good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this friday the 20th of november as we meet together to say our morning prayers be welcome wherever you are in the world and bring your own concerns and intentions to our time of reflection and prayer here in kent this morning in england it is a morning of very heavy frost but the rising sun is beginning to melt that on the lawns we woke to a white world this morning no wind at all a totally blue sky but and the robin's still singing as we said yesterday in the hazelwood but here this morning it's very cold indeed and in other areas of the world the climate will be different but we say our prayers together breaking down national barriers and at this time the very first thing i want to do is to offer our congratulations to her majesty the queen and to his royal highness the duke of edinburgh on this occasion of their 73rd wedding anniversary they were married on this 20th of november in westminster abbey in 1947. so we remember that with great thanksgiving and wish them both a happy day despite all this situation of of lockdown so at the same time we say happy birthday to joe biden in this time of waiting and we hope he and his family will have time to have a happy day as well there are many dates in the past only on the calendar of our um christian liturgical calendar here in the church of england we have the feast of sint edmonds who was martyred in 88 868. uh christian saxon king of east anglia and was martyred by the vikings tied to a tree shot with arrows and beheaded because he refused to renounce his christian faith he was a true martyr and so we prayed this morning for the town of berries and edmonds the city of berries and edmonds and also sindedman's very cathedral and for joe hawes the dean and the community of saint edmondsburg cathedral on this special day this feast day we remember happy things sad things in 1945 the nuremberg trials began and also in um 1975 general franco died after four decades of ruling spain and opened a new uh section of of of spanish life at that time it's hard to remember back that far now and we remember also in 1962 that the the cuban missile crisis which had frightened us all with the threat of the very real threat of nuclear war ended and there was a sense of thank god that this has not happened at that particular time which i remember very well in 1944 cheerful event the blackout ended in london and the lights of piccadilly were turned on again because the threat of aerial bombardment had receded by then in november the 20th 1944 we could think of many other things in 1866 howard university with its very special vocation in washington dc was founded and we remember yolanda and the chaplain there in simoni uh as uh they uh lived their life out there at that time yolanda the chaplain and simone a doctor in in in washington so we give thanks for them this morning and then we have other dates that we shall remember in our reflection but particularly the death in 1910 of leo tolstoy so let's begin our prayers this morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your faithful servants bless you they make known the glory of your kingdom blessed are you sovereign god ruler and judge of all to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of this age that is passing away may the light of your presence which the saints enjoy surround our steps as we journey on may we reflect your glory this day and so be made ready to see your face in the heavenly city where night shall be no more blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind does 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 20th morning of the month is psalm 103 and the sun is lighting my book bless the lord o my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name bless the lord o my soul and forget not all his benefits who forgives all your sins and heals all your infirmities who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with faithful love and compassion who satisfies you with good things so that your use is renewed like an eagle's the lord executes righteousness and judgment for all who are oppressed he made his ways known to moses and his works to the children of israel the lord is full of compassion and mercy slow to anger and of great kindness he will not always accuse us neither will he keep his anger forever he has not dealt with us according to our sins nor rewarded us according to our wickedness for as the heavens are high above the earth so great is his mercy upon those who fear him as far as the east is from the west so far has he set our sins from us as a father has compassion on his children so is the lord merciful towards those who fear him for he knows of what we are made he remembers we are but dust our days our butter's grass we flourish as a flower of the field for as soon as the wind goes over it it is gone and its place shall know it no more but the merciful goodness of the lord is from a mold and endures forever on those who fear him and his righteousness on children's children on those who keep his covenant and remember his commandments to do them the lord has established his throne in heaven and his command his dominion his kingdom has dominion over all bless the lord you angels of his you mighty ones who do his bidding and hearken to the voice of his word bless the lord all you his hosts you ministers of his who do his will bless the lord all you works of his in all places of his dominion bless the lord o my soul it's a fine psalm to say on this morning as we begin a reflection which thinks of all that activity of good and evil and worship and adoration and struggle and martyrdom in the heavens and on earth and so we're returning now to the book of the revelation to john with its fearsome pictures and we will think about the images he's giving us this morning i'm in chapter 13 and i'm reading from verse 1 until verse 10 and i saw a beast rising out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads and the beast that i saw was like a leopard its feet were like a bears and its mouth was like a lion's mouth and to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority one of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound but its mortal wound was healed and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast and they worshipped the dragon for he had given his authority to the beast and they worshiped the beast saying who is like the beast and who can fight against it and the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words and it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months it opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against god blaspheming his name and his dwelling that is those who dwell in heaven also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them and authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation and all who dwell on earth will worship it everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the lamb who was slain if anyone has an ear let them hear if anyone is to be taken captive to captivity they go if anyone is to be slain with the sword with the sword they must be slain here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints well at matins earlier in the cathedral when we as clergy met early in the morning to say morning prayer in full the two lessons gave us first of all the book of daniel again and the way in which that book uses these images of beasts great creatures like bits and pieces of fearsome beasts almost joined together and those creatures there and here represent the pride and the blasphemy in terms of seeing themselves as gods while they last of earthly powers and we've said again and again that john himself in his lonely exile sent there probably by the provincial governor to patmos from asia minor and he himself in his loneliness has visions which are fed by the visions of the prophets of the old testament but at the same time see the nations of the world and those who think themselves so powerful that they can call themselves gods and build temples to themselves which is the ultimate blasphemy as far as john on patmos is concerned and here is the beast rising up out of the sea we can trace the emperors that the beast is representing we can see the diadems on the beast's head and the smaller horns representing vassal nations of the great roman empire each year the provincial governor the new provincial governor of asia minor would come across the seas from rome with exercising full power and persecution would happen to christians if they were found not to be willing to sacrifice to the emperor or stand before a statue of the godlike emperor one after the other and renounce their faith and of course the emperor of all emperors who were so hated was the emperor nero and he had after a reign of complete horrors committed suicide but there was a rumor and a belief in the world the ancient world afterwards that in some way he was still alive and was with the dreaded parthians and their empire to the east which we've spoken about which was constantly a threat to the peace of the nations and looked as if it might be the return of nero all those things are suggested by what we're seeing this morning the real power belongs to the great satan the tempter as we said yesterday who is able to masquerade as an angel of light to jesus in the wilderness and after the huge battle in heaven then the battle still rages here on earth and power for the moment belongs to satan as we see in the dialogue between jesus and the tempter in the desert that great serpent and deceiver who here is portrayed as the dragon and his emissary the beast a different beast coming over and over again but assuming worldly power in a way which blasphemes god for all power belongs to god and the call for resistance and faithfulness and endurance which john ends with in this passage is very likely a call to martyrdom but then that standing for the gift of god the lamb that was slain which gave good news in this life and beyond and opened up the worship of heaven was in john's mind perhaps a small price to pay in the eventual defeat of the beast and the great dragon himself all allegorical figures for a real evil i said that today was um the anniversary of the death in 1910 of leo tolstoy here is my copy of war and peace a big thick story and many have tried to turn it into a film or a television series or something of that sort but always you miss the depth of what tolstoy is trying to express and one of the paragraphs which expresses what he wants to say most of all about earthly power and glory one of the paragraphs is set where prince andre is an officer in the army of the tsar fighting at the battle of australis and that was the battle known as the battle of the three emperors in 1805. and in that battle between the armies of the holy roman empire and the allies the the tsar's armies of russia the emperor alexander the emperor francis fighting against napoleon prince andre gets wounded and he's been taken up with the details of the battle and also you'll remember if you've read the story that he had an earlier idealistic hero worship of the emperor napoleon as someone who was a representative of the ability to take power and be in total control well he's wounded and falls down and finds himself flat on his back in this wounded state and here's the little paragraph in the middle of this big book it's in part three what is it am i falling are my legs giving way under me he thought and fell on his back he opened his eyes hoping to see how the fight between the french and the artillery ended and wishing to know whether or not the red-haired artillerists had been killed whether the cannon had been taken or saved but he did not see anything there was nothing over him now except the sky the lofty sky not clear but still immeasurably lofty with grey clouds slowly creeping across it how quiet calm and solemn not at all like when i was running thought prince andre not like when we were running shouting and fighting not at all like when the frenchman and the artillerists were angry with angry and frightened faces where pulling at the swab is quite different the way the clouds creep across this lofty infinite sky how is it i haven't seen this lofty sky before and how happy i am that i've finally come to know it yes everything is empty everything is a deception except this infinite sky there is nothing nothing except that but there is not even that there is nothing except silence tranquility and thank god it's if you like an epiphany for prince andre things are always different after that moment just as when later in the book pierre sees the great comet in the sky and that moment causes everything to change at the same time the book uh seeing napoleon now is just a little chess piece in andrei's mind under the great and infinite sky and the great sovereignty of god is uh still affected by bad decisions taken through the temptations of evil which transform the whole landscape of his life i'm talking across of course about natasha almost at the end of her year of waiting to marry prince andre giving in to the temptation of the seducer anatol and making that bad decision tempted by evil which can masquerade as an angel of light but let's stay with the big sky for another thought was given to me this morning by the fact that in the list of things which happened in 1776 in the middle of the american war of independence the british force reached the palisades on the river hudson anyone who has been to the cloister museum that part of the metropolitan museum in new york which is upriver on the river hudson and looked across at the woods of the palisades we not only give thanks for the rockefeller's family of setting up that museum but also of buying the woods opposite and making an insurance and clause about the fact that no buildings would top those woods so that you got the great landscape of the massive river hudson and then beyond the catskill mountains and the trees and the the thought is now and there's a great force to try to stop it that buildings are going to be allowed to top that landscape but at the moment there is that sense of sky and water and wonderful landscape giving that tranquility which prince andre feels and also the dimensions of the sovereignty of god and the infinite tiny state of all those who think themselves to obtain immortal and godlike power if you go farther up the river hudson on the train it's a journey we'd love to make early in the morning up to up to the time hudson itself to have breakfast there and enjoy the landscape there you come across the house of the great landscape painter frederick church who bought the land around and planted thousands of trees he painted landscapes in in jerusalem in petra in athens in rome but nothing to him was like this huge landscape of mountains and sky ever changing with sunsets and sunrises and rainbows and clouds and it is one of the most wonderful landscapes in the world in his house with so much of his paintings is preserved if you go there it's called olana and there in uh um the the house it's as though he's still living there even the dining table is set for a meal with friends and so many of his paintings are there but the real sight is outside and alana itself was threatened but was saved by the imagination of david huntington helped by nelson rockefeller and it causes us to give thanks for those who with enormous resources give them to philanthropy for the care of the earth the welfare of people and all kinds of dimensions which help us in our human life for to us those decisions are absolutely crucial and sometimes when people get a vision and have the resources to finance it then in our own time the gates family with microsoft can can give to philanthropy in a wonderful way and inspire others to do so let's give thanks for that as we say our prayers to this morning so we are praying on this 20th of november for the diocese of san diego in the anglican communion and uh you'll all have friends there we have two friends there james and zara and we um greet them across and erin uh we greet them but you'll be greeting in your minds others perhaps who are in san diego and other places that we mention uh the bishop there is uh catherine jeffords story whom we knew for a time as the primate of the episcopal church of the united states of america and uh then also we're praying for the diocese of durham in england and paul butler the bishop and his dire sister and we pray for justin archbishop of canterbury for rose bishop of dover for tim bishop at lambus and today for the parish of saint luke the evangelist maidstone and for gareth dickinson in his ministry there and all his people so let's say the prayer for this week heavenly father whose blessed son was revealed to destroy the works of the devil and to make us the children of god and heirs of eternal life grant that we having this hope may purify ourselves even as he is pure that when he shall appear in power and great glory we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom where he is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen so each in our own language we join together in 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 amen the moment of silence on this morning which has become beautifully sunny as we say our prayers [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 would pray for today and always amen