good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of saturday the 5th of february it is the most beautiful morning and the sun rising up over the wall not there yet but on the tower of the cathedral and giving us a sense of a really new dawn which will fit so well with the little lesson from one samuel that we'll read a little bit later on uh it's a charming story there and it stands all by itself but we'll come to that when we come to that point in our service for the moment let's begin on this saturday morning our morning prayers and be welcome wherever you are in the world bringing your own concerns and things which are troubling in your part of the world or in your community here or in your own families so all of those things we remember on this february the 5th as we begin our prayers 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 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 does we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen perhaps it's a good thing for me before the sound to say where we're sitting this morning because in a way there are reflections on the past few days i'm sitting beside another you tree here but at the same time i'm surrounded by signs of spring opening up here in this part of the garden this bin beside me is very much going to be used when the rhubarb needs darkness to force it up from its its uh roots in in terms of coming to be ready for the table but it's not in use yet there it is in use this morning for uh this and leo's breakfast here but around you can see all kinds of signs of life with the new artichoke leaves coming out and also lots of bulbs coming up around me at my feet daffodil bulbs uh and uh um bluebell bulbs and even higher synth bulbs which later on will be useful for decorating in the house itself and the lovely scent of the hyacinths all these things around us on this really lovely morning as the sun just begins to show itself and may do so just here before we end our prayers this morning let's say our psalm which this morning is psalm 24. the earth is the lord's and all that fills it the compass of the world and all who dwell therein for he has founded it upon the seas and set it firm upon the rivers of the deep who shall ascend the hill of the lord or who can rise up in his holy place those who have clean hands and a pure heart who have not lifted up their soul to an idol nor sworn an oath to a lie they shall receive a blessing from the lord a just reward from the god of their salvation such is the company of those who seek him of those who seek your face so god of jacob lift up your heads so gates be lifted up you everlasting doors and the king of glory shall come in who is the king of glory the lord strong and mighty the lord who is mighty in battle lift up your heads though gates be lifted up you everlasting doors and the king of glory shall come in who is this king of glory the lord of hosts he is the king of glory it really is a global sound the earth is the lord's and all that fills it the compass of the world and all who dwell therein and we have the seas and the rivers of the deep and everything about our planet is global here today and the life of the planet perhaps as a sad note to that you will have seen maybe in your news in this part of the world that a huge bank of dead fish is appalling people off the atlantic coast of france in the bay of biscay from a super trawler from which there is a sign of some fishing type of mistake or accident having happened dropping its whole massive catch and that massive catch simply being dead in the water there and it's awakened people to the fact that such huge catches should not be being taken from there the super trawler is already banned in australian waters and i can see that it will soon be banned off european waters so that such catches can't happen and leave such tragedies in the sea so let's some go to our lesson which has a very cheerful note this morning very different from yesterday but we are with the same characters and we're deep in the trauma of the relationship between saul and samuel and here in this little story david plays a very different part still as a boy so we come to verse 14 of chapter 16 of the first book of samuel now the spirit of the lord departed from saul and a harmful spirit from the lord tormented him and saul's servant said to him behold now a harmful spirit from god is tormenting you let our lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the liar and when the harmful spirit from god is upon you he will play it and you will be well says saul said to his servants provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me one of the young men answered behold i have seen a son of jesse the bethlehemite who is skillful in playing man of valor man of war prudent in speech man of good presence the lord is with him therefore saul sent messengers to jesse and said send me david your son who is with the sheep and jesse took a donkey laden with bread and a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them by david his son to saul and david came to saul and entered his service and saul loved him greatly and david became his armor-bearer and saul sent to jesse saying let david remain in my service for he has found favor in my sight and whenever the harmful spirit from god was upon saul david took his liar and played it with his hand so saul was refreshed and was well and the harmful spirit departed from him one can read that in a very ordinary way by saying that all this desperate stress with samuel all this tension has actually resulted in periods of of terrible depression come on tiger come if you come now okay come up come on up you come good boy uh periods of terrible mental depression for the king which come upon him and what we see here is a little story which has survived almost by itself like a little capsule put in but from it we get a different image of david and saul already knows that he is the one who looks after the sheep he says that in his message to jesse this is a message from the king so jesse when he sends his youngest son who now is beginning to grow into the stature of the other seven brothers who had impressed samuel physically the day before he sends his youngest son with gifts for the king and david comes probably with an enormous amount of trepidation but he is shepherding the sheep and is known also as a skilled player upon the liar a simple form of harp and from this little story comes another image of david as a musician and as the foundation of the psalms of david as we call them so that the shepherd psalm 23 which is just before the psalm we read this morning has become one of the most beloved of all psalms if i turn the page back it does it's good to read it i'm reading it in this version from daily prayer you will know it in many different versions and in hymn tunes and all sorts of other ways the lord is my shepherd therefore can i lack nothing he makes me lie down in green pastures he leads me beside still waters he shall refresh my soul and guide me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death i will fear no evil for you are with me your rod and your staff comfort me you spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me you have anointed my hedge with oil and my cup shall be full surely goodness and loving mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and i will dwell in the house of the lord forever as i say one of the most beloved of all psalms and really associated with david and there's that sentence there about anointing with oil which samuel has already done as we saw in our lesson yesterday but that anointing as the king for the future is not going to be the happiest of anointings for david to start with but we have one or two stories left to tell which have been left over from his earlier days and we'll come to those but this morning we rejoice in this story which associates david with the whole book of the psalms so that his inspiration is seen as a musician and obviously a singer too in in that book of the psalms which has always been the root of all our daily offices and the way in which we approach worship each day sentences from those psalms of david as they're traditionally called also it it reminds us of the traditional association of shepherds with simple instruments of music pipes and liars like this for singing to one another and singing for their own enjoyment is one of the pastoral images well well back in all literature of of shepherds and also the simplicity of the shepherd boy coming to the king is reflected so often in our crib scenes where in traditional crib scenes a young boy and often a young girl are there with alam but standing slightly on the outskirts rather as david had been when samuel went to anoint and began to look at the brothers and say surely it must be one of those and then is it nobody else and jesse's saying well there is one he's out keeping the sheep shepherding the sheep there's one image of david and today here's another the simplicity of the instrument of the heart but at the same time the ability of music to refresh the soul now you and i don't need to be told that and nor do we need to be told because we know it deep within us that every form of worship has music right through it of different thoughts in different cultures but the ability to sing and to listen to singing and listen to music and for us to listen to the psalms being sung is in a place like this a daily refreshment for ourselves often nowadays of course we can hear recordings of these things whenever we want but it never ever ever takes the place of making music oneself because when we sing there is something beautiful going on within us matters not how we sing or what skills we have somehow the desire to sing especially in community but often by oneself and also the feelings evoked by music when you hear it and you know it and the words or the meaning of the music or the association with something that's gone on in your life before suddenly wakens up how often have i mentioned hymns or read hymns uh in the the the morning worship of all of us and we've had messages back saying that him really touched me because and then a story attached in some way or another a multitude of stories from sadness and joy and from sudden pleasure and sudden spiritual awakening as well so that in that way um we find that music is is helping us and here we see david helping the king by simply playing and singing at times when the real depression comes over saul and he feels that he needs a refreshment a revival of his spirits so let's give thanks for all of that this morning and remember that this is the david the royal line of david the house of judah and the genealogy from which the anointed one our lord will be born but those images are images that jesus himself treasured i am the good shepherd i know my sheep and so often those images are carried on that lovely psalm 23 speaks of that to us instantly it joins the old covenant with the new covenant and the anointing does exactly the same say that we have here david the shepherd king but also david the musician who is thrilling the king and his court with music and those cultures around the king those servants of the king knew that saul would be refreshed by hearing the music of the harp and perhaps by hearing david's voice singing there's a lovely long hymn which isn't sung so much now jerusalem my happy home name ever dear to me and in that there are descriptions of the heavenly jerusalem and one of the couplet are in that hymn which is a delightful catholic there david stands with harp in hand the master of the choir well it's a lovely image of the the eternal city and it's always amused me uh when i have a director of music called david which we do now and we did before and in all my tisbury years i had a director of music who was a skilled musician on the organ and in choirs and the the david uh there was was also the master of the choir so it amuses me when we can say that so um then let's go on now with our reflections because there is a date today which joins all sorts of things here together it's the day february the fifth in 1837 when the american evangelist dwight l moody was born and dwight moody had a vocation to refresh people's spirits with his words and to teach them the truths of the gospel in the most simple ways and at first this was shown in an enormous desire to use his resources and to use his energies and his skills as a teacher in sunday schools for people growing up though in fact the parents often would learn so much as so often happens a child's lesson when it's being listened to inadvertently if it's simply done is able to teach the faith in a great way but here was here was moody and he set up his his real base in chicago and we're talking now in the late 1860s and up to 1870 and then in 1871 things were going along well with the sunday school movement but at an international sunday school convention in indianapolis in june 1871 dwight l moody met ira d sankey a musician a singer a singer of gospel songs and things i will say things took off but let's just pause the moment he realized that sanki's singing refreshed the people he was speaking to in a particular way which made them more avid to hear what was going to come next but also somehow joined them to gospel stories by the tunes that were being sung and by the voice that was singing it and oftentimes if the voice had a chorus there they would begin to join in so that music began from moody and sanki together words and music moody wasn't their hymn writer in words moody was the teacher the offering of the good news the evangel the gospel to the people and now with sanki suddenly things began to take off but first something catastrophic happened moody was invited sorry moody invited sanki to join him in chicago in this great mission with all the resources of his church and everything else that was going on there the school the sunday schools and so on this was june 1871 in october 1871 in a huge conflagration the great chicago fire destroyed a huge section of the city of chicago there was great loss of life it must have been a terrifying experience and everything of the resources of of uh dwight moody and he he had many resources were destroyed and during that fire sankey uh got into a boat to save himself really and rode himself out onto lake michigan and looked back and saw the city and all their resources burning and afterwards he thought well that was you know a nice try but uh we'll obviously we can't go on after that and uh he then went back home and moody summoned him again and said we've lost resources but maybe it's a a new way of of going ahead so they began without those resources to travel and moody would preach and sanki would sing and he sang not at first his own tunes that came later but he sang to stadia of 2000 to 4 000 people how they got their voices across i've no idea because nowadays we're so used to electric mechanisms of even when you've got a a crowd of 200 or something of that sort you can make your voice heard uh if that the cathedral if it was filled and i had no mechanism to to speak i don't know how many of the people will be hearing what i was saying even from the pulpit in the cathedral out in the open air you would have to be using your voice hugely for the numbers that came and i always think of jesus in amphitheaters like the lakeside sitting in the boat speaking to the people and the message being passed from one to another so often i in my late stage of hearing have to say what was that uh and i get especially gets really annoyed saying you come on get yourself a death aid it's uh but but but uh i'm i'm always asking um you know what was what was that what was that but that must have been going on the message passed from crowd to crowd a person to person in the crowd and moody preaching thank you singing two thousand to four thousand people well um but nevertheless what they could do when the songs were sung was join in with the chorus now things really only took off for them oddly i mean they they they've begun in the united states but they came to england and uh when they were here 1872 it was a three-year journey and they went to city after city and the crowds grew and grew and moody would preach and sanki would sing and it wasn't just the kind of folk who were used to gospel music or the gospel being preached in that way it was people of every kind of tradition and also every social grouping from queen victoria to the prime minister william gladstone at the time um who himself was a what you call a high church man and queen victoria was certainly a very conservative church woman in terms of ecclesiastical tradition ecclesial tradition should we call it um nevertheless this touched them and i'm bound to say that i think that sankey's music was probably the thing which gave them refreshment in the middle of all of moody's words it also gave moody a chance to drink a glass of water or two and and and refresh that voice because it must have been really physically tiring from place to place to place to be going on in that way and uh and um uh and trying to infuse the people but the music did it and of course uh when they got back to the states the story had come and so they then in boston and in new york and in san francisco and in even vancouver in the united states in canada these scenes were repeated and the audiences the the people coming to listen and receive the gospel in this form grew and grew and probably one of the best known hymns at that time which was being sung by uh thank you to his own tune now was there were 99 that safely lay in the shelter of the fold but one was out on the hills away far off from the gates of gold away on the mountains wild and bare away from the tender shepherd's care away from the tender shepherd's care now cleverly fletcher has found a little snippet of sankey singing that in 1898 when he was in in old age and and his voice will sound rather scratchy but just and quite slow according to modern standards from moody and thank him nevertheless it gives you an insight into the way that moody and sanki just spent themselves all their resources all their energies everything they could do all their gifts in this ministry this gospel ministry the evangel in words and music appealing to so many and giving revival refreshment hear this and don't be surprised because this is an old cylindrical phonograph type of of recording and yet it takes us right back to the the closing years of that that uh ministry 1898 and let me look at the dates ah yes uh moody died in 1899 and sanki in 1908 so they were at the the latter stages then when sankey sang this here you are [Music] new york in chicago [Applause] [Music] [Music] from [Music] oh oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] but [Music] from me [Music] [Music] is [Music] me [Applause] that linking us with a particular period of of history but uh showing you the the kind of revival song which caught on remember um waking one morning in the guest house in zanzibar next to zanzibar cathedral and hearing some uh singing from the early morning eucharist going on next door in the cathedral very very early in the morning uh and i thought i know that tune and it was beneath the cross of jesus i feign would take my stand the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land a home within the wilderness a rest upon the way from the burning of the noontide heat and the burden of the day that him and that the sankey him tune is in the green edition of the the english hymnal i say this crossed all ecclesial boundaries and gave refreshment and revival it wasn't the only way that they taught moody was keen on the wordless book which meant a pattern of colors which i think the baptist preacher c.h spurgeon was the first to use but it meant that people didn't have a script but they looked at panels of colors on a chart or a banner and at first there were only three it was black red white black represented the darkness of our human condition all of us globally every culture everything that that represented that red represented for us if you want the the blood of christ the offering of god himself to save our human condition and white was really like the the robe of the pilgrim having come to the journey's end and put on white after that moody added gold as the sign of the gates of of the the eternal city to which he was leading people by then you had black red white gold others then added blue after red for the baptism which then became white and finally others added green which was the which came after the white as the gross in christ that all that refreshment gave now you can see how well that works because uh people not just children would relate to the colors and the person would be given promptings as they partly told their own story and partly to the gospel stories and so many of the hymns that were being sung were rooted in the gospel and that meant that they could go seamlessly from one to the other and there was a good memory of how that happened on the way through and so this this was always called the wordless book now you have to take account to the fact that in different cultures different colors mean different things and so people would tune it once they knew the the culture they were in but nevertheless that message quite easily was given with the memories being helped not only by the music of the songs now but also by the colors on the wall easy ways of going on in this way what i'm bound to say is that that sanki um just wore himself out wore his voice out and in two further united kingdom um trips he found himself having to go home early because he just wore himself out trying to get those songs over but by then they were well known so the crowds would sing the choruses with him and quite often the the the whole song and so it went on now he lived on after moody but but as moody's health was failing they had actually worked themselves completely to a standstill as moody's health was failing sank his family took him on a pilgrimage to egypt and palestine and there's a lovely story that when he got to jerusalem he insisted on climbing to the top of the tower of david in the citadel there and it was in ottoman empire hands in those times and the bemused ottoman guard on the top saw this quite elderly man lift his eyes to heaven and sing psalm 121 i will lift up mine eyes unto the lord from whence cometh my help my help cometh from the lord who has made heaven and earth such a a wonderful image of sanki standing there in jerusalem on the tower of david singing and singing had been the way that david himself had quietened the terrible times of king saul and himself has passed on as not only the shepherd king but the lord's musician and the basis of all our psalm singing in our music in worship let's say our prayers then on this particular day um and uh we are thinking today in our anglican communion and praying for the diocese of capsabet in the anglican church of kenya and pray for archbishop justin pray for uh rose bishop of dover pray for emma bishop at lambeth and here in the diocese today for the church of holy trinity margate and clifford stocking and john huffman in their ministry there so we bring our own intentions our own prayers from across the world and we say the collect for today the fifth sunday before lent almighty god by whose grace alone we are accepted and called to your service strengthen us by your holy spirit and make us worthy of our calling through jesus christ our lord amen together 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 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 moment now for your own reflection the music of the harp is a a live um piece of music which mary morning uh was filmed doing in the cathedral itself so you may hear noises of folk entering the cathedral in this act of worship but here is the beautiful music of the harp [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] um [Music] [Music] mmm [Music] so [Music] laughs [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [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 will pray for today and always amen well enjoy your day uh i shall have a fairly noisy afternoon i think because rugby starts again this afternoon and england are playing scotland in uh at murray fields in edinburgh so i shall have a very noisy fletcher cheering and i shall hear what's going on at that time so go well you