[Music] good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this sunday the 17th of october it's a still autumn morning and we've taken the opportunity to just come behind the greenhouses to show you how this beautiful virginia creeper is beginning to turn wonderful color of the autumn as it goes from its normal green into reds and golds and it's covering these walls here behind the greenhouse so i'm sitting in a fairly constrained place no wide-angle shots this morning but you do see how the seasons are advancing and the autumn is coming on on this beautiful morning completely still and with a thin veiling very thin veiling but still showing the blue blue sky wherever you are in the world please feel welcome and bring your concerns we continue following the murder of sir david amis to pray for the safety of all political and religious leaders leaders of any kind who take their service seriously and go without protection to talk to people informally and we remember that in our prayers this morning and you will think of situations in your own cultures and countries of that kind but at the same time we remember 17 american missionaries who've been kidnapped in haiti this morning the news has just come through so we think of them and those trying to discover where they are and how to keep them safe and release them so let's on this autumn morning say our prayers bring your own concerns as i said as we begin our sunday prayers oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise bless the lord all your works of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you heavens sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you angels of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord all people on earth sing his praise and exalt him forever o people of god bless the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you priests of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you servants of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord all you of upright spirit bless the lord you that are holy and humble in heart bless the father the son and the holy spirit sing his praise and exalt him 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 so god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this morning of the month the 17th morning of the month is psalm 87 her foundation is on the holy mountains the lord loves the gates of zion more than all the dwellings of jacob glorious things are spoken of you zion city of our god i record egypt and babylon as those who know me behold philistia tyre and ethiopia in zion were they born and of zion it shall be said each one was born in her and the most high himself has established her the lord will record as he writes up the peoples this one also was born there and as they dance they shall sing all my fresh springs are in you a beautiful psalm and speaking of that holy city in the eternal sense of the way in which communities on earth can reflect communities in heaven and cities on earth with the right qualities of care for their people can reflect the eternal values of the kingdom of heaven and the holy city new jerusalem so we've come to read our lesson on this particular day and of course it's sunday so we've left the book of exodus and we've taken the lesson our lectionary gives us for a sunday morning for morning prayer and it's taken from the 13th chapter of the gospel of saint luke i'm reading from verse 31 at that very hour some pharisees came and said to jesus get away from here for king herd wants to kill you and jesus said to them go and tell that fox behold i cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow and the third day i finished my course nevertheless i must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from jerusalem o jerusalem jerusalem the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it how often would i have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing behold your house is forsaken and i tell you you will not see me until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord i had no idea when we were in the greenhouse with the newly born chicks and we were looking at them running around with the um slightly older uh poults that the newly born turkeys they are in there in the greenhouse i had no idea that this lesson was about to come up as the sunday lesson i mentioned the fact that our lord said how often have i longed to gather you jerusalem he's talking about as he always weeps over it how often have i longed to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you would not well we spent some time reflecting on that and watching our lovely i call her grey she's more of a lavender hen as her little chicks are a lavender color some of them i think three of them and then the black one and the patterned round one and she would sit down as you saw and gather them under her wings as though that was mighty protection certainly it's comfort and the sense of protection for the chicks but jesus here is speaking not looking at the city of jerusalem he is clearly still in the territory of king herod and pharisees are saying to him and they seem to be sympathetic pharisees get away from here for king herod is out to get you and jesus says uh go and tell that fox he uses a a name of a a predator uh go and tell that fox that uh i'm doing i'm looking after the sick and and performing cures to today and tomorrow and the third day but i must be on my way because it's in jerusalem that my vocation and destiny will find itself and so we are actually i think still in galilee at this point but it's apt in another way too because we are in luke's gospel and this is the eve of st luke's day the 18th of october is the feast of st luke the evangelist the writer that last year we went right through his gospel and his second volume the acts of the apostles and it was it was good doing it in the summertime it was a beautiful summer last year if you remember as the the pandemic was on total lockdown and we found ourselves in the garden and readings in luke day by day was a lovely thing to do because he's almost the best one at describing beautiful situations and often he describes them as jesus tells them as the parables now in chapter 13 there are parables all round there's the parable of the baron fig tree and the parable of the mustard seed the parable of the leaven of the woman mixing the dough in her kitchen and adding leaven the parable of the narrow door the parable of the mother hen which we've spoken about and then after that as one enters the next chapter we have the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin and the lost son normally we call it the prodigal son just ordinary stories from which jesus is taking lessons for the kingdom of heaven and the values of the kingdom of heaven here and now but what is important also is the way in which he suggests that very little is needed not much equipment the story of the rich young ruler coming up to him and saying lord what must i do to be saved and jesus gives him the law and he says yes everything i've kept since my youth and jesus looking at him loves him and says if you really want to come and be on the inferences one of these looking around at the disciples who are following him you you must give up everything and go and get rid of the possessions that are binding you and and sell them and give the money to the poor come and follow me be free of that for very little is needed hence the sense of the the mustard seed and the lemon a tiny amount leavening the whole lump a tiny seed yet giving shelter like these creeper leaves to so many birds and and forms of life and jesus just giving that picture but at the same time he gives pictures of fruitfulness and the fig tree which is in luke's gospel fruitless and you remember how the gardener says don't don't chop it down yet let me dig round it three times and give it fertilizer and everything else and then we'll see whether it will bear fruit but in other gospels also the fig tree is the sign covered in beautiful leaves with no fruit of the temple as jesus finds it when he gets there and weeps over it and how often he says have i longed to give you these qualities and they're small they're easily taken and easily used for those who will but you would not and jesus in this little section as he often does quotes a psalm he quotes that verse in psalm 118 from now on you won't see me until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord blessed is the one who comes in the name of the lord for the vocation to come in the name of the lord is open to any of us and the sense of being held back causes the young man with so many possessions to hang his head and walk away sad and jesus then almost ruminating um thinking internally says how hard it will be for those with so many possessions binding them in this life to enter the kingdom of heaven and then he when the disciples questioned that he said well not impossible for with god all things are impossible so one has this this lovely conversation going on as they go along the road on their way now to jerusalem and to what jesus will find there those lessons are very much there for us as the psalms are read day by day just plucking a sprig from the psalm and thinking yes that speaks to me today just as jesus has taken that sprig from psalm 118 and said yes that speaks today blessed is the one who comes in the name of the lord and so many pictures in the psalms of the earth responding in fruitfulness in the full glory of leafage but really the important aspect of it which the harvest lessons of jesus talk it are the seeds and the fruit the fruits which feed the seeds which feed people ground into wheat and then raised with the leaven or planted in the earth for a fruitful harvest still to come the natural care of the planet but that can be lived out as an image in any part of life and jesus tells us that very firmly by this lesson this morning if i look at dates today there are two that i would want to mention and both are people who had no real home anywhere they made their home where they could find it for different reasons the first one i want to think about is mother teresa for on this day in 1979 october the 17th she was named as a recipient of the noble peace prize if anyone was someone who had left all to go and serve christ's people in particularly of course in india but her sisters the missionaries of charity um her sisters serving in their thousands right across the world and we found a a convent of them next to the monastery of the ancient monastery of saint gregory in in rome itself but of course she's most connected with the city of kolkata in india she was born though in skopje in the northern macedonia region but she found herself because of the volatile nature of politics and the way things moved around 1910 she was born just four years before the great war broke out and the ottoman empire into which she was born for she was born in the lands of the ottoman empire at that time the ottoman empire was fighting with others and there was a great turmoil so in her life she became a citizen she was born as a citizen of the ottoman empire then she became a serbian then a bulgarian then a yugoslavian then her new home in india but meanwhile her citizenship changed to albania and that continued through but she made her home eventually of course in india and it was for her work in india that she received her nobel peace prize the fact that she was a citizen of the whole world and in one way without possessions but in another with many possessions because christ gave her charge of her a flock so big and she wanted to to be a light to lighten the the life of the poorest of the poor missionaries of charity to give wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor that was their fourth vow after the normal monastic vows that was the force for the missionaries of charity to give wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor and it mattered not to her in the place that she created for people also to come and end their life in when their state was was becoming terminal if they were muslims then the nuns would read them the quran if they were hindus then the nuns would bring them water from the ganges if they were christians of any denomination then they would receive the the last rights and the readings from their own gospels all of that because she said and this is again one of her sentences people who lived like animals i want to die like angels and that's the most wonderful testimony so that that breaking down of barriers and giving the quality of the gospel and of the kingdom of heaven to any any who needed it became a way that she could show people christ and also receive them as she would christ her big lesson to us all that everyone in receiving someone in any kind of need becomes christ to you at the time but you also have the like duty to be christ to them named on that day i think she first became well known to us uh those of us who were conscious and aware of it at the time in 1971 when a journalist called malcolm muggeridge who was seen as a rather cynical character at the time went off to do a documentary on mother teresa and her house of the dying in kolkata and he pronounced himself transformed by the experience and made that documentary but afterwards he wrote a book and the book was about that experience and he called it something beautiful for god and it was simply the vocation of mother teresa which people began to read but muggeridge himself then went on a journey and i remember another um documentary he made this time with the theologian alec viddler and you remember the colleagues which is in the book of common prayer read mark learn and inwardly digest well viddler and muggeridge were tracing the gospel of saint mark in in steps and it was called and the book you wrote afterwards about it was called read mark learn and inwardly down chest the comma came there and had a different meaning from the college so he then i remember reading that book and finding it really very helpful at the time but it he it was who brought mother teresa here to prominence but on this day we give thanks that she was a recipient of the nobel peace prize she herself died in kolkata in 1997. the other person i wanted to mention who was also stateless for a very different reason and that was uh because other powers took over the state to which he knew he belonged and this is the pianist and composer shopper frederick shopper who was polish so that his natural city was warsaw but chopra was born in 1810 and at the congress of vienna in 1815 the powers of europe at that time uh russia and austria and prussia surrounding poland simply divided it up and poland ceased to exist as a nation for the whole of the rest of the 19th century from 1815 right through to the end of the first world war in 1918 when poland was once again set up as an independent republic but at the time of chopin's life chopin lived from 1910 and he died on this day october the 17th in 1849 he died in exile from his own state which no longer existed and in 1830 some officer cadets led a revolution to try to win back a free poland it was brutally put down and chopper decided that he would never return to warsaw again he would um be an ambassador for poland amongst the many many polish exiles living in so many of the european cities and bringing their culture there and of course he could do that because he was a a brilliant pianist and also a composer of works mostly for the piano but using orchestras when it was a piano concerto and chopin's works are of course so well known to everyone and to pianists some of them are are good to play others are fiendishly difficult and he himself was a a complete master of the keyboard just when pianists were beginning to beat grand pianos and were developing into instruments which could could give much much more sound and with longer keyboards and chopin's pieces are are utilizing all of that and he played in in all the cities of europe and uh his pieces rested quite often on polish folk tunes so that some of them were called pollinases and there's the word poland actually in the title and that those are very famous some of them sound very grand are and are quite easy to play others more difficult uh then of course his amazing waltz is so very famous the the the grand valles bryant uh which is a lovely thing to play and its speed again becomes quite difficult but it fills the drawing room with sound as an and everyone wanting to dance to the walls but berserkers many many musicas and all dedicated to his friends so many of them polish and so many of them living in exile outside their state their land which no longer existed they're longing for a city which is the capital of a free polar and it no longer exists so something like the psalm we read this morning looking at the holy city as a symbol of the community of the nation's inner city a city full of the quality of the kingdom of heaven is a heartfelt thought for those longing for a homeland and one thinks of sentences in the epistle to the hebrew those searching for a city and a homeland chopin did that with his music etudes and nocturnes and magnificent piano concertos but he was frail of body lived to be 39 i think and uh his last public performance was given in the guild hall in london when he was already failing in health he gave it in um 1838 it's sorry 1848 just before his death in 1849 and if you if you are in st james's in london and walk off the main thoroughfare of st james's intestine james's place as you go along from st james is on the right hand side there is a blue plaque on the wall saying from this house in 1848 the pianist and composer frederick shopper left to give his last public performance in the guild hall and one thinks of the rather frail chopper determined to play for the exiles of poland before eventually going back to his new chosen home in paris but he gave no performances there he went back as a sick man and died there we remember the gifts of both these people exercised for others and remember also they're searching for a homeland and jesus speaking of the city of jerusalem where he expected to find qualities of the law of the lord and qualities of the kingdom of heaven and wept when he saw it because he didn't find fruitfulness there at that time he found an enormous amount of political strife and violence and he himself was as he prophesied in that little lesson this morning in st luke he himself was to end his own life there and then uh open the kingdom of heaven to all believers so there we are for this morning by this beautiful virginia creeper turning all the reds and golds of autumn and giving us when the sun shines on it the most wonderful colors to make our day good we're praying this morning on this sunday morning for uh in the anglican communion the church in the province of the west indies and we are praying in this diocese for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover and also for emma bishop at lambeth but in the diocese for five really beautiful and ancient churches which are linked together in one parish the churches of saint nicholas bathroom stone saint pancras cauldron saint andrews shepherds well saint peter's whitfield and sin peter and paul a thorn all of those very beautiful churches and such i was saying earlier as when he asked what are the churches this morning um that it was his stamping ground with lots of friends uh in in his uh younger days and all those churches inspired by their beauty bar fristen is of tremendous significance it was a stopping place for pilgrims coming here to canterbury and it contains on its south door the first uh um picture if you like on the south door the carving of of of thomas beckett so we're back there but the church predates that and there are marvelous carvings all over it it's a norman church which really inspires and i remember going there with a party taking our friend the abit of beck from normandy in france and he himself being wondrously blown over by the fact of this norman church here in barthurston so we give thanks for the life of all those parishes and pray for sean sheffield in the ministry there and the reader jenny grumbridge and the life of sibert's world church of england primary school within the compass of those five parishes let's say the prayer for today new collect for today god the giver of life whose holy spirit wells up within your church by the spirit's gifts equip us to live the gospel of christ and make us eager to do your will that we may share with the whole creation the joys of eternal life through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language 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 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 now of silence as we say our own prayers the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and of his son jesus christ our lord 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 having the chicks next door protected in the greenhouse there and with their mothers looking after them as well made me wonder whether the fact that jesus when he's warned about herod thought of him as a fox a predator of his own people caused him to think of the image of the hens and the chickens but of course when he gets to jerusalem he finds there too that there are predators who stone the prophets and kill those sent to them when in fact the the great city of jerusalem should be like a protective mother of hand to all those who come now as pilgrims and citizens and visitors all the way through and jesus himself is in intended to go there to proclaim those qualities of the kingdom of heaven of protection welfare and hospitality in the holiest city and be if you like a a mother hen in those terms of qualities to all people we think also of mother teresa in calcutta in that same context of drawing people in under the feathers of the sisters of charity