[Music] good morning and welcome to the deanery garden on this tuesday the 1st of december the sun is just coming up but already an hour ago when i went to the cathedral for matins to say it with the other clergy the last day that we shall be without a congregation at matins it after seven in the morning the thrush was already singing beautifully on the top of the cut leaf alder in the front garden and that made a wonderful song it's cold today but if i look back on december the 30th 1662 the great diarist john evelyn records watching skating in st james's park with king charles ii and queen catherine so early in their reign two years after the the return of the king that must have been a very cold day at the end of november beginning of december for the the water to have frozen it's not quite that cold here yet but it is a chilly morning but a very beautiful one and the sun is coming up with great glory wherever you are across the world please feel free to bring your prayers and be welcome here at canterbury cathedral on this particular morning tomorrow our lockdown across the country ends in its present form and we find ourselves in three different levels i fear that kent is in the severest level of restriction but that doesn't stop cathedral congregations returning to worship here and we so much look forward to that december the 1st is a time when advent calendars open their first door and and children particularly begin to get excited as the doors open right up through to christmas so we remember that too we ourselves are remembering that this is national tree week and if you've been with us in the last couple of days you know that we've we've looked on sunday at the hornbeam tree and on uh yesterday we were looking at the beach which still had some colored leaves on it today our tree is the ash and this stainless trunk in front of me is an ash tree which we will talk about in a while there's another across the garden there silhouetted against the blue sky as the sun comes up they are deeply threatened at the moment by ash dieback disease and we'll talk about the threats to our ecology in all sorts of ways but let's think that also in 1988 this was proclaimed worldwide aids day by the united nations member states and although great strides have been made in new drugs to combat that fearful uh threat uh nevertheless the many nations are still suffering in that way and many folk are suffering from that so we remember that in the midst of this new pandemic as well and all those who are combating the pandemic which we face now the coronavirus covid19 well on this day also remember that in 1887 the famous detective sherlock holmes appeared in print for the first time a study in scarlet by arthur conan doyle and in 1906 the world's first cinema opened in paris again in 1988 benazir bhutto became the first woman prime minister of a muslim country and that country pakistan of course so we give thanks for that and in 1955 rosa parks in montgomery alabama on this day december the first refused to relinquish her seat for a white passenger on a bus which began a 381-day boycott of buses led by martin luther king just one step in the the uh coming together of of the diversity of nations and the fight against racism in in all places and so we know that on this day many keep it as rosa parks day in the united states and in 1958 rogers and hammerstein opened their flower drum song on broadway and that also confronted racism on the west coast against asians in a a musical way but i remember only seeing that musical once and that was an amateur company but two lines stick in my head which was sung a hundred thousand miracles are happening every day the song in the flower drum song by rogers and hammerstein and we can think of that this morning as the sun comes up on december the 1st and a new day as we gather to say our prayers let's begin our prayers this morning o lord open our lips and our mouth shall break down 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 you 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 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 [Music] our son this morning naturally enough on the first day of the month is psalm 1 blessed are they who have not walked in the counsel 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 for the lord knows the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked shall perish so we turn to the book of revelation and i'm going to use a little selection from chapters 19 and 20 because of sin andrew we we missed some out and so i'm going to begin in chapter 19 at verse 6. then i heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peels of thunder crying out hallelujah for the lord our god the almighty reigns let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory for the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready it was granted to her to close herself with fine linen bright and pure for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints and the angel said to me write this blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb and he said to me these are the true words of god then i fell down at his feet to worship him but he said to me you must not do that i am a fellow servant with you and your brothers and sisters who hold to the testimony of jesus worship god for the testimony of jesus is the spirit of prophecy and then i saw heaven opened and behold a white horse the one sitting on it is called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and makes war his eyes are like a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems and he has a name written that no one knows but himself he is closed in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which he is called is the word of god and the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen white and pure were following him on white horses and from his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron he will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of god the almighty and on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written king of kings and lord of lords then i saw an angel coming down from heaven holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain and he seized the dragon that ancient serpent who is the devil and satan and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him so that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended after that he must be released for a little while and when the thousand years are ended satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth gorg and magog to gather them for battle their number is like the sand of the sea and they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city but fire came down from heaven and consumed them and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever and i saw a great white throne and him who is seated on it from his presence earth and sky fled away and no place was found for them and i saw the dead great and small standing before the throne and books were opened and then another book was opened which is the book of life [Applause] well john's visions continue but they open up in the next few days into the eternity of heaven and the new jerusalem in a great way so many of his visions we have found terrifying so many of his visions come from his own experience as he had those visions on in exile on patmos but now we give thanks for these pictures which are being given to us of that which is beyond our mortal frailty and once again we see the lesson which is you must worship only god all the way through john's first lesson has been to those who might be tempted to worship an earthly power but now it's an angel that john finds himself kneeling before the angel says you must not do that i'm a fellow servant with you and your brothers and sisters worship god perhaps that's our first lesson today [Music] the second is the wonderful sight of the rider on the white horse bearing a new name with the sword of his words mighting the nations and causing them to turn to the word of truth to the word of god and on his thigh is written lord of lords and king of kings again if we turn to handel's great work that is the hallelujah shout in the hallelujah chorus as it rises higher and higher lord of lords king of kings and he shall reign forever and ever but meanwhile the journey is for us here and now and the lovely thing is that when all those books are opened in judgment for this is very much a lesson about judgment when they're opened in judgment it says and another book was opened the book of life and the book of life we open in the gospels day by day this is a lesson of judgment and we find ourselves called to make judgment constantly we're doing it without realizing it day by day oh that's good we say oh that's sad well that's really bad we're making judgments we're told by jesus not to judge lest we be judged ourselves but judgment is part of our human life for the safety of others we make judgments governments make judgments at all times and sometimes they're castigated for them and sometimes it proves a bad judgment and many times when unpopular judgments are taken 20 years down the line it was seen to be a good judgment we can't escape any of that but sometimes that which seems strong is frail and threatened and we have here the tree and my judgment is very strong tree the ashtray mighty and very common in england so common we forget about it a great deal of the time here not only is a lovely shade in the heat and a towering architectural tree like the one across the garden but also the gift of a swing which came across to the deanery sometime back from our friends andy and nancy mead in america as a gift for sitting on and enjoying for all who come here is swinging on the strong bow of the ash but we'd be wrong in thinking that its strength is absolute for in fact all ash trees are threatened terribly by ash dieback and we're in danger of losing them across the country as so many of you will know a great friend of ours who's now died who was the master of corpus christi college at cambridge but above all else the expert on ancient woodlands his name oliver rackham and he wrote the the great book not long before his death the great book simply called the ash tree and it shows how diseases coming in by too fast movement of things around the earth before any kind of immunity can can really begin to build up in the tree are threatening our trees when i began in ministry in salisbury cathedral in a very junior position in 1974 the chapter there was wrestling with the enormous threat to huge elm trees in the precinct in the coast in salisbury which had been planted at the time of the battle of waterloo to celebrate the battle of waterloo so all those years later there they were as though they would never change and dutch elm disease whatever the chapter did whatever they paid to have the trees injected dutch elm disease reduced them in the end to a pile of logs on the floor of the the the the grass of the close and that happened right across england to our elm trees well the same threat is here for the ash trees and we have to be mindful all the time to make sound judgments for what might seem strong if it's not cared for turns out to be threatened and then in danger of dying all those things we remember in our earthly context of biodiversity which we've been talking about and our thanksgiving for the ash trees across our land we make a judgment for they have so much come into all our literature and life part of the landscape there's a welsh song which is very famous and i only know it of course in translation and the welsh words are the real words for this song it's called the ash grove and so many of you will know it and it's got the simplest of tunes which has also been used for a hymn tune as well but in english that would be begin down yonder green valley where stream lets me under when twilight is falling i pensively rove you'll all know it the the tune is so easy to sing but it's celebrating the ash grove as part of the place where the singer loved to walk hearing the blackbirds sing seeing the bluebells and taking shade and strengths and solace from the ash trees of the ash grove here's our here's also a poem of judgment on the trees and this is as i say a day of judgment in the lesson that we've read good judgment this is written by celia congress and was published in the times on march the 2nd 1930 it's about wood which is good for giving us fires beechwood fires are bright and clear if the logs are kept a year chestnut's only good they say if for logs is laid away make a fire of elder tree death within your house will be but ash new or ash old is fit for a queen with a crown of gold birch and fur logs burn too fast blaze up bright and do not last it is by the irish said hawthorne bakes the sweetest bread elmwood burns like churchyard mold in the flames are very cold but ash green or ash brown is fit for a queen with golden crown poplar gives a bitter smoke fills your eyes and makes you choke applewood will scent your room power wood smells like flowers in bloom oaken logs if dry and old keep away the winter's cold but ash wet or ash dry a king shall warm his slippers by a wonderful poem but also it'd be a reminder of how we make judgments within the context of heaven's judgment and heaven's rule and we remember that the one on the white horse was the one who himself stood in place of that judgment and became vulnerable for us so that when the book of life is opened we may find our name written in it without deserving to be there let's say our prayers on this morning and we are praying on the 1st of december for the anglican communion diocese of sale in korea and the bishop there peter lee and his people and the diocese of eastern newfoundland and labrador in canada and jeffrey peddle and his people and at the same time our diocese is now giving a prayer right across the diocese for all parishes day by day throughout antwen so we pray for archbishop justin in his ministry in this diocese for bishop rose of dover bishop tim at lambeth and the life of every community throughout this part of kent which forms the diocese of canterbury during the first weeks of this christian year so let's say the prayer for advent and bring our own concerns to that on this lovely morning almighty god give us grace to cast away the works of darkness to put on the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life in which your son jesus christ came to visit us in great humility that at the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both 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 amen [Music] let's together then say the prayer our savior taught us in all our different languages 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 moment of silence now for our own prayers on this 1st of december 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