good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral on this wednesday the 8th of july it's a pouring wet morning and we've sought shelter under the great magnolia tree here because the rain somehow feels like a great blessing as the dry lawn soaks up the water as it falls down and it's good rain the sort of steady rain that gardeners enjoy so we're going to begin our morning prayer here with the sound of the rain around us and wherever you are in the world please feel welcome oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise visit us with your salvation and sustain us with your gracious spirit 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 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 eighth morning of the month is psalm 40 i waited patiently for the lord he inclined to me and heard my cry he brought me out of the roaring pit out of the mire and clay he set my feet upon a rock and made my footing sure and he has put a new song in my mouth a song of praise to our god many shall see and fear and put their trust in the lord blessed is the one who trusts in the lord who does not turn to the proud that follow a lie great are the wonders you have done o lord my god how great your designs for us there is none that can be compared with you if i were to proclaim them and tell of them they would be more than i am able to express sacrifice and offering you do not desire but my ears you have opened burnt offering and sacrifice for sin you have not required then said i lo i come in the scroll of the book it is written of me that i should do your will o god i delight to do it your law is within my heart i have declared your righteousness in the great congregation behold i did not restrain my lips and that o lord you know your righteousness i have not hidden in my heart i have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation i have not concealed your loving kindness and truth from the great congregation do not withhold your compassion from me o lord let your love and your faithfulness always preserve me for innumerable troubles have come about me my sins have overtaken me so that i cannot look up they are more in number than the hairs of my head and my heart fails me be pleased o lord to deliver me o lord make haste to help me let them be ashamed and altogether dismayed who seek after my life to destroy it let them be driven back and put to shame who wish me evil that those who heep insults upon me be desolate because of that shame but let all who seek you rejoice in you and be glad that those who love your salvation say always the lord is great though i am poor and needy the lord cares for me you are my helper and my deliverer oh my god make no delay so we turn to our reading from the gospel of saint luke which is written in the 18th chapter and today we begin at verse 15. now they were bringing even infants to jesus that he might touch them and when the disciples saw it they rebuked them but jesus called them to him saying let the children come to me and do not hinder them for such belongs the kingdom of god truly i say to you whoever does not receive the kingdom of god like a child shall not enter it and a ruler asked him good teacher what must i do to inherit eternal life and jesus said to him why do you call me good no one is good except god alone you know the commandments do not commit adultery do not murder do not steal do not bear false witness honor your father and mother and he said all these i have kept from my youth when jesus had this he said to him one thing you still lack sell all that you have and distribute to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me but when he heard these things he became very sad for he was extremely rich jesus seeing that he had become sad said how difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of god for 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 those who had this said then who can be saved jesus said what is impossible for mortals is possible with god and peter said see we have left our homes and followed you and jesus said to them truly i say to you there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of god who will not receive many times more in this time and in the age to come eternal life we've been used to parables which are special to luke but today our whole lesson is common to matthew and mark and luke but they tell the two things in a different way and it's difficult not to conflate them in our minds but sometimes it's also helpful to compare and contrast the way in which the evangelists tell that story and to think what that story meant for each of them in their own lives and for luke as he told the story having left everything and followed saint paul and found himself in a completely different kind of life we can only surmise all these things but what we can do is see the image first of all of jesus inviting the children with their mothers to come and be blessed by him and at the same time using them as he so often does using them as an illustration for how we are to receive god's gift of the kingdom of heaven here and now as we saw yesterday but then at the same time the second story shows the rich young in luke ruler in st mark the earlier of the accounts simply a young man who ran up just as jesus was setting out for the next stage of his journey to jerusalem the journey that will accomplish his messiahship for and the young man races up and falls before him and says good master what must i do to inherit eternal life first and foremost jesus points him to god why do you call me good only god is good and then he recites to him the commandments the ordinary commandments which that nation had at the bedrock of its life and the and in matthew we learned he's a young man and in luke in mark we learned that jesus looking at him and seeing his in his face the vocation that he particularly has loved him and said you lack but one thing go and sell all you have and give to the poor and come and follow me for that is what your heart is telling you to do and his face falls and he goes away grieving for he has too many responsibilities too many possessions too many things which link him to life here and now in that particular place to do what his heart is telling him to do and become one of those who are following jesus along the way to jerusalem hence peter's question at the end lord what about us and jesus says that the the gifts of the kingdom of heaven in this life and the next far outweigh anything which might tie us to possessions here [Music] each vocation is specific the young man is unnamed this was for him and we overhear the conversation and we also overhear the question in luke's heart what does this all mean that i've left everything and now i'm hearing the stories of jesus for the first time and placing them in order for others to hear but will go on to tell the story of what we did when he joins paul's mission in the acts of the apostles later it calls us to review our own vocation our own discipleship our own following of jesus along the way which is also specific and asks many things of us but there are great rewards one of the most childlike of our english poets was percy shelley and he was drowned on this day in 1822 off the coast of italy when his boat sank and he was cremated there on the beach because of quarantine regulations at the time and the memorial of his buried remains is that in the cemetery in rome but there's a poem of his which goes well for today for it talks about the clouds and the gifts they bring this is a childlike perception which goes well with jesus talking to us and saying receive god's gifts and this morning we smell the earth soaking up the gift of rain this is simply called the cloud i bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers from the seas and the streams i bear light shade for the leaves when laid in their noonday dreams from my wings are shaken the dews that waken the sweet buds everyone when rock to rest on their mother's breast as she dances about the sun i wield the flail of the lashing hail and whiten the green plains under and then again i dissolve it in rain and laugh as i pass in thunder i sift the snow on the mountains below and their great pines grown aghast and all night is my pillow white while i sleep in the arms of the blast sublime on the towers of my sky bowers lightening my pilot sits in a cavern under it is fettered the thunder it struggles and howls it fits over earth and ocean with gentle motion this pilot is guiding me lured by the love of the genie that move in the depths of the purple sea over the rills and the crags and the hills over the lakes and the plains wherever he dream under mountain or stream the spirit he loves remains and i all the while bask in heaven's blue smile whilst he is dissolving in reigns the sanguine sunrise with his meteor eyes and his burning plumes outspread leaps on the back of my sailing rack when the morning star shines dead as on the jag of a mountain crag which an earthquake rocks and swings an eagle a lit one moment may sit in the light of its golden wings and when sunset may breathe from the lit sea beneath its arders of rest and of love and the crimson paul of eve may fall from the depths of heaven above with wings folded i rest on my airy nest as still as a brooding dove that orbit maiden with white fire laden who mortals call the moon glides glimmering on my fleece-like floor by the midnight breezes strewn and wherever the beat of her unseen feet which only the angels hear may have broken the woof of my tense thin roof the stars peep behind her and pier and i laugh to see them whirl and flee like a swarm of golden bees when i widen the rent in my wind-built tent to calm the rivers lakes and seas like strips of the sky fallen through me on high are each paved with the moon and these i bind the sun's throne with a burning zone and the moons with a girdle of pearl the volcanoes are dim and the stars reel and swim when the whirlwinds my banner unfurl from cape to cape with a bridge-like shape over a torrent sea sunbeam proof i hang like a roof the mountains its columns be the triumphal arch through which i march with hurricane fire and snow when the powers of the air are chained to my chair is the million colored bow the sphere fire above its soft colours wove while the moist earth was laughing below i am the daughter of earth and water and the nursing of the sky i pass through the pores of the ocean and shores i change but i cannot die for after the rain when with never a stain the pavilion of heaven is bare and the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams build up the blue dome of air i silently laugh at my own cenotaph and out of the caverns of rain like a child from the womb like a ghost from the tomb i arise and unbuild it again wonderful language reminding me of the book of job in the way that that book describes the glories of creation and the way in which we receive them and on a day like this the rain reminding us of the freshness of god's gifts every day as we receive them say our prayers on this day and we pray first for the anglican communion and the diocese of northern argentina in south america and for nicholas dreyson the bishop there and all his people and the diocese of a warrior in nigeria and akinate the bishop there and his people we pray to for justin our archbishop for this diocese of canterbury for rose bishop of dover and for tim bishop at lambeth and today for the parish of staplehurst all saints and the priests there silke tetzlaff and the people of that parish so we say the prayer for today the collect for this fourth sunday after trinity which is the special prayer all this week long oh god the protector of all who trust in you without whom nothing is strong nothing is holy increase and multiply upon us your mercy that with you as our ruler and guide we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not our hold on things eternal grant this heavenly father for our lord jesus christ's sake amen and the psalm colleagues from psalm 40 free us from our sins oh god and may our sacrifices be of praise to the glory of your son our redeemer jesus christ amen so we say each in our own language and in whatever way we like to say it the prayer our lord 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 are men so a moment of silence hearing the rain fall around us [Applause] 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 would pray for today and always amen so