good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this monday the 15th of march yesterday we mid-sunday and today we come back to our journey through lent just one week now until we reach passion tide and begin to look towards the journey of the cross itself the week begins with mixed weather and outside rain is falling so we've come in to join the hospitality of the three turkeys darcy and lizzie and jane and then mommy hen here and the other hen who is with us walking around and they will be our companions for this little bit of the journey this morning so bring your your intentions your prayers your concerns from across the world whatever situation you find yourself in on this monday morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise hear our voice so lord according to your faithful love according to your judgment give us life blessed are you god of compassion and mercy to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of our sin your light breaks forth like the dawn and your healing springs up for deliverance as we rejoice in the gift of your saving help sustain us with your bountiful spirit and open our lips to sing your praise 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 our psalm on this 15th morning of the month is psalm 77 it's the voice at the beginning of one who is in trouble and feeling that prayers aren't being answered or even heard by god and honestly they cry out to god in this psalm i cry aloud to god i cry aloud to god and he will hear me in the day of my trouble i have sought the lord by night my hand is stretched out and does not tire my soul refuses comfort i think upon god and i groan i ponder and my spirit faints you will not let my eyelids close i am so troubled that i cannot speak i consider the days of old i remember the years long past i commune with my heart in the night my spirit searches for understanding will the lord cast us off forever will he no more show us his favor has his loving mercy clean gone forever has his promise come to an end forevermore has god forgotten to be gracious has he shut up his compassion in displeasure and i said my grief is this that the right hand of the earth high has lost its strength i will remember the works of the lord and call to mind your wonders of old time i will meditate on all your works and ponder your mighty deeds your way o god is holy who is so great a god is our god you are the god who works wonders and declared your power among the peoples with a mighty arm you redeemed your people the children of jacob and joseph the waters saw you oh god the waters saw you and were afraid the depths also were troubled the clouds poured out water the skies thundered your arrows flashed on every side the voice of your thunder was in the whirlwind your lightnings lit up the ground the earth trembled and shook your way was in the sea and your paths in the great waters but your footsteps were not known you led your people like sheep by the hand of moses and aaron so on this monday morning we return again to the gospel of saint john and continue in chapter nine we shall complete chapter nine this morning remember how it began with the healing of the blind man and then turned into a very heated and angry conversation between the jewish authorities jesus was accused of breaking the sabbath law and doing all kinds of things but particularly challenging their understanding and authority and we continue now and jesus doesn't really appear for a bit the conversation is between the jewish authorities and the man who had been born blind but he is now seeing the jews did not believe that the man had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them is this your son who you say was born blind how then does he now see the man's parents answered we know that this is our son and that he was born blind but how he now sees we do not know nor do we know who opened his eyes ask him he is of age he will speak for himself the man's parents said these things because they were afraid of the jews for the jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess jesus to be the christ then they were to be put out of the synagogue therefore the man's parents said he is of age ask him so for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him give glory to god we know that this man is a sinner the man answered whether he is a sinner i do not know one thing i do know that though i was blind now i see they said to him what did he do to you how did he open your eyes he answered them i have told you already and you would not listen why do you want to hear it again do you also want to become his disciples and they reviled him saying you are his disciple but we are disciples of moses we know that god has spoken to moses but as for this man we do not know where he comes from the man answered why this is an amazing thing you do not know where he comes from and yet he opened my eyes we know that god does not listen to sinners but if anyone is a worshiper of god and does his will god listens to them never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind if this man were not from god he could do nothing they answered the man you were born in utter sin and would you teach us so they cast him out jesus heard that they had cast him out and having found the man he said do you believe in the son of man the man answered and who is he sir that i may believe in him jesus said to him you have seen him and it is he who is speaking to you the man said lord i believe and he worshipped him jesus said for judgment i came into this world that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind now some of the pharisees near him heard these things and said to him are we also blind jesus said to them if you were blind you would have no guilt but now that you say we see your guilt remains a fascinating dialogue and remember always that though the word the jews is used constantly for the jewish authorities everyone in this story is of the jewish faith the man himself his parents the crowd standing around and one has to keep making that distinction jesus himself born into that faith and living in it faithfully and with the rhythms of the life and festivals as we're seeing is himself an emblem of his own people but also of their gift to be a light to lighten the peoples of the world those who walk in darkness who will see so jesus not there at the beginning it's the man himself who is questioned and see how he answers that they're speaking always on this physical plane we've spoken so often as we've been looking at john of the two dimensions that dimension which speaks of eternity of heavenly gifts of the gifts of the spirit that dimension which can be imagined by the mind as humanity reaches out in creativity of thought and intention and affected by the body in creative gifts which we exercise daily to the glory of god the passage when jesus appears contains important truths and we see the same kind of conversation going on as jesus had with the woman at the well in samaria he says if you knew who it was who was asking you for the gift of water you would have asked him for the water and the woman in the end of that conversation says we know that that the one who is coming when he comes he will teach us all things and jesus says i am i am he the one who is speaking to you the same thing here do you believe in the son of man the emblem of humanity leading us to those divine gifts and asking us to receive them do you believe in the son of man and the man says who is he sad tell me that i may do so and jesus says using the sight image again both deeply and metaphorically and physically this time you have seen him the one who's speaking to you is the one that jesus is talking about and the man then says those simply two words in the greek pisture curier lord i believe the title of my favorite austin pharaoh book very short book lord i believe it taught me rhythmically through all the gospel pictures to use the rosary as a way of exercising body mind and spirit in reflection of gospel scenes and uh at the back of that book all of that is is given in a wonderful way as a gift of grace by austin farah the great anglican scholar who was brought up as a baptist his father a baptist minister and at the same time that lord i believe which at first idol was taken to be the response of the father of the epileptic boy and when jesus asks him about belief and he says i believe help my unbelief but it's not that it's here it's the man who had not been able to see but can now see who says lord i believe pisteuo before that we get lesser um titles for jesus but here is the title lord kyrie which we use of course in the query eleason and of all of that comes in this particular passage but the conversation then turns once more to what it means to have physical sight and be unseeing in deeper matters and to be without physical sight and to be seeing in spiritual matters and we find that with blind bottomers at the gate of jericho in uh it's in mark's gospel the one who cries out son of david even though he is blind so we give thanks for that and see what happens when the man believes he the translation given here is too simple a word he worshipped him now again the word given is a word which is used for the falling physically before someone in the deepest respect and embarrassments and everything that that entails the the the greek proskuneo and that word worship um to us because we use it so easily about how we worship together and all of that but actually to give that deepest respect of body mind and spirit to fall on one's knees it was the word which described in the kneeling down with foreign on the floor in some cultures but on this occasion it's actually a change of attitude towards the one who has allowed him to see much more than the physical form of jesus in front of him but the man responds with an act of deepest worship so we give thanks for this chapter an interesting chapter prompted in the beginning by the question of jesus's disciples who themselves are part of this seeing but not seeing and being helped to see by situations which are painful to them that we shall enter in the last chapters of john let's think about this day beware the ides of march well today is the ides of march the 15th of march in the roman calendar was the ides of march on many of the months it was the 13th but in march the 15th it had always been an important day it was seen as a day for settling debts for us it's the day on which in 44 bc julius caesar was assassinated by those whom he thought to be his friends and his last words was of course to brutus shakespeare gives it to us in latin at two brutae but in fact as a respectable roman citizen caesar according to suetonius the the late first century and early second century roman historian caesar spoke to him as an aristocratic roman wood in greek rather like the tsar of russia's courts big french and the the romans who had conquered greece had culturally been conquered by greece in their learning even in their divine worship they changed some names but caesar as he is stabbed to death looks at brutus who had always been why his protege the one whom he loved and said in greek kaisou technon and you my child which is much more moving than the shakespeare at tu brute well julius caesar an important person for the history of of england britain in 10 years before 44 bc in both 55 and 54 bc in the middle of his gallic wars julius caesar had made two attempts to come to britain and subdue britannia at that time the first one with only two legions and he did little more than land on the beach and survey the landscape and then leave and then the next year he went about it properly and made incursions right through up until essex and hertfordshire but again in the middle of the gallic wars there was no time to consolidate those gains and so with his armies a much bigger army with quite a fleet he went back to gaul and knew that she had to go back eventually to rome at the conclusion of the organic wars and so we remember that but britain had to wait until the reign of the emperor claudius in about 44 a.d for that campaign to start which would bring roman civilization to these islands for several hundred years and also later christianity to these islands in the first conversion before augustine came much later in 597 but this is the day when people believed they were settling their debts with caesar remember how in shakespeare's julius caesar as caesar walks around the soothsayer says to him beware the eyes of god and on this day uh with warnings from his wife not to go but but caesar walks towards the place of his assassination where the senators are due to meet him and uh the soothsayer is standing there and caesar triumphantly says implying nothing has happened um the eyes of march have come soothsayer and zucer replies i caesar but not yet gone and then the assassination happens i think i first got to know julius caesar by watching on a black and white television presentation office and the great mark antony's speech friends romans and countrymen lend me your ears i come to bury cesar not to praise him one of the great speeches of a shakespearean drama but we remember it is a significant day because of course it marked the end time of the roman republic and the beginning of the imperial rome which we know through all the gospel stories it was the emperor augustus octavius julius caesar's chosen heir who took over all of that and at the beginning of the gospels at the birth of jesus was the emperor there so we remember that historic time and how quickly an empire can fall and another one begin under a different power but we remember that because in 1917 on this day nicholas ii tsar of all the russians the last really bizarre of all the russia's abdicated in favor of his brother grand duke michael who really never took power and abdicated himself pretty quickly um nicholas had been the tsar since 1894. it was not really something he was very well equipped for um a fairly gentle and indecisive character but uh the the imperial family at this time abdicating authority ended their lives brutally and we remember again the way in which one power wants to eradicate another so that they can go on in safety themselves but everyone is is subject to the same limitations in earthly life is the day in 1939 when hitler walked into czechoslovakia effectively tearing up the 1938 munich agreement which neville chamberlain and edouard de ladier had made with him thinking they could make terms with someone who was actually just using a stalling device and i suppose from this moment onwards when hitler walked into prague another war was going to be inevitable which came in september of 1939 1672 charles ii king of england having been restored to his throne in 1660 attempted to make an act of indulgence so that all who wanted to worship protestants and roman catholics as well as those members of the church of england and at that time the law said you had to work according to the worship of the church of england otherwise you face legal penalties the king tried to make a declaration of indulgence and he made it but his cavalier parliament the year afterwards which had suffered so much in the civil war from the puritans rescinded the permission and then when his brother came to the throne james ii who was himself a roman catholic and tried to give again freedom of worship for protestants and roman catholics it was the spark which lit the glorious revolution and caused james ii to lose his throne the way in which as we saw in john's gospel people try to control one another not just physically but in conscience and in worship is a common place of human history remember with sadness on this day in 2019 the two new zealand mosques which were attacked during friday prayers by a gunman who killed 51 people and wounded 40 in christchurch at the al-nua mosque and then a little way off at the linwood islamic center what it prompted in new zealand not only a state of absolute shock which was shared by the rest of the world but an a determination to have gun control and there was the buy-back policy of buying back in those arms which people possessed which allowed people to do this and we remember that attack on worshipping muslims in those mosques on this day with sadness we can remember many other things on this day um it's a day in 1820 when the state of maine in the united states the nearest up to quebec then 90 percent forest the pine tree state became the 23rd state of the union uh it's the day when selfridges opened in london on oxford street in 1909 and it's also the day in 1949 that's what four years after the end of the war it's the day that clothes rationing ended so the restrictions which people had here because of what the war had cost and what it cost to rebuild and that will become a bit of a common place after this pandemic is over i think those restrictions went on in terms of rationing here in the years which followed and cheerfully 1877 this day saw the first cricket test match between australia and england and it was played in melbourne and australia won by 45 runs well let's say our prayers on this day and give thanks for the fourth gospel and the way it opens the ministry of the christ to us we're praying for in the anglican communion the diocese of awario in the province of the episcopal church of south sudan eastern barrel gazal province and the bishop and people there and we're asked by our own diocese as we pray for archbishop justin for bishop rose and for bishop tim at lambeth to pray for the gift of listening and discerning on the way and for the ministry of steve coneys the advisor of mission and growth diocese of canterbury bring your own prayers this morning for those around you and those whom you would want to offer in prayer as we join together across the world it's a new colic today and this for this week merciful lord absolve your people from their offenses that through your bountiful goodness we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins which by our frailty we have committed grant this heavenly father for jesus christ's sake our blessed lord and savior amen we say each in our own language the prayer that jesus 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 as far as darcy will allow us to make our own prayers on this monday morning christ give you grace to grow in holiness to deny yourself take up your cross daily and follow him 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 are men and you're very proud of your great new feathers aren't you you make a handsome trio and your companions here the two hens also very attractive aren't you right you