good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral on this morning of the 6th of june it's a beautiful morning the sun is shining and we've come into the kitchen garden here it's the breakfast time for the chicks and it causes us to remember that the world environment day conference in colombia is now being held virtually and you can actually see some of its presentations if you tune in to that on on online diversity is an enormously important thing in our planet and the nation of colombia is one of the most important of all it holds 10 percent of the world's great diversity in its part of the amazon rain forest and it is top nation for diversity of species of birds and orchids it's also second nation for diversity in plants freshwater fish and amphibians and so this conference which is jointly sponsored by the government of colombia and of germany and is happening virtually becomes a very important aspect of what is happening to the planet and this lockdown has given us a chance to think about that but we have many things to think about today so we're going to say our morning prayers and pray for one another right across the world as we begin this day oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the day star dwawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night oh 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 son this morning on this sixth day of the month is sun 30 i will exalt you o lord because you have raised me up and have not let my foes triumph over me o lord my god i cried out to you and you have healed me you brought me up o lord from the dead you restored me to life from among those that go down to the pit sing to the lord you servants of his give thanks to his holy name for his wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye his favor for a lifetime heaviness may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning in my prosperity i said i shall never be moved you lord of your goodness have made my hill so strong and then you hid your face from me and i was utterly dismayed to you o lord i cried to the lord i made my supplication what prophet is there in my blood if i go down to the pit will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness hear o lord and have mercy upon me o lord be my helper you have turned my morning into dancing you have put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing o lord my god i will give you thanks forever so we come to our reading from the gospel of luke on this morning we are in chapter 10 and we have gone through the sending out of the 72 in pairs with no equipment to give the good news jesus face set towards jerusalem and the journey is going onward there is no time to waste in proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of god to the villagers as they pass we are beginning this morning though at verse 17 of chapter 10 the 72 returned with joy saying lord even the demons are subject to us in your name and jesus said to them i saw satan fall like lightning from heaven behold i have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy nothing shall hurt you nevertheless do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you but rejoice that your names are written in heaven in that same hour jesus rejoiced in the holy spirit and said i thank you father lord of heaven and earth that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children yes father for such was your gracious will all things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows who the son is except the father or who the father is except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him then turning to his disciples he said privately blessed are the eyes that see what you see for i tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see and did not see it and to hear what you hear and did not hear it this is an extraordinarily powerful passage and has so many resonances with what has been going on in jesus's ministry with the twelve and with the wider group of the disciples represented by the 72 they return and they are full of amazement by what that which given has been given to them by jesus had been able to achieve in the communities that they have visited and they tell jesus of the authority that they feel and jesus i think must have said with a slight smile i saw satan fall like lightning before you he's agreeing with them first and foremost and then he says you do indeed have power to tread on and here i believe he's speaking metaphorically serpents and snakes and scorpions because just a little further on he reveals he refers to those as the spirits that the power of the good news is able to defeat but there's one important word which separates that sentence with what comes next and the word is nevertheless it's a great word it turns the atmosphere of any sentence it often appears in the psalms after a particular passage in our translation nevertheless every language has a word or two or three words which mean that which means just think for a moment and he warns them not to rejoice in all their own authority and everything that is happening and feel that satan has indeed been totally defeated and they he knows the power of temptation and its insidious nature so he begs them to show gifts and graces of humility don't rejoice in this rejoice that your names are written in heaven and that this has been revealed to you to share but remember also that that news is not given to the great and wise and mighty it's actually given more often to those of a humble heart and to little children how often have we heard a child like the story of hans christian anderson's child who was the only one who could shout out that the mighty king was naked and all the people realized that truth was in the simplicity of the child's voice jesus stood a child just a few readings ago in sin luke in their midst and said here's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and rebuked the disciples for quarantine amongst themselves rejoice he says in this and be humble about it and learn lessons from people whom you least expect to hear them from little children sometimes get it very right and finally he says to them blessed are those your eyes seeing what you see your ears hearing what you hear for the prophets and kings and i think here he's probably referring to david in his psalms and solomon in all his wisdom and the prophets like isaiah and jeremiah that he's constantly quoting long to see what you are seeing and didn't to hear what you are hearing and didn't rejoice in that but treat the gifts humbly and never feel that you are free from temptation the diversity of gifts there is in that passage also a prelude to what we should be thinking about tomorrow at the great feast of the holy trinity the relationship when jesus is praying between father son and holy spirit rejoicing in the holy spirit jesus thanks the creator for all the gifts on earth in their diversity which show his power and his love and at the same time are to be used with humility carefully and well i brought a symbol of diversity from our little pond in the orchard the orchard sprang to life when we brought water into it and now it's a place of enormous diversity and here is some of the life it's something that children delight in they are tadpoles and some of them are what we might call toad poles because endangered species of toads will actually come from these little creatures and have a lovely life near the water and in the diversity of the orchard already i can see from here some of them have got legs at the back and soon they'll be leaving the water but the water was essential as it is for the chicks the protection is essential as it is for all the creatures and we have enormous power to affect the life which the creator has given us heaviness may come for a night but joy comes in the morning says the psalmist and the joy is full of life when light and the refreshment of water is given one of the great lessons of this world environment days conference in colombia is small ideas can change the world and some of those will come from children and some from people that you wouldn't normally consider wise and our ideas about god can be challenged and changed by those too the gifts of heaven and the gifts of earth seem very close on days like this but both are given into our care and the nevertheless rejoice in your humility and rejoice in your power of giving good news becomes a lesson not just to the disciples but to all of us today as we read that lesson i'm going to put these down here in the shade because they'll be returned immediately to the pond in the orchard the moment we finished our prayers this morning so let us pray with enormous thanksgiving for the gifts of our world given to us to understand to use to protect and to make into our home for all nations in our anglican communion today on this 6th of june we pray for the diocese of new hampshire in the episcopal church of the united states of america and pray for robert hoshfield the bishop there and we pray also for all saints cathedral diocese in kenya for jackson sapiet the primate and also we pray for the diocese of isik in nigeria and for manasses okay the bishop there and his people here in this diocese as we pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth we continue to pray for the parishes covered by the osbringe deanery but also today we pray with them for the chaplains who serve in communities and all kinds of organizations within those parishes so we say first of all the prayer for this day god who as at this time taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your holy spirit grant us by the same spirit to have a right judgment in all things and ever more to rejoice in his holy comfort through the merits of christ jesus our savior we pray for ourselves and those whom we love o lord from whom all good things come grant to us your humble servants that by your holy inspiration we may think those things that are good and by your merciful guiding may perform the same through our lord jesus christ amen and the psalm collect which gives us that sense of humility which christ warned his disciples with that word nevertheless lord you hide your face when we trust in ourselves strip us of false security and re-clothe us in your praise that we may know you as the one who raises us from death as you raised our son your son our savior jesus christ 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 lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory for ever and ever amen a moment of silence as we give thanks for the diversity of our planet of the life which god has given us and the diversity of our humanity as we pray for its welfare the spirit of truth lead you into all truth give you grace to proclaim the word and works of god and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you and upon those whom you love and would pray for this day and always amen