise up and walk they've said to him so first in all first of all the holy name of jesus which the angel gave to mary to give to jesus at the beginning of luke's gospel the story of the annunciation of gabriel coming to mary in luke's mind that name itself was a precious gift and he tells the story about how on the eighth day after his birth he was given that name jesus in obedience to the angel's message and here it's that name which we as christians claim as power of the holy spirit with the gift of the father which becomes powerful in healing and in teaching but there's something else if one looks back to the gospel of saint luke when jesus himself went into the synagogue at nazareth his own hometown he was asked in the synagogue this is in luke chapter four he was asked to read a lesson from the scriptures and he took the scroll of the prophet isaiah you remember and he read from isaiah 61 the spirit of the lord is upon me for he has anointed me to proclaim good news and then he gives the categories of people who are in need of good news and ends by saying today in your very hearing this scripture has come true there are in the book of the prophet isaiah 4 suffering servant songs to which the church has always added the fifth and the fifth is this one in isaiah chapter 61 which jesus has quoted as the definition of his ministry as the christ in the synagogue at nazareth in front of all his own family and and and friends and neighbors but then the other servant songs found in isaiah 42 and 49 and 50 and then on to 52 and 53 every one of them talks about the servant and notice how peter calls jesus the servant but it's not a word which is normally used for servant it's a word which has a sense of the kinship of a child about it the suffering servant in the family of god and here is jesus being claimed as that servant of god who suffered so much and everything in that suffering has been prophesied these songs which we tend to know so well from shall we say handel's messiah he was despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief all of that he gave his back to the smiters and all of that is part of what they see as the prophecy about the lord's messiah the lord's anointed one this suffering had to happen and now the church has taken on that mission of the anointed servant to bring good news to those who need it most but it will involve suffering and death all those things are present in their infancy in peter's third speech but see how easy it was for me to remember the words of from the orwell from all those years ago i've not looked at the book much since and certainly i didn't look at it this morning but beasts of england beasts of ireland stays with me because of the tune to oh my darling clementine this is the anniversary of the death in 1838 of lorenzo de ponte very well known to us as the person who wrote all the lyrics of the marriage of figaro by mozart his words are sung over and over again but it's the music that carries it and makes it all memorable any of us who write words are dependent for memory in that way if you're writing this on the tune that the composer will give you and if that's memorable the tune stays in the head and that means that the suffering servant songs of isaiah are placed absolutely in handel's messiah where the composer said he saw heaven opened as he wrote and this morning we give thanks for those two messages from peter's early speech as he begins to formulate how the church will teach these things and the first is the power of the name of jesus and the second is the servanthood of the christ and the fulfillment of the suffering of the servant as prophesied in isaiah and in the psalms and in the in the law of moses but mostly the servant songs we give thanks for that but thanks for our own vocation to be servants of others and above all else servants of god claiming the power of the name of jesus let's say our prayers on this morning and we pray particularly today for four dioceses in nigeria akigwe and bishop edward ossobu and his people and our kegway north and godson ukanwa and his people and our kigway south and david oniwoha and his people and the diocese of kebbi in nigeria and edmund akanya and all of his people we pray for our own leaders in our areas of the world both leaders of our faiths and also leaders in our countries but we pray in this diocese for archbishop justin for bishop rose of dover bishop tim at lambeth and today for the village of the bethesda with high holden and wood church and the church is there at present vacant i'm waiting for a parish priest so we pray for all who are taking care of those villages at this time so we bring our own prayers now to the prayer for this week as we say it and have in your hearts and minds all those whom you would pray for this morning let your merciful ears oh lord be open to the prayers of your humble servants and that they may obtain their petitions make them to ask such things that shall please you through jesus christ our lord amen so we say together the prayer our savior taught us in whatever language and in whichever way we 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 forever and ever amen moment of silence now as we say our own prayers before the blessing maybe i should say because i haven't said for a few days tiger is making good progress and i think it won't be too long before we see him again 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