good morning and welcome to the deanery at canterbury cathedral we are actually inside the deanery today because it's rather wet outside but we thought we'd come into this little room which is called the pet room to us it's a kind of not only a breeding area but also a and a sanatorium for those who need a little bit of tender care sometimes that that tender care has to go on for some years and there is on my left here uh a little siskin who can't fly and so was brought in here and the fire finch and they actually have chummed up and are having a very happy life so for the last four years they've been a happy couple because uh she is unable to be outside at all so this is a day when our lesson will give us a sense of the fragility of our human state but also of new life and of death and we think of both in this particular room particularly new life somebody wrote an email reminding me that i'd said and that the email came recently but i must have said it about a year ago describing the end of the academic year when i was a parish priest at the little church of england primary school that we had there how i used to make the children stand up to say goodbye to those who are leaving and all to shout out every end is a new beginning well that's very much the theme for this day we've got chicks here who have all been hatched they're a variety of chicks i'm i'm holding one in my hand it's a silky hen but uh down on the the ground here in their little enclosure as they have their breakfast we've got um pheasants and hens and quail and all kinds of different varieties of hens which will lay lovely different colored eggs as well but what we want to see this morning is how fragile they are and how much protection they need and will get and so this is a room of new life and also new beginnings i'm going to bring this little chat in here it causes us to remember two of our dearest friends who have died very recently i mentioned graeme sinclair who'd been head of drama here at kings only a day or two ago and sadly graham passed away yesterday and we think of his wife charlotte and his two boys on this particular day and we give enormous thanks not only for his gifts and skills but the courage and faithfulness and also cheerfulness he showed to us all during what became years of illness and now his his passing is a great loss to us but at the same time we lost another friend tony pratt recently and his wife marianne we think of this morning we give thanks for tony who was the city auctioneer and he was an absolute expert at any uh kind of valuable artifact and so was hugely helpful to us but also a great supporter of the cathedral and as a character himself and he and marianne together were tremendous friends to have so we give thanks for them a day of giving thanks but also a day when we remember that our gospel is one of new life from the uh giving of our lord's own life so we're in death a new life as we say our prayers i'm going to put this little chat back so he can go there and we can begin to say our prayers on this friday morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the true the only light banish all darkness from our hearts and minds 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 refreshed 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 does 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 psalm this morning on this 25th morning of the month is a section of the long psalm 119. i'm starting at verse 33 and reading that section teach me o lord the way of your statutes and i shall keep it to the end give me understanding and i shall keep your law i shall keep it with my whole heart lead me in the path of your commandments for therein is my delight incline my heart to your testimonies and not to unjust gain turn away my eyes let's say gaze on vanities oh give me life in your ways confirm to your servant your promise which stands for all who fear you turn away the reproach which i dread because your judgments are good behold i long for your commandments in your righteousness give me life so we turn to um reading from matthew's gospel which we interrupted yesterday for the feast of sin john the baptist and we come back to the distinctive quality of matthew just as yesterday we were with the distinctive quality of luke here then i'm starting in chapter 19 with verse 13 and have the fragility of the chicks in mind as you hear this then little children were brought to jesus so that he may lay his hands on them and bless them the disciples rebuked the people but jesus said let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven and he laid his hands on them and then went away and behold a man came up to him saying teacher what good deed must i do to have eternal life and he said to him why do you ask me about what is good there is only one who is good if you would enter life keep the commandments the young man said to him which ones jesus said you shall not murder you shall not commit adultery you shall not steal you shall not bear false witness honor your father and mother and you shall love your neighbor as yourself the young man said to him all these i have kept what do i still lack jesus said to him if you would be perfect go sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven come and follow me but when the young man heard this he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions and jesus said to his disciples truly i say to you only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven [Music] again i tell you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of god when the disciples had this they were greatly astonished saying who then can be saved but jesus looked at them and said with man this is impossible but with god all things are possible and peter said in reply see we have left everything and followed you what then will we have jesus said to them truly i say to you in the new world when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of israel and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for my name's sake will receive a hundred filled and will inherit eternal life but many who are first will be last and the last first the sting is in the tail and we start with those who supposedly would be last the little children whom the disciples with all their concern for jesus is tiredness energy humanity seriousness whatever send the mothers away and say take them away the master can't be bothered and it's jesus who says no let the little children come because the kingdom of heaven belongs to such disease he's already told them that by putting the shall we say the innkeepers child in front of them when they've stopped off at wherever they were stopping on their way to jerusalem and said to them here is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven unless you turn around and become like children like frail children whose eyes are wide open to new experience as well unless you turn around and become like one of these you can't even enter the kingdom of heaven because your hearts and minds imaginations and worldly cares will not allow you to grasp it because it's a grasping which needs first the spiritual dimension which is able to dream and reach beyond itself and the children are full of that to dream and and have a world of imagination around them adults tend to begin to lose the opportunity to have that because of all the cares fostered upon them and instantly we have this image of the young man coming forward it's clear to me that the young man is wanting to be a disciple he sees the group around jesus and to be a disciple is a very very special vocation indeed it means having nothing else to get in the way and this young man has plenty else to get in the way because he's a person with many possessions and so when jesus says you need to rid yourself of all of that go and sell them and give them to the poor and come and follow me be free to do that even here and now enter the kingdom now in that particular location which is obviously your calling because in keeping the law you don't find satisfaction there's something else you're yearning for this is particular everything is particular particular to the young man and the young man knows he can't do that he has responsibilities and duties and can be perfectly following a vocation of that kind jesus never asked mary and martha and lazarus to leave everything and follow him he's actually looking into the young man's eyes and seeing what deep deep inside him the young man wants the young man goes away heavy hearted and jesus says it's going to be very difficult for any with possessions to enter the kingdom of heaven here and now because they don't have freedom and therefore it's extra hard work to to fulfill god's will when you're trammelled with possessions and uh the disciples who've always been brought up to know that if someone is really blessed and full of riches and and clearly god is on their side and they're the good ones to look up to and we've been reading the book of job in our matins recently in the cathedral and the whole message of that book is that that's not how it is that in this life the opportunity to embrace a particular calling can come suddenly in a a very different direction and job is sitting with the loss of everything and still showing faithfulness but his comforters are saying sure you must have done something wrong for god to treat you like this which is not part of the human divine spiritual equation and here we have it set up we'll have it set out again tomorrow in a parable that jesus tells but notice when jesus says to them it the the great exaggeration easier to for a camel to go through the island needle than someone with so much responsibility to cast their mind free of that and find the freedom to enter the kingdom of heaven here and now the time may come when another vocation will open itself up and we pray so for that young man but for the moment he's being used as an image rather like the chicks um who are tending towards the other side of the cage because of the heat lamp because i've got a door open behind me and we'll close that door when we uh stop our broadcast in a moment um and then peter ups and says and the disciples really do keep putting their foot in it so we've done that what's in it for us and jesus gives them a a response that they're wanting to hear and then at the end but be aware that the first may find themselves last and the last may find themselves first so that they then are struck with with the paradox of how things go forward and where the ability to find that divine spark that new life within oneself and within others actually comes from and it's an unexpected gift of god in your own life and in the life of others and when that comes then we suddenly find ourselves in a position where we can show people jesus in a particular way just as the greeks in the temple said to philip so we want to see jesus well all of us will find that we've seen jesus in so many different situations and many of them have been in sorrow and pain and even in the ending of life by someone who is so encouraging to us to find that spiritual dimension and giving it to us by their vulnerability their weakness their pain as well as by their confidence and i certainly said at the beginning how much graham sinclair had given us in cheerfulness and unrealistic optimism for life but an embracing of the totality of himself and the situation so we give thanks for so many you will be thinking of many as i say this uh let's say our prayers then tomorrow that theme continues with the parable but for the moment let's think of some dates first because that's our normal practice say we'll do that and these are dates which just connect a little either with our situation or with the theme that we've been holding in 1348 on this day june the 25th a ship moored at malcolm regis in dorset and a sailor stepping off that ship brought the black death to england it had been raging that virulent bubonic plague had come from the east and come through europe and on this day records show that the first case was registered with that ship mooring that endorse it just one person and more than half the population of this land would lose their life in that massive pandemic england in those days had a population of about 6 million and more than half of those would die perhaps even a bigger percentage because records are being challenged all the time but the numbers have gone up rather than down the the the nation was devastated the workforce was devastated whole communities disappeared the the sense of keeping oneself isolated and the total inability of medical care to help it does it's good to put this pandemic in perspective to remember occasions like that black death they called it um or the great mortality was another phrase used about it and the middle of the 14th century suddenly took a completely different turn so we remember that devastating beginning but we remember without the resources that we have now both what it would have been like but also the recovery which took many many years to affect 1646 on this day here in this land the surrender of the city of oxford to the roundhead forces meant that the most of the fighting of the english civil war was over it's three years before king charles was executed but in 1646 oxford was surrendered on the 25th of june and then uh something else that um you won't be surprised to be mentioning on in 1891 in the strand magazine the first episode of a sherlock holmes story was published and i want not to discuss the sherlock holmes of the detective stories i want to discuss the way in which people would then wait one month for the next episode and one month for the next one anticipation in terms of series was something all well known to us in radio series in television series but it's much less so now because normally you can what they say binge watch everything and have no anticipation say i'm going to watch this whole series and go right through fast i want to speak up for anticipation and the way to let new things settle down and be ready for the next episode i don't just mean in drama i mean anticipation is one of the delights of our life and the rhythmic delights and there is a tendency now to think i i can have everything now and even the embracing of the kingdom of heaven in our reflection is something which is being unfolded gradually but then maybe a special day or a special moment or a special person comes which unfolds something in a strange and unexpected situation and the last one is 1967 when on this particular day 350 million people watched their television in 26 nations for the first satellite hookup that number has never been exceeded even today 350 million and what was the recording it was the beatles recording all you need is love at abbey road it was a two-hour event and it had 10 000 technicians producers and translators involved and was hailed as a great triumph well now we might sort of shrug our shoulders at the way in which we connect in those days it was a tremendous wonder that those 26 nations by satellite and at the same time could be watching a television program and i don't think any of us can quarrel with the title of the beatles song for the right kind of message to give all you need is love and 350 million people on this day in 1967 heard that message loud and clear so here in company with the chicks and uh this is siskin and mr firefinch we will say our prayers together on this friday morning a morning of new life as well as thanksgiving for those who've passed on to that greater dimension of new life we're thinking today of course for our of our archbishop justin and in this diocese for the parish church at ramsgate christchurch ramsgate my sense is that that is still a vacancy and say we pray for wisdom for those full filling that that position of ministry and pray for the community there and in the anglican communion we pray today for the diocese of clocker in the church of ireland in the armar province want to think today also of our friends in canada when when the situation where the situation of the unmarked graves has now taken another turn of great seriousness and i know there will be sadness and sorrow in that community so we think of them and we also think of any friends in miami in florida after the collapse of that great building again the frailty of human life and the way we must look after each other's welfare so carefully let's say the prayer for today if i find the right prayer still on the prayer from yesterday for john the baptist here we are this is our prayer for this week almighty god you have broken the tyranny of sin and have sent the spirit of your son into our hearts whereby we call you father give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service that we and all creation may be brought to the glorious liberty of the children of god through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language and in our own way we say 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 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