good morning and welcome to the deanery garden in canterbury cathedral on this wednesday the 1st of december the first of a new month and as we begin our prayers please feel welcome from right across the world wherever you are bring your own concerns and intentions we remember in our hearts and minds the tragic shootings which have taken place in the state of michigan the town of oxford about 60 kilometers from detroit another a school shooting and we we pray for the repose of the sales of those who've died and those who've been we'll think of those who've been injured the families involved and the whole community of that town of oxford but at the same time we remember those who have suffered so much in istanbul from the enormous winds of the storm there and the the newsreels of that tend to be immensely dramatic but we we pray for all those who are in danger there and those who have lost so much uh in their in their properties or possessions at this time let's say our prayers on this first day of the month 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 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 as 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 first day of the month and our morning psalm is quite naturally psalm 1 blessed are they who have not walked in the council of the wicked nor lingered in the way of sinners nor sat in the assembly of the scornful their delight is in the law of the lord and they meditate on his law day and night like a tree planted by streams of water bearing fruit in due season with leaves that do not wither whatever they do it shall prosper as for the wicked it is not so with them they are like chaff which the wind blows away therefore the wicked shall not be able to stand in the judgment nor the sinner in the congregation of the righteous but the way of the wicked shall perish a short psalm at the beginning of the month but we shall come back to another of the psalms for the day a bit later on in our reflection that will be one of our evening psalms psalm 8 but it's very significant for our reading of the lesson this morning which is from the epistle to the hebrews which of course we started a day or two ago and now we're going back to it to chapter two so we will read chapter two and then we'll begin to talk about it some of this can be quite complicated but it has all kinds of references to the psalms and to images which we ourselves have been looking at in the books of genesis and exodus therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it for since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation it was declared at first by the lord and it was attested to us by those who heard while god also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the holy spirit distributed according to his will for it was not two angels that god subjected the world to come of which we are speaking it has been testified somewhere what is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you care for him you made him for a little while lower than the angels you have crowned him with glory and honor putting everything in subjection under his feet now in putting everything in subjection to him he left nothing outside his control at present we do not yet see everything in subjection to him but we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels namely jesus crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of god he might taste death for everyone for it was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist in me bringing many children to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering for he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source that is why he is not ashamed to call them all of them brothers and sisters saying i will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters in the midst of the congregation i will sing your praise and again i will put my trust in him and again behold i and the children god has given me since therefore the children share in flesh and blood he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death that is the devil and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery for surely it is not angels that he helps he helps the offspring of abraham therefore he had to be made like his brothers and sisters in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of god to make propitiation for the sins of the people for because he himself has suffered when tempted he is able to help those who are being tempted this is all about identity it's about the humanity of jesus it is also about the divinity of jesus and our writer in the elegant greek a ten attempts to fuse the things together for both must be real if the good news is to be real and therefore in our reflections and our concentration we are shown in human form the humanity of jesus right to the end of his being lifted up as we saw yesterday in the gospel for sin andrew's day i when i am lifted up will draw all peoples to myself but at the same time that lifting up has in it the total character of the divine the creator whom jesus taught us to call father our father who art in heaven it's a difficult time for the church in attempting all those years ago to come to terms with this shall we call it double reality and to know still the one god father son and holy spirit in that chapter we hear of the ministry of the human jesus we do see jesus with our mortal eyes and now through attested witnesses telling that story and giving us that good news but at the same time we know that the god who dwells in ineffable and such radiant glory that our eyes our mortal eyes cannot measure or bear the sight of that see also that divinity within the person of jesus christ it's why he's quoting psalm 8 i'm going now to psalm 8 which is the last of the evening psalms for the first day of the month in our book of daily prayer which i'm using that psalm is given twice once in one version and that version is what we would say in modern terms gender specific for a very definite reason and then is given again in again in modern terms a gender non-specific way for our benefit now the reason it's given first is because the writer to the hebrews imagines jesus saying this psalm or singing this sound in his earthly life and knowing gradually that that psalm applied to him and gave him that the title that he would use most often of himself setting aside titles of glory and giving a title which makes him the representative of all our humanity the offspring of humankind living in reality a human life even to death a death on the cross which god himself the creator chose to glorify in resurrection and ascension and also to underline with the giving of the gift of the holy spirit all that is there in that chapter but let's go to psalm 8 which the writer quotes and let's do it ourselves here is the first version which he is imagining jesus using o lord our governor how glorious is your name in all the world your majesty above the heavens is praised out of the mouths of babes at the breast you have founded a stronghold against your foes that you might still the enemy and the avenger when i consider your heavens the work of your fingers the moon and the stars that you have ordained what is man that you should be mindful of him the son of man that you should seek him out you have made him little lower than the angels and crown him with glory and honor you have given him dominion over the works of your hands and put all things under his feet all sheep and oxen even the wild beasts of the field the birds of the air the fish of the sea and whatsoever moves in the paths of the sea oh lord our governor how glorious is your name in all the world what is the son of man that you should seek him out that is the question which develops in the humanity of jesus but here's the other version of psalm 8 and we have no need to read the first three verses they are the same but from verse 4 when i consider your heavens the work of your fingers now this is us the moon and the stars that you have ordained what are mortals that you should be mindful of them mere human beings that you should seek them out you have made them little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor you have given them dominion over the works of your hands and put all things under their feet well we could easily change that to what are mortals that you should be mindful of us mere human beings that you should seek us out you have made us little lower than the angels and crown us with glory and honor by the gift of the spirit and through the glorification through suffering of our lord jesus christ himself in his humanity you have given us i won't say dominion i want to say stewardship over the works of your hands and put all things under our feet the stewardship of life which humankind are encouraged to use wisely for the sake of the life of all creation but also to take the lessons and imagery and sensitivity of creation to be a guide for that particular stewardship drilling back into the words of the older covenant but it was by that covenant and in that worship and with those psalms that the humanity of jesus grew up and lived out and developed the vocation which caused him to know that he was the anointed one the christ and yet that title son of man the representative of our humanity then passes those gifts those divine gifts as well as human gifts through the working of the spirit to us it is the most extraordinary chapter but it is uniting all that in this particular lesson the self-identity of jesus both human and divine and we see what what tension that cause causes within him as he sweats those drops of blood on in the garden of gethsemane before being arrested giving himself over to a rest and then over to the suffering and death on the cross being lifted up to draw all people us to himself throughout all ages through the gifts of the holy spirit but first through the testimony of those who witnessed that resurrection and were present when the divine glory of the ascension event happened and now we hear how another writer in the early church as we've said probably around 60 ads attempting to deal with that and also pointing back to the lessons of the old covenant but giving it in a completely new way this is a time when the jewish community are celebrating hanukkah and hanukkah is an eight-day festival and they use in that uh what's become called a manure like the manure in the temple we we saw when we were looking at the rules of of the the temple in the exodus and leviticus and and numbers just a few weeks ago how a seven branched candlestick was to be made well now the mineral for the hanukkah is nine branch the eight candles and one feeder candle shall we say to feed the light day by day it's done in different ways but certainly it is a feast of lights and if you look in john's gospel you will find jesus actually involved in the feast of lights it's john chapter 10 and it's at that time in saint john's gospel that jesus says i am the light of the world as the sacred manora in the temple is lit throughout the days of the feast of lights eight at hanukkah because it remembers what was said to be the miraculous story and it took place in the year 164 bc when judas maccabeas won back from uh antiochus the city of jerusalem which he had despoiled and caused foreign worship and and sacrifices unacceptable to be going on in the temple place and judas maccabees lit the menara again which had to be filled with oil but there was not enough enough of the the right oil so the story goes to last for more than one day when they went to fetch more it took longer than that took eight days to come back but the one day's oil lasted for the eight days and so eight plus the flame which is kept going becomes a hanukkah manner and at the same time we think of our lord at the feast of lights transforming that in the way that the writer to the hebrews is thinking of but i am the light of the world is a much broader concept than the lights we light yet at advent we do light lights we light the four advent candles the first of which we lit on sunday and some of you perhaps today will have lit the advent candle that you have which will burn in the 24 sections burn down throughout the days of advent for although advent technically began on sunday it's always on the 1st of december that the advent journey really begins if you're keeping an advent calendar you'll have advent calendars of many many times i'm sure opening little doors and seeing what's behind some are telling stories some have little chocolates or things inside to make christmas seem nearer and nearer and nearer but also there are other ones which teach other stories you will remember that uh we brought out when we were doing the story of noah our wooden ark which is in the house and that arc of course it tells the story of noah with all the creatures with noah stanley on the deck there and the dove in his arms but it's really an advent calendar it's got 24 doors in the side of the ark and they're numbered from one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve on one side then you turn the arc and go up to 24. so this morning in opening the first door out stepped a creature for us we never know which because when they're put away at the end of advent we don't we we do it haphazardly and and don't even try to remember who's there but what happens is that one steps out and this morning it was a little pig which came out and stood there now they come out singly as if coming out individually from the imprisonment out into the light but at the same time there's a sort of waiting they will be surrounded bit by bit by creaturely companions but what they're waiting for is their own companion because they're all in pairs and that companionship is really important it could be that our little pig who came out this morning on day one might have to wait till day 24 until his particular companion comes out and stands beside the pig there amongst the other creatures or it could be it happens tomorrow we don't know but what we know is there are two lessons there one is the freedom that's given from that to be in a particular community but also a lesson of understanding and committed companionship and that sense of of uh waiting and being um encouraged to be part of that community because of that companionship all those advent lessons as lights are lit as one goes on and on and on through and uh so um we have that uh and perhaps one might mention the the piece of sculpture by stephen cox in the um herb garden the at the north side of the cathedral because there too are two monoliths who are at the moment of finding a sense of identity and companionship from each other they're vast monoliths built in hammer mat bracha marble but they actually teach the same kind of lesson now after all that advent calendars candles menara and identity i want to talk about the reality of the identity needing to be real to the person has to be the real you or the real me and at the same time the sense of nothing else will do it really we really have to know that jesus's humanity was real humanity with all its limitations that we have and that his death was a real death but at the same time we have to know that his divinity that which was divine is also real and holding that together becomes part of our spiritual quest because those divine gifts are also imparted to us who are made in the image of god this is a day uh in uh 1761 long time ago first of december 1761 that anna maria tusson was born madame tussaud and the minute i mention her you'll know what we're going to talk about but it took quite a time for her to come to london she came first in 1802 until then she spent some time in switzerland where she and members of her family learned from a swiss doctor there how to make wax models he had made them for showing the human body in in medical teaching but they then came to paris and in paris her gifts were honored by the king even at that time louis xvi and she was invited to versailles and the the wax models became something of a novelty but then she had to live through the revolution and she herself was thought to be a royalist sympathizer she got to the point of even having her hair shaved off ready for the guillotine but at that time someone stepped forward and in some way saved her and the first opportunity in 1802 at the piece of ammon she came across to england and from then on uh things progressed towards the fact first of all she traveled with the wax collection as a travelling show but eventually in 1835 the permanent connect collection was made in baker street now it's become one of the great tourist attractions and there are wax works which were made by her and her family is still there but mostly the wax works are of modern people now and they have different rooms it's ages since i've been there in fact i've seen the one at windsor and it's the department of madame tussauds you'll find them all over the world now but i've seen the one at windsor since and yet always although it's wonderful to see them there is a sense of unreality they're not real and everything we're talking about this morning in humanity in the lesson that the the writers of the hebrews is giving us has to be real many things might be wonderful many things might be shown us in films and uh even in in theater but when you're watching it you think well that that couldn't possibly happen but it's fun to watch or it's terrifying to watch or whatever experience the filmmaker or the the person in theater or art is trying to give you what is real is quite different and the madame tussaud wax works are something that ah it has a sort of artificiality about it you know when you go in that's what you're going to see and the fact that here are our politicians or leaders from now or the past uh they're standing there famous people and it's quite a tribute a feather in their cap to have their statue there in madame tussauds but it's not them [Music] and this lesson is all about the reality of the humanity of jesus and also he is putting his human life on the line for us 1913 to 2005 are the years of the life of the african-american activist rosa parks but on this day december the 1st 1955 she boarded a bus in montgomery alabama buses there were segregated at that time in alabama and she went to sit in the section reserved for those who were not white citizens the first seats were for those but because it was a rainy day and the bus began to fill the conductor came or the driver came back and said you'd have to get out of these seats there are white people standing and suddenly something about rosa parks knew that this was her moment she was doing nothing illegal she'd actually gone to the place where she should be sitting and now for what she thought was a totally unconstitutional reason she was being asked to move and she didn't her identity came forward and she didn't now there's much more to her story from then on there's the way in which martin luther king used her as an image of all things but that moment when was a moment when everything within her was distilled and said enough is enough we need to go forward in a different way and she simply sat and was arrested and well the story is one that's told but now congress have honored her as we know as the first lady of civil rights but it was that moment in december the first 1955 when all that was within her simply thought i've i've got the determination simply to sit i here to go on to somebody else as well on this day who died on the 1st of december 1987 and so much of his writing is about identity he was born in 1924 i'm talking about the novelist playwright essayist poet activist again james baldwin who again was an afro-american this time in harlem who had as a very severe stepfather a man who was a baptist preacher and it meant that james knew the scriptures inside out and began to be a preacher himself he had an immense gift with words and had spent because he wanted to get out of the way of the the the domineering father um he'd spent much time in the silence of libraries reading reading reading writing writing writing and then in pulpits for a while preaching preaching preaching and finding that he could do it but at the same time he despaired of all that was going on there and rather than sitting still and being there he decided that he would simply leave harlem and completely relocate he relocated to paris in 1948 he went there at the age of 24 and he wrote his first novel which is from one of the spiritual hymns that probably many of you will know i certainly know go tell it on the mountain and this was putting his life on the line if you if you um uh want to keep the same imagery but by the time this was finished he was in another country that would become the name of a novel which it took him years to write in which he explored his own uh ethnicity his sexuality and also the gifts that he had within him and tried to set it out in reality so that the real james baldwin should be set down in his writings and he suffered for it eventually he came back to the united states but chose not to make his absolute home there he bought a small house also as his fame increased in provence at saint paul de vance and in that little house he entertained many famous writers and people who admired him but at the same time he was an activist in the united states and the photographs of him with people like marlon brando and charlton heston and show someone who is there being himself he wrote in paris um when he was uh um eating in the uh paris restaurants there on the boulevard san jamar in the cafe floor in the upstairs room there the the uh uh the the shaumbra clematis said that the the temperature was right for him he wrote giovanni's room which is a completely different sort of story but at the same time everything is quarrying inside him laying his humanity out and around in his head and his mind and his heart that quest was taking place which we've been speaking about this morning of how you set your own individuality and your own honest set of gifts which the creator has given only you and fill them with a spirituality and a creativity which can be shared and sometimes the journey is lifelong and sometimes the journey seems not even to have ended when the person died and there's there are testimonies sort of afterwards that they have written and add to the concept of what they were and the struggle they they they had all of those things as i say going through and perhaps james baldwin's another country which is an indefinite place and eventually that book which was started in 1948 was completed in the city of istanbul which we've mentioned this morning as storm wrecked at the moment but he finished that in 1962 so it took 14 years to write and one feels that there is much sweat and blood and honesty within in that but another country those two words are words that have been used quite often by writers but for the epistle to the hebrews as we shall see for the writer of the epistle to the hebrews another country is something for which our hearts and minds and spirits yearn of an infinite eternal dimension and the promise is given here and now making us wayfarers and pilgrims throughout this earthly journey but sharing the reality of our lives what we really honestly are with companions and also wider communities and that honesty sometimes makes others brave and uh so it's it's it's well to use it so this morning let's say our prayers on this first morning of the month we've got a completely brand new book calendar of prayer little booklet and the diocese is uh praying uh for listening and discerning on the way generosity and gratitude there's a proud request written by the archdeacon of maidstone our friend andrew sewell so we pray for his ministry in the diocese and for the ministry of archbishop justin bishop rose at avdova and bishop emma at lambeth and in the anglican communion today the diocese of ife east in the church of nigeria in the abadan ibadan province so on this day when some of you have lit the advent candle or open the first advent door or like us open the first door of noah's ark to allow whichever creature can step out to see the light of day we use the collect for advent almighty god give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life in which your son jesus christ came to us in great humility that on the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever are men so let's eat in our own language say the prayer our savior taught us our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever are men moment of silence now and reflection on this 1st of december uh oh foreign is still 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 and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always amen