good morning and welcome to the garden of the deanery at canterbury cathedral as we come to say our morning prayers on this morning of friday the 8th of january these days between the feast of the epiphany and the feast of the baptism of jesus which we will keep on sunday are filled with epiphany signs and the theme of this morning is very much the theme of following the way and we're still with the journey of the magi but we're also thinking of the the journey of jesus as our anointed christ as our messiah during those early years of development through to his baptism and beyond to the wedding of cana of galilee all of those are epiphany signs but there will be many more we're sitting in rather a special place it's the way in which people journey around to the main part of the garden and we're sitting between the old medieval kitchen of the house and the house itself and behind me is the table hall which the prior of the monastery would have used for entertaining visitors when they came guests with full hospitality it's now part of our choir house but of course the the choir being part of the school is absent at present during these days of lockdown when schools are shut but what we do have here is a plentiful amount of foliage and even some flowers i'm sitting at the junction of the bamboo walk here and a place which is really good for roses and you see on each side pat austin the yellow rose there's even a flower that i can see from here still in bud uh old david austin used to say to fletcher that he he he found this rose rather disappointed disappointing he'd created it in memory of of his wife whom he loved so much and who had passed away by the time we got to know him and we would contradict that and say that we found pat austin to be a wonderful rose but it grows here in this particular position very well indeed and has a long flowering period but also you see around me the leaves of various kinds of jasmines and also the great chocolate vine there which is growing uh over the the stonework of the the low roofs of the house and behind me beyond the regular box hedges there's a christmas box which actually will flower and have lovely berries soon and even some salvias here which are still in flower and so as we've said the journey of plants themselves in terms of flowering actually is a an interesting journey because the winter flowers show themselves and often they have a sweetness and a fragrance that you catch as you go around the garden and sometimes a color too that you can spot let's begin to say our prayers and of course we still keep in our mind the citizens of the united states of america as they go towards inauguration day for their new president and we shall think especially of that because in our reflection i shall mention a particular date connected with george washington himself on january the 8th in 1790 let's begin our prayers oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your light springs up for the righteous and all the peoples have seen your glory blessed are you sovereign god king of the nations to you be praise and glory forever from the rising of the sun to its setting your name is proclaimed in all the world as the son of righteousness dawns in our hearts anoint our lips with the seal of your spirit that we may witness to your gospel and sing your praise in all the earth 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 psalm this morning on this eighth morning of the month is psalm 39 it's a wayfarers psalm but the journey may be seen as one of the journey of of life as well as an ordinary journey though there are plenty of journeys in the old testament which both the people of god make and also individuals make but there is also distress at a particular period of the writer's life and that comes across as well here it is psalm 39 i said i will keep watch over my ways so that i offend not with my tongue i will guard my mouth with a muzzle while the wicked are in my sight so i held my tongue and said nothing i kept silent but to no avail my distress increased my heart grew hot within me while i muse the fire was kindled and i spoke out with my tongue lord let me know my end and the number of my days that i may know how short my time is you have made my days but a hands breath and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight truly even those who stand upright are but a breath we walk about like a shadow and in vain we are in turmoil we heap up riches and cannot tell who will gather them and now what is my hope truly my hope is even in you deliver me from all my transgressions and do not make me the taunt of the fool i fell silent and did not open my mouth for surely it was your doing take away your plague from me i am consumed by the blows of your hand with rebukes for sin you punish us like a moth you consume our beauty truly everyone is but a breath hear my prayer o lord and give ear to my cry hold not your peace at my tears for i am but a stranger with you a wayfarer as all my forebears were turn your gaze from me that i may be glad again before i go my way and am no more how many times have we said as we read the psalms that every mood is in there somewhere and the sentences also stand up and strike you at particular moments at the moment there's only one thing i can think of in verse two i will guard my mouth with the muzzle and that is the inconvenience all the time of putting on the necessary mask when we're in the cathedral guarding our mouths being in danger in other people as we come together in any kind of communal activity which is allowed and communal worship with distance and with masks is still a lie loud i will guard my mouth with a muzzle but better still i'm a wayfarer as all my forebears were that image takes me back to a chapter in wind in the willows when we were reading it wayfarers all it's a good word and we think of the journeys that many make but later we shall continue to think of the journey of the magi our lesson this morning is taken from the letter the first letter of saint john and it's full of all those sentences that we grow to know from the writings of saint john and the gospel of saint john i'm starting at verse seven of chapter four of the first letter of john beloved let us love one another for love is from god and whoever loves has been born of god and knows god anyone who does not love does not know god because god is love in this the love of god was made manifest among us that god sent his only son into the world that we might live through him in this is love not that we have loved god but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins beloved if god so loved us we also ought to love one another no one has ever seen god if we love one another god abides in us and his love is perfected in us by this we know that we abide in him and he and us because he has given us of his spirit and we have seen and testify that the father has sent his son to be the savior of the world whoever confesses that jesus is the son of god god abides in them and they in god so we have come to know and to believe the love that god has for us god is love and whoever abides in love abides in god and god abides in them by this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment because as he is so also are we in this world there is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear for fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love we love because god first loved us if anyone says i love god and hates their brother or sister they are a liar for the one who does not love their brother or sister whom they have seen cannot love god whom they have not seen and this commandment we have from him whoever loves god must also love their brothers and sisters well that passage contains so many little sentences which are so memorable as on our wayfaring journey we can hold on to them as part of what we might call our spiritual knapsack like the little arrow prayers or the longer prayers that we know by heart which are there for us without books at any time of the day without opening the scriptures for longer passages or opening our book of daily prayer at the regular times of day just little sentences and that sentence about being a wayfarer is an important one because it takes us on our journey that from the psalms but in this little passage from the first letter of saint john the three words god is love and then perfect love casts out fear short sentences to have in mind but they speak absolutely as the epistle gives us in the theology and teaching of saint john that god is love and that that love casts out fear if the love of god abides in us and then once again as we talk in these days of pandemic and also in days of political turmoil we think of that quality of imaginative encouragement for one another in that simple way we show that the another god in this world abides in us and people can see those epiphany sign signs within us as we journey on the epiphany signs give us from the manger right through to the baptism of jesus right through to the time when his first sign is performed when the water of this world is transformed into the richness of heaven's eternal wine and both water and wine have a resonance with that fourth gospel from the beginning to the cross where water and blood flow from the side of the christ whose arms are outstretched in love for the world all those things pour into this part of our journey when we begin the journey through the epiphany towards lent itself but for the moment let's stay with the epiphany stay with the the magi and remember then it would be strange thing if we didn't read the great poem by elliot about the journey of the magi we always know it by heart because it's so often read and i never tire of reading it let's read it this morning it's the voice of one of the wise who made the journey a cold coming we had of it just the worst time of the year for a journey and such a long journey the way is deep and the weather sharp the very dead of winter and the camels gold sore footage refractory lying down in the melting snow there were times we regretted the summer palaces on slopes the terraces and the silken girls bringing sherbet and then the camel men cursing and grumbling and running away and wanting their liquor and women and the night fires going out and the lack of shelters and the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly and the villages dirty and charging high prices a hard time we had of it at the end we preferred to travel all night sleeping in snatches with the voices singing in our ears saying that this was all folly then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley wet below the snow line smelling of vegetation with a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness and three trees on the low sky and an old white horse galloped away in the meadow then we came to a tavern with vine leaves over the lintel six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver and feet kicking the empty wine skins but there was no information and so we continued and arriving at evening not a moment too soon finding the place it was you might say satisfactory and all this was a long time ago i remember and i would do it again but set down this set down this were we led all that way for birth or death there was a birth certainly we had evidence and no doubt i had seen birth and death but had thought they were different but this birth was hard and bitter agony for us like death our death we returned to our places these kingdoms but no longer at ease here in the old dispensation with an alien people clutching their gods i should be glad of another death so many images called from the gospel that it becomes a spiritual meditation on journeying but also how the end of a pilgrimage may change us and we go home like the magi by another way and that sense of dissatisfaction with the old dispensation is very very prominent in this particular poem and meditation as we read it at this time of thinking about the epiphany signs and journeying we're undergoing many journeys at the moment during this pandemic and we think about them if i go back to the date january the 8th and i said that there was a date which was a george washington date well it was the date in 1790 when he made the very first state of the union address that a president ever made i found a quote from him which gives a a sense of his political thinking all obstructions to the execution of the laws all combinations and associations under whatever plausible character with the real design to direct control counteract or all the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities are destructive of the fundamental principle and they are a fatal tendency they serve to organize faction to give it an artificial and extraordinary force to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community and according to the alternate triumphs of different parties to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction rather than the organ of con consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests well that's a lesson for any nation and we can't point the finger that anywhere in the world for the journey of a nation towards political development and the welfare of all its people is the business of government but government is an instrument which has been delegated by the will of the people to fulfill it and just another little sentence from washington be courteous to all but intimate with few and let those be well tried before you give them your confidence true friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to appellation on this day also january the 8th in 1942 stephen hawking was born who of course was the theoretical physicist but massively massively disabled through motor neurone disease and yet he was able to teach us many lessons both in his brief history of time and in various statements and one remembers his three little statements about being here working and finding love on the earth but looking at the stars and never give up work because it defines you and if you're fortunate enough to find the gift of love don't throw it away it's too precious but that's simple teaching from a theoretical physicist probably the most important one since einstein and yet we can understand those little sayings and again they can be part of our kit bag we remember also on this day the birth of alfred wallace the famous geographer biologist and explorer and also in 1824 the birth of wilkie collins well now he's known for the novel the woman in white which andrew lloyd webber turned into a show is not one of his best-known shows but we remember seeing it in the palace theater and it was the first time that uh computer technology was used to form all the scenery and we remember being in the audience because the story as it's told isn't just wilkie collins in that musical it's also a bit of the signal man which we read it's the dickens story and when the train that you see the entry to the tunnel on the stage with the computer technology when the train bursts through it is as though the whole thing comes out into the audience and everyone ducked and and there was a gasp but we remember that but the the songs there uh haven't sort of remained in people's minds i believe my heart is probably the only one that remains but i it's not my favorite wilkie collins but my favorite is what i would see as the first detective story ever written dorothy el sales said it was the best detective story ever written it's called the moonstone and i remember seeing it as a child series in black and white television and getting to know sergeant cuff the very first detective working things out with the steward who i think was called gabriel betterage i've not read it for some time and that book is the first of those detective stories which have become such a genre of people enjoying working out the solution so we give thanks for that give thanks also for jotto the the painter who died on this day in 1337 and i remember him first from the frescoes at the upper basilica in assisi of the life of saint francis but more recently and just in february of last year when we were in florence as part of the planning for the the uh um beckett uh activities that have had to be postponed and there of course as we came to the uh the great cathedral church the duomo of santa maria de fiori and the campanile was designed by jotto the church was just shutting but we were allowed in for vespers but i'm afraid that i spent most of vespers just sitting under the the great uh dome of brunelleschi and and and feeling what an amazing creation so remember jotto who who actually designed the the campanile there and uh so enough memories but each one represents a journey and we come back to our own journeys and the way that we must imaginatively encourage one another so here we are pray saying our prayers on this particular day the 8th of january and our list in the anglican communion today gives us the diocese of accra in the church of the province of west africa and pray also for the clergy and people of the villages around auspringe in a general way we're playing with for all the clergy with permission to officiate in those villages and that's an important uh aspect of of the the work of the deanery having help from clergy with permission to officiate some retired and some in other tasks but but living that so we remember all of them and we remember justin our archbishop and rose bishop of dover and tim bishop at lambeth and please bring your own prayers and intentions for those whom you would pray for in ministry and also of course in particular need and simply because you love them and want to pray for them on this day so let's say our prayer which is still the epiphany prayer and that we're beginning to know a god who by the leading of a star manifested your only son to the peoples of the earth mercifully grant that we who know you now by faith may at last behold your glory face to face through jesus christ our lord amen and then the prayer that our savior taught us in whatever 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 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 for your own prayers peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds and 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 [Music] you