good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral on this morning of tuesday the 16th of november wherever you are in the world feel welcome to join us in our morning prayers we've come up on to the roof again for a very different reason from the reason we were here last week it's a great autumn day with fairly heavy cloud but no wind whatever and no rain yet and we've come up here because of two particular saints who are remembered today and also one of the themes of our reflection from the book of exodus which we'll come to when we read our lesson the first of the saints is saint margaret of scotland queen margaret of scotland for she was the wife of king malcolm iii and she died on the 16th of november 1093 in edinburgh castle edinburgh castle built on that great mound which overlooks the beautiful city of edinburgh and we pray for that city today and its cathedral church of saint giles and also of st mary there but at the same time we remember the way in which margaret dedicated herself to her people and we'll come to that in part of our reflection and the other saint saint edmund of abingdon who in a way is more important to us today because edmund of abingdon who was archbishop of canterbury from 1233 to 1240 is the saint in whom the school that our choruses attend since edmund's school they're taking the name of not saint edmund the martyr but sin edmund of abingdon this archbishop in the 13th century and down below us is the choir house where the boy choristers live and from there they go up the hill to saint edmunds school and that house which was the table hall the the great dining room of the monastic community here in canterbury is still then being used by the choristers as a house of saint edmund it belongs to the dean chapter but inside is looked after by staff from st edmonds school who look after them and and particularly mary uh whom you used to hearing play the harp at advent times or in concerts looks after them down there so we're thinking of edmond of abingdon's day today and it's quite a feast day they'll be having a special service in their chapel up the hill which we can see from the other side of the deanery but we are looking down on the place where they live and they go up and down each day in one of the choir buses and have their life down here and sing in the cathedral you heard them singing last night if you were listening to coral even song and the buses you can probably see behind because they've not set off yet for their morning journey so we think of st edmund of abingdon and st margaret of scotland but also moses and the holy mountain moses looking down on the people so we've come up high on this day let's begin our prayers 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 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 son on this 16th morning of the month is psalm 80. 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 o 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 share the light of your countenance and we shall be saved you brought her 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 cedars 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 again oh 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 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 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 that couplet is like a chorus coming in the middle of the verses of the psalm turn us again o lord god of hosts show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved there's good reason to feel that this psalm was written during the time of the second exile this time in babylon and thinking about what had happened to their land and the holy city with that babylonian exile jerusalem and its temple lay in ruins the temple which solomon had built and they in exile and one thinks of psalms again like 137 by the waters of babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered you o zion as for our hearts we hung them on the willows that were found and they said to them sing us the songs of zion how can we sing the lord's song in a strange land where here is a psalmist singing the lord's song in the strange land with the cuplet asking both for forgiveness but also for a new beginning and the prophecy of that new beginning is fulsome in the second part of the prophet isaiah the parts which jesus loved to read and also part of the lessons that he read to the people in his own synagogue in galilee in his day but he has a psalm a psalm of penitence and a psalm of looking at the ruins and wasteland which jerusalem and the surrounding area of their own country had become turnus again lord god of hosts looked down from heaven behold and visit this vine and the image of the vine of course is one that him jesus himself takes up i am the true vine and the mission of the holy people is one that jesus himself takes up but we're going to turn back to the book of the exodus let me put this book down for the moment and turn to the scriptures and i'm in chapter 19 of the exodus and i'm starting where we left off in the second half of verse 9 and we'll read to the end of the chapter moses coming down from the mountain speaking to the people when moses told the words of the people to the lord the lord said to moses go down to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day for on the third day the lord will come down on mount sinai in the sight of all the people and you shall set limits for the people all round saying take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death no hand shall touch him but he shall be stoned or shot whether beast or man he shall not live when the trumpet sounds a long blast they shall come up to the mountain so moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people and they washed their garments and he said to the people be ready for the third day keep yourselves pure abstain from conjugal relations on the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and every loud and a very loud trumpet blast so that all the people in the camp trembled and moses brought the people out of the camp to meet god and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain now mount sinai was wrapped in smoke because the lord had descended on it in fire the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln and the whole mountain trembled greatly and as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder moses spoke and god answered him in the thunder the lord came down on mount sinai to the top of the mountain and the lord called moses to the top of the mountain and moses went up and the lord said to moses go down and warn the people lest they break through to the lord to look and many of them perish also let the priests who come near to the lord consecrate themselves lest the lord break out against them and moses said to the lord the people cannot come up to mount sinai for you yourself warned us saying set limits round the mountain and consecrated and the lord said to him go down and come up bringing aaron with you but do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the lord lest he break out against them so moses went down to the people and told them in many ways it's a fearsome lesson of the all-holiness of the god whom they're worshiping and also of and we get this in the scriptures when not only moses but think of elijah on mount carmel that the presence of the living god is awesome and the preparation for the people to stand before this holiness not in the sanctuary as iron where the same sense of awe was present later and certainly at the time of jesus himself but here we are at a mountain in the wilderness and here one of the holiest moments in the whole history of that people the law is about to be given the covenant between god and his people and notice moses imposes a death penalty sounds here with the the person not being killed by people's hands but being stoned or shot with an arrow that word with an arrow is not there it's there in some translations just to explain the fact it sounds strange to us hearing it that distance of history or shot in fact it's meaning a bow shot and at the same time the people have to prepare themselves rather as we prepare ourselves for easter to be ready on the third day to present ourselves in a special way of celebration at that sign of life but the preparation has gone on through all the weeks of lent and abstinence becomes part of our preparation and fasting well here is a strict abstinence and you can follow that up in the way that people are asked on certain occasions to purify themselves so that the mind and the spirit are set free from the body's desires and wholly as they are also but for the moment it's a concentration a spiritual concentration of the whole community notice there's an abstinence from any kind of sexual activity conjugal relations all of that so that concentration is mental and spiritual for this time of an approaching moment of intense holiness for the whole community which will be looked back on and then the people are gathered but only at a distance enough to be safe as much as they can bath and the messenger is to go up and at the end we hear the lord say and bring aaron up with you because when we go into chapter 20 this is the great moment of the ordering of the old covenant tomorrow we shall read that chapter 20. but for the moment this is all preparation and it's showing what a moment of complete holiness this is for the people and for the nation and for their their vocation to the world to make known the power of god just as jesus had perceived it when he came to see moses and said now i know that your god is above all gods and here i worship him bringing offerings himself from his own cannite way of worship as the shepherd priest of of midian but here are the whole people being given their vocation and it's a vocation to be fruitful as a sign to the whole world and oftentimes in the the first is to come moses will remind god of that that these people are his messengers so moses keeps asking forgiveness for them the holiness of the occasion is a community exercise and moses is looking down as we are from a great height at the community below this morning the physical concentration the abstinence the preparation and we might think first maybe of the mountain of transfiguration because the three who went with jesus there on to the top of the mountain in the same way approached with all the brightness of that transfiguration but we might also think of the sermon on the mount for there is in matthew's gospel and matthew actually sets that out as jesus on the mountain like a new moses with the new covenant setting out the law we can think more of that tomorrow but all these images are coming backwards and forwards from old covenant to new covenant a new covenant rooting itself like the image of the vine in jesus's teaching in the old covenant so having taken that lesson of the the organic relationship and the rootedness of the new covenant in the old covenant let's look at those two saints this morning because they're they're important in a a different way each of them and yet they have a similarity queen margaret saint margaret of scotland first of all she is in our calendar the major saint of today though for us in canterbury maybe we could give that a distinction also to sin edmund of abingdon but let's start with st margaret of scotland margaret of scotland was not born in scotland she was in fact an english princess she belonged to the found the royal family of the house of wessex from which king alfred here famous king here came but she her father had been exiled edward the exile he was called though he was from the wessex royal family and she was born in the holy roman empire in what is now hungary and brought up there and really as a child learned the practices of the church and became very devout in that area of europe and then the family came back and they came back to england in 1058 just as the reign of edward the confessor was ending and there was uncertainty about who would succeed edward the confessor leading up to that very famous state 1066 and it could have been it could have been margaret's brother edgar but he was con considered too young and in fact the throne was then taken by harold but claimed by william of normandy and we don't want to go into that history today it's a very important date for our history in these islands 1066 but at the norman invasion margaret's family fled north to northumbria and from there an alliance was formed with malcolm iii of scotland the king of scotland a completely separate kingdom and margaret married uh malcolm of scotland and so her center became edinburgh at that time she died in edinburgh castle as i say in 1093 but from that time from 1070 to 1093 she was scotland's queen the wife of king malcolm now malcolm was um as a stern and illiterate man and and didn't have a great deal of time himself for the spirituality of margaret but he respected it he loved his wife and respected all that she was doing and what she was doing fell really into three parts one of them was her influence on the king in ordering the kingdom well the next was her influence on the nation in an enormous amount of public good works and charitable activities in the best sense of the word that people knew her day always began with acts of charity to the poor wherever she was and as she traveled around queen margaret was known to be someone with a compassionate heart and a generous hand but she was made of stern staff and her husband often listened to her advice so that the kingdom was ruled well because of the influence of margaret on malcolm and also the third dimension she progressed the root of pilgrims and gave them safe passage she made sure there was a ferry which allowed them to get to pilgrim places like st andrews and she also uh helped pilgrims on their way to iona to holy places in sorry in all sorts of ways margaret was progressing the christian faith but she also brought the practices of christendom across europe to the regularity of uh catholic christian life in scotland and her teacher was none other than lan frank who became here archbishop of canterbury and below you can see the ruins of the infirmary which was built in lan frank's time and bits of the cathedral still stand here from the cathedral which he built in 1070 four years after william of normandy took this kingdom and the normans began to build in stone but we think today especially of the ordering of her life in terms of the monastic practice of the benedictines and the influence of land frank on margaret of scotland so her tale is a tale of devotion of the ordering of her own and her people's spiritual life and also her interest in their welfare which made her a very popular queen indeed and in the end she was buried buried in dunfermline abbey and when she was canonized her own shrine became a place of pilgrimage thanks be to god for her as the symbol of a just and righteous and holy ruler but let's go on then to our other saint today saint edmund of abingdon who was archbishop of canterbury here from 1233 to 1240 not very long but his influence was great at a particular time the younger years of king henry iii son of king john and king henry iii was destined to rule england as king for 56 years a very long reign at that time but edmund was a strong influence and first of all edmund had been and let's just do a digression at this point cannon treasurer of the cathedral church at old saram and during his time that's that's salisbury serum the latin name uh and and uh at that time um since 1075 when the the saxon diocese of sherban and ramsbury had been united into the diocese of salisbury sarum the cathedral had been at old sarah that is a a mound a bow shot away from the city of salisbury itself i i i say a bow shot away because there's a legend to the bishop of soldier when they wanted to change the the site of old serum to new salisbury where salisbury cathedral now stands it was done by him shooting an arrow and where the arrow fell then there would be the sight of the new cathedral that's a legend but what isn't a legend is that in the at the time of uh edmund when he was treasurer there edmund rich was his family names in edmond of abingdon where he was born but edmund rich was the family name and there in old saram on the mound there the plans for a new cathedral were laid and in 1220 when he was still there the first ground was cut and edmund would have been present at that from 1220 to 1320 during that century that beautiful building of salisbury cathedral was was was built and the extraordinary thing that is mighty spire that elegant tall spire reaching up to the heavens of the whole cathedral church is actually almost floating like a ship on deep deep beds of many bundles of of as they're called the the woods bound together and the compression and the water that keeps it there has caused it to have the ability to stand at that height now there's a danger today of going off in different directions but i'm going to stick with edmund rich for the moment i'm i'm amused by the name edmund ridge the land on which the uh the the cathedral the new cathedral was built was given by a rich man called richard poor and uh i remember singing a song at a clergy review in 1975 to all that the clergy and and of the diocese of salisbury they'd come together for a clergy school in what was then uh uh the the place of of sarums and michael a college in the close and the song was talking about the way in which new saram now salisbury cathedral was founded by both edmund rich the canon treasurer but also richard poor and i remember the couplet of singing uh the the song that uh um although my name is edmund rich i'm really very poor although my name is richard poor i'm really very rich and it went backwards and forwards and uh also um the firing the bow shot was was part of that as well but we give thanks for his life there but it's essentially edmund of abingdon who came here now edmund himself was a mighty scholar and that's what he enjoyed doing he enjoyed teaching he he learned it he learned theology and mathematics at oxford and at paris both universities honored him and his his ability and scholarship and teaching was undoubted his ability in preaching also undoubted and i think probably the last thing he wanted was to be translated here and created archbishop of canterbury it wasn't an easy task and yet he set himself to encourage king henry iii and it caused great trouble to adhere to the magna carta he would appear before him as archbishop of canterbury with some of the barons as they had before with stephen langton before king john and say your father actually signed this covenant if you like between himself and his people and the magna carta is a charter of freedom the great charter it's a magna carta held in salisbury cathedral a very important one and edmund rich was here as saint edmund of abingdon later um but also uh as archbishop of canterbury in in 1233 to 1240 and all kinds of of matinations and plots from the king and even the monks here were laid against him and yet he he plowed on and journeys to rome to plead with the pope to give him help which weren't always successful but we give thanks for the same kind of doggedness in the midst of a quiet piety for he was a a retiring kind of scholar and hated conflict but he stuck to it by god's grace in order that magna carta should be adhered to and it was on one of those journeys to rome while he was in france just a little way from pontini the abbey there that he died and is buried in pontini but there is uh remembrance of him in this land in places of education like saint edmund hall at oxford which is based on the place where in oxford he used to live and teach and here in canterbury st edmund's school part of which you see down below us are boy choristers house where they have their practices down here in the cathedral and live their life amongst us before going up the hill to sint edmonds school edmund was keen on good discipline the ordering of national life by the sovereign the ordering of christian life in good discipline by the archbishop and the clergy around him who had to be well educated it was one of his great things as an educator and we think of all those influences on the life of young king henry iii who as i say would reign here for 56 years uh an attempt to make another just ruler as is so necessary for people's when they're striving for good order and life as a community so on this day let me pick up my book again on this day we give thanks not only for the way in which the lord is establishing a covenant with his people from the holy mountain and making sure that moses prepares them in all seriousness just as um when he first approached the burning bush the voice said take off your shoes for your standing on holy ground physical activity to prepare them now they're prepared by two days of fasting abstinence and preparation for coming just as far as they can towards the holy mountain shrouded in smoke or mist and moses is going to go up and then sent down again to take aaron up to hear the giving of the law thanks be to god for that thanks be to god for rulers like queen margaret in scotland and thanks be to god for people with insight and education and also the ability to see forward like edmund of abington archbishop here and a fosterer of of good order in church and state at that time let's then say our prayers on this day with the the city and the the reminders of of eber edmund and land frank and thus to queen margaret uh whom lan frank influenced in a good way we're going to pray today in our anglican communion for the diocese oh of hong kong island hong kong shen kung hui and we make many many prayers for that diocese and the cathedral church of st john now which we know well and for all our friends over there uh in the cathedral church in the city itself and uh the friendship they they still continue to offer us and the prayer we offer back for them at this very difficult time in their life and in the diocese we're praying today for the parish of peters in foxton not too far away from us at all and the the ministry of mark haldon jones there and the life of saint peter's church of england primary school pray for justin our archbishop of canterbury at the moment and diocesan bishop of this diocese uh and for rose bishop of dover and emma bishop at lambeth bring your own prayers and intentions on this morning as we say the connect for today heavenly father whose blessed son was revealed to destroy the works of the devil and to make us the children of god and as 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 we say each in our own language 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 amen moment of silence now for your own prayers on this day so foreign the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and if 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 you