[Music] good morning and welcome on this wednesday december the 16th to the orchard of the january at canterbury cathedral where we've come to say our morning prayers early in the morning wherever you are in the world feel welcome and bring your own concerns your own prayers at this time um a difficult time for so many with this pandemic as the the days lead up to christmas which is normally such a family celebration in in so many communities and uh so we're thinking of one another at this time and at the same time i'm sitting here again to celebrate today's tree and the tree today is the elder here it is beside me leafless and this is the time of year as i said before that that we see the architecture of trees and uh admire the the the difference of the various barks of the trees this elder is standing beside two tall sycamore trees here but the sycamore tree is sheltering a log pile which is overgrown intentionally because it is a habitat for slow roams and hedgehogs and stag beetles all of whom find their home there and hedgehogs being nocturnal trot around at night but in time uh keep warm within the log pile and find plentiful food within it in the insect life as well so we are thinking of december the 16th and what has happened in time gone by on this date and this was a time traditionally for ordinations to take place it took place around what used to be the feast of synthomas the apostle on 21st of december but the days leading up to that and still those alternations happen normally now they take place at peter tied at the in the middle of the year in june or sometimes at michaelmas at the end of september but we have a friend who five years ago was ordained priest on this day tyler montgomery in virginia so we congratulate him on this anniversary of his priesthood and also uh say to him and his wife mary uh that we're thinking of them and praying for them because their first baby is due on the 3rd of january and so that will be we hope a little post christmas gift well a big post christmas gift for them we think of all in their family life at this time and the kind of way in which that we are protecting one another and on december the 16th what else happened well we find political events in the past in this land in 1485 we think of the birth in spain of catherine of aragon who became the wife of henry viii a dearly loved wife but her inability in his mind to give him a son was crucial and that became a very important political fact for this nation as all of you will probably know catherine of aragon is is actually buried in peterborough cathedral and uh her tomb is held in great honor there uh in 1653 on this day oliver cromwell who had uh executed king charles the first in 1649 and then found that political leadership wasn't quite as easy as as it looked and the parliament that he fondly expected to be elected to support him actually proved to be anything but that and so he dissolved it and after one or two attempts at parliamentary government on this day he became lord protector of england well and of of the the united kingdom uh and uh that meant that he was really the sole ruler uh his reign wasn't destined to last very long because five years later he died and his brother richard his son richard found that really it wasn't for him and went back to his farm and you will know that in the end general monk marched down from scotland and the king was restored charles ii so we think of that political turmoil in this nation at that time and we think of all in positions of political leadership on this day also in 1850 two ships which was sent by the canterbury association here and were labeled or the the passengers in them were labeled by the british press canterbury pilgrims landed at littleton bay on the south island of new zealand to form the new province of canterbury there around the new city of christchurch we have very close links with that place and of course it suffered terribly from earthquakes and the beautiful cathedral church there was was ruined by a succession of earthquakes so we continue to pray but for that that community and all our friends in atro new zealand uh particularly in the city of christchurch and the canterbury plains and lands around there by 1855 the canterbury association wound itself up and all its funds were given to the new province of canterbury there and the people who'd gone there it was a church of england sponsored uh province that had to be recommended by their parish priests and had skills as shepherds and gardeners and all all kinds of rural skills to build a community there so we give thanks for the life of the south island of aotearoa new zealand today and uh then on this day uh a very important date 1775 the novelist jane austen was born we'll come back to her in the reflection and also in 1714 the anglican preacher george whitfield was born and again we'll come back to him other little dates of creative people 1899 neil coward was born 1901 beatrix potter has had taylor peter rabbit printed and in 1965 the author writer playwright somerset mourm died and his remains are scattered here because he left his library to the king's school canterbury here within the precincts our cathedral school and the morm library is part of our our life here he lived most of his life at the end when he was a very very well-known novelist and and uh very affluent novelist in villa lamaresque in at cap farat in the south of france but his remains came back here and so we give thanks for his bequest of all his books to our cathedral school here well let's begin our prayers o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise reveal among us the light of your presence that we may behold your power and glory blessed are you sovereign god of all to you be praise and glory forever in your tender compassion the dawn from on high is breaking upon us to dispel the lingering shadows of night does we look for your coming among us this day 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 oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our son this morning is psalm 80 one of the morning sounds for this 16th morning of the month and you will see it has a refrain in it which occurs again and again and it's a good refrain for these advent days here o shepherd of israel you that led joseph like a flock shine forth you that are enthroned upon the cherubim before ephraim benjamin and manasseh stir up your mighty strengths and come to our salvation turn us again o god show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved oh lord god of hosts how long will you be angry at your people's prayer you feed them with the bread of tears you give them abundance of tears to drink you have made us the derision of our neighbors and our enemies laugh us to scorn turn us again o god of hosts show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved you brought a vine out of egypt you drove out the nations and planted it you made room around it and when it had taken root it filled the land the hills were covered with its shadow and the seeders of god by its boughs it stretched out its branches to the sea and its tendrils to the river why then have you broken down its wall so that all who pass by pluck off its grapes the wild boar out of the wood tears it off and all the insects of the field devour it turn us again o god of hosts look down from heaven and behold cherish this vine which your right hand has planted and the branch that you made so strong for yourself and let those who burnt it with fire who cut it down perish at the rebuke of your countenance let your hand be upon the man at your right hand the son of man whom you made so strong for yourself and so will we not go back from you give us life and we shall call upon your name turn us again o lord god of hosts show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved the advent phrase turn us again o lord god of hosts show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved for advent is a time for reflection and also for repentance in preparation for the celebration of the feast of christmas now today we're starting a new epistle and it's an epistle not without its problems it's the second letter of paul to the thessalonians and i'm going to read chapter 1 and then we'll think of some of the puzzles it sets us paul sylvanus and timothy to the church of the thessalonians god our father and the lord jesus christ grace to you and peace from god our father and the lord jesus christ we ought always to give thanks to god for you brothers and sisters as is right because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of god for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring this is evidence of the righteous judgment of god that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of god for which you also are suffering since indeed god considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us when the lord jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire inflicting vengeance on those who do not know god and on those who do not obey the gospel of our lord jesus they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the lord and from the glory of his might when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed because our testimony to you was believed to this end we always pray for you that our god may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power so that the name of our lord jesus may be glorified in you and you in him according to the grace of our god and the lord jesus christ well that sounds familiar and it is almost a big almost identical with chapter one of the first letter of sin paul to the thessalonians but there are significant differences and especially in tone it's fiercer it's harsher it's harder and its imagery has lost that intimacy which we rejoiced in and all its freshness as we were reading the beautiful epistle that paul had written to his beloved thessalonians to all intents and purposes it's the same trio who are writing paul sylvanas and timothy so what are we to make of a letter which is so similar except in its tone and in certain of the interpretations of how judgment will happen and scholars have puzzled and puzzled over this through all the generations it's very difficult to know how to come to a resolution so let me set you the puzzle as well read the two letters side by side and see what you make of it we've got three days for three chapters of the second letter to the thessalonians the simplest thing is to think that maybe some more news came of the thessalonians and the persecutions which are mentioned don't appear in the first epistle although paul makes mention of that is one of the christians dangers because uh the the the giving of the gospel will suffer persecutions but here they are present tense these persecutions and afflictions are happening so maybe news had come and also news which gave him more concern than the first letter and so he sets about another letter and writes it straight away you could take it in that way but as you read through you'll feel a very different kind of tone to the letter and there's a sense of saying is this the same paul who was writing from corinth with sylvanus sylvain is still there timothy timothy there and but timothy much more the companion of saint paul in as his ministry goes on so are we to to make it in that way or as other scholars have thought this is written by one of the others to maybe even a different group of thessalonian christians and one letter was sent to one and one letter was sent to another we can't know whereas others have thought that this is not really a letter written by paul it's a letter written much much later to a situation which was much much later and containing things which seem to fit the way in which the life of the church was at the later years of the first century not at 50 a.d or 51 when we date the first letter the earliest that paul wrote and there was a custom that people would write in the style of someone to give the authority it wasn't seen to be in any way a trick it was meant to be this is in the style of paul and what he would have said and at the end of this letter there's a big big statement of saying this is me paul writing look at my handwriting and all of that which he doesn't use in the other one it's clearly paul because of the love he has for the thessalonians we can't tell but we've three days of just puzzling over this but let me warn you we shan't come to a conclusion but what we shall do is hold up words which again are little jewels of poor line teaching which we've done in the first letter to the thessalonians and the comparison with the second makes the first to me more beautiful but to you it might give different insights so let me set you the puzzle which even puzzled central gusts in himself and in the end he gave it up and particularly chapter two and said this we can never know this this puzzle set in chapter two well chapter two we shall come to tomorrow but for the moment we give thanks for this letter included in the canon of the new testament and give thanks for the comparison it gives us with the earlier letter which helps us to understand and embrace that as well i said that various things happened today let me begin though by thinking of the way in which these letters passed around because of the safety given by roman law there in the whole of the mediterranean region in sin paul's time people relied on that and of course paul was a citizen of the roman empire and and he said that several times in the acts of the apostles for his own protection and in the end he appeals to the emperor yesterday we were thinking of the way in which the the bill of rights which was uh ratified by the congress on that date december the 15th and as far as i remember 17 i haven't got the date but but whatever the date was uh in the end of the 18th century and that bill of rights was in fact uh uh taken from the stepping stones of roman law and then here i'm sitting on the site of the palace of king ethelbert who gathered all the all the laws together that he could find from roman times when they had been here and created his what's called the textus refences kept then in rochester cathedral and also going on to the magna carta which was in its first edition given to canterbury cathedral through the work of stephen langton the archbishop and then on to the bill of rights resting itself on magna carta texas refenses and ethelbert's laws all the way back to roman law at that time so we give thanks for that and the way in which laws develop and are handed on from one nation to another and how that law of the united states the bill of rights there goes all the way back to roman law through those leapfroggings through canterbury and rochester and on we go and then the next stage i want to think about is 1714 when george whitefield was born now he became a very fierce evangelical preacher uh i was was ordained a deacon and was was uh in ministry in in in the united states as well in savannah but also came back here and here i want to tell a bit of my own story because our own parish at home was set in the a bit of a huge parish in the 18th century it was the parish of saint mary's britain in gloucestershire and that parish was so big that it encompassed the villages around britain itself but it also encompassed coal mines in the kingswood forest and i don't think the vicar of bitten ever really dared go into that fairly lawless area at that time but from my bedroom i could see a huge beacon lit like a star because it was far off but there it was and it was on the place where george whitefield first came and preached to the colliers the coal miners of the kingswood forest and in the open air there on what was called the mount he preached to hundreds of the people in the open air and then when he went back to the united states he gave that ministry over to john wesley who then came and preached in the same way and that beacon was actually a beacon of light where the gospel was preached in the open air and we know what difficulties that means for someone without a magnified voice but nevertheless the colliers came in their numbers to listen to whitfield and then wesley preach and that's an historic site there which we give thanks for because our lord preached in the open air and here we are saying our prayers in the open air because of the various lockdowns that are taking place and it gives us the chance always to look at different images and notice how the psalm likens the people of israel to the vine planted by the lord and the destroyers to the wild boar out of the wood tearing off the branches all of those things as we sit by the elder tree this morning let's give thanks then for that ministry in the open hour which then went on to bring schools and all kinds of things to the children of those that the ordinary church was not reaching at that time and we give thanks for the courage of folk like john and charles wesley whenever i mention charles wesley i want to give thanks for his beautiful hymns as well and so let's give thanks there but also let's give thanks on this day in 1775 for the birth of jane austen many people will be giving thanks for her birth because her novels and let's let's name them in in chronological order as they were published sense and sensibility pride and prejudice mansfield park emma and then posthumously northanger abbey and persuasion we would all have our own favorites and it's lovely for us that that jane austen's brother edward lived here at the nearby village of gomesham and jane austen is listed to have come here because edward's mother-in-law um came to live in canterbury and uh um danced here at the deanery and uh was was quite taken by the member of parliament for canterbury at that time mr washington and in one of her letters she she mentions mr lashington who himself then went on to become the governor of the province of madras in in india and his son went out to be a writer for the east india company at that time that that's the official name for a clerk there and sadly died out there and there's the most beautiful statue of uh mr lashington's son in the cathedral church in chennai with madras now and when you go there and one gives thanks for all of that the the life of the early 19th century and jane austen a child of the rectory her father director of steventon in hampshire not well known in her lifetime her books became much much more famous in the 1830s 40s and really have never been out of print and her gentle irony and the humor she gives us and the description she gives of life at that time all of those things we give thanks for and if you're like me return to different novels from time to time and have favorite passages to read within them so all of that creativity we give thanks for and also for her letters and uh we uh thank god for all letters that are written to us and that we write to people because here is sin paul writing to the thessalonians in two letters that we've been reflecting on and studying at this time so let's say our prayers today and we give thanks on this 16th of december for the life of the diocese of south and kole in uganda pray for the bishop there nathan hamimba bisway the community that he looks after and also the diocese of eldoret in kenya and christopher ruto the bishop there and as i said we pray for the diocese of christchurch in tehran new zealand and the whole of the life of that diocese and here in canterbury we pray for justin archbishop for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth and today with our diocese we're praying for all schools and young people as this term comes to an end and the christmas holiday which will be severely restricted in terms of meeting begins so we pray for one another within the compass of this pandemic here's the prayer for this week of advent bring your own prayers and intentions as we say our prayers the lord jesus christ who at your first coming sent your messenger to prepare your way before you grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready your way by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just that at your second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in your sight for you are alive and reign with the father and the holy spirit one god now and forever amen and the colic for every day of advent almighty god give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life in which your son jesus christ came to visit us in great humility that on the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge with the living and the dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen the prayer our savior taught us in whichever 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 justices 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 for ever and ever amen moment of silence now as we say our own prayers before the blessing let's give thanks for the elder tree for its wonderful fruitfulness and for the wine that is made from it and also for its flowers with their amazing scent and beloved of the bees but also people gather them and make elderflower cordial and elderflower champagne which is a a fizzy non-alcoholic drink which people enjoy at this time of year at christmas time and so the fruitfulness of creation is all around us christ the son of righteousness shine upon you scatter the darkness from before your path and make you ready to meet him when he comes in glory 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 [Music] you