good morning and welcome to the dinner garden on this saturday the 29th of may wherever you are in the world feel welcome in england since the 17th century this 29th of may has had the title oak apple day and i'll explain why in our reflection i'm not sitting under an oak tree this morning but the trees in this part of the garden have been planted to remind us of different friends throughout the world and this tree is a liquid amber and planted to remind us of friends in canada and the united states where these trees grow well we've had good news from canada this morning from two of our garden congregation anita and michael and they joined us early on in uh our broadcast last year and they asked for prayers for their daughter michelle who was suffering from cancer and michelle has since joined us too but this morning we've had very good news from her latest results so that's good news michelle and we continue to pray for you as we all in our garden congregation pray for those on our hearts and minds this morning far far too many to mention but heard in our prayers as we pray them silently and at the same time i wanted just to say this morning that hannah collins who's one of the unsung heroes of all this after fletcher each morning has has filmed and planned and put things together enables this by a wave of the magic wand to come online and so thank you hannah for that work but i know that you and your family today are celebrating your granny's very special birthday so happy birthday geraldine this morning and thank you hannah for the work day by day oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the day store dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night blessed are you creator of all do 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 and 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 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 29th morning of the month is psalm 139 and it's a long song but we'll read most of it now because it's a very beautiful one oh lord you have searched me out and known me you know my sitting down and my rising up you discern my thoughts from afar you mark out my journeys and my resting place and are acquainted with all my ways for there is not a word on my tongue but you o lord know it all together you encompass me behind and before and lay your hand upon me such knowledge is too wonderful for me so high that i cannot attain it where can i go then from your spirit or where can i flee from your presence if i climb up to heaven you are there if i go down into hell you are there also if i take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there your hand shall lead me your right hand hold me fast if i say surely the darkness will cover me and the light around me turn to night even darkness is no darkness with you the night is as clear as the day darkness and light to you are both alike for you yourself created my inmost parts you knit me together in my mother's womb i thank you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are your works my soul knows well my frame was not hidden from you when i was made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth your eyes beheld my form as yet unfinished already in your book were all my members written as day by day they were fashioned when as yet there was none of them how deep are your counsels to me oh god how great is the sum of them if i count them they are more in number than the sand and at the end i am still in your presence so we turn back to the gospel of saint matthew today and we are beginning chapter 13 we've ended the narrative and the second discourse and now we come to the third discourse which is quite different for matthew has grouped together a discourse of parables the teaching of jesus in parables and the chapter begins with one of the most well-loved and famous parables of all the parable of the sower verse 1 of chapter 13 that same day jesus went out of the house and sat beside the lake and great crowds gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat down and the whole crowd stood on the beach and he told them many things in parables saying a sower went out to sow and as he sowed some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil but when the sun rose they were scorched and since they had no root they withered away other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain some 100 fold some 60 some 30 whoever has ears to hear let them hear then the disciples came and said to him why do you speak to them in parables and jesus answered them to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven but to them it has not been given for to the one who has more will be given and they will have an abundance but from the one who has not even what they have will be taken away this is why i speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear nor do they understand indeed in their case the prophecy of isaiah is fulfilled that says you will indeed hear but never understand and you will indeed see but never perceive for this people's heart has grown dull and with their ears they can barely hear and their eyes they have closed lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn and i would heal them but blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear for truly i say to you many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see and did not see it and to hear what you hear and did not hear it hear then the parable of the sower when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in their heart this is what was sown along the path as for what was sown on rocky ground this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy yet they have no root in themselves but endure for a while and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word immediately they fall away as for what was sown among thorns this is the one who hears the word but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful as for what was sown on good soil this is the one who hears the word and understands it they indeed bear fruit and yield in one case a hundredfold in another 60 and in another 30. in the cathedral there are lovely 12th century stained glass windows which have survived all these years and they show the sewer going out to sow the seed and on another piece of the stained glass the various soils in which the seed fall it strikes home to the eye and to the ear and to the imagination and mental understanding and spiritual perception and the question why do you speak to them in parables is easily answered to the disciples because the last few days we've been reading the chapter about controversy and the way in which when jesus gives straightforward teaching or performs an act of healing and salvation there's no understanding amongst those who should know so much better and instead there's controversy and almost violence growing up and a sense when i say almost violence there's violence in the hearts of those who are wanting to destroy jesus that's the word that's used in matthew's gospel matthew has collected these things together and he's collected parables together and he's also given on this occasion one explanation of how this parable might be received in understanding i say one because i believe that every parable is open to constant reinterpretation as we mix them with our own lives and it's rare to give for jesus to give explanations about the parables instead he is giving pictures which cause us to look around in creation and in humanity and tune in with familiarity and think yes that's and then make the leap from mental understanding to spiritual awareness and that is done by an act of grace and reception in the gift of the new day and the gift of christ's presence among us so that to oversimplify a parable and say this means that and this means that and that means this is always to do it a fair amount of damage of course we can say that is that's rather like that and it reminds me of that but the parable is neat and finished just by itself and to be received with humility and acted upon when certain things if you think in the gospel of saint luke at the end of the parable of the good samaritan jesus says to the lawyer who's prompted the parable which of these do you think was neighbor to the one who fell among thieves and uh the lawyer you remember says the one who showed mercy and jesus says then go and do likewise there's a physical activity but at the same time we tell these stories and imagine them in different circumstances and they're easy to remember because one could tell that parable in our own way to one another because the picture and the sequence is so wonderful and probably the um rather likely the foundation parable of the man who built the house on sand and the man who built the house on rock in the summer on the mount the simple message of this parable is there will be no fruitfulness without strong roots reaching down and gradually taking in spiritual refreshment as we come together and also during the day to suddenly have moments of awareness so that those roots are watered and the tree can grow strong and tall and then begin to be fruitful and not mind the storms and cares of the world because there is depth in the root that seems to me to be the message of this parable that the interpretation can come in a million different ways from those who are receiving it and receiving it day by day jesus is very clear about why he's giving it and clear also about how he wants the people to turn and be saved but the ears are dull and that sight is blind when he simply gives straightforward teaching the parables are a light shined on the quality of the kingdom of heaven now and into eternity so we give thanks for them and the ability in which our minds find pictures easy to remember let's look at the dates for today i'm spoiled for choice today on the 29th of may but i said i'd say why it's called oak apple day and the reason is that on this day king charles ii the son of the executed charles the first who himself had been um had celebrated their marriage in the cathedral church here charles the first and henrietta maria that had been executed in the year 1649 and charles ii after one last struggle at the battle of worcester had gone into exile and after the battle of worcester he had saved himself by hiding in an oak tree and then on this day the 29th of may he was received it was his birthday he was received in 1660 11 years after the execution of his father as king of england in london and he had come from canterbury because a few days before he landed here with those who were supporting him he'd been invited back across by those who remained in parliament and by by the armies of the protector as had been to come and be king of england and first of all he came and said his prayers here in canterbury cathedral in thanksgiving for his mother and father mother still alive his father executed and at the same time he held his privy council here but spent his first night of king as king of england here in canterbury and we give thanks for that and the day is called oak apple day because of that sense of him being protected by the oak tree when they were searching for him after the last battle of worcester and that had been oh 10 years or so before so um we think of of that on this day and give thanks for our queen elizabeth on this day as well there are other dates on this day uh in 1453 on may the 29th the city of constantinople fell to the ottoman empire and the eastern roman empire ceased to exist shock waves went right across christendom in western europe it was a terrible thing that this city had fallen for them but it wasn't going to end there because of course the the ottoman empire eventually not too long afterwards reached the gates of vienna itself and all of that we remember on this particular day we can't do too much tickling here because i've got to lean too far forward um i brought out actually emma bridgewater's lovely mug of istanbul and there is the city of istanbul set on the mug for this morning but we give thanks for that byzantine empire which lasted all these years and i always think if you want to get a flavor of that that creativity of the way in which the the greek culture and its art moved into the byzantine empire and all those years over a thousand years of empire from constantine through to this last day in 1453 when the city fell you go to venice and when you go to venice and you go up on to the balcony of saint mark's to start with i think we lasted that about five years ago a bit more maybe and stood beside those horses which are there first of all that's a sign because those horses originally came from constantinople but not those that are standing there now they're exact copies made in the early 80s because those which had come from classical times and there's sort of a little bit of of uh disagreement among scholars about how early they are some put them into bc some bring them into the second century of but but i think that you have to go to the little exhibition area inside synth marks and there are the four original horses and they speak of the life of those creatures each one totally distinct in an amazing way and of all the scholarship and art and life of that byzantine byzantine empire and i give thanks for that but what happened when constantinople fell was that much greek scholarship of the early church was brought over to western europe and it fed into the renaissance but it also fed into christian scholarship because it was a very latin scholarship before and from this moment onwards the injection of the earlier greek comes back into western christendom in a big way so we're sad for the fall of constantinople but give thanks for that different life stream which came in at that time and then that was 1453 on this day in 1982 the 29th of may pope john paul ii visited canterbury it was the first time a pope had visited england since the reformation there had been no papal visit here and john paul ii we know was an inveterate traveler and he came first when he came to england here to canterbury it was a pastoral visit here and he came and what he wanted to do was to kneel at the shrine of saint thomas and then to kneel at the point of martyrdom of thomas beckett and he did that with archbishop robert ranci on this day and they both lit candles for modern martyrs the pope for uh the uh martial maximilian kolber who'd given his life for another at auschwitz and the archbishop for the martyred archbishop of uganda janani the womb and as those candles were lit there was a candle flame of hope for the unity of christendom which i don't know when it will come but we pray for that unity day by day also the pope received into his hands those gospels which augustine had brought with him the gospels with their lovely illustrations of the pictures of all that's going on in those gospels and we remember that day i can't forget it because on the base of the statue of our lady of canterbury which had been recreated the former one had been stolen had been recreated and put in place is this date the day it was dedicated in the crypt the virgin holding the child out to us in the chapel of our lady undercroft has underneath 29th of may 1982 and we give thanks for that day still and then i want to talk about two characters both of whom were born on this day the first is t.h white who was born in 1906 he was an extraordinary and reclusive figure for i think six years he taught at stowe school but essentially he was someone who created when he was alone and his imagination when he was alone in green places like this throughout the second world war in ireland but before that in just a simple cottage where he wanted to be alone he gave us a quartet of stories which i remember reading with fascination and the whole quartet is given the title the once and future king which of course speaks of king arthur the legendary figure who one day will return to come back and save the nation and uh he picks up the stories of mallory not knowing he was going to do that and they had been written out of course the arthurian legends tennyson had had picked them up and written them out in poetry in all sorts of ways t.h.y does it in the most amusing and wonderful way and of course the most famous of them all is the first one which he wrote in 1938 the sword in the stone and in that story if you remember you've got the young arthur who is nick named by um kay who's the the the noble child he's growing up with and they're being educated together by kay's father and he's nicknamed the wart and jk rowling says that the wart is actually the inspiration for her figure of harry potter a shadowy sort of inspiration in the background but the water is educated by merlin who is living there as the sort of resident uh um wizard and school master at the the castle of of sirkay's father and um the amazing thing is that merlin is living through time backwards and so he's already done the future and is going past and he his time crosses at that point of course there's the disney film uh the sword in the stone which does a bit of that but what he does is teaches arthur by changing him into different creatures say this morning he'd change him into a piglet so that he would know what was going on in the companionship and minds of the piglets and he changes him into a fish and he changes in him into a a a hawk and arthur suddenly finds himself in a great danger in the in the amongst the hawks which are used for hunting there and it really spoke of t.h white's fascination with creatures and nature he tried once to tame a gosh hawk and the sword in the stone began that that sequence it goes on with the queen of air and darkness published in 1939 the candle in the wind sorry the ill-made knight published in 1940 then a long gap and 18 years later the candle in the wind when the whole quartet was published together i remember reading that ages ago and just not wanting the quartet to finish as i was reading it i was actually in spain in mahaka in really southern spain and then in granada and so when i read the book now i have images of the generalife palace in granada in that early may of 1984 with the snow still around but down below in the lovely henrife gardens there the fountains playing and oranges on the trees and the sweet scent of orange blossom that you get at that point it was at a time when the motorway didn't reach down that far in spain there was a little bit one way coming from gibraltar there was a bit coming down from barcelona but mahaka and its old moorish town was beyond that and the journey was a long one but it was a lovely one and i have um memories of of sitting there looking at the mediterranean sea but having these stories of arthur and his knights in the way that t.h white tells the story and i give thanks for them white lived long enough to see the disney film and also the musical camelot which was made with the inspiration from that particular story so um we give thanks for that and the way in which th knight a th white in all his reclusive nature and all his troubled life in a way he but he gave us those wonderfully light stories which are full of depths of meaning they're parabolic if you like and then lastly 1874 gk chesterton was born the great finally catholic scholar he became a roman catholic late in life but she he always in his angular catholicism in the as a member of the church of england had been someone who was holding the banner high for the christian faith and i suppose we know him best for his father brown stories which are once again detective puzzles with a deeper meaning on the way through but she was known too in the in the um years just before his his death for four years or so he broadcast on the bbc about 40 little broadcasts every year just speaking to people and he's also known and i remember this hymn as one that we used to sing at school a great deal and it would puzzle me a bit but his imagery is very strong it doesn't puzzle me so much now here it is this is chesterton and it's a fine hem oh god of earth and altar bow down and hear our cry our earthly rulers falter our people drift and die the walls of gold in tumus thus the swords of scorn divide take not thy thunder from us but take away our pride from all that terror teaches from lies of tongue and pen from all the easy speeches that comfort cruel men from sale and profanation of honor and the sword from sleep and from damnation deliver us good lord tie in a living tether the prince and priest and thrall bind all our lives together smite us and save us all in ire and exaltation a flame with faith and free lift up a living nation a single sword to thee he had a great way with words and that him makes a wonderful prayer at this time as we think of g k chesterton and his writing and works let's say our prayers on this particular day this oak apple day of may the 29th we're praying today in the anglican communion for the diocese of el camino real and that is in the episcopal church of the united states right over on the west coast and uh we pray too of course for archbishop dustin for bishop rose of dover and bishop tim at lambeth and we pray for the recover area deanery so all the villages around recover we're playing today for all those who act as chaplains to organizations in that area of kent as we say our prayers so bring your own concerns and we say our morning prayer together and this the last day that we shall use this particular colleague 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 jesus christ our lord amen so we say 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 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 for your own prayers the spirit of truth lead you into all truth give you grace to confess that jesus christ is lord and strengthen you 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 if merlin turned me into one of these i would learn many lessons that were different from the lessons i shall be learning today but it does teach us that we have to enter into the spirit of things totally as the parables do in order to gain the real lessons let's go gently if you're a little creature with a big one like me around it's very alarming [Music] where's your mummy gone [Music] oh here she is clemmy come on come on piglets come on come on come on well cami you must be a proud mummy this morning