good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral to the deanery garden on this extremely wet morning a very heavy rain storm it's been raining all night and it's just gone off so we're again seizing a chance to say our morning prayers here early in the kitchen garden and still we have some color with the dahlias in the borders here this is the feast day of sin remidius the bishop of reams and he was the one who baptized clovis as king of the franks on christmas day 496. we remember that the the frankish kingdom was just a part of what is france but rheem's cathedral always became from then on when france became a much bigger nation much later on but always became the place where the king of france was crowned and anointed but we give thanks here specifically for the christian uh culture of the frankish kingdom because when augustine came here in 597 that's uh um a a a hundred years in a 101 years immediately after that um he found that queen bertha who was frankish the queen of king ethel berta pagan king at the time was already christian and so he rather like saint paul coming to a place where he found friends found a ready friend in queen bertha because of that remember also that rheem's cathedral is on the via franchijana and it's a stopping place for pilgrims as they go there it's also a day when we remember anthony ashley cooper and the seventh year of shaft spree an enormous social reformer and the chair of the british and foreign bible society in the 19th century we'll come back to him in our reflections uh we remember two peaceful kingdoms under king edgar who was born this day he was called edgar the peaceable and was the king here until 975 in 16 after a yet reign of 16 years and in 1207 henry iii was born who became king in 1216 for 56 years long reigns but in 1553 on this day poor queen mary the first was crowned in the middle of that tudor period where one monarch followed another and the the faith of england changed backwards and forwards and so we remember her day uh that five-year reign before the reign of elizabeth the first started in 1558 also cheerfully sin from pancras station was opened in 1868 gateway to europe saved by the poet laureate john bechman for demolition and now a magnificent station the entry point for the eurostar and also sir edwin lancia died in 1873 famous painter of animal paintings perhaps his most famous painting is of the great stag the monarch of the glen but what we know best is lancia as a sculptor for remembering that yesterday was the day that nelson's columns foundation stone was laid it was lancia who was the sculptor of the four great lions which looked by their poses so they're exactly the same but if you go near them in trafalgar square you'll find that their aspect and their mains are significantly and subtly different from each other but again a great icon of the city of london like the column itself so let's say our prayers on this day and we've come here with roses behind me because all those centuries of lizzie died yesterday this is the day that her feast is kept in the calendar and uh therese said when she died all too suddenly um at the age of 24 in 1897 she said i shall continue working for you in heaven and your prayers will be answered by a shower of roses so the rose has always been a symbol of centuries a very popular saint indeed and lisia is a place of pilgrimage like like this one so let's begin our prayers with thanksgiving for all those things and we hope that the rain will stay off oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the day star dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night blessed are you sovereign god creator of all to you be glory and praise forever you founded the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands in the fullness of time you made us in your image and in these last days you have spoken to us in your son jesus christ the word made flesh as we rejoice in the gift of your presence among us let the light of your love always shine in our hearts your spirit ever renew our lives and your praises ever be on our lips 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 the first day of the month of october and on the first day of the month naturally enough our psalm our morning psalm is psalm 1. blessed are they who have not walked in the council of the wicked nor lingered in the way of sinners nor sat in the assembly of the scornful their delight is in the law of the lord and they meditate on his law day and night like a tree planted by streams of water bearing fruit in due season with leaves that do not wither whatever they do it shall prosper as for the wicked it is not so with them they are like chaff which the wind blows away therefore the wicked shall not be able to stand in the judgment nor the sinner in the congregation of the righteous for the lord knows the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked shall perish so we return to our reading of the acts of the apostles and we remember that paul with his companions including luke has landed on the beach at miletus and has sent for the elders of ephesus to come and see him and now this morning starting at chapter 20 verse 17 paul speaks to the elders of the ephesian church now from my lettuce paul sent to ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him and when they came to him he said to them you yourselves know how i lived among you the whole time from the first day that i set foot in asia serving the lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the jews how i did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public from house to house testifying both to jews and to greeks of repentance towards god and of faith in our lord jesus christ and now behold i am going to jerusalem constrained by the spirit not knowing what will happen to me there except that the holy spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me but i do not account my life of any value nor is precious to myself if only i may finish my course and the ministry that i receive from the lord jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of god and now behold i know that none of you among whom i have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will ever see my face again therefore i testify to you this day that i am innocent of the blood of all for i did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of god pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock of which the holy spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of god which he obtained with his own blood i know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock and from among your own selves will arise those speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after him therefore be alert remembering that for three years i did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears and now i commend you to god and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified i coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel you yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me in all things i have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the lord jesus how he himself said it is more blessed to give than to receive and when paul had said these things he knelt down and prayed with them all and there was much weeping on the part of all of them they embraced paul and kissed him being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken that they would not see his face again and they accompanied him to the ship it's a really sad and touching lesson from the acts of the apostles and from the way it is written and from what follows hereafter luke is an eyewitness to all of this there on the beach at myelitis and the bishops the shepherds the elders of the ephesian church still quite young but clearly thriving have come there and i don't know what they were expecting but paul is there to say goodbye he has uttered two wishes and prophecies in the lessons of the last few days one is his intention to go to rome which itself is prophetic but now much more prophetic the sense of as jesus sharing with his disciples on the roads that we came upon earlier in luke's gospel his intention now to go to jerusalem and the warnings that the believers in each city say don't go there don't go there you will suffer persecution you will suffer even death and paul saying to the elders but i count my life as nothing compared with my desire to serve the will of the holy spirit and at all times by word and by my very life to proclaim the gospel how proud he must have been of all of them and how sad they themselves must be there's this sense when he kneels down with them all to say their prayers and we realize that the ship is very near that's going to take him away but he says one precious thing to them and to us it's very significant the only sentence that we have of jesus speaking which is not in the gospels it is only that in the words of paul that tradition has been handed on and paul shares it with the ephesian elders and those listening so that it can be shared like a stone going into a pond circle by circle widening and widening through geography and time until it reaches us here wherever you are today words of the lord jesus handed on separately from the gospels it is more blessed to give than to receive wonderful words for us to take to heart especially in the context in which paul is sharing them a song of farewell if you like to the church he's so nervous about but can't any longer cope with with his own hands because his own journey will take him elsewhere nevertheless find an epistle to the ephesians talking and and writing of a fully formed church in a wonderful way but paul must now get into the ship and go on we will follow him tomorrow but let's think this morning about how those we were thinking of earlier remidious in reams baptizing clovis the first king of the franks and with him 3 000 frankish people on christmas day in that year 496 101 years before augustine brought the same gospel here to the frankish princess who already knew it queen bursa and how in that remigious was giving the best gift of all that he could to clovis the king of the franks and to his people at the same time the other person on our calendar anthony ashley cooper seventh earl of shaftesbury who had a very very unhappy childhood both at home and at school say for one person the housekeeper maria hatched their home at wimborne st giles still the homes of the earl of shastri and the old of charts free who was born right in the early years of the 19th century lived to a very old age and and uh and did so many things knew that the kindness and love that that one woman in the middle of so much cruelty showed him in his childhood taught him to say his prayers told him the stories of the bible gave him the gift of the love of herself as well as of jesus that was stronger than all the cruelty and he determined especially that children in the 19th century should know something of that love so tirelessly in parliament and in life he affected reforms for children working in mines in cotton mills dreadful conditions of boys who were sent as chimney sweeps up chimneys for those with mental illnesses who had simply been locked away the catalogue of his efforts through the 19th century are endless and at the same time he remembered that best gift which maria had given to him as an inspiration for his life the gift of the holy scriptures and he became formative in the life of the british and foreign bible society so that that gift might be given in translations that people could understand right across the world it is more blessed to give than to receive and the roses behind me speaking of centuries of lisia remember her statement as she was dying at the age of 24 saying i shall not cease to work for you in heaven and you will know my gifts like a shower of roses so all of that we remember because as we respond to the words of the lord jesus in that beautiful sentence it is more blessed to give than to receive as we respond daily and do that for others we find ourselves blessed metaphorically like a shower of roses from heaven as we do that in whatever circumstances and however painful the circumstances let's then say our prayers for this morning a new month and a new calendar and we're praying in the anglican communion today for the diocese of perth in australia for kay gilsworthy the bishop there and her people the diocese of chattisgarh in north india and for robert ali the bishop there and his people and the diocese of chicago in the episcopal church of the united states and jeffrey lee the bishop there and his people here in this diocese we pray for archbishop justin for bishop rose of dover bishop tim at lumbers and especially today for the parishes of the recover area deanery those communities around recover and whistleblown hearn today we pray for the ignite communities those who attempt to kindle new faith in different communities in that area and for the leaders and enablers of that ignite initiative paula martin and dan ralph bring your own prayers from whatever situation you find yourself in and we say together the collect for this week oh lord we beseech you mercifully to hear the prayers of your people who call upon you and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill them through jesus christ our lord amen so we pray 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 as we seek grace to obey our lord's command remembering it is more blessed to give than to receive so the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds and 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 you