good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of tuesday the 8th of february as we meet for our morning prayer welcome wherever you are in the world here it is the most lovely morning there's a warmth about it which we've not had recently and we've come to a spot in the garden which we visited in the middle of january but you will have seen how the year has gone on even since then we've come here and we see little daffodils blooming and snow drops out and hyacinth springing up as the year opens out which is a lovely thing and we've come also by the shall we call it a brook here going down across the stones for a very very special reason and we shall come to that in our lesson many of you will guess it because we began that lesson yesterday from the first book of samuel but i wanted to think in the peaceful context of this garden how difficult it is to think of the the desperate dangers from climate that are uh afflicting so many peoples across the world we think first of western australia where the fires have burst out again with great fierceness homes are being destroyed and many many firefighters are attempting to control those bushfires we think of the people of afghanistan there have been huge news reports of the hunger felt there and of the serious drought conditions and the need for resources and supplies for the people there and we think of our friends in madagascar this diocese of canterbury has a very special relationship with the anglican church in madagascar and uh of course they have suffered from a disastrous catastrophic cyclone and we had news from bishop gilbert of the diocese of fianna ransom and he sent through saying what devastation the batsurai cyclone has caused and he talked about the the total destruction of homes and whole villages and then just talking in church terms six schools 13 priests houses 45 churches have been destroyed there and the farmers there have suffered a 95 loss of their crops their rice crops their wallflower crops the bishop's tale is one of uh the need for help in madagascar and no doubt we'll get more messages from from there as the communications are restored there but we thank bishop gilbert this morning for his message and pray for our friends there in madagascar so let's say our prayers you will have many other places that you want to remember as we say our prayers together on this morning of the 8th of february 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 that 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 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 son this morning is psalm 40 [Music] 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 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 and follow a lie great are the wonders you have done no 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 an 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 lets them be driven back and put to shame who wish me evil let those who heep insults upon me be desolate because of their shame but let those 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 one of the sounds and of course we associate those psalms with the person of david whom we return to now in our story for yesterday as you will remember we read the first half of the long chapter 17 of one samuel and today i'm carrying on from verse 31 and we have come to the point where david young david a stripping he's called by king saul in this lesson um young david has brought provisions for his brothers who are much older than he and are despising his youth especially when he says why can't someone stand up to this great champion goliath and he annoys his brothers but the words that he's speaking about that how dare this man uh defy the armies of the lord of hosts when those words are spoken they're repeated before the king and we're starting at verse 31 and we'll go through to the end of the chapter as i said it's a long chapter but it's a storyteller's tale and so it will have many details in it when the words that david spoke were heard they repeated them before king saul and saul sent for david and david said to saul let no man's heart fail because of him your servant will go and fight with this philistine and saul said to david you are not able to go against this philistine to fight with him for you are but a youth and he has been a man of war from his youth but david said to saul your servant used to keep sheep for his father and when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from my flock i went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth and if you arose against me i caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him your servant has struck down both lions and bears and this uncircumcised philistine shall be like one of them for he has defied the armies of the living god and david said the lord who delivered me from the poor of the lion and from the poor of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this philistine and saul said to david go and the lord be with you then king saul clothed david with his armor he put a helmet of bronze on his head and closed him with a coat of mail and david strapped his sword over his armor and he tried in vain to go for he had not tested them david said to saul i cannot go with these for i have not tested them so david took them off then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd's pouch his sling was in his hand and he approached the philistine and the philistine moved forward and came near to david with his shield bearer in front of him and when the philistine looked and saw david he disdained him for he was but a use ruddy and handsome in appearance but the philistines said to david am i a dog that you come to me with sticks and the philistine cursed david by his gods the philistine said to david come to me and i will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field then david said to the philistine you come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin but i come to you in the name of the lord of hosts the god of the armies of israel whom you have defied this day the lord will deliver you into my hand and i will strike you down and cut off your head and i will give the dead bodies of the host of the philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth that all the earth may know that there is a god in israel and that all this assembly may know that the lord saves not with sword and spear for the battle is the lord's and he will give you into our hand when the philistine arose and came and drew near to meet david david ran quickly towards the battle line to meet the philistine and david put his hand in his shepherd's bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the philistine on his forehead the stone sank into his forehead and he fell on his face to the ground so david prevailed over the philistine with a sling and with a stone and struck the philistine and killed him there was no sword in the hand of david then david ran and stood over the philistine and took the philistine sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it and when the philistines saw that their champion was dead they fled and the men of israel and judah rose with a shout and pursued the philistines as far as gas and the gates of ekron so that the wounded philistines fell on the way from as far as gas and ekron and the people of israel came back from chasing the philistines and they plundered their camp and david took the head of the philistine and brought it to jerusalem but he put his armor in his tent as soon as king saul saw david go out against the philistine he said to abner the captain of his guard the commander of the army abner whose son is this stripping and abner said as your soul lives o king i do not know and the king said inquire whose son the boy is and as soon as david returned from the striking down of the philistine abner took him and brought him before saul with his head of the philistine in his hand and saul said to him whose son are you young man and david said i am the son of your servant jesse the bestlyhemite well it's a long story a storytellers story as we said yesterday with many details but essentially there are one or two lessons that we learn from it and we get another picture of david though never does he cease being a shepherd in his equipment in his mind in his care of the flock in his stories about how he cared for the flock against dangers which might seem far too mighty the lion and the bear the lord delivered me out of the poor of the lion the port of the bear he will deliver me from this philistine champion and saul doubtful no doubt and thinking well i can't stop him going loads his own armor on him as protection and one can imagine the young david simply that weighed down by this i can't go with these it's not what i'm used to they weigh me down and they're the weapons that i don't need so he took his staff in his hand we brought out this birch stuff which sometimes used it's beautiful it's a the piece of a silver birch from the garden here when it was being pruned and it's a lovely staff is maybe thicker than the one that david had we don't know but here's the staff but much more important he then went down to the brook and chose five smooth stones well we can do that here and pull five one two three four five and he placed the stones they shine in the sunshine this morning when they're wet he placed the stones in the shepherd's bag now let me not pretend that these the stones came from here they actually came from under the sea at cassie in the south of france the stone at cassie is famous stone the romans used to quarry it for special purposes but it from those quarries the base of the statue of liberty france's gift to the united states now in new york harbor that base was carved from cassie stone and uh we were out in the the sea up to our next uh and it was a beautiful morning and fletcher kept pulling up with his foot a stone the first one came up and he said this is very beautiful and it was in the sunshine uh and so he said have this because you have pockets in your sewing shorts so so i took one and said thank you that's fine put it in my pocket as a keepsake and then with his foot he pulled up another and another and another and another and i said no that's enough now uh and he didn't stop until he pulled up 14. so i was weighed down and had to sort of hold on almost as we came back into the beach itself and walked up and then i realized actually his his uh swimming trunks had as many pockets as mine and i was the one who'd been fooled into carrying 14 stones well here are five of them now kept as a keepsake from that last holiday in the summer of of 2019 and hopefully that will open up to us again at some stage soon um but i'm using them this morning of course as the ordinary uh defense mechanisms of the shepherd with his sling and with his staff and we're thinking of david as the shepherd boy as stripping as as paul as king saul called him um and at the same time using things which were fitting for him he knew how to use them his own staff his own sling his shepherd's bag and they're the stones put in them i'll put them on here because they are for the moment for us mementos of a place that we love but can't at present visit so it does not to eat leo no doubt you're thinking it is um so we we think of that and we think of those sentences uh as as that david's saying i come to you you come to me with sword and spear and i come to you in the name of the lord of hosts and what i would say about those five smooth stones they have become an image of spiritual and real resources which were given i've seen so many attempts at saying this stone represents faith this stone represents righteousness this and so on nothing really uh cuts the mustard in that way they are the lord's resources from creation given individually and very very particularly to each of us you will know the kinds of things it's easy for you to use and those five stones become an image the five five smooth stones to defeat goliath five deep wounds of christ to save the world his arms outstretched on the cross you can do with it whatever you will but they represent the lord's resources for the shepherd boy in his confidence as he goes forward the son of jesse we'll come back to that let's then think of one or two dates of this day in nine let's go back to 1952 where we've been over the the last two or three days with our queen's platinum jubilee beginning it was on this day february 8th 1952 that princess elizabeth as she had been formally proclaimed herself queen head of the commonwealth defender of the faith before 150 members of the privy council representatives from the commonwealth's representatives of the city of london in st james's palace at a formal speech of accession to the privy council and other representatives she was 25 years old 25 years old and let's remind ourselves of what she said to those people gathered in all that formality on that morning it reminds me of young david and the words he said about his own humanity she said my heart is too full for me to say more to you today than that i shall always work as my father did throughout his reign to uphold constitutional government and to advance the happiness and prosperity of my peoples spread as they are across the world i know that in my resolve to follow my father's shining example of service and devotion i shall be inspired by the loyalty and affection of those whose queen i have been called to be and by the council of their elected parliaments i pray that god will help me to discharge worthily this heavy task that has been laid upon me so early in my life such a a moving statement of intention and service which has been carried through with god's help and the help of so many we think of prince philip who died last year the help of so many across the world and we think of the prince of wales and uh camilla the duchess of cornwall um and the grandchildren and so many others who help in an intimate family way but those who throughout the world have given that loyalty and received her counsel as well as the parliaments of all those nations she's speaking of at that time so we come to that sense of human resources and the wideness and breadth and totality of the creators world and there is another date today it's a sort of fun date really on the 8th of february 1828 the french novelist jul van jules verne as we tend to call him in english was born he died in 1905 but he was someone who loved to tell stories of journeying now this morning after matins in the cathedral and there'd been a young man who'd come in a stranger to us all and at the end when we said good morning he said i i said are you i'm staying he said no i'm just about to set off on the road to rome as a pilgrim so as we do i took him to the stone the franchise stone as it's called outside the cathedral which is the starting point and set this young man whose name was alex we'd never met him before uh off on his journey blessed him and watched him go and i'd said to him in the blessing that a pilgrimage is a sign not only of the physical journey that she will make and the many people he'll meet in the countries he'll go through not knowing how long it will take and not knowing whose hospitality he will receive it's a sign also though of a spiritual journey which goes forward and jules van wyk someone who always loved to tell stories of journeys fantastic stories of certain journeys journey to the center of the earth which he wrote in 1864 20 000 leagues under the sea which he wrote in 1870 but the one that probably takes people's imagination most of all is around the world in 80 days uh in 1872 he wrote that book and you'll know it's the story of phillius fogg of london and a wager that he made at the reform club one evening and it was set to be um the on the 2nd of october and at 8 45 pm that same night he went with his valet passpartu um off on the train from london and the wager was that he must return within 80 days that would be the 21st of december 8 45 back to the reform club and be there at that time to win the wager and off he sets now what we know about phillies foggy is that he is a man of particular habits we know that we glean that from the fact that jules verne tells us his former valley had been sacked from him because he'd brought shaving water slightly too too tepid and that was enough this man was particular and pacified too is a very different kind of being but we get to know him through the book and we see that this rich man is spending his resources to accomplish his wager and he goes from london to suez by rail and boat series to bombay as it was then mumbai now from bombay that again by steamer then from bombay to calcutta as it then was uh by train and then calcutta to hong kong by boat from hong kong to yokohama in japan by boat it's all timed beautifully by julian from yokohama to san francisco across the pacific by boat san francisco to new york by train new york to liverpool via ireland actually um by all kinds of means boats and trains and so on and liverpool to london by train and you'll know in that story of course many things happen and there is the detective detective fix who is has mistaken him as a criminal and is following him following following him with a warrant but he needs him on british soil before he can arrest him he does so in liverpool spoiling the the chance of him winning the uh the race but as you well know all ends happily and in all sorts of ways but what i'm saying is that that sense of girdling the earth which puck in a midsummer night's dream do you remember said i'll put a girdle around the earth in 40 minutes well no one's ever done that but we remind ourselves that young ellen macasa whom we thought about yesterday did it in 71 days so sailing just by sale power and wind and great skill uh uh nine days shorter than philia's fog with all those mechanisms of the later part of the 19th century when he did it so we give thanks for the imagination of someone like jule van because it not only pleases us as a storyteller's tale but it also gives us that flavor of david himself uh thinking i can do this and setting out ellen macarthur i can do this and our young queen at 25 i will do this with your help and with the memory of my father and the help of god all those things on this particular morning we think of now i wanted to come back because who who are you king saul says i'm the son of jesse at bethlehemite and i'm wanting to read to you isaiah chapter 11 this is the prophet isaiah it's an early part and so it is isaiah himself the one who had the vision in the temple i saw the lord high and lifted up and you remember how when the lord's voice comes when isaiah has been cleansed by the burning coal from the altar which the cherubim has taken and and uh um the voice of the lord says whom shall i send who will go for us and isaiah says here i am send me and that reminds us of our psalm 40 in the skirt of your book is written of me that i shall do your will then said i lo i come well isaiah was the one who said that early in his book but this is a prophecy and it's isaiah chapter 11 is a beautiful prophecy you will know it is one of the christmas carol lessons very often read in prophecy at the lesson the the service of lessons in carols isaiah chapter 11 there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit and the spirit of the lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the lord and his delight shall be in the fear of the lord he shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and faithfulness the belt of his loins and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together and a little child shall lead them the cow and the bear shall graze their young shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox the nursing child shall play over the whole of the cobra and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the lord as the waters cover the sea in that day the root of jesse who shall stand as a signal for the peoples of him shall the nations inquire and his resting place shall be glorious so many images of david and the story we've been telling so many images of what the five smooth stones might be with the spirit of wisdom and understanding counsel and might knowledge and the fear of the lord and so on you can do with these as you will they are the attributes and qualities and graces given to you but that is the prophecy of a peaceful kingdom you can link it with king david the root from jesse but most of all we read it at christmas time as the prophecy of the coming of the anointed one a little child shall lead them so let's uh say our prayers on this day and we're praying in the anglican communion on the 8th of february for the diocese of karamoja in the church of the province of uganda and here in this diocese for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for emma bishop at lambeth and today for another of the margate churches in paul's cliftonville with the ministry of patrick elliston and prudali as we say our prayers we remember our own points of concern across the world some of which we mentioned earlier in the service here's the colic for today oh god you know us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright grant us such strength and protection as may support us in all dangers and carry us through all temptations 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 we're going to have a time of reflection but during it um before ever any of this pandemic began uh i i wrote a christmas carol as i had several years following for our girls choir to sing at the christmas carol service and it was based on those words of isaiah 11 and one of our choral scholars helen has recorded that and that we will play to you now and jamie rogers our assistant organist is is playing the piano for her i should just bring up out of jesse [Music] for our little [Music] destroy and all creatures [Music] [Applause] [Music] and [Music] like the oaks [Music] and wisdom shall i be with a lion and counter shall be with [Music] [Music] shall lead them [Music] shall come from the mountain and until from my [Music] trees from the wind and the waves [Music] of peace [Music] [Applause] [Music] 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 amen well sitting low here i'm quite um helped by the shepherd staff to help me stand up and also i can take these five smooth stones as a symbol of any gifts and quality which i myself have and we would say the same and you would say the same what they are are discovered on our particular journey as we go along so i'm going off to start the day now so so so [Music] you