at the moment it's being wet outside there's one of you that won't mind that at all and that's you ducky good morning and welcome this is a a wet morning there's one character here by me who's not minding that at all but we are actually under cover because there's some fine shall we call it gardner's rain though we think of it as good welsh rain falling gently all the time quite heavily and it's been raining some long time so we've come under a different sort of cover this morning with uh folks that you've not met for a bit because they've been under a different kind of shelter and they're waiting now to go outside and and um we are waiting for the days when uh we can let them out yesterday we were with the turkeys so i didn't want them to be jealous so today we're with the guinea fowl and with russell and his wives and with ducky and i'm taking a bit of a risk because ducky's pond is beside me and the last time we tried this i was baptized by ducky in the middle of things but maybe if i give them some breakfast they will enjoy that and she will be a little bit uh less flighty i'm going to just sort of throw some corn and things around for them and then they can have a a good time with their breakfast while we're saying our morning prayers and there we are oops russell sorry putting it all over you here we are okay [Music] i'm down here we are okay and spread it out so everyone gets some put a little bit in the pond because doc duckie likes that she can fish that out there we are that's the last i'm sure you'll make the most of it there we go this morning a very still day no wind at all and uh quite warm really after the weather we've been having so welcome wherever you are across the world on this 16th of march it's quite an anniversary because one year ago today exactly we sang our last coral even song in choir it was that the last sort of throw of the old normal shall we say and we've not been able to do that at all since so much of the time has been in lockdown but when we were out of lockdown the social distancing and schools being away and everything else meant we were either using the knave or having no choir there at all i didn't think on this day we realized this was going to be the very last time that coral even song will be sung in choir in the old way and i have no idea when that will happen again but thankfully we are able to sing choral even song at the right distances in the nave again because the schools are back and will be with us across easter the choruses so we'll have some music for you i wanted to say also that uh during easter the three hours which i shall be taking we are going to pre-record outside and pick up many of the themes that we've been thinking of as a garden congregation through the year as we meditate on that day during the three hours the cathedral church itself will be open for private prayer during those hours twelve till three and of course because the thing is pre-recorded the programs pre-recorded you can watch them and reflect on them when you would like to on good friday and the days which follow so have that in mind yesterday we had the most uh fascinating day a lovely day it was a day of sunshine once some cloud bursts had stopped early on but we had a friend here and i'm going to say only a little bit about this and not give the game away um because fletcher had an idea for an installation of the friend's work he's a potter uh and i was reminded of it when this morning in matins in the cathedral we had uh the first lesson because we read both the old testament and new at matthew's in the cathedral and the the lesson was from jeremiah 18 and it begins with jeremiah's image of the potter i went down to the potter shop and he says and and watched him casting a pot and he watches how his hands create the pot and then become dissatisfied with what the pot is becoming and so squash them together and begin to make another pot and he uses that of images of the creator's pleasure or not and the creator's ability to do what he likes with the pots that he is casting with the clay which he is fashioning well there's a lovely installation now which was responsive to the sunlight which has been placed in one of the chapels and we had a wonderful day uh creating that with the creator uh who had cast the the pots and had the imagination as fletcher filmed it and so you all have the opportunity when we discuss all of that to enjoy the same kind of pleasure i wanted to say on his behalf that his his phone is not working at the moment and for the last four days he's been rather down about that but uh wanted uh friends to know that this morning and uh so the the day gave up a lift to our spirits and it reminded me of the time when another idea of his uh the the great glass exhibition which took uh took its form in the nave many of you will remember it that the especially the 100 clear vessels which uh philip baldwin and monica gugersberg had created and the the imagination for that came from him and and then we put it together for our 2018 centenary of the end of the of the great war and it became a big feature at that time these creative things lift morale for us all and hopefully you're finding creative things to do um not only with our little sprigs that we pick in body mind and spirit from these garden congregation prayers in the mornings but also in other aspects of life during this time as we wait as these do for release from being shut away but it's good to be here with russell and and the gang again this morning well let's say our prayers on this particular morning of march the 16th oh lord open our lips and our mouths shall proclaim your praise hear our voice o 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 and as 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 16th morning of the month is psalm 80. here o shepherd of israel you that led joseph like a flock shine forth you that are enthroned upon the cherubim before ephraim benjamin and manasseh stir up your mighty strength and come to our salvation turn us again o god show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved oh lord god of hosts how long will you be angry at your people's prayer you feed them with the bread of tears you give them abundance of tears to drink you have made us the derision of our neighbors and our enemies laugh us to scorn turn us again o god of hosts show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved you brought a vine out of egypt you drove out the nations and planted it you made room around it and when it had taken root it filled the land the hills were covered with its shadow and the cedars of god by its boughs it stretched out its branches to the sea and its tendrils to the river why then have you broken down its wall so that all who pass by pluck off its grapes the wild boar out of the wood tears it off and all the insects of the field devour it turn again oh god of hosts look down from heaven and behold cherish this vine which your right hand has planted and the branch that you made so strong for yourself let those who burnt it with fire who cut it down perish at the rebuke of your countenance let your hand be upon the man at your right hand the son of man you made so strong for yourself and so will we not go back from you give us life and we shall call upon your name turn us again o lord god of hosts show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved two wonderful picture images in that psalm for this 16th morning shepherd of israel and the son of man made so strong for the pleasure of the creator well let's uh turn then to our own prayers and first of all to the lesson that we read from st john's gospel this morning we've arrived at chapter 10 and there's no introduction to chapter 10 the the evangelist doesn't actually say jesus was here jesus is that chapter 10 begins as a continuity of chapter nine but we are being given many pictures so we ourselves can decide where jesus is and to whom he is speaking and so we simply usually preface chapter 10 by saying jesus said and then continue we imagine he is still in jerusalem in the evangelist's imagination jesus said truly truly i say to you the one who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way that one is a thief and a robber but the one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep to that one the gatekeeper opens the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out when he has brought out all his own he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they know his voice a stranger they will not follow but they will flee from him for they do not know the voice of strangers this figure of speech jesus used with them but they did not understand what he was saying to them so jesus again said to them truly truly i say to you i am the door of the sheep all who come before me are thieves and robbers but the sheep did not listen to them i am the door if anyone enters by me they will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy i came that they may have life and have it abundantly i can never read john chapter 10 verse 10 and forgive me if i've said it before but i haven't said it for a while but i can't read that verse i came that they may have life and have it more abundantly without thinking of my good friend john oliver who was bishop of hereford all the time i was dean of hereford during my nine years his episcopal lasted longer and he was there when i arrived and was there when i left but at confirmations and it was a very rural uh diocese hereford full of farmers and people working on the land right over in the west against the welsh border and indeed some of the parishes in the hereford diocese are actually in wales and he would always at confirmations say to his candidates i want you to remember one thing the two numbers 10 10 and he would remind them that that was a a fizzy drink that they enjoyed uh drinking a something you could pick up and and fruit flavored and the the children knew that 10 10 then he said if you look up saint john's gospel 10 10 you will find that the whole of the gift that i am wanting to give you in confirmation and also throughout your life that jesus brings i have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly and he would say also so when you see me wherever uh walking through the streets of your villages or uh coming into agricultural shows or into your schools that just push my arm and say bishop 10 10. it's funny how i've always remembered that but it's the way that we do remember things and it's a lovely thing to remember i have come that they may have life and have it in full abundance it's the gift that jesus is longing to give but he is now using pictures in order to give that message nothing that the prophets didn't do i talked about jeremiah's 18 picture of going down to the potter's shot and watching the potter's hands with the wheel form the clay and then being dissatisfied with what is forming and the clay then being made again into some other vessel which the creator finds more satisfactory and pleasing and then so many pictures of that sort the picture of jeremiah watching his supper cook and having imaginings and prophecies of what's going to happen to his people or seeing an almond tree in early blossom or seeing the basket of of ripe figs all of those things the prophets were always using pictures of things around us and now here's jesus doing the same and the image changes the two images uh this morning and the first little um image about sheep following their shepherd it's a good image because of course it's not the shepherd driving the sheep that could be done by force or by some way of driving the sheep in front it's not that at all the sheep aren't choosing to follow because they know the voice any of you who keep creatures will know that that's the case that you can have special calls for and and they will come um our little black and white cat lily is really fletcher's cat and whenever he wants her there's a special call that he can give it's a a whistle from um ennio morricone's score of the mission the film the mission you'll remember how jeremy irons takes an oboe right at the beginning of that that film if you know it and when those that she is visiting are suspicious of him and they gather round the indigenous peoples there who have been dangerous to visitors in the past he takes out his oboe and father gabriel he is he plays a tomb which is being called gabriel's oboe well i say that because if fetcher wants lily particularly in the house and no idea where she is if he whistles can i do it she will appear and she will come if i do it she doesn't come if he does it she comes and i was the same with monkey who sadly died a few weeks ago as you know but i needed only to whistle and say monkey and monkey across the garden even at night his form would run across the lawn but in the house he'd be there in an instant and had a little call that he gave back which we always used to say sounded like a telephone noise because there was a sort of to it quite gentle but these calls show that when a voice is trusted then the creature follows really important that in terms of the way that we imagine the voice of jesus calling us and this image of the sheep the shepherd of the sheep in the psalmist goes back to david the shepherd king here o shepherd of israel our son began this morning and that sense of the shepherd is the the first image come back to that this morning and tomorrow morning but this morning we go on to another image where jesus says i am the door and that's a really powerful image a really powerful image indeed and the pictures and the things that we experience become somehow more memorable than words but they could be the clue to words rather like uh bishop john oliver's a bottle of 1010 being a sign of for the children of the sentence he wanted them to remember i have come that they may have life and have it in abundance if i look if i look at the the dates this morning of things that are important in the past uh march the 16th of the time when uh the things come together and just making sure that everyone is peaceful here and we've come across in 1881 the fact that the composer modest muzorski died now he was known for many of his compositions night on a bald mountain which appears in fantasia but at the same time he was known for pictures in an exhibition and in musical terms which later he wrote them as piano pieces and later ravel orchestrated them but we know them and the titles of the pictures and the music help us to see an image in his mind now with the great i am statements is giving us an exhibition of pictures that are going on and we keep those easily sorry we've got we've got a little bit of contested um testosterone going on here this morning after breakfast this tends to happen but we can't uh we can't go around that so i wanted also this morning to say that uh on this day in uh the ad 37 the emperor tiberius caesar augustus died now he's not the first emperor that rome had we saw yesterday when julius caesar died his chosen heir octavius became caesar augustus and that's the one that luke mentions first in his gospel when jesus is born but the second emperor that luke mentions when jesus ministry began is tiberius and tiberius was a a leader who had been a brilliant general and then because it didn't please him at that level to be the emperor gradually his interest waned and at the end of his reign he'd gone across to really retire to capri and many many years of that leaving people who were not suitable to be leading rome in charge the bad leadership and also weak leadership from tiberius which resulted in cruel actions against those he's left in charge because leaders never really want to take the blame they want good news and good morale if they're bad leaders and so they will step in when someone's had some success and take it over uh or else they'll cruelly get rid of someone and kick them under a bus and come forward as the one who only has good ideas well tiberius really not a good leader and there's a sense throughout history of leaders who are like that weak leaders who don't take responsibility for the the whole flock of sheep that they are really in charge of and trying to lead but the image that jesus gives us this morning and will give us again tomorrow in a much more powerful way the call of the shepherds being known by the sheep and the sheep because they trust the voice come to the call each morning we as a garden congregation listen to the voice of jesus in scripture but through the day we hear that voice in our own minds and in our spiritual yearnings and imaginations but also in the activity of one another sometimes those that we're called to take responsibility for and who are most vulnerable on this particular morning maybe in your life because of the lockdown or for other reasons so take courage from these images that jesus gives us like pictures in an exhibition which mazorsky himself uses and think of that on this particular day as we take shelter with our friends here who are becoming rather noisy and active at the moment so let's say our prayers together on this day and um enjoy the rain around us maybe tomorrow we can be outside properly again 16th of march and we are praying in the anglican communion for the diocese of argo and aninri in the church of nigeria and the enugu province so we think of the people there and pray for their bishop and then in this diocese we pray for archbishop justin and for bishop rose of dover and also of for of bishop tim at lambeth but today the parish of folkestone saint mary's and ian swithens and savior and john walker in his ministry there and all his people say the prayer for this week the fourth sunday of lent and the days following bring your own intentions and concerns on this morning and have pictures in your mind which encourage you and never forget 10 10 life in all its abundance 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 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 test us against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory for ever and ever are men a moment of interrupt in silence probably with the bad surroundings and the cry of the morning coming from the cockles but for your own prayers 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 on this day and always are men now the one person who's behaved really well this morning with me standing beside this great bath of water is ducky she can now come and to her heart's content ah