good morning and welcome wherever you are in the world to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this tuesday the 13th of july as we join together to say our morning prayers we've come into the little back courtyard of the the deanery to share with you a very special plant which is in full flower it's a clematis sun sonata and it's really at home here we got it a few years ago at great dixter the gardens of christopher lloyd uh he of course has sadly died but those gardens are still in the very capable and wonderful hands of fergus garrett there and it's really one of our favorite gardens to go to along with godington uh it's very near to sitting here so if you come to sittinghurst and don't know about great dixter make the journey it's well worthwhile but meanwhile look at this wonderful clematis which is in not only full flower but has grown and grown and it's really at home here and i'm sitting in an aura of wonderful scented fragrance a very special one recognizable at once as this particular plant and on a warm and still morning like this with sunshine coming through broken cloud and blue sky this plant adds to the glory of creation and causes one's eyes to lift up to heaven on this particular day so i hope it can give you cheer as i've said so many times before i wish i could share the scented fragrance of this particular plant for sense tends to stay in the memory and when you catch it again you think oh that's that particular flower that particular scent and it reminds one of wonderful places so let's say our prayers on this particular morning giving thanks for the the fine weather here but wherever you are in the world bring your own intentions and concerns from your own situation as we say our morning prayers together oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise blessed are you lord of heaven and earth to be glory and praise forever from the darkness of death you have raised your christ to the right hand of your majesty on high the pioneer of our faith his passion accomplished opened for us the way to heaven and daily sends on us the promised spirit may we be ready to follow the way so be brought to the glory of his presence where songs of triumph forever sound 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 the psalm on the 13th morning of the month is the long sound 68 so we'll read some of the verses of that now let god arise and let his enemies be scattered let those that hate him flee before him as the smoke vanishes so may they vanish away as wax melts at the fire so let the wicked perish at the presence of god but let the righteous be glad and rejoice before god let them make merry with gladness sing to god sing praises to his name exalt him who rides on the clouds the lord is his name rejoice before him father of the fatherless defender of widows god in his holy habitation god gives the solitary a home and brings forth prisoners to songs of welcome but the rebellious inhabit a burning desert oh god when you went forth before your people when you marched through the wilderness the earth shook and the heavens dropped down rain at the presence of god the lord of sinai at the presence of god the god of israel you sent down a gracious reign oh god you refreshed your inheritance when it was weary your people came to dwell there in your goodness so god you provide for the poor blessed be the lord who bears our burdens day by day for god is our salvation god is for us the god of our salvation god is the lord who can deliver from death sing to god you kingdoms of the earth make music in praise of the lord he rides on the ancient heaven of heavens and sends forth his voice a mighty voice ascribe power to god whose splendor is over israel whose power is above the clouds how terrible is god in his holy sanctuary the god of israel who gives power and strength to his people blessed be god so we turn to our regular reading of the gospel of saint matthew and we take up from where we left off yesterday jesus in matthew's account is still in the outer courtyards of the temple and although matthew's not very focused on location in the same way that that mark is but what we're going to read is a very matthew passage and it's rather a startling passage it bases itself on things which no doubt jesus said about the city of jerusalem about the temple about the pharisees and the doctors of the law but at the same time it's shaped in a particular way it's shaped as seven woes almost like a formulaic cursing of particular types of behavior which are purporting to be done in the name of god and his law and is being condemned and you have to think as always that matthew is writing this for his own community who are suffering much many years after jesus spoke uh these words in the temple so this is the way matthew formulates it and brings things together i'm starting at verse 13 of chapter 23. but woe to you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in woe to you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte and when they become a proselyte you make them twice as much a child of hell as yourselves woe to you blind guides who say if anyone swears by the temple it is nothing but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple they are bound by their oath you blindfolds for which is greater the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred and you say if anyone swears by the altar it is nothing but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar they are bound by their oath you blind men for which is greater the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred so whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it and whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it and whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of god and by the one who sits upon it woe to you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for you tithe mint and dill and come in and have neglected the weightier matters of the law justice and mercy and faithfulness these you ought to have done without neglecting the others you blind guides straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel woe to you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence you blind pharisee first clean the inside of the cup and the plate that the outside also may be clean woe to you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness so you also outwardly appear righteous to others but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness woe to you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous saying if we had lived in the days of our fathers we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets thus you witness against yourselves that you are children of those who murdered the prophets fill up then the measure of your fathers you serpents you brood of vipers how are you to be to escape being sentenced to hell therefore i send you prophets and scribes some of whom you will kill and crucify some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town so that on you may come all the righteous bloodshed on earth from the blood of righteous abel to the blood of zechariah the son of barakaiah whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar truly i say to you all these things will come upon this generation o jerusalem jerusalem the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it how often would i have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing see your house is left to you desolate for i tell you you will not see me again until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord it's a strong and formulaic set of statements and set of judgments and at the basis of it all is our lord's pain at what at that time when he was walking in the outer temple courtyard or viewing the temple from the mount of olives of what they had done in exclusivity to the nations for whom this was meant to be a sign of god's gift given to his chosen people to share with the nations of the world and we've seen that as one of the great messages of the gospel writers but here is a prophecy of extreme violence coming onto the temple and onto the city of jerusalem because of the way they have not listened and interpreted a right the law of god we were ruminating yesterday reflecting on how this might well have been shaped by matthew for his jewish christians not in jerusalem years afterwards and possibly by then the romans had destroyed the city of jerusalem and sent so many into exile and destroyed the temple and left only a a remnant of what had been so glorious before so that the high priestly sadducees who appear in sin mark's gospel are missing in this set of woes because they are no more in terms of power which they had wielded at the time of our lord's passion and crucifixion and resurrection so instead matthew groups the scribes and pharisees together because later in the dispersion of people from jerusalem those original doctrines of the law became subsumed into a culture of pharisaism and here are the condemnations and they're condemnations which we ourselves can take to heart condemnations about shall we call it nitpicking over details of the law and omitting to sense the whole spirit of the law you see that particularly when they are accused of neglecting the weightier matters of the law although they follow the law entithing little leaves of herbs the mint and the dill and the cumin as they tithe it and at the same time they're missing justice and mercy and faithfulness that was a strong condemnation coming direct from many occasions from the lips of our lord who came to fulfill that law in all its spiritual wonder and the qualities that it was meant to give as a gift to humanity if listened to the psalmists are full of that and the psalm that we read this morning is a case in point but also the statement with which this whole passage ends is taken straight from psalm 118 blessed is the one who comes in the name of the lord and we use that of course as a liturgical statement as we're about to receive communion calling it the benedictus blessed is the one who comes in the name of the lord but at the same time one is looking at other lessons we can learn and jesus is is fond of saying outward signs mean nothing if internally things are wrong start with the inside of the vessel invite the gifts of the healing spirit of salvation and the power of god inside into heart and mind and spirit and gradually physical outside will conform to what is going on if it's the other way around everything becomes completely void that's what's happening here and each one is saying to them you're interpreting the law and teaching the law and missing the essence of the law i love watching that part of pasalini's film the gospel of saint matthew which i've spoken about before because the sing-song nature of these woes in italian is fantastically dramatic as jesus walks along saying them and crying out almost in a litany of sorrow for the temple and his own people at that time and the italian language such a musical language gives you that and passolini using just ordinary people to fulfill those roles in that wonderful film as jesus walks along saying there's seven woes they're holy number causing this to be a very serious underlining of those principles of embracing the essence of the law internally and daily receiving the gift of the spirit in interpretation of that so that all outward signs may conform wonderful images that jesus uses as he always does and one can hear him saying you strain it a nut and swallow a camel that's the kind of image he would have used and then looking at the glorious tombs of the prophets and the reliance placed we saw a little bit of that yesterday with the children of abraham and those tombs are full of corruption necessarily so but jesus uses it as a metaphorical image to enhance this method of teaching you'll see how much we could go on with this it's a very powerful message indeed but it's a message not so much of violence but of warning what violence will ensue and possibly by matthew's time had already ensued from the course that they have decided to pursue and then eventually that sorrowful lament which is so tragic over the holy city where his parents had first brought him as a little baby and simeon had held him in his arms in the temple and said this is the one who will be the the person who who who brings light to the nations and glory to the people israel and at the same time he'd come at the age of 12 and questioned with the doctors of the law in those days the official doctors of the law for the saddusaic high priestly party was still in charge of the temple at that time and the doctors of the law were authoritative figures and were told they were astonished by the little 12 year old boy's knowledge and then the answer to his mother when she says how could you treat us thus your father and i have sought you sorry and jesus says in the old words was she not that i must be about my father's business and already the love of the temple and the zeal for his house which is the in john's gospel his disciples are afraid we'll consume him all from the prophecy of the psalms or the prophets and eventually that lovely sentence i tell you you will not see me again until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord it was wonderful earlier to hear the hens at their egg laying at the moment giving a little musical background to jesus's best image of all to the city of jerusalem how often have i wanted to gather you under my wings as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you would not the invitation was there and you refused it all those things we think of this morning but there are other things to think of too um later today i got to make a journey to london um it's the first time i've been to london i think since september the 14th because lockdown and the end of meetings or the happening of meetings virtually has meant that the fast train to london which was so often part of my life has not been part of my life but i'm going excuse me at the invitation of the british museum to a viewing of the exhibition of thomas becket which i look forward to hugely and it will mean a journey and this is what i wanted to say this morning it will mean a a journey up to sin pancras station well this was the day in 1811 when sir george gilbert scott normally just called sir gilbert scott was born and he of course was the architectural champion of the gothic revival we could name other names but his stands in an enormous place of honor and the list i shall attempt to read them because it's too long the list of buildings he either built or altered or restored in terms of cathedrals and churches and college chapels and college courtyards and and places of great dignity in terms of hospitals uh and and parish churches and and even clergy houses across across england uh and in other parts of the world also is monumental i might mention things like the albert memorial or the foreign and commonwealth offices or saint mary's cathedral in edinburgh or saint mary's cathedral in glasgow you can see all these places and what he felt was the dignity he was giving by copying the style of the gothic churches that he knew and giving that dignity to it but i mention all this because it's in pancra station and particularly the midland grand hotel which has been restored and is now called the renaissance hotel is one of his great wonders and it was saved from destruction by the poet john bechman who mounted a campaign and is now the gateway for the eures star to bring travellers from europe into london and our train goes up into that same station so i shall be remembering sir gilbert scott as we remember so much creativity quite often based on on natural things of elegance and floral decoration when an artist or architecture at work and nothing looks more like a a lovely spire flowering than this clematis sun sinata which i'm sitting under today with all its fragrance so thanks be to god for architects like sir gilbert scott and the work done not only in building churches uh he he placed a a a decorated screen a huge screen separating the choir from the knave of hereford cathedral which i had before which even he at the end said i think i made it a bit too big which was taken away and fell into disrepair and is now totally restored but isn't back in of hereford cathedral it's actually at the victorian albert museum so when i walk through the door of that and look up there is the screen scott screen of hereford cathedral but at the same time his work on places like westminster abbey is something that we give thanks for and then i wanted to mention and this too is a a mention with affection that on this day july the 13th 1793 the poet john clare was born john claire was born to an ordinary family in an ordinary way and was not given huge resources he was a working man and in the countryside and yet he was moved by reading james thompson's uh set of poems the seasons which moved haydn of course uh to to write the second of his oratorios the seasons having written the creation and claire being moved by this began to write wonderful poems of the countryside as it then was in the early 19th century he died in 1864 and had not the happiest of life in terms of health and later on a mental distress and yet so often this happens with people who find a genius within themselves and luckily there were people around when he wrote in imitation of thompson's seasons who recognized genius for what it was and that is completely recognized now said that in his calendar of the countryside in his poems and the way in which he describes things so wonderfully you almost smell the fragrance and hear the sounds of the countryside in his day reminding me of samuel palmer in art terms claire is john claire is is is giving us that in poetry but there's one poem that i wanted to share with you today we could read many and you can look them up and the poem is simply called the stranger i won't read it all it's rather long but i'll read a good part of it and um it begins with this verse when trouble haunts me need i sigh no rather smile away despair for those have been more sad than i with burdens more than i could bear i gone rejoicing under care where i had sunk in black despair and then i'll skip a few verses and go on to the meat of this poem about the stranger because in teaching himself that the way in which others deal with sorrow and grief and pain and disappointment is a lesson to him and the biggest lesson of all from claire comes in these verses i once a stranger blessed the earth who never caused a heart to mourn whose very voice gave sorrow mirth and how did earth his work return it spurned him from its lowliest lot the meanest station owned him not an outcast thrown in sorrow's way a fugitive that knew no sin yet in lone places forced to stray men would not take the stranger in yet peace though much himself he mourned was all to others he returned the blind met daylight in his eye the joys of everlasting day the sick found health in his reply the threw his crutch away yet he with troubles did remain and suffered poverty and pain yet none could say of wrong he did and scorn was ever standing by accusers by their conscience chid when proof was thought made no reply yet without sin he suffered more than ever sinners did before john claire was a a devout member of the church of england and that gives us a sort of image of the way in which jesus showed himself to him through the reading of the scriptures and then transferring that onto his viewing of the way others dealt with pain and finding encouragement in that for his own temptation to be downcast or complaining about his own lot the stranger we give thanks for john claire on this day and the lessons taught but give thanks more so for our lord's prophecies to help us find the real inner meaning of our own humanity and thereby of others humanity and of earth and all its glories pointing to heaven and eternity beyond let's say our prayers on this particular day on this tuesday morning the 13th of july we are praying for the diocese of kutak in the united church of north india and all the people covered by that diocese and in this diocese of canterbury so we pray for justin our archbishop and rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambus we're praying for the king's wood benefits now that will mean nothing at all to you in terms of a name and probably not even something to some of the people who maybe aren't ardent church goers who live there so i'll name the villages covered and then those of you who know them will see what a beautiful area that's covering and think of the communities in each of those churches and then we'll pray for um the the uh ones who minister there so the kingswood benefits covers the parishes of chilem not too far away from here just an easy drive and um we've so many friends in those areas and um as so often when a name is mentioned like the stations when the name is mentioned then when we think of chilean we'll think of a whole group of people there and so on and so forth and uh we're thinking of them there in chilem cholak gomesham crundale and molash and pray for catherine sigrist in her ministry there and the reader jerry willis and pray for the schools in mary's church of england primary school now bring your own prayers and intentions and your concerns whatever they are as we first say the collect for today i don't need to look at it it's such a lovely collect i i can say it by heart and always have been able to um and then we'll say the our father together oh god you have prepared for those who love you such good things as pass our understanding pour into our hearts such love towards you that we loving you above all things may obtain your promises which exceed all that we can desire through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language 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 amen moment of silence now for your own prayers and thoughts on this day so so uh 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 so thanks be to god for the clematis and sinatra which today has caused us in heart and mind to cast our thoughts upwards to the glory of a dimension which our humanity thanks be to god can embrace [Music] you