[Music] so [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so good morning and welcome on this sunday morning the tenth day of christmas as we keep the 12 days so the christmas festival is very much in our mind and our lessons will continue the story as we were telling it of the childhood of jesus before we come to the epiphany itself so we're going to say our prayers wherever you are in the world it's a it's a rainy morning this morning and the rain is falling straight down so i may resort to getting an umbrella a bit later on but for the moment let's continue oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise you laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands blessed are you sovereign god creator of heaven and earth to you be praise and glory forever as your living word eternal in heaven assume the frailty of our mortal flesh may the light of your love be born in us to fill our hearts with joy as we sing 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 o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this morning of the month is psalm 16 preserve me o god for in you have i taken refuge i have said to the lord you are my lord all my good depends on you all my delight is upon the godly that are in the land upon those who are noble in heart though the idols are legion that many run after their drink offerings of blood i will not offer neither make mention of their names upon my lips the lord himself is my portion and my cup in your hands alone is my fortune my share has fallen in a fair land indeed i have a goodly heritage i will bless the lord who has given me counsel and in the night watches he instructs my heart i have set the lord always before me he is at my right hand i shall not fall wherefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoices my flesh also shall rest secure for you will not abandon my soul to death nor suffer your faithful ones to see the pit you will show me the path of life in your presence is the fullness of joy and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore our lesson this morning is taken again from the second chapter of the gospel of saint luke and in this story we come to jesus age 12 with his devout parents coming to the feast of the passover as is their regular habit in jerusalem and journeying with their friends and members of their community on that annual pilgrimage i'm starting at verse 40 of chapter 2 of st luke's gospel and the child grew and became strong filled with wisdom and the favor of god was upon him now the parents of jesus went to jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover and when he was 12 years old they went up according to custom and when the feast was ended as they were returning the boy jesus stayed behind in jerusalem his parents did not know it but supposing him to be in the group they went a day's journey but then they began to search for him among their relatives and friends and when they did not find him they returned to jerusalem searching for him after three days they found him in the temple sitting among the teachers listening to them and asking them questions and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers and when his parents saw him they were astonished and his mother said to him my son why have you treated us so behold your father and i have been searching for you in great distress and he said to them why were you looking for me did you not know that i must be in my father's house and they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them and he went down with them and came to nazareth and was obedient to them but his mother treasured up all these things in her heart and jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with god and with all it's a precious little story because it's the only story we have between the story of the presentation in the temple which we shall come to as i said earlier this week on the 2nd of february when mary and joseph take their baby to present in the temple and simeon takes jesus in his arms and prophesies that he will be a light to lighten the gentiles and the glory of his people israel and that a sword will pierce mary's heart also but here between that story and the coming of jesus and luke tells us that jesus was about 30 years old at his coming into galilee and beginning his ministry there is in the gospels silence but luke gives us his story and a hint of the way jesus was developing in wisdom and we might say divine and human but was at the same time obedient to his parents in nazareth and this little story of him being taken up to the temple and sitting amongst the doctors of the law at this time is an important one i'm just going to get an umbrella because i should be saved otherwise just hold on two seconds [Applause] it's a nice transparent one so it's not going to take the light from me i think leo's already given up on this so as the rain putters on the umbrella and you hear it refreshing this uh the frost is not here this morning but it is a winter morning and here's leo back with us but i don't think he'll want to be in the rain jesus sitting in the temple amongst the doctors of the law and i came and sat here particularly this morning because this little figure of the 12 year old boy on which this holy vocation which let's make no bones about it begins to terrify him and we can't enter into his heart and mind during those years of preparation because of course they are hidden years but this little glimpse this little cameo is enough to show us the development of jesus and the way in which he talks about his father's house or in another perfectly good translation my father's business the work of his heavenly father and once again we get that sentence from saint luke mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart i came to sit here particularly this morning because in the middle of all this winter landscape of bare trees and the earth not really producing in the way that the springtime will make it the beehives here are at the moment closed in for bees aren't going to venture out in cold weather and yet there are winter flowers and winter flowers become really important the berries and flowers of winter become important to the bird life and our little friend the robin is here with us sheltering under leaves and things but hopping about interested in all that we do and also around me and intensely sweet smelling for winter flowers tend to be our bushes which flower now here beside me is a lanisra fragrantissima a sweet smelling winter honeysuckle and behind me on this side in all its yellow glory a mahonia and its flowers too are intensely sweet and fragrant as are the flowers as the osmansis behind here as well which always reminds us of friends in virginia where it grows in profusion and at the same time we're awaiting the flowering of the daphne one of the sweetest smells in the garden and again winter flowering tiny flowers and yet giving off such a fragrance which exceeds very often that of more opulent blooms in spring and in summer and here this morning we see the tiny figure of jesus in the midst of the doctors in the temple there holding his own with the wise after the education that mary and joseph and the local synagogue and his own reading of the scriptures have given him for certainly we know that he knows those scriptures very well and i have no doubt it's those prophecies of isaiah about the coming of the lord's servant of the christ of the one who will suffer for his people that he is talking about well on this day uh the third of january one could look back to dates and there's only two dates really that i want to look at this morning the one is briefly told it's the story of father damian and he himself was born on this day in 1840 he was a belgian priest who felt a call to go to the mission field in hawaii and found himself offering in his vocation to be the person who went to look after a colony of lepers on an island of molokai near hawaii and he did that and looked after them for 16 years until he himself was stricken with the same leprosy which they had and he during his own years of leprosy and in the end he died from it refusing to leave the island for any treatment although there was no real treatment for leprosy in those days but staying right to the end with those he was looking after i think i can get rid of this for a bit now let's see how we go and father damian became an icon of care but also suffering the same condition as those suffering from leprosy that he was looking after and then on this day in 1892 the writer j.r.r tolkien was born and of course he first became famous he was a great scholar in his own right and he became famous first for his little book which a friend who was a friend of a publisher suggest he published called the hobbit and to him it was a tale and that was that and it was done but the publishers george allen and unwin asked that he might write some more about hobbits because of course it was a very popular book and tolkien said but there's not much more that i can tell here because uh i've told all i can and so at that time you back your bit wet but you're back um at that time um all he could think of was to begin another story about bilbo baggins and it didn't really go very well it was a time that war clients were gathering and in the time he was writing it suddenly the tale began to take a a life of its own and was very very different from the hobbit but the role of the hobbit as this tiny creature among all the wise became crucial to him in his huge panoply of the struggle of good against evil and also of the temptations of those who are powerful and very wise in the struggle itself and i just wanted to go to one scene if you know the book you'll know it well it comes let me get my book out which i'm keeping dry down here the lord of the rings which i've had for years this is the first volume the fellowship of the ring and it's at the council of elrond at rivendell the last homely house and little frodo bearing the ring up till then is relieved that around him at the council sit the elf lords and the dwarf lords and the strong men and all those who are wise and gandalf the wizard and they're all talking about how they deal with this ring of power which elrond the host and senior elf lord who wears one of the elven rings untouched by evil three of them you remember and he says it's no good for any of us even to think of wearing this it would turn instantly to powerful evil and the temptation would be too great and there's this wonderful passage where they're all sitting at the council and in the corner sits little frodo just watching really feeling his duties done and beside him the faithful sam the gardener from way back in the shire who's not even been invited to the council but can never leave his master and they're sitting trying to be hidden and they are asking who can we send to destroy this ring in the fires of mount doom you'll remember the scene if you know this book no one answered the noon bell rang still no one spoke frodo glanced at all the faces but they were not turned to him all the council sat with downcast eyes as if in deep thought a great dread fell on him as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken an overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace by bilbo's side in rivendell filled all his heart it lasts with an effort he spoke and wondered to hear his own words as if some other will was using his small voice i will take the ring he said though i do not know the way elrond raised his eyes and looked at him and frodo felt his heart pierced by the sudden keenness of the glance if i understand a right all that i have heard he said i think that this task is appointed for you frodo and that if you do not find a way no one will this is the hour of the shire folk when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and councils of the great who of all the wise could have foreseen it or if they are wise why should they expect to know it until the hour has struck but it is a heavy burden so heavy that none could lay it on another i do not lay it on you but if you take it freely i will say that your choice is right but you won't send him off alone surely master cried sam unable to contain himself any longer and jumping up from the corner where he had been quietly sitting on the floor no indeed said elrond turning towards him with a smile you at least shall go with him it is hardly possible to separate you from him even when he is summoned to a secret council and you are not sam sat down blushing and muttering nice pickle we've landed ourselves in mr frodo well that little scene of course a very moving scene is the time when the smallest amongst them all has to bear the vocation of them all because of the nature of vocation and of temptation that story as tolkien wrote it grew and grew and grew and was eagerly taken by stanley unwin the publisher and has become one of the most published books and stories in the whole world talking a very devout roman catholic and there's many signs of that in his book of his faithfulness in journey huge friend of c.s lewis and both of them loved his although tolkien would never call this book an allegory and yet the stories fulfill that allegory and here today with the child in the temple knowing his vocation did you not know i must be in my father's house i must be about my father's business but for the moment he goes back for preparation before his journey for us as our christ begins and at the same time luke has given us the three scenes of mary's vocation offering her infant son but at the same time pondering on what that vocation may be and knowing after simeon's prophecy that a sword will pierce her own heart too so on this day we give thanks for that and we give thanks for signs of scent and flowering and growth and encouragement in winter at this particular time and the way in which the robin is singing and the rain has cleared gives us a wonderful feel on this particular morning i'm going to say our prayers and i'll put this precious book back into shelter at the same time also i'll get out of the sheet to tell us what we're praying for today so on this particular day we're praying for the diocese of no no the whole episcopal province of alexandria in the anglican communion and here in this diocese for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for tim bishop at lambeth and the north towns benefits today that's the parishes of hollingborn all along the pilgrims way parishes to boxley basted leeds broomfield and awesome and we pray for the parish priest who is one of our own non-residential cannons john corbyn and the curator catherine ngangira and we pray for the clergy with proficient permission to officiate there leslie ludlow and the readers anne harrison and virginia corbyn so let's say our prayers on this day and it's the second sunday of the christmas season and we have the prayer for the second sunday of christmas bring your own intentions and prayers wherever you are in the world as it gets brighter and brighter here almighty god in the birth of your son you have poured on us now the new light of your incarnate word and shown us the fullness of your love help us to walk in his light and dwell in his love that we may know the fullness of his joy who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen we pray now the prayer our lord 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 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 for your own prayers on this sunday morning at the beginning of the service we played you some music by morton lauridsen a composer in los angeles and we played the christmas antiphon which is so popular that he wrote omania mysterium oh great mystery that animals should see their lord born and lying in a stable and at this time um we're going to play another of his pieces the omania mysterium was actually written for a friend of ours as a commission from her husband uh marshall and terry terry knowles in los angeles and uh we give thanks for that commission because it is the most beautiful handsome and beloved by many but lorison also wrote another anthem and this helps us look towards epiphany as well that's why the star is here on the table behind me this is set to words by james agui who was an american journalist and writer who didn't achieve a great deal of fame in his lifetime he was a poet and writer but he he uh wrote a book let us now praise famous men which is the story of those who were the great heroes of the great depression and they were the ordinary people the small people who actually uh carried the the the economy of the country through at the same time today we've been thinking about the vocation of those who go unnoticed if anybody had come into the temple when jesus was sitting there they'd have noticed all the wise and the glory of the temple but the real temple and the real business of our heavenly father was enshrined in the one who was beginning to realize what his vocation as our messiah meant this piece is sung by the choir of our school here on a festival night but it's called shaw on the this shining night here are the words sure on this shining night of star-made shadows round kindness must watch for me beside the ground the late year lies down the north all is healed all is health high summer holds the earth hearts all whole sure on this shining night i weep for wonder wandering far alone of shadows on the stars james aguirre's poem set to music by morton lloridson the christ who by his coming at christmas time gathered into one things earthly and things heavenly fill you and those whom you think of today with the spirit of peace and good will and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the heavy spirit be upon you those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always are men sorry you've got so wet you're soaking actually never mind we'll go and have some breakfast now come on [Music] shining kindness must watch [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] the lazy [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] is [Music] sure 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