good morning and welcome on this friday the 26th of november welcome to the dinner garden at canterbury cathedral from wherever you are in the world as we come to say our morning prayers we still think of those across the world who are in danger uh we also remember those who have lost their lives the the russian co-mining incident where many have lost their lives and also continuing to remember those attempting to cross the channel and those who are drowned just outside calais all these dangers and fragility of our human life we offer up in our prayers we've come into the greenhouse this morning and it gives you a lovely sight of plants flowering in a protected climate as winter draws on the blue flowers that you will see are plumbago and the white flowers with the yellow centers are spammania lest anyone should ask but enjoy the sense of flowering and fruiting in a right climate as we say our prayers this morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your faithful servants bless you they make known the glory of your kingdom blessed are you sovereign god ruler and judge of all to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of this age that is passing away may the light of your presence which the saints enjoy surround our steps as we journey on may we reflect your glory this day and so be made ready to see your face in the heavenly city where night shall be no more blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever 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 26th morning of the month is part of psalm 119 the eight verses beginning at 105 of psalm 119 your word is a lantern to my feet and a light upon my path i have sworn and will fulfill it to keep your righteous judgments i am troubled above measure give me life o lord according to your word accept the free will offering of my mouth o lord and teach me your judgments my soul is ever in my hand yet i do not forget your law the wicked have laid a snare for me but i have not strayed from your commandments your testimonies have i claimed as my heritage forever for they are the very joy of my heart i have applied my heart to fulfill your statutes always even to the end so we turn to another episode in the story of the children of israel's walk towards the promised land and this morning i'm reading from the 13th chapter of the book numbers the fourth book of the old testament and i shall begin it and then after that we'll just skip a little bit and i'll explain why and go farther forward we're following the story of those we have grown to know well as they approach the land of promise chapter 13 of numbers and i'll just read the first three verses and then start again at verse 17. the lord spoke to moses saying send men to spy out the land of canaan which i am giving to the people of israel from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man everyone a chief among them so moses sent them from the wilderness of paran according to the command of the lord all of them men who were heads of the people of israel then follows the list of their names and probably the only ones we need to fix on are caleb and joshua but each from a different tribe these twelve set out moses sent them to spy out the land of canaan and said to them go up into the negeb go up into the hill country and see what the land is and whether the people who dwell there in it are strong or weak whether they are few or many and whether the land that they dwell in is good or bad and whether the cities that they dwell in are camps or strongholds and whether the land is rich or poor and whether there are trees in it or not be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes so they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of zinn to rahab near libo haniath they went up into the niger and came to hebron and the descendants of anak were there hebron was built seven years before zoen in egypt and they came to the valley of eshkol and there they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes and they carried it on a pole between two of them they also brought some pomegranates and figs that place was called the valley of eshkol because of the cluster that the people of israel cut down from there at the end of 40 days the spies returned from spying out the land and they came to moses and aaron and to all the congregation of the people of israel in the wilderness of para at kadesh they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land and they told him we came to the land to which you sent us it flows with milk and honey and this is its fruit however the people who dwell in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large and besides we saw the descendants of anak there the amalekites dwell in the land of the niger the hittites the jebusites and the amorites dwell in the hill country and the canaanites dwell by the sea and along the jordan but caleb quietened the people before moses and said let us go up at once and occupy it for we are well able to overcome it then the men who had gone up with him said we are not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we are so they brought to the people of israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out saying the land through which we have gone to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants and all the people that we saw in it are of great height and there we saw the nephilim and we seem to ourselves like grasshoppers and so we seem to them then all the congregation raised a loud cry and the people wept that night and all the people of israel grumbled against moses and aaron the whole congregation said to them would that we had died in the land of egypt or would that we had died in the wilderness why is the lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword our wives and our little ones become a prey would it not be better for us to go back to egypt and they said to one another let us choose a leader and go back to egypt and moses and aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of israel and joshua the son of nun and caleb the son of jefuna who were among those who had spied out the land tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the people of israel the land which we pass through to spy out it is exceedingly good if the lord delights in us he will bring us into this land and give it to us a land that flows with milk and honey only do not rebel against the lord and do not fear the people of the land their protection is removed from them the lord is with us do not fear them but all the congregation said to stone them with stones and then the glory of the lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of israel almost there and now they turn back because of the danger their hearts fail them just at the last bit of the journey and their courage fails them work done by moses and aaron all the intercession everything we've gone through all of those things over probably a period of two years or so and now everything turns around because the people's hearts fail them so often in any journey it's the last stage which is the most difficult and the last stage when the people are weary that hearts fail we know that so often that taking up at the beginning something that we know we have to do and going almost to the end and then leaving it because our hearts fail or for some other reason and yet it's the completion as the prayer of sir francis drake says it's the finishing of the work until it be thoroughly finished that yields the true glory but only caleb and joshua are there to encourage the people the other ten are saying it's much too difficult for us they're so much greater than we are the cities are so much stronger than our strength and moses and aaron are left bowing down and the people pick up stones to stone them ready to choose a new leader until the glory of the lord appears at the tent of meeting but nevertheless it means that as we well know instead of going forward now there are 40 years of waiting at kadesh banaya before the people can begin to think we now can go forward and it will be under other leadership it will be under the leadership of joshua and caleb will be there but so many of those who've made the long journey in those 40 years will have perished and never see the promised land because of this day it's a wonderful image the picture of the fruitfulness in one bunch of grapes so big that it needed a pole over the men's shoulders to carry it back but on the other hand it means that the people are thinking well if that's the fruit of the place this is going to be a battle too many for us there is a most wonderful stained glass window in the cathedral an ancient stained glass window from the 12th century of the two men carrying that huge bunch of grapes and normally it's called the miraculous bunch of grapes and all of these things we are seeing are seen as not only part of the story of the people which we've got to know we've got to know many of them but also signs pointing forward to the new covenant and that's where that window is meant to take us the miraculous bunch of grapes talking of the wine of the new covenant just as the water from the rock is talking of the baptism of the new covenant in stained glass window and also in our mind and thinking nerve fails though the promised land is in sight this is a day when we are thinking of others in the way forward and i wanted to just mention that on the 26th of november 1922 the cartoonist charles schultz was born now charles schultz is reckoned to be the author of the longest story ever told by one human being and i'm talking of course about his little strip cartoon which we tend to know as peanuts every day he would sit down and draw four pictures in line drawings generally with no background and he showed a little society of children always children it's it's hardly ever adults if if ever we tend to know the children and that cartoon ran for 1950 to the year 2000 in 2600 newspapers in 75 countries with a readership of 355 million people getting to know that little group of children and they were quite an unprepossessing group of children very ordinary and the hero charlie brown and charlie brown was meek and nervous and lacked all self-confidence and then we got to know very early on in the um first stages his dog snoopy and snoopy who's always been a favorite cartoon character would comment in thought as to what's going on remember how thought in a cartoon is portrayed by bubbles uh and uh direct speech by a direct sort of arrow coming from the speech and in writing and in many languages translated would be what was going on and that social children's social circle of children reflected so much in adult life so many situations it made us laugh but it made us laugh often at ourselves it made us sympathize sometimes it made us cry but every day charles schultz would produce this cartoon and he began to introduce other characters lucy who was tough and very often showed charlie brown up in so many ways and charlie charlie brown i think his his great expression if things went really wrong was good grief and snoopy all the time was there sort of commenting on things and later on little woodstock that tiny bird when done in color yellow bird but at the beginning no no no colors just the line drawings giving a different situation in human life no more than four pictures later on they became three and sometimes right at the end he would do just one scene right across but let's think of it in the four panels that we got to know and as that satire of our own behavior and our own characteristics took place and he added violet and schroeder and linus and pigpen and frieda and patty and franklin and marcy all of those added on the way through and we got to know them just as we got to know the story of the journey of the of the children of israel 40 years for them and a 50-year journey for charles schultz until his death in february in the year 2000 from 1950 to 2000 simply satire satiring and the the the adult world as children did things which we could easily see them doing and poor charlie brown who in his way becomes our hero and we learn to love them all schultz would never let anyone else do it and at the end in february 2000 when he died he there was one the day after he died there were the three panels put there and uh it's charlie brown answering the phone someone wanting to speak to snoopy and uh so we don't know that we're guessing from the next panel but charlie brown is simply saying no i think he's writing and then the next panel shows snoopy at the typewriter and the words dear friends and the beginning of a last message and the um after that a panel in color by then of simple blue sky and schultz's last message of gratitude and then saying a fuller message to friends left below saying that these cartoons which only he had ever done for those 50 years were the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition a lifelong journey and he had gratitude for all those who'd grown to know and love his characters in from so many nations across the world but also gratitude for the characters themselves loving gratitude to charlie brown and snoopy and linus and lucy and everyone who just came along like woodstock the little bird to help us understand ourselves as we have reflections in that way those pictures are still published in little cartoon books but only schultz has ever done them everything else even when it's made into moving cartoons film is from the mind imagination and lovely character of charles schutz whom we remember on this day with all his characters we also remember today the hymn writer william cooper the name is spelt as though it should be said kaupa it's cooper william cooper born on november 26 in 1731 and he uh died in 1800 so he's really sort of 70 years of the 18th century now we remember him in wonderful ways uh but his own life had been partly spent in earlier years in an asylum he was he was put into an asylum with what they would called he was committed for insanity at that time and we would name that in very different ways today but locked into an asylum and when he was released there was this sense of great release and a thanksgiving for that healing going on and then he became a great friend of john newton but he wrote hymns and at the same time he translated poetry and wrote poetry he himself was a great classical scholar and loved homer's iliad but especially his odyssey which of course is the story of a journey he translated it from the greek and loved translating it the seascapes and the lands and the different people that long journey and yet reflecting his own life now what do we know him for well i know him for first of all before i come to what we all know him for i know him for a poem that we were made to learn at school about the chopping down of a line of poplars and the chopping down of that line of poplars uh began in a poem and see he went back to sea and his populars had gone and it reminded me of course of hopkins poem about uh the the poplars on the banks of the the child one in oxford this actually popular on the banks of the river ooze and he finds them felled and on the ground and the ooze is no longer reflecting the image of the populace the wind can't play in their leaves and the birds can't sing there just the first verse the poplars are filled farewell to the shade and the whispering sound of the cool colonnade the winds play no longer and sing in the leaves nor in his bosom that image receives find the poem do it's a lovely one and it shows his delight in natural things amongst many other poems but what we know him for best and here i'll reach for the hymnbook are hymns that he wrote and perhaps the first of those we want to say and let's think of the journey of the children of israel and many people's journeys and his own journey is what he's speaking about you'll know these words very well this is william cooper god moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform he plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm deep in unfathomable minds of never failing skill he treasures up his bright designs and works his sovereign will ye fearful saints fresh courage take the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break with blessings on your head judge not the lord by feeble sense but trust him for his grace behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face his purposes will ripen fast unfolding every hour the bud may have a bitter taste but sweet will be the flower blind unbelief is sure to er and scan his work in vain god is his own interpreter and he will make it plain they're wonderful verses but speak very much of cooper's personal journey but perhaps the him i love best of his is a hymn which i'm sung as an anthem uh and we still sing as an ansem sanford's ansem and the anthem i remember i don't know who it was by but we sang in the choir at home but it's not the stanford but it's the music of that that causes me to remember it oh for a closer walk with god a calm and heavenly frame a light to shine upon the road that leads me to the lamb what peaceful hours i once enjoyed joyed how calm that memory still but they have left an aching void the world can never fill return o holy dove return sweet messenger of rest i hate the sins that made thee mourn and drove thee from my breast the dearest idol i have known whatever that idol be helped me to tear it from thy throne and worship only thee so shall my walk be close with god calm and serene my frame so pure a light shall mark the road that leads me to the lamb the himalay of william cooper and being calm and serene was the gift of grace that was given to william cooper after those years of terrible mental turmoil and the sense of being imprisoned in an asylum the terror of which we can only ourselves imagine at in those days so then let's say our prayers on this morning with thanksgiving for the journey made by schultz and also by william cooper now we're praying this morning in the anglican communion for the diocese of idaho in the episcopal church of the united states and we're praying in this diocese for the benefits of romney marsh and this is a group of eight parishes very beautiful especially in spring and summer and early autumn weather very chilly on the marsh in late autumn winter or early spring they are all saints burmas all saints in mary's bay saint nicholas new romney st mary in the marsh st george ivy church saint peter and saint paul new church saint clement old romney and saint peter and saint paul dim church and we pray for the clergy there chris hodgkin's chris mclean john richardson and shooner body and the cure at jackie darling and all who live in that benefits pray to for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover and for emma bishop at lambeth and let's say the prayer for this week which we i hope have begun to learn by now stir up o lord we beseech you the wills of your faithful people that they plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works may by you be plenteously rewarded through jesus christ our lord amen and the prayer our savior taught us in whatever language you like to use 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 reflection now on this morning remembering the gratitude of charles schutz for the life-long journey he was able to achieve and the gratitude that we are asked to share in a sacrifice of thanksgiving for every experience given to us by a god who moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] is [Music] r [Music] peace [Music] is [Music] is [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 are men well tiger calm and serene is exactly what you are at the moment and i wish i could stay here all day with you but the day's work has to be done and so we'll end our little reflection together and give thanks for the day ahead the gift of this new day all right you