good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this monday the 24th of may the day after the feast of pentecost and so we're now back into ordinary time green time as we call it because that's the color of vestments worn throughout this great season which goes all through spring and summer except when broken by the occasional saints day but we are here in a green atmosphere on meadow monday in our meadow which will be of wild flowers but something is beginning to happen first which we can correct because you will see that we need thistles uh a few thistles for the goldfinches later on in the year but the one thing that the pigs couldn't clear when they were aerating the soil and digging around with the roots the thistle seed but luckily thistle control always makes itself known before all the other tiny seedlings and so there'll be some work to do in the garden to rebalance this and we can identify the thistles and make the balance of the garden right as those who are gardeners here and i shall be um part of that uh a servant to the the the gardeners um as we go around but at the moment you're seeing the the green grass growing up for the grass has come first but i can see sitting here thousands of tiny other seedlings and you can take all kinds of lessons from that for parables certainly of our own life in in balance and the way we sometimes need help within that balance to get things right so we remember areas of our world today we remember those who have died in the terrible tragedy of the cable car disaster in northern italy we remember those who have died on the walk from weather conditions in china we remember those also who have uh have been affected by the volcanic eruption in congo and so in remembering all of that you will have other things that you remember people that you want to pray for and we ask god's blessing on all those situations and pray for those attempting to help and comfort and encourage at this time so let's say our prayers today and also areas of the world still so badly affected by the pandemic particularly the people of india this time 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 creator of all to you be praise and glory forever as your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation may we rejoice in this day you have made as we wake refresh from the depths of sleep open our eyes to behold your presence and strengthen our hands to do your will that the world may rejoice and give you 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 amen our son on this 24th morning of the month is psalm 116 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 by 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 o 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 to me 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 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 alleluia twice in that psalm the sentence i will fulfill my vows to the lord this is a day the 24th of may very special to all those who are in the methodist church throughout the world and we pray with them and for them for on this day which they call either aldersgate day or wesley day john wesley in 1738 had an experience of god which really changed his life and he would keep going back to that experience in his mind and heart and prayers and so on this day in our calendar both john and charles wesley are commemorated we keep them on other days particular to each were ordained priests of the church of england and both had a very special ministry on uh the feast of pentecost and that other occasions when people are ordained or making vows we sing charles wesley's hymn and as we sing that hymn o thou who came is from above the pure celestial fire to impart kindle a flame of sacred love on the mean altar of my heart we have that intention given to us in psalm 116 i will fulfill my vows to the lord i will offer to you a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call upon the name of the lord so we pray especially for all those who are keeping this day as a celebration of orders gate day or wesley day and pray for our methodist friends our brothers and sisters in every land on this particular and very special day and give thanks for the special dimension especially in hymnody that has been the gift of the methodist church throughout the world over the years so we're going to turn now to our lesson from st matthew's gospel and we ended on saturday with the uh teaching about john the baptist that jesus was giving well i'm in chapter 11. and i'm starting to read at verse 20. then jesus began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done because they did not repent woe to you quran sin woe to you bethsaida for if the mighty works done in you had been done in tyre and sidon they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes but i tell you it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for tyre and sidon than for you and you capernaum will you be exalted to heaven you will be wrought down to hades for if the mighty works done in you had been done in sodom it would have remained until this day but i tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of sodom than for you [Music] then at that time jesus declared 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 the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and i will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for i am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy my burden is light that section particularly the last verses would count as special matthew very special matthew for they are beautiful verses first of all there's the verses of disappointment that everything that has been done for the towns around the lakeside and all that have been shared with them has not ended in them embracing the good news for themselves but then come these wonderful sentences remember matthew is writing his gospel for his own community of christians and some of the exasperation which he puts into the words of jesus may have been his exasperation for the maybe lack of enthusiasm of his own people at the magnitude of the gift that they've received but the atmosphere soon changes and we get sentences which really are part of our kit bag our knapsack are essential equipment and they're only found in the gospel of st matthew there's a wonderful grace to them let me go back once again to handel's messiahs for so many of you will know the music but i'm going to the libretto now and the way it's been chosen you'll remember how the prophecies start things off in a great way and then there's a lovely birth narrative where the angel is singing of the birth and there were shepherds abiding in the fields and you have the lovely pastoral symphony and then you go into a short passage which ends part one of messiah of the earthly human ministry of jesus how does handel do it and with the libretto given to him straight from scripture nothing but scripture in handel's messiah from charles jennings who put it all together and he does it by first of all quoting prophecy just as jesus did in the synagogue at nazaris in what so often called the nazareth manifesto quoting isaiah first chapter 35 and then chapter 40. and you will remember how an alto begins to sing a recitative then shall the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf aren't stopped then shall the lame leap like a heart and the tongue of the dumb shall sing and then he also goes into that very beautiful area he shall feed his flock like a shepherd from isaiah 40. and then with a magic stroke of music handel lifts it into the new testament by giving the second part of that aria to a soprano voice just as the angel's voice had been a soprano voice speaking to the shepherds here is the voice of the new testament the gospel and he uses the words from special matthew as we've said the sense of jesus his own words but he uses them as someone proclaiming that gospel so that throughout the first person pronoun when jesus says says come unto me are changed to the third person pronoun come unto him and the soprano sings come unto him all you that labor and are heavy laden and you shall find rest unto your souls the beautiful melody stays in our heads but there's poetry in those words as well and then finally a huge chorus breaks out to end part one of messiah his yoke is easy and his burden is light and the music is light and effervescent as part one comes to a conclusion part two will begin by showing what humanity does to the ma to the lamb of god and what the lamb of god's response in obedience to his father and to the sound this morning 116 i will fulfill my vows goes right up through the next part but this little bit of human ministry is given to us in in wonderful words and the lovely thing about the words that matthew give us gives us in this uh right at the end of the passage i read today come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and i will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for i am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for yourselves for my yoke is easy and my burden is light the word is translated easy in my translation that i'm using this morning it could be translated kindly it's saying that when the vows are shouldered then the soul finds rest in doing the will which is eternal and you will find rest under that yoke for its kindly and the lovely thing is that the word used there for kindly christos in the greek to early christians sounded very like the word for jesus himself christos it's this simple changing of one vowel and that word gives that sense when we think it's time really to to go to the lord in rest and that should happen every day but these words are the gift of matthew to us we find them nowhere else and uh i wanted to just share a moment in my own life in 1986 on this day doing dates we have some other dates we'll look at but this is a date from my own diary may the 24th and i found myself for the very first time in assisi and i had been there for oh three days i arrived on the 21st of may and at first because i'd never been there before i wandered around and and got used to the wonder of that beautiful place i was by myself i'd chosen to go on a kind of pilgrimage and to because i'd i'd in the rather gloomy and depressing winter which had begun the year in 1986 i'd read a book called god's fool about saint francis and i kept thinking i really want to go there i really want to go there and then eventually i i did and went there as a pilgrim in one way just as me exploring a place and ready to meet all kinds of people and i brought outside the cc diary because there was a special moment on may the 24th when i began to write things down and it's always lovely to go back to old journals and here we are i keep a daily journal constantly it's always a huge help to go back to what i've written here is saturday the 24th of may 1986 in assisi be praised my lord in all your creatures especially brother son who makes daytime and through him you give us light and he is beautiful radiant with great splendor and here's a sign that tells all highest of you not my words of course but the beginning of saint francis song of the creatures his canticle of the sun and then i've put that let's get these books off you're right leo down there it's rather a wet morning for you out here i've started my own account of assisi sitting on a terrace below the wall of san diego in glorious morning sunshine with two swallows chattering as they look down on me from a wire i wanted to begin to record this week from here i can see for miles and miles across the slightly misty plain to the river river torto where francis and his brothers first began to live in little huts there is no one in sight for this spot seems off the pilgrim track down steep stone steps and past the trickling fountain along the high monastery wall with little plants growing from its stones with the vegetable garden full of beans potatoes and fruit trees beyond the oak hedge with one or two rose bushes in full flower the field sloping down from me is full of olives and a vines with a fig tree amongst them and in the shaggy grass beside me grow red poppies and wild oats birds sing nearby it's the black bird who sings so beautifully i can see him now sitting on a cypress tree and in the distance is the warm noise of chickens clucking and a pheasant chucking in the woods it was on this spot 750 years ago that francis in pain and with his eyesight badly affected composed his canticle of the creatures and i can see why he chose this spot for it is as if a part of heaven had been placed on earth a veritable eden he wrote it in his native umbrian just as the everyday work of native umbria goes on around me this morning in field and farmyard and he praised sun and moon stars and winds earth water fire forgiveness and death as good and natural parts of god's creation i came here first yesterday morning and will come for an hour or so each morning and then i put a line of dots because there was an interruption and took up again probably about half an hour later i've just been interrupted for 30 minutes by a delightful french nun who has now given me her address in paris and taken my name to pray for me i had begun to say things about when we would meet in the future and everything else because our conversation was fruitful but she waved that aside and said no we will pray for each other all the rest is second class it's a wonderful statement but that vision stayed with me and when she'd gone i looked down again at the riva auto winding in the sunlight of the mornings through the fields and it is a very windy river as those of you who will know assisi um will realize and i myself at the time had been for over nine years the parish priest of a village in wiltshire called tisbury and uh when i looked at that river and knew that i needed to go home and fulfill my vows i realize that my own river rivo torto means snakey river my own river was called river nada and it it wiggles its way through the nada valley and went right through the churchyard of the church i looked after at that time and it means in the same way snakey river from the saxon the nada and uh i felt that was a sign that these gifts of assisi could be taken back with me to the place that i was at where god had called me to fulfill my vows and the future really was in his hands do you want to come down you're right you push that over there then you can come along [Music] so this morning it's good for me to remember and to share with you a memory of the 24th of may all those years ago other things have happened on this day great people have been born queen victoria was born on may the 24th in kensington palace in 1819 and she of course gave her her name to uh most of the 19th century for the united kingdom in sense of we'll say that's very victorian or this is victorian architecture or victorian poetry or dickens was a victorian novelist and the queen of course uh became queen of the united kingdom in 1837 and was queen all the way through to 1901 60 64 years that seemed a long time but our own queen is now preparing for her platinum jubilee 70 years and we give thanks for her on this morning we think also of those who have served people in authority and fulfilled in a sense their vows to them two people i just wanted to mention one is american john foster dulles who in the 1950s was the secretary of state in the eisenhower presidency and was really foreign affairs eisenhower trusted him so greatly he was a man of firm faith and that faith was given also to his family and as we give thanks for him as a a servant both of the american people and in his mind and heart and spirit of god himself because he was a very faithful christian and his daughter became a presbyterian minister and his son avery became a roman catholic jesuit and was the first american theologian to be made a cardinal and so we give thanks for john foster dallas because he was a servant of the state and on the same day a servant of the state of england was born in or rather died sorry in 1612 foster dallas died on in 1959 on this day robert cecil died in 1612 and he by then was the earl of salisbury and belonged to the cecil family which gave great political service to the state he was the one whom elizabeth the first trusted above all others as she had his father and although her heart was carried away by all kinds of people who were trying to have influence over her over her people like the earl of leicester the earl of essex or all of those she trusted the judgment first lord burley and then his son robert cecil who became the earl of salisbury and saw the state through the troublesome period when elizabeth's reign ended when she died and james the first came and james was wise enough to know once again that in trusting cecil he trusted a good servant of the state who steered a middle course between all the things which were going on in europe at that time and guarded the king from both the puritan influence and the catholic influence which was trying to push him in one direction or another and it was a a sad day when james lost the council of cecil who never had good health and who died on this day in 1612 we remember him as a great gardener and my best image of of robert cecil is in philippa gregory's books earthly joys which is the story of the tradescant father john tridescant who was here at school and also came back after he had served robert cecil at hatfield house creating a wonderful garden to create a garden for el wooten in lord wooden in the um uh place of sin augustine's monastery but that novel gives a lovely and and picture of robert cecil's loyalty to tradescant as his gardener and when prodescent is is wanting to remain faithful cecil says no go on now to and points him on in the right direction so all those things we remember on this particular day with great thanksgiving as we pray for the methodist church on this order's gate day and the day when the vows of the wesley brothers were fulfilled in so many different ways oopsie i'm trying to get the book and i've upset leo i'm going to say our prayers now for this day and we are praying on this particular day for let's have a look we're back with the parishes of kent which is a lovely thing but first of all we pray for the diocese of caledonia in the anglican church of canada and we pray for the bishop there and all the people of that diocese and here in this diocese of course we pray for archbishop justin and for bishop rose of dover and also for bishop tim at lambeth and uh we are praying for the little born benefits today that's not far away if you motor from here to sandwich then you will go through the lovely villages there are five parishes in the little born benefits and one of them of course is little born and the next is wickham brew very very beautiful indeed wingham and once again uh a a a lovely village ikem and stodmarsh and those of you who know kent every one of those is a a lovely rural community under the care of of gillian craig at the moment who is looking after that that uh set of parishes gillian came down in retirement from mary abbott's great london church in kensington but now he's got rural benefits and so we ask god's blessing on his ministry at this time and on the readers john styles and catherine harris there and the life of the schools wiccan brew cheshire of england primary school and little born church of england primary school some of the children there sing for us from time to time here in the cathedral at special services so let's say our prayers now i'm going to cheat a bit because our new liturgy gives us a collect for ordinary time for the weekdays of this week whereas the old habit was to say the colic for the day of pentecost or witsness used to be called in the prayer book every day i think it's too good iconic not to use and just to have used it once yesterday won't settle it in your minds so let's use the pentecost wit sunday collect through this week because above all else it asks for the holy spirit to give us a right judgment in all things nothing more important than that in keeping the balance of things in the garden in the state in our own lives and we ourselves are not capable without grace and the gifts of the spirit of making right judgment so let's use that connect today bring your own intentions and your own prayers that you would like to add to ours this morning 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 jesus christ our savior amen so we say the prayer in our various languages that our lord taught us to say 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 we say our own prayers [Music] the spirit of truth lead you into all truth give you grace to confess that jesus christ is lord and give you strength 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 upon those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always are men well i think that uh we're determined that meadow monday by thistle thursday will see a huge diminution of the thistles which are springing up with such life but we'll try to restore the balance of our little meadow which we've planted together so that the wildflowers can come up in profusion we'll take leo in to get his breakfast for the ground is rather damp after a night's rain you