good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this 24th of august tuesday the 24th of august for our morning prayer wherever you are in the world please feel welcome we've come into this little courtyard for a particular reason which i'll go into for a moment but right above us and we were watching them from high up uh in the upstairs windows earlier a family of wood pigeons are hatching their young and now the young have developed and are out and beginning to be taught to fly by proud parents and so we share that moment with you when the big wide world is there to in front of nervous wood pigeons the sound of wood pigeons is very much the sound of the english countryside wherever you are and we give thanks for them and the the life of the wood pigeons as uh so many of the birds are silent at this time of year last time we were here it was twittering of sparrows because they were nesting but now it's the turn of the wood pigeons so we've come here as it sent bartholomew's day and the church has always identified sin bartholomew with the character also of nathaniel just as the church identifies levi and matthew together in the list of disciples luke calling him levi and matthew and mark calling him matthew in the gospels the lists of the twelve include bartholomew always tending to be linked with philip but in saint john where there's no list of the apostles nathaniel is the one who is called by philip and it's it's that moment that we're capturing this morning with the lesson given to us in since uh john's gospel so we're leaving genesis aside for the moment there will there will be a reference to genesis when we come to the reading that we are given from the new testament meanwhile we're sitting here with the great fig tree and also below it uh shining and it leaves the fatsia japonica with lovely coloured maples and uh all of the flowers that you you you saw before here have now gone on although there's a great hibiscus beside me in full color and the color of the leaves of the maple make up for everything so we're going to say our prayers on this day when our minds us and our hearts are still filled with the images of of people in desperate situations of earthquake and flood and war and pandemic throughout the world you will have different images in your minds but let's also think today of the people of japan and of tokyo as the paralympic start as a sign of creative endeavor and the unity of our planet on this day of the feast of since bartholomew the apostle let's begin our prayers o 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 the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind thus 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 are men our psalm on this 24th morning of the month is psalm 118 o give thanks to the lord for he is good his mercy endures forever let israel now proclaim his mercy and yours forever let the house of aaron now proclaim his mercy endures forever let those who fear the lord proclaim his mercy endures forever in my constraint i called to the lord the lord answered and set me free the lord is at my side i will not fear what flesh can do to me with the lord at my side as my savior i shall see the downfall of my enemies it is better to take refuge in the lord than to put any confidence in flesh it is better to take refuge in the lord than to put any confidence in princes all the nations encompass me but by the name of the lord i drove them back they hemmed me in they hemmed me in on every side but by the name of the lord i drove them back they swarmed about me like bees they blazed like fire among thorns but by the name of the lord i drove them back surely i was thrust to the brink but the lord came to my help the lord is my strength and my song and he has become my salvation joyful shouts of salvation sound from the tents of the righteous the right hand of the lord does mighty deeds the right hand of the lord raises up the right hand of the lord does mighty deeds i shall not die but live and declare the works of the lord the lord has punished me solely but he has not given me over to death open to me the gates of righteousness that i may enter and give thanks to the lord this is the gate of the lord the righteous shall enter through it i will give thanks to you for you have answered me and have become my salvation the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone this is the lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes this is the day that the lord has made we will rejoice and be glad in it come o lord and save us we pray come lord send us now prosperity blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord we bless you from the house of the lord the lord is god he has given us light link the pilgrims with cords right to the horns of the altar or you are god and i will thank you you are my god and i will exalt you oh give thanks to the lord for he is good his mercy endures forever some wonderfully favorite shall we call them knapsack verses in that psalm best of all this is the day that the lord has made we will rejoice and be glad in it so we come to that lesson i was speaking of which is the special lesson given to us at morning prayer on this sin bartholomew's day we're in the first chapter of the gospel of saint john and i'm starting at verse 43 the next day jesus decided to go to galilee he found philip and said to him follow me now philip was from bethsaida the city of andrew and peter phillip found nathaniel and said to him we have found him of whom moses in the law and also the prophets wrote jesus of nazareth the son of joseph nathaniel said to him can anything good come out of nazareth philip said to him come and see jesus saw nathanael coming towards him and said of him behold an israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit nathanael said to him how do you know me jesus answered him before philip called you when you were under the fig tree i saw you nathanael answered him rabbi you are the son of god you are the king of israel jesus answered him because i said to you i saw you under the fig tree do you believe you will see greater things than these and he said to him truly truly i say to you you will see heaven opened and the angels of god ascending and descending on the son of man a moment in time but the most astonishing picture just taken and captured by the evangelist the sense of jesus seeing nathanael under the fig tree and knowing him and nathaniel realizing that he is known inside out shall we say when the eyes of jesus simply says behold an israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit every list of the apostles the twelve in matthew and mark and luke and in the acts of the apostles there is no list given in saint john's gospel but every list names bartholomew quite early on in the list as one of the twelve and almost always beside phillip and here is philip calling one of his friends nathaniel so it is no wonder that the church has always identified the two together the place that nathaniel is mentioned but remember he also comes again right at the end of st john's gospel when they're on the lakeside and we read in chapter 21 after this jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the sea of tiberius and he rev revealed himself in this way simon peter simon peter thomas called the twin nathaniel of cana in galilee the sons of zebedee and two others of his disciples were together nathanael is of galilee and these people know one another this gang that jesus is calling together who will eventually be named as the twelve but the heartland of that is the little group of friends shall we say teasing friends foresee how nathaniel who doesn't come from nazareth is sniffy about nazareth but it sounds when philip speaks that uh he is is saying as you might say jesus from nazareth you know the son of joseph it's it's a sense of of knowing one another which comes in john's gospel and the sense of the community there around the lakeside and it's a wonderful image not only because of the fig tree which in one of our medieval stained glass windows of that scene is even given a listing there there's the latin names of of jesus and philip and nathanael and then ficus the fig tree i say the tree has an identity and we've no idea what nathaniel was doing under the fig tree a moment of reflection a moment of prayer but jesus had noticed him just there and as we go on with the story jesus says you you actually are giving that confession of faith you are the king of israel you are the son of god because i said i saw you under the fig tree and yet if someone knows us inside out in that way it does call forth a response but this one is a response of absolute wonder jesus says you'll see greater things than these and here's the the reflection back to the book of genesis it's a story we shall come to quite soon in our old testament reflections when we get to jacob with abraham isaac jacob and this is a story of jacob but you will know it well it's the story of him lying down in desperate straits all alone with a stone as his pillow and dreaming a dream of a ladder set up to heaven and the angels of god ascending and descending on that ladder and here jesus says that nathanael will see angels of god ascending and descending on the son of man the humanity of jesus and we know from that story at the end of saint john's gospel that nathaniel the young man from galilee who was called first of all by philip nathaniel will see this story from beginning through to the end and then traditionally and it's the the really the church in armenia and that kind of area around pontus bisenia armenia in northern turkey as it now is and beyond and then out into the eastward parts from there that has kept the tradition of bartholomew alive and we are remembering all of that today and also the quantity of suffering throughout history that armenian christians have had to face yesterday in the lesson given to us it even song which we call the first even song the eve of sin bartholomew's day we were given some of you will have heard me read it yesterday afternoon a lesson from the sixth chapter of the second letter of sin paul to the corinthians and in that paul describes what an apostle in ministry has to face and you will remember it and here we are in chapter six i think if i began at verse four we read verses 1 to 10 yesterday but here's starting at verse 4 of chapter 6 of two corinthians the lot of an apostle as servants of god we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance in afflictions hardships calamities beatings imprisonments riots labors sleepless nights hunger by purity knowledge patience kindness the holy spirit genuine love by truthful speech and the power of god with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left through honor and dishonor through slander and praise we are treated as imposters and yet are true as unknown and yet well known as dying and behold we live as punished and yet not killed as sorrowful yet always rejoicing as poor yet making many rich as having nothing yet possessing all things and perhaps that verse seven by truthful speech and the power of god behold an israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit and there is saint paul's sketching out what bartholomew and the twelve and nathaniel if we identify the two have in front of them as apostles in their ministry a moment in time and august the 24th gives us several moments in time which have been captured but have become turning points in humanity's thinking and also thinking about its position on this planet and the way in which powerful kingdoms and empires and states rise and fall with the passing of the years august the 24th 79 a.d at 12 noon the mountain the peaceful mountain as it was thought at that time vesuvius with the affluent communities of pompeii pakulenium and other areas stabili little sort of shall we say rich tourist town there on the coast were having an ordinary morning and suddenly with a huge huge explosion the top of that mountain blew off and then began for the next 18 hours to shower the vicinity with scalding pumice and ash and so many attempting to flee and those who attempted to stay in cellars to protect themselves were buried in the ash or killed by the scalding stones it takes us back as petra and i were remembering yesterday to the sense of the cities of the plain having been destroyed and the citizens there finding themselves absolutely caught at that moment and the scenes of the excavation of pompeii which have taken place since show in a way which has sealed them by all that ash and what happened to them there shows them as they were in the same way that that it says that those fleeing from the cities of the plane and let's take the figure of lot's wife as as one of them were sealed in that way she turned into a pillar of salt we said you can imagine how that of course is a story which goes way way way way way back and was handed on and handed on to people in jesus own community saying why is that area so dead what's happened down there amongst those bitumen pits and the salt why nothing lives down there and here we are with vesuvius blowing enormous clouds first of all of scalding pumice and ash but then afterwards something else began to happen because to those who stayed even those who had sheltered themselves poisonous fumes of gas began began emitting from the mountains how do we know all this well of course we know it from massive archaeological excavation it was the the site was practically forgotten until the middle of the 18th century and in that um the way in which archaeology developed after that it's hardly stopped since began to unearth all those things but we also have a written record because pliny the elder a roman gentleman of great quality and in service of the roman empire he was born in the year 23 a.d in the middle of our lord's life and became a servant of the empire so that by the time he got to 79 a.d he was the commander of the imperial navy in the bay of naples and pliny was one of the most extensive writers of the roman world he wrote things most mostly by dictation but when he died 37 volumes of natural history one of the the biggest treasures of latin writing had been produced and we still have those but it's not that i want to talk about today commander of the fleet in the bay of naples and the fleet standing off and watching all this with horror but a message came through from one of the people in the nearby town of stabia that they were there and in danger and pliny the elder said we'll send a ship and went himself to what he thought was the safe beach there to collect that person and it was at that time that the sulfurous gases began to emit themselves this was a day or two later from the the the actual eruption and killed the people there by filling their lungs with this and and uh pliny who was uh an elderly man by then uh died there on the beach and those with him said we we must leave him here we we've got to go having said and uh came away and then later on he was found uh when they went back some time later he was found there dead with with no evident wounds on his body because stabile was little way off but the gas had killed him emitting from the mountain and we know all this because his nephew pliny the younger many of you will have translated plenty of the youngers letters in latin lessons fantastic letters one of them written to the emperor trajan describing early christians when um pliny was himself the procurator the governor of pontus and bythinia on the northern turkish coast and writing to trajan saying how do i deal with these people who meet on the lord's day and describing the worship of early christians is one of the the great testaments there in the year 113 a.d that he also writes a letter describing the way in which his uncle died giving us that moment in time just as the fourth evangelist gives us that moment in time under the fig tree when insight into nathanael from the son of man caused insight from nathanael into what was happening to him and then the prophecy that in his apostolic life he would see the angels of god ascending and descending upon the son of man a moment in time 79 a.d but august the 24th 410 a.d another august 24 stage was the day on which alaric the goth entered rome and began the sack of rome a city that had not been conquered for over 800 years and saint jerome who was living in bethlehem at the time and translating the scriptures into latin from the greek and uh we're thankful for that because that meant that the old testament was handed through in in latin from jerome but he was living in bethlehem in 410 a.d and he wrote the city which had taken the whole world was itself taken by then the capital of the whole empire was in constantinople and the capital of the western empire was in ravenna but rome still held prime position as an icon a spiritual center and the sack of rome was a shock to the whole world at that time empires rise and fall 800 years and the psalmist says in psalm 90 a thousand years in thy sight our butt as yesterday even like a watch in the night and so time itself is is held in that particular way and we remember that another moment in time august the 24th 410 a.d the beginning of the sack of rome hello lily you've joined us here now um august 24 1572 another moment in time we're now in paris in our minds and on that day catherine de medici who was the queen mother three of her sons became uh um king of france and all were much weaker than their mother who was a very very powerful person indeed and a political operator across europe with spy networks everywhere but catherine de medici had seen her daughter margaret married to henry of navarre and henry of navarre at that time was a huguenot protestant and she feared for the catholic face in france do you want any you know and so the day before or two sorry two or three days before one of the great huguenot leaders admiral gaspar de colony a very distinguished person in france but a huguenot protestant had had an assassination attempt on his life i'm perfectly well orchestrated by catherine dominici i'm sure but on the this day on the 24th her patients snapped and she caused her son charles ix who was the king to order the assassination and murder of all huguenot protestants in paris they had come for the wedding of henry of navarre and margaret and the admiral a gaspardy colony was recovering in bed he was murdered and his body thrown out of the window and then began the the awful slaughter of huguenots at first in paris and then right across france now this in canterbury's history is important for two reasons but let's deal with this one first the first reason is that huguenots came here as people as refugees seeking shelter and my predecessor at the time if i said before to you gave them temporary permission to worship in the cathedral with no written agreement it was shelter to those who were wanting to worship somewhere and fleeing from terrible atrocities and the huguenots still worship here every sunday afternoon in french we hear that french hymns coming up from the crypt in the huguenot chapel there and at the same time we just mark another moment of canterbury history because the year before the brother of gaspar de colony cardinal the colony who was here who himself had in catherine's terms apostasized and become a protestant even though a cardinal was here in england and was staying here waiting to go back to france and in some way in the guest house here next door meister omas was poisoned we think by eating a poisoned apple and died there and there's no particular doubt that that came from the spy network of of catherine de medici but at the same time his body the cardinal was placed in a temporary tomb in the trinity chapel right up by the place of the shrine of thomas becket and it was just made of hessian and covered in plaster and it was just to be a temporary thing before the body was taken back to france temporary things tend to last a long time here and the body is still there and the tomb just as it was created is just there but i wanted to pay a tribute to the huguenot congregations throughout the world we found when we were in charleston with our friends there a huguenot church and congregation which had given wonderful hospitality to grace church cathedral when it was preparing to be the cathedral there and i know that dean michael and all the family of grace cathedral in charleston are grateful to the huguenots for giving hospitality to the cathedral worship when the cathedral was being recreated in that way the synagogue did the same and we send out our greetings there to the huguenot congregation in charleston but also to dean michael to marguerite and the girls and also to the chapter of grace church cathedral of which we're very fond there in charleston at the same time at the moment we can say that a new huguenot museum has been opened in rochester which is not too far from here and many of you will know the city of rochester it was the second of the foundations of cint augustin and at 95 high street rochester a huguenot museum has been uh actually um opened so you can go and see that and we'll put the link on for that this morning so all those moments of august the 24th a moment in time but of course the one that we are celebrating most of all this morning is that moment when nathaniel oblique bartholomew senses intuitively because of what jesus has seen in him that here is the son of god here is the true king of israel the moment under the fig tree let's say our prayers on this day and i'm going to pray this morning in the anglican communion for the diocese of eggba west in the church of nigeria in the lagos province yesterday we prayed for the dialysis of egba itself so we pray for the people there in nigeria and at the same time this diocese is having a listening and discerning on the way day and so i want to pray for all the huguenot congregations in this diocese and right across the world on this day let's say the prayer for sin bartholomew and bring your own prayers and intentions as we say this day this prayer for this day almighty and everlasting god who gave to your apostle bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach your word grant that your church may love that word which he believed and may faithfully preach and receive the same through jesus christ our lord amen let's say together the prayer our savior taught us in whatever language we 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 silence now for your own prayers on this day god give you grace to follow his saints in faith and hope and love 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 i think seeing that the baby pigeons are learning to fly is a very good image of the way in which the evangelists um portray the early attempts of the disciples who were to be the twelve to um take off and fly with the mission that jesus gives them and uh some of the failures they meet but uh there's an attentive parent standing by up there and and helping them to go across to face the wide world you