good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this wednesday the 24th of february as we meet to say our morning prayers together wherever you are in the world please feel welcome and bring your own prayers and intentions on this sunny windy morning but still quite warm for february itself today we've come to the end of the herbaceous border because the hellebores here which really are flowers which span winter and and early spring are having a real last hurrah and here they are in front of the magnolia tree which is in full bud but they themselves are mature flowers now and they're all over the garden hellebores grow well here but around also are signs of spring coming with the shoots of the daffodils and other flowers coming up and the twittering of sparrows very very chatty sparrows in the in the victory here beside me the leafless fig tree but behind me is this lovely rose which is already beginning to put out our green buds and shoots this rose is madame lagrada sanjama and she came with me from hereford which planted here and when uh after a few years fletcher wanted to move her as he did i was very nervous for this lovely lady with all her memories of the boulevard san jamar in paris and yet she has thrived even better i have to trust his judgment much more than mine and every year we get beautifully scented roses in profusion from her so we give thanks for this growth today also is purple poppy day which is the national army museum's day for all animals who have died and served in war war zones throughout the world we remember them here very much in the days just before our own remembrance day when all who've died in war are remembered because we tend to have a little ceremony at the horse uh in the precincts and so we shall mark the fact that this is purple poppy day but we shall leave our big theme as i did and explained everything to you back in november so let's say our prayers together on this day 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 judgments give us life blessed are you god of compassion and mercy to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of our sin the 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 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 are men so it's the 24th day of the month and normally in the morning i would read of the three psalms psalm 118 but today i'm choosing to read psalm 116 the first of the three morning psalms for today i love the lord for he has heard the voice of my supplication because he inclined his ear to me on the day i called to him the snares of death encompassed me the pains of hell took hold of me my grief and sorrow was i held then i called upon the name of the lord o lord i beg you deliver my soul gracious is the lord and righteous our god is full of compassion the lord watches over the simple i was brought very low and he saved me turn again to your rest oh my soul for the lord has been gracious to you for you have delivered my soul from death my eyes from tears and my feet from falling i will walk before the lord in the land of the living i believe that i should perish for i was sorely troubled and i said in my alarm everyone is a liar how shall i repay the lord for all the benefits he has given i will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the lord i will fulfill my vows to the lord in the presence of all his people precious in the sight of the lord is the death of his faithful servants o lord i am your servant your servant the child of your handmaid you have freed me from my bonds i will offer it to you a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call upon the name of the lord i will fulfill my vows to the lord in the presence of all his people in the courts of the house of the lord in the midst of you o jerusalem the loveliest psalm but its verses also speak of the turmoil within our lord himself as he day by day in his earthly life develops and learns and receives his vocation well here is the lesson for today and we're in chapter five exactly where we left off yesterday and i'm starting today at verse 30 of chapter five jesus is speaking if you remember to those in the area of the pool where he has caused the man to walk again who could not get into the waters and you remember that that was on the sabbath day and he's been surrounded not only by crowds in their wonderment crowds of his own people the jews but also by jewish authorities who are nervous of jesus more than nervous they're frightened and alarmed at the prospect of his upsetting their own authority and their own understanding of how they want to interpret the scriptures to the people and they are violently disposed towards him they're already intent on killing him eradicating the threat and jesus is sensing this and he has been accused of making himself equal with god by calling god his father and we saw yesterday how in fact he was establishing his dependency on the creator and saying that i do nothing on my own which is exactly how this passage starts today verse 30 of chapter five i can do nothing on my own as i hear i judge and my judgment is just because i seek not my own will but the will of the one who sent me [Music] if i alone bear witness about myself my testimony is not true there is another who bears witness about me and i know that the testimony that he bears about me is true you sent to john the baptist and he has borne witness to the truth not that the testimonies i receive is from man but i say these things so that you may be saved john was a burning and shining lamp and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light but the testimony that i have is greater than that of john for the works that the father has given me to accomplish the very works that i am doing bear witness about me that the father has sent me and the father who sent me has borne witness about me his voice you have never heard his form you have never seen and you do not have his word abiding in you for you do not believe in the one whom he has sent you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is the scriptures that bear witness about me yet you refuse to come to me that you might have life i do not receive glory from people but i know that you do not have the love of god within you i have come in my father's name and you do not receive me if another comes in their own name you will receive them how can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only god do not think that i will accuse you to the father there is one who accuses you moses on whom you have set your hope for if you believed moses you would believe me for he wrote of me that if you do not believe his writings how will you believe my words all the way through this dependency upon the creator the father as jesus calls him abba when he prays father my father and in that dependency comes not only jesus's power to do the will of the creator who has sent him but at the same time to perceive the will of god who has sent him and without that perception which as we have seen develops as things go along then the psalmist this morning behold i have come to do your will. is not being fulfilled in jesus but jesus holds himself exactly to the vocation which god has given him and then is there to give the good news which he has set out from the prophet isaiah from the scriptures again the scriptures which speak of him the good news of release for captives recovery of sight for the blind broken victims going free all of this they're seeing happening all around them and this passage which is spoken to the jewish authorities at the time very very jealous of their own control and power and so often leaders are this passage really ought to be read in a spirit of of not just irritation but a burning internal rage that they cannot understand and in chapter six as we shall see jesus goes into another dimension of understanding yesterday we had the three verily verily truly truly very truly i say to you underlining but however much emphasis jesus puts on his words they cannot receive those gifts which lift them from the one plane on which they are standing to listen shall we call it the earthly plane into that dimension which is possible for our humanity because we have the image of god within us and it's that image that divine intention not only to receive the gift to take us into infinite realms which transcend life and death which speak of truth and speak of light in its largest sense and then to share that when we become dependent in the same way on the vocation and the will that we have been given all those things but tomorrow we shall go on to the fourth sign and then jesus begins to speak in different imagery and tries in a different way to express his message that his vocation may be handed on to those who will follow after him and some of those are already standing around listening to this the twelve as they hear so let's just think for a moment of things that have happened on this day and for us in kent on this day in 616 the year 616 ethelbert king of kent died he'd been king of kent from 589 to 616 and was of course the king of kent who received augustine here with the gospels in 597 and augustine found himself much assisted by ethelbet's french wife bursa who was already a christian and had her chapel where her priest said mass for her well that story is a story of central augustine but it's also a story of the way in which the english people remember christianity had been here before amongst the britons in roman times but most of those had fled to the west to cornwall and to wales and and the celtic church was was very lively there but here augustine brought the gospel for the first time to the angles the english and the person who received him gave him land for this cathedral to be built in eventually but gave him land for monasteries and then gave grants of land also in rochester and eventually in london so that the cathedral of saint paul's could root itself in the same way we have much to be thankful for on this day when we remember king ethelbert remember too all kinds of creative but also political activities i'll do some of them quite fast remember in 303 a.d an egypt of persecution across the roman empire was issued by the emperor diocletian against christians so near now to the time when constantine would make um christianity the official religion of the empire but here still were vicious persecutions they had been sporadic before as we know because of course we remembered yesterday the martyrdom of polycarp of smyrna and that was much earlier in the year 155 and then also um we remember acts of the calendar shall we call it because in 58 1582 on this day pope gregory the 13th announces the new gregorian calendar which sets the year right and many nations went over to it then more protestant nations some waited till as england did till the 18th century to go over to it but now we're all on that gregorian calendar except for some of our orthodox friends who keep to the julian calendar the calendar that we were all on before the the the time is important to us but it has to keep pace with the year and that the old julian calendar had a certain amount of of mistakes within it that gregory the 13th put right on this day i want to remember some creative activity before we go on to the the major thing of today and we remember in uh 1607 monteverdi's being premiered it was seen to be or said to be the very first musical entertainment which would could be called an opera then in what have we got in 1743 the great botanist sir joseph banks was born died in 1820 we've spoken about him with regards to many of his discoveries and botanical species but of course the banksia roses here which will come into full flower earlier generally than many of the roses that we have here are signs of his name now and then we have also in 1770 1766 the birth of samuel wesley the organist and composer great champion of bach but he was born in bristol and his anthems are still very much sung in the cathedral repertoire but more so his son samuel sebastian wesley whom we shall remember on a different day one of the grimm brothers wilhelm was born today in 1786 also and the playwright tennessee williams born uh died in 1983 on this day then if i name some of his his once you'll remember them a streetcar named desire cat on a hot tin roof sweet bird of youth the glass menagerie night of the iguanas perhaps one remembers most powerfully the 1958 film of a streetcar cat on a hot tin roof with elizabeth taylor and paul newman in that film and then we have the discovery in 2016 of the oldest muslim graves in europe found it neem have two in the calendar of the anglican church of canada today two names philip lindeltsen and paul sasaki lindelsen was the first chinese bishop to attend the lambeth conference he attended in 1930 and paul sazaki a bishop of the anglican church in japan visited canada in 1937 with lindelsen japanese and a chinese bishop who came to canada to express the unity of japanese and chinese christians despite the terrible war going on between those two nations at that time before the second world war ever began uh and lindelof came again to the lambeth conference in 1948 so we give thanks for that sign of unity which the anglican church of canada is keeping in its calendar today and then we might also remember two discoveries which take us back to this earth and the wonder of our planet and how it has developed in 1989 a fossil of a dinosaur egg with the embryo still inside it was dated at 150 million years ago and in 2014 and a crystal was discovered 4.4 billion years old to be the oldest known fragment from earth's crust these things give dimension to our wonder at creation but life also and particularly the life of christ as he expresses that life at the will of the creator and his vocation to restore the image of the creator in those he's addressing gives that same kind of wonder the dimension of finite things on earth the dimension of infinite things and sin john moves easily in his gospel from one to the other as he gives us the words of jesus now there are many more things that i could talk about today the um birth in 1955 of steve jobs the inventor of apple mac itunes ipad iphone ipod which transformed our world he died in 2011 after a battle with cancer but all those things rank in the realm of of scientific and human technological discovery which which changed life and for which we're thankful today because we can be in touch with one another so let me then go on and talk about in 1711 and this links with yesterday the premiere of handel's first opera in london rinaldo and by many it's still seen to be his greatest opera it contains that beautiful aria last year which my parents used to refer to simply as handel's largo and that beautiful song is known just by itself but handel came here in 1711 to do this in the reign of queen anne the last of the stuart monarchs and he had left his his uh native land to come here but then went back to hanover and then when george the first became that he was the elector the prince elector of hanover one of the electors of the holy roman emperor when he became king of england hansel came back and was here and became very much a star composer but ronaldo is an opera which blind born at the uh by centenary of the first performance produced most magnificently and humorously it was a massive success this is an opera meant to be a story set in jerusalem between christians and saracens in fact glenborn put it in a secondary school probably in the 1950s and so that the the the battle is against bullying and and harassment of people and the heroes become unlike the heroes and heroines become unlikely characters in school blazers and and also in gym slips and girls with spectacles on and their hair tied back looking very much like school girls from the 1950s and 60s and also the characters like the magician who is so important in everything that takes place in the magician's cave becomes a science lab and the the magician becomes uh the science master the way one can interpret through set design and characters and take one opera from a place and put it in another is is really magnificent and i know it will be on glenborn stocks for a lorry very long time so we remember handel as an opera writer and one thinks how his operas have grown in popularity recently with uh things like giulio jazzari is another great blind born opera with uh beautiful sets in it but also his oratorios now in lent where we are now you were not allowed to perform operas in london or anywhere in the kingdom plays an opera sent to stop but oratorios were church works so really handel wrote oratorios as operas which could be performed in lent we thought about messiah yesterday but there are many other operas which give us biblical characters uh the opera saul and the um opera solomon the progester with that lovely soprano solo washed her angels to the sky wrong not a surprise sailor is sangbarya but uh it's a song that people sang as a victorian palace song often and still do and then you have judas maccabias for example and uh the great tune of see the conquering hero comes which we sing as an easter hymn now and uh the the tune goes perfectly well to the easter hymn lying be the glory risen conquering sun said that christ himself becomes a hero on resurrection day all those things we give thanks for and the great coronation anthems all four of them that are still sung its coronations handel was a superstar in the 17th century and uh the fact that the heavens opened for him and gave him the vision to write messiah gives us so many scriptural words as i said yesterday to hold in our mind so as we give thanks for all those acts of human creation but especially those which lead us on with divine inspiration to claim properly whatever our vocation is and as we as a garden congregation again pluck a thought or a word or an idea and use it to think about to pray about or to be creative about in whatever way physically we find ourselves wanting to be creative and when the time comes to share it but also to note it down so that our own garden is given some kind of format in development as these weeks go through we do all that this morning as the sun shines on this particular garden and we rejoice in the flowering hellebores let's say our prayers then and think of where we go today and we start by praying for the diocese of argyll and the isles with the scottish episcopal church pray for the life of that diocese pray to for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for tim bishop at lambeth and on this 24th of february we are praying for the parish of saint anthony at olcom uh saint ratigan at capel la fern and saint lawrence at howard and brian williams in his ministry there sir proud we continue to pray of course for his royal highness prince philip for his recovery and his return home but we pray today also for tiger woods after his terrible accident his car accident and pray for those who are looking after him and trying to give healing there and we ourselves think of those for whom we would want to pray and also would want to remember on this day so here is the collect for today almighty god whose son jesus christ fasted 40 days in the wilderness and was tempted as we are yet without sin give us grace to discipline ourselves in obedience to your spirit and as you know our weakness so may we know your power to save through jesus christ our lord amen [Music] sir say together the prayer our lord taught us in whatever language we 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 justices 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 forever and ever are men into the twittering of sparrows we hold silence for a moment christ give you grace to grow in holiness to deny yourself take up your cross daily and follow him 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