good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this tuesday of holy week as we meet together to say our morning prayers welcome wherever you are in the world here in england this morning it is the most lovely spring morning and i'm sitting in front of two of the historic magnolia trees which were planted in the garden by kind permission of uh the dean at the time ian white thompson in 1967 and his wife wendy whom we saw yesterday and he was very ill at the moment but uh the two that you're looking at the the um pinkish uh one beyond the the darker almost plum color is called picture which was found near a japanese temple in 1947 and brought here and is the mother plant of the whole picard collection of magnolias and many of the historic plants are here in the deanery garden because our soil is very good for magnolias and fetch has planted several other magnolias to join that collection the one nearer to me is a stellata royal star which was planted here in 1967 so picture which is the taller of the two which the sun is touching at the moment is uh 74 years old and has been planted here since 1967 and we enjoy the way that it flowers year by year giving us great pleasure this is a particularly special day in our memories in 2002 this was easter eve we had two days before on the thursday easter eve being the saturday the on the thursday morning thursday received the queen for the royal mandi in her golden jubilee year but on this day we were preparing in the evening to broadcast on easter day and in the middle of the rehearsal the archbishop of canterbury came over to me george carey and said could i just have a word um the queen mother has died and so this is the anniversary of the queen who was so beloved by the nation the wife of king george vi and together they had seen the nation through the world war ii and and stayed here and then after her husband's death she became the queen mother and massively loved and died at the age of 101 on this day in 2002 so we give thanks for her memory with great gladness so today it's not easter eve it's the tuesday of holy week and we are then remembering in our prayers the passion of our lord and later on we'll be going back to the luke passion which we're reading on the mornings of this week but let's begin our prayers on this day oh lord open our lips and our mouths shall proclaim your praise let your ways be known upon us your saving power among the nations blessed are you lord god of our salvation to you be praise and glory forever as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief your only son was lifted up that he might draw the whole world to himself may we walk this day in the way of the cross and always be ready to share its weight declaring your love for all the world 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 so we turn to the psalm to begin with on this particular day which on this morning of the month the 30th morning for us is psalm 144. blessed be the lord my rock who teaches my hands for war and my fingers for battle my steadfast help and my fortress my stronghold and my deliverer my shield in whom i trust who subdues the peoples under me oh lord what are mortals that you should should consider them mere human beings that you should take thought for them they are like a breath of wind their days pass away like a shadow bow your heavens o lord and come down touch the mountains and they shall smoke cast down your lightnings and scatter them shoot out your arrows and let thunder roar reach down your hand from on high deliver me and take me out of the great waters from the hand of foreign enemies whose mouth speaks wickedness and their right hand is the hand of falsehood oh god i will sing to you a new song i will play to you on a ten-stringed harp you that gives salvation to kings and have delivered david your servant save me from the peril of the sword and deliver me from the hand of foreign enemies whose mouth speaks wickedness and whose right hand is the hand of falsehood so that our sons in their youth may be like well-nurtured plants and our daughters like the pillars carved for the corners of the temple our barns be filled with all manner of store our flocks bearing thousands and ten thousands in our fields our cattle be heavy with young may there be no miscarriage or untimely birth no cry of distress in our streets happy are the people whose blessing this is happy are the people who have the lord for their god so we turn again to our morning reading and as i've said the first four mornings of this week monday tuesday wednesday thursday we are reading the passion of our lord according to sint and i'm taking up this morning from verse 24 of chapter 22 the disciples with jesus are still at the supper table in the upper room a dispute also arose among the disciples as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest and jesus said to them the kings of the gentiles exercise lordship over them and those in authority over them are called benefactors it must not be so with you rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest and the leader as one who serves for who is the greater one who reclines at table or one who serves is it not the one who reclines at table but i am among you as the one who serves you are those who have stayed with me in my trials and i assigned to you as my father assigned to me a kingdom that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of israel simon simon behold satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat but i have prayed for you that your faith may not fail and when you have turned again strengthen your brothers peter said to jesus lord i am ready to go with you both to prison and to death jesus said i tell you peter the will not crow this day until you deny three times that you even know me and he said to them when i sent you out with no money bag or nap sack or sandals did you lack anything they said nothing he said to them but now let the one who has a money bag take it and likewise a knapsack and let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one for i tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me and he was numbered with the transgressors for what is written about me has its fulfillment and they said to him look lord here are two swords jesus said to them it is enough and he came out and went as was his custom to the mount of olives and the disciples followed him and when he came to the place he said to them pray that you may not enter into temptation and he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed saying father if you are willing remove this cup from me nevertheless not my will but yours be done and there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him and being in agony he prayed more earnestly and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground and when he rose from prayer he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow and he said to them why are you sleeping rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation while he was still speaking there came a crowd and the man called judas one of the twelve was leading them he drew near to jesus in order to kiss him but jesus said judas would you betray the son of man with a kiss and when those who were around him saw what would follow they said lord shall we strike with the sword and one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear but jesus said no more of this and he touched his ear and healed him then jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who had come out against him have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs when i was with you day after day in the temple you did not lay hands on me but this is your hour and the power of darkness that story is told in a particularly luke type of way and we remind ourselves once again that the evangel the gospel the good news is told always by someone who has themselves received that good news in their own way as it is mixed with their life and experience and we have four accounts of that one in each gospel from different evangelists we also have many insights into that in the letters that are written by those in the early church and passed on i'm sure many many letters were lost but we have enough to gain insights into how people give that evangel that good news that gospel and it comes on through the channel of a human being and it becomes a great uh event for us to realize that our own life once we lay ourselves in obedience and in faith before jesus as members of his body on earth today our own lives become channels of that handing on of the evangel the gospel it will be special and particular to you as it's special in particular to me and special and very particular to luke the doctor and the tradition has it too that he was an artist well certainly his word pictures as we saw last summer when we went right through his works the whole of the gospel of saint luke morning my morning and then the whole of the acts of the apostles he is an artist in words certainly but he's also got the heart of a healer and the eyes which jesus has of spotting the one who is in need of healing or finding or help the one who is outside like the prodigal son and has caused himself in the case of the sun to be at his wits end in the depths of distress in the pigsty before he realizes the love of the father and turns his feet homeward but today the one who is left alone of course is jesus himself but before he's been saying things to the disciples now once again in the four gospels different things which jesus has said to the disciples which have been handed on are placed in different parts of the gospels and in order to find them and realize them as a whole although there can't be any real tidiness in this we receive insights in different ways as our life proceeds and we ourselves become almost different people by the experiences we have as we go through life but what we hear today around the supper table has a reflection of what in the fourth gospel and it's that gospel we're concentrating on most in the three hours reflection on good friday what we hear in the fourth gospel of the what we call farewell discourses and the high priestly prayer of jesus to the father before he goes out into the gethsemane where he is to be arrested and taken on through the night to his trial those statements to the disciples appear at different times in the gospels three times in the gospel of saint mark jesus chides the disciples for times when one or other is thinking that they are of great importance and james and john come up and say can we sit on your right and left in your glory but here again is an argument amongst the disciples about who is the greatest and that at the supper table almost his last words to them and it's acted out in st john's gospel in the foot washing is the kings of the gentiles lorded over them their great men are called benefactors mustn't be so with you amongst you the one who is your leader must be as the youngest and be the servant of all little goes to saint mark he carries on just as the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many aspects of the different colors of the gospels shining a light to make a pattern connected with our own experience and our own life which changes day by day and gives much new dimension to us as we reflect again and again not only on the new testament scriptures but also the prophecies which jesus is so fond of announcing are being fulfilled in certain situations particularly sentences from the psalms the book that jesus quotes from most of all and the prophet isaiah which we shall return to again and again but here they are in the garden and now jesus is saying your equipment must be ready for now you won't be returning two by two to come back when i sent you out did you need anything nothing lord will now be prepared this is something for us to have our spiritual equipment ready and how many times do i say to you and to myself have as much in your heads in your memory as many prayers is that you can remember as many quotations as you can remember because it times when there is no chance of opening a book or at times when distress calls for shall we say arrow prayers the only ones we might manage in a time of trouble or danger then the spiritual equipment that we need needs to be inside us in our heads and minds and hearts and come naturally to us this act of remembering which jesus at the last supper has given them a loaf and a cup of wine to remember the broken body and the blood of the new covenant all of those things are there to help us in our onward journey but now he's saying that journey will be through many dangers and simon i've prayed for you that your faith may not fail it's almost a prophecy of what's going to happen in the high priest courtyard later but nevertheless jesus looking ahead from that says when you have turned strengthen your brothers notice that luke is very gentle about all things there is the the cutting of the pipery servant's ear and in luke jesus touches the ear and says no more of this and heals the ear and then again judas approaching to kiss the lord luke never lets that happen in his gospel when jesus sees that judas is coming towards him to kiss him in greeting he says judas would you betray the son of man with a kiss i like to think that's where judas's redemption starts like the prodigal son in the big star and i know luke would want the redemption of judas but let's carry that on through because for the moment jesus chides those who've come to arrest him and said there is no need of this i was with you day after day teaching in the temple you could have taken me at any time and you come out to me now but this is your hour the hour of darkness and that times again with so many times in the gospel of saint john the hour is not yet the hour not yet and then when the greeks want to see jesus the hour has come for the son of man to be lifted up to draw the whole world to himself and here we are say him saying to those who are wielding the clubs and the torches and the weapons of violence this is your hour and his hour is still to come when they all unwittingly will lift him up with arms outstretched to the whole world well we thought of one or two things that are happening today and are being remembered from the past as i remembered the occasion when this was easter eve happening today also and we pray for this to continue is the declarations signed by world leaders including our own prime minister and the president of france and and the chancellor of germany um for a worldwide treaty on the dealing with pandemics following the experience of kovid 19 may that take wings and may the world grow in encouragement one for another in healing not just for covid19 but for anything which occurs to threatened humanity in the future the humanity that jesus's arms were outstretched to embrace and a world which he cared for because he was able to have that relationship with the creator whom he calls abba father and represents the creator to us in his humanity and becomes that for us but there is one other great date that i wanted to mention today you may have noticed that the emma bridgewater mugs are not here this morning instead there are six completely different mugs and they speak of a particular place in our life which uh is very important to us i'm talking really about the town of al in provence and also i can couple with that san remy which is a very beautiful place and i'm saying all this because on this day the 30th of march 1853 the dutch painter vincent van gogh was born he didn't become a painter at once he drew as a child but she had a multitude of of different senses of vocation among them being a pastor to the church in the netherlands he went to study under his uncle who was a a theologian but failed his exams nevertheless he became a pastor for a while and uh then was uh dismissed by the church because the the nice lodging they had given him he turned over to the homeless and slept in a shed and they thought this was below the dignity of a minister so off he went to find other things to do and it was only when he was about 27 that he became a painter an extraordinary thing for 10 years we know a great deal about vincent van gogh because his brother theo looked after him and gave him financial resources and letters passed backwards and forwards there are hundreds of letters from vincent to theo throughout life and the only time there aren't letters is when they're living together very short time but most of the letters are from vincent some of the letters are from the long-suffering theo for vincent was subject to terrible depressions and also flashes of rage and yet the stark colors that he produced and each of these mugs is based on one of his paintings uh and especially in the years when he was in ao in provence that's 1988 to 1889 and then it's san remi 1889 to 1890 we discovered al really by accident um by um traveling from uh cassie in provence which we know well on the mediterranean but quite often we discover things by chance usually much to my annoyance because the the journey that uh we planned um is one that will take us straight to a particular place where we're going to stay with people or are booked into a hotel or something of that kind but fetcher is an investor wanderer off the track and i've only got to either go to sleep in the car for two minutes or be on a telephone call and i suddenly wake up to find myself in a completely different place and this happened first of all in al and we got to know al in that way and arriving there and having supper in the square and that wonderful sense of of the van gogh's world still being there and some of these mugs are taken from al so having got there we spent some days there which was just lovely here's a little bridge which is still there in in i'll you all know these pictures pretty well and here his um room in al with the chair and the bed and all the other things that we're used to from his paintings and here sunflowers which he did to decorate his room and on this day in 1987 his uh sunflowers sold for the biggest price ever paid for a painting that was 22.5 million pounds for that one painting which went off to japan and is still there in tokyo that particular view of the sunflowers which was painted to be in his room here well here's the starry night over the roan and the countryside around but also there are other paintings of sarah me and i remember another journey which didn't end up where it was meant to as we left al going up the hill there were as if the countryside opened out on the road to sargoni um we uh found that on the uh right hand side now we're kind of driving out of san rumi up the hill and uh on the right hand side there were great um yeah there were great uh monuments of old buildings ruins in the woods and the big forest on the other side and fletcher said oh look these and i said oh come on we can't stay here i'm sure they're just 19th century imitations of things and on we went and then about two miles on uh taking notice of the journey i opened the guidebook and uh suddenly discovered that this is what the most important roman remains in france and so i then had to eat humble pie and say actually um they are worth seeing so round quick as a flash turned the car and we went back to the romans and reigns and at first we explored them but then by chance we crossed the road and went through a gap in the trees and found ourselves in the sanatorium that van gogh had gone to for his healing and one remembered pictures of the place as you looked out onto the lavender and everything else that was around and you thought i know this place but i know it from the paintings and it was a wonderful place to be it still had the spirit of being monastic but it had been changed into a sanatorium and the room there looking out onto those fields van gogh again had captured it's extraordinary to think of his painting selling for so much when he himself was often penniless and dependent on ceo he lived only to be 37 years old and of course he's best known and perhaps this is a coincidence of the morning for cutting off his own air with his razor in a rage he was in a rage at gogar the the painter whom they had tried to to set up a studio together and live together for a bit but it didn't work van gogh was not an easy person to be with but we remember the beauty of his paintings and the way in which his letters still reflect that theological and divine dimension which he was so anxious to study but didn't like the restrictions of theology and wanted so much to embrace his humanity and to use his creative gifts his way of giving the evangel the gospel channeling through him but oh so much pain in that too and at the same time um the the the way in which peter is going to go through the same kind of of pain as we go on and jesus has prophesied that but we'll come back to that in luke's narrative later but let's say our prayers for this morning and we have the uh diocese of baringo to pray for in the anglican church of kenya and the people there pray for archbishop justin for bishop rose of dover for bishop tim at lambeth and here this morning we are really thankful on this beautiful morning to be praying for the benefits of romney marsh if if you don't know the martian kent it is a very special place indeed and the churches there each one of them very ancient but each one of them a gem on on winter days and stormy days in the summer it's a bleak place to be but on days like this the marsh flowers and the churches are speaking of a age-old spirituality going back hundreds of years in this part of kent where augustine first brought the evangel the gospel these are the churches all saints bermash all saints saint mary's bay saint nicholas new romney saint mary in the marsh st george ivy church st peter and paul new church saint peter and saint paul dim church since clement old romney one i think clement is a church surrounded by fields and water and all kinds of things to get there at certain times of year but it's got an ancient norman fonte and the filmmaker derek jarman who's whose house is nearby loved that place more than anywhere else in the earth and so many people of his friends came came to to um be his friends around there to find peace and and and uh tranquility and he is buried there at st clement in old romney and people still go there and go to visit his house and garden at that particular point so let's remember all those things with thanksgiving because there's another creative soul and our own desire to be creative and to be vessels of the evangel passing on the gospel as luke did to us in his own particular way of telling it as we use the collect for this day almighty and everlasting god who in your tender love towards the human race sent your son our savior jesus christ to take upon him our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility and also be made partakers of his resurrection through jesus christ our lord amen so we pray for each other and i should have named the uh clergy of the benefits of romney marsh chris mclean john richardson schuner body jackie darling in their ministry there you will have others that you want to pray for as we say together the our father in whatever language 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 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 now as we say our own prayers on this lovely morning christ crucified draw you to himself to find in him a sure ground for faith a firm support for hope and the assurance of sins forgiven 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 so [Music] so so so so so