good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of saturday the 4th of december it is pouring with rain and a very gray morning indeed so we've sought shelter and hospitality with this little community of different hens and uh pheasants um what do i see here there's some uh pekin phantoms and some silk white silkies and a little malay ceramic cockrell and then pheasants pure white pheasants and the ordinary coloured pheasants that you see out in the fields at this time of year looking glorious glorious in the sunshine but no sunshine this morning tremendously wet and we are having actually because of the onset of of avian flu the bird flu to cover all the birds and take them away from their little communities and make them much more secure at the moment the roofing here which was quite secure from the rain but is not so now because of the storm last week so we're waiting for new covering here but this little community i'm afraid is going to have to be put in different places and others brought in here so all this disruption because of a particular kind of pandemic for the bird population but at the same time disruption and we shall be coming to a sense of disruption this morning when we go to our reflection because this is the day in which or on which rather we we remember nicolas ferrer of little gidding and that little diverse community which uh he and his extended family set up but we'll think about that then but we then see how the onset of the civil war meant that that community came eventually to an end so here we are saying our prayers bring your own prayers and intentions from across the world as we pray together morning prayer on this first saturday of advent o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim 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 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 morning of the month is psalm 19 the heavens are telling the glory of god and the firmament proclaims his handiwork one day pours out its song to another and one night unfolds knowledge to another they have neither speech nor language and their voices are not heard yet their sound has gone out into all lands and their words to the ends of the world in them has he set a tabernacle for the sun that comes forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber and rejoices as a champion to run his course it goes forth from the end of the heavens and runs to the very end again and there is nothing hidden from its heat the law of the lord is perfect reviving the soul the testimony of the lord is sure and gives wisdom to the simple the statutes of the lord are right and rejoice the heart the commandment of the lord is pure and gives light to the eyes the fear of the lord is clean and endures forever the judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether more to be desired are they than gold more than much fine gold sweeter also than honey dripping from the honeycomb by them also is your servant taught and in keeping them there is great reward who can tell how often they offend oh cleanse me from my secret faults keep your servant also from presumptuous sins lest they get dominion over me so shall i be undefiled and innocent of great offence let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight o lord my strength and my redeemer a fine parallel between the gifts of the creator in the heavens with the light of the sun and its warmth and the glory of all creation and also the glory of the law of the lord with all those beautiful words connected with it the fear of the lord is clean and endures forever the judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether the statutes of the lord are right and rejoice the heart the commandment of the lord is pure and gives light to the eyes and then at the end there's a kit bag knapsack grab bag sentence which we know very well because so many preachers tend to use that at the beginning of a piece of teaching or a sermon let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight o lord my strengths and my redeemer but truly is a prayer for each one of us every day so we come to our lesson this morning from the letter to the hebrews and i'm taking up from where i left off yesterday at chapter 4 but beginning at verse 14 and then we'll go to chapter 5 verse 10. since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens jesus the son of god let us hold fast our confession for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need for every high priest chosen from among mortals is appointed to act on behalf of them in relation to god to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins they can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward since they themselves are beset with weakness because of this that priest is bound to offer sacrifice for their own sins just as they do for those of the people and no one takes this honor for themselves but only when called by god just as aaron was so also christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest but was appointed by the one who said to him you are my son today i have begotten you as he says also in another place you are a priest forever after the order of melchizedek in the days of his flesh jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death and he was heard because of his reverence although he was a son he learned obedience through what he suffered and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him being designated by god a high priest after the order of melchizedek this episode truly is full of imagery and so much of it is taken from the psalms but some references are references back to stories in the old covenant and we've been looking at psalm 95 in the last two days because that is the the 90 which the uh writer to the hebrews chose to use and quote today is different today it is psalm 110 which itself looks back to a story which we saw in the book of genesis where when abraham was returning from a victory melchizedek the high king of salem came to meet him and abraham offered a tense of all that was his at a tithe to the um priesthood of melchizedek it's a strange image but this epistle is full of imagery but let's look at psalm 110 because that's where this priestly character's name not aaron but something much in the writing to the hebrews thoughts is much greater than aaron almost a mystical figure who appears and the patriarch offers gifts to him here's psalm 110 the lord said to my lord sit at my right hand until i make your enemies your footstool may the lord stretch forth the scepter of your power rule from zion in the midst of your enemies noble are you on this day of your birth on the holy mountain from the womb of the dawn the dew of your new births is upon you the lord has sworn and will not retract you are a priest forever after the order of melchizedek well that's a psalm that's used on christmas day as one of the proper sons for christmas day noble are you on this day of your birth on the holy mountain from the womb of the dawn the dew of your new birth is upon you and imagery attached to the birth and nativity of our lord jesus christ but also a priesthood attached to him now in speaking of a priesthood attached to jesus we think of the priests of the ancient covenant who as the writer to the hebrews said were priests and sinful humanity like everyone else so the offerings of sacrifices which were being offered were being offered for themselves and also for the people and that kind of sacrificial offering of a lamb or even the two turtle doves that we think of at the feast of the visitation of the of the uh presentation in the temple that image is used right at the beginning of the gospels by sin john the baptist at the beginning of saint john's gospel when the eternal word is first proclaimed and then afterwards when and as we saw with saint andrew one of the disciples standing with john when jesus walks by john says there is the lamb of god the one who takes away the sins of the world there is a sacrificial image of priesthood and without any reference back to the old testament we really wouldn't know what that meant at all but we take that for granted and at our communion services recite the olam of god who takes away the sin of the world have mercy on us and say that three times like a curie criste carrier elaiah's on to father son and holy spirit all of those things are imagery but we're so used to it that we take it as natural the epistles and even the gospel writers when they're commenting which happens quite a lot in the gospel of saint john but the gospel writers and here the writer to the epistle to the hebrews and plentifully in the book of the revelation to john imagery is used because as we've said so many times the gift of the kingdom of heaven and the gifts of the kingdom of heaven always come in parables because there is nothing on earth which can be proclaimed to be absolutely of that eternal kingdom and this shadowy figure of priesthood melchizedek and later on we shall get more of that from the writer to the the hebrews is being used by this particular writer to talk about the high priesthood of our lord jesus christ offering intercessions for us as he prayed for himself to the creator on the mount of olives if this cup can pass me by let it be so but nevertheless in all things your will be done and offered himself as the sacrifice and we think of so many little verses which which come full of imagery which are in our hearts and minds from our own hymn book not just from the psalms i think of that verse from john newton's hymn which starts how sweet the name of jesus sounds in a believer's ear and you remember there's one verse which says jesus my shepherd brother friend my prophet priest and king my lord my life my way my end accept the praise i bring a whole string of pictures all imagery taken from things from this finite world but at the same time applied to the divine nature of the one who is prophet priest and king but then newton opens it up my lord my life my way my end accept the praise i bring one goes back to psalm 95 oh come let us sing unto the lord let us heartily rejoice in the god of our salvation let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and all of that is in the writer's mind as the writer of the hebrews offers us image after image but anchoring it in the human life of jesus as he offered prayer and intercession and prayed to the creator in his earthly life with loud cries and supplication well all this is in the spiritual imagination of the the imagery is in the spiritual imagination of the writer to the hebrews but it's given on to us and we've sort of taken it for granted but if we think about the high priesthood of jesus and the offering of himself then we enter into one of the deepest mysteries of our whole faith and yet we sing of it in simple terms now i'm going to go to mrs c.f alexander who on good friday provides us with probably the most well-known of the hymns of that passion i'm talking about there is a green hill far away without a city wall where the dear lord was crucified who died to save us all the word without used to uh puzzle me it means outside and later on in this very epistle the fact that jesus is crucified outside the camp outside the walls of jerusalem becomes important but here is mrs cf alexander setting out in five verses different if you like images or theologies of the cross but the way in which she sets it out in a children's hymn is the only way we can approach it many theologians of course delve deep but on good friday we rejoice to sing that hymn and she herself says we may not know we cannot tell what pains he had to bear but we believe it was for us he hung and suffered there there's one thought about the cross and the high priesthood of christ here's another he died that we might be forgiven he died to make us good that we might go at last to heaven saved by his precious blood and here's another there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin he only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in and finally here's another oh dearly dearly has he loved and we must love him too and trust in his redeeming blood and try his works to do it's so simple and yet is speaking in every verse and almost in every line of the images of the deepest mystery which bind heaven to earth in the humanity and divinity of our lord jesus christ [Music] well we should come to more images from the writer to the hebrews as that writer points us back to the old covenant but lets us know again and again that we are involved in a new exodus on a journey towards a divine promised land to which we tend but the law of the lord is our guide here and now on this journey as strangers and pilgrims in this life now on this day as i said in uh 1637 nicolas ferrer died the 4th of december 1637 he was only 45 years old and he'd been brought up in a family with great connections to the court and at first it was thought he would go in for a diplomatic career he was a clever person who could write and and also communicate well but suddenly his vocation changed and in 1626 on the 11th of june pharaoh was ordained deacon by archbishop william lord in westminster abbey and lord knowing uh pharah and the king knowing pharah thought he was someone who was destined for high office but ferrous stopped just there likes in francis of assisi he never wanted to be more than a deacon which gave him authority to read the scriptures and also i mean read the scriptures to others and teach and preach but he wanted no more because a deacon was a sign of service and it was at that time that he gathered around him his family and his extended family and they bought the manna which was in disrepair and the little church attached to it at little gidding and went as a family and moved there and as they went there in that year they lit a candle i'm using an image now the light of which has never gone out will come and i'm not intending to read any of that this morning because we've read it so many times but we'll come in in a moment or two to ts eliot's four places which were important to him in that work which i always see as the summer of his territory the four quartets and little gidding is the last of that quartet why because pharaoh took his family there determined to live out in an extended family in that manor house which was also a place of welfare shelter and hospitality for the little and fairly impoverished rural communities round and about and uh pharah's mother came his uh brother john came with his wife and the children of that family his sister susanna came with her husband john collett and their family but others joined them too from time to time because in this rule of life which was going to be lived out absolutely according to the tenets of the book of common prayer and pharaoh was absolutely clear about that as an ordained deacon of the church of england and at the same time the tenets of the gospel there was no enclosure no vows no official rule of life save what the book of common prayer gave them and the family lived out the three instructions though it's an implied instruction in the sermon on the mount when jesus says and then explains how he says it but just the three things when you fast when you pray when you give alms and then there's do it like this and when you pray don't do it in a great manner where everyone is admiring what you're doing do it secretly and prayer was to be said at all hours of day and night for all kinds of intentions at little getting a member of the extended community every hour knelt before the altar in the little restored parish church and took their turn hour by hour so that someone was always praying and every day the whole of the salter was read through so that in the little parish church the whole psalter all 150 psalms were proclaimed by different members day by day how well they must have known those verses as we are getting to know them as well that was the bedrock but also the joining together for the daily offices for morning prayer for evening prayer and the reading of those by the authority of nicholas as a deacon to read those offices with the family and having the family reading the scriptures as set out by the lectionary day by day in the book of common prayer all of that that was their only rule of life but nicholas saw it as a rule given to everyone that they might use at that time and at the same time when you give alms they were frugal in their life they fasted on the prescribed days but everything else was fairly frugal say that it's sunday lunch after the morning service on sunday the community was invited in and given a hot meal for they were a poor rural community suffering this was the prelude to the english civil war but it hadn't broken out yet though there were tensions right across england pharaoh was a huge friend of george herbert the poet and pharah also wanted his family to be involved in creative works and as we've said before they became book binders very fine book binders and uh also would have the work of trying to make a harmony of the four gospels on which they based their lives and when king charles came which he did three times a little kidding but only once in nicholas's lifetime for nicholas died in 1637 uh and that was before the civil war had really taken taken off uh when the king came and his family they were really interested in the harmony and the king asked to borrow one of those beautiful books and that copy still exists with the king's own notings up and down the the the margins so that kind of creative work and many other kinds of creative work were carried on by the community at little kidding but at the same time teaching was going on with the children of the little communities around and about which would happen on sunday is the earliest form of sunday school after the the service had been said on sunday mornings and then the big meal together and then at the same time welfare work in the community roundabout no rule of life no vows no enclosure simply a living out of the worship of the church of england with its prayer book and all the rules enclosed in that and at the same time are living out of the life of the gospels no wonder that that candle which was lit just there has inspired so many and when herbert died he sent all his poems to uh nicolas farah and said if this will be of any help to anyone then please use it but if not just burn them for they are poor ramblings by me he'd been a parish priest in bemidjin very nature salisbury just for three years before he died and we remember that pharah certainly used them and had them printed and bound and circulated and still we in our hymn books sing three very popular hymns let all the world in every corner sing and teach me my god and king in all things thee to see and king of glory king of peace i will love thee and that love may never cease all of those hymns from herbert sent to pharah printed and then set to music by so many others in anthems and hymn form but i always love the line and teach me my god and king that um the the the tincture for thy sake which is a just a form of words i'm doing this for thy sake in heart and mind we're doing this as as servants of god and the the the verse go a servant with this clause makes drudgery divine who sweeps a room as for thy laws makes that and the action fine that was the life of little giddy which elliot when he came was moved by there are four places as you well know burnt norton the manor house in the cotswolds east coca village very near to sherman where i served as the parish priest for five years dry salvages as we're taught to to call it by elliot i'd have said salvages but i've i've learned to say salvages it rhymes with us wages he tells us and that is over the other side of the atlantic and little giving the fourth and that sense of kneeling where prayer has been valid well as we know true prayer is valid anywhere at any time and the pharah family made that absolutely clear that elliot came to see it in may time when the white horsehorn was on the hedges he imagines charles the first last journeys there in a sense of wintertime which is not accurate to the timetable but the winter was the frost of having lost that civil war and he came there and was given shelter and welfare at some risk by john ferrer nicholas's brother and uh then went on and eventually surrendered himself to the army of the scots in the north it was over at that point really the the civil war it broke out again a bit but after that the pharahs kept on as best they could they went into exile for a little bit came back but in 1657 within almost a month of each other both uh john ferrer and susannah collette who was the sister of nicholas and john died and then really it was over and nothing was over about what they taught us we could say much much more about that i just uh wanted to say that we've got an image around us of of the countryside and and the pharahs had pig styles and chickens and everything else of the farm but this little community here of such beauty is just going to be um broken up so that the pheasants will be in a different place to the little chickens here and they're very diverse but they all get on and so we're sorry that in the way in which we have to do it because of the bird flu and enclosure and having them separated from wild birds we shall have to make up a winter uh ordering of all of this so you're seeing this little community for the last time as an image of the diversity and beauty and regularity and rhythms of life set out for us by little kidding maybe that's enough uh for this morning because that's a very very powerful image indeed and i don't want to disturb it in any way in your minds because that rule of life something self-imposed but such a surprise to archbishop lord that pharaoh saw himself simply as a servant and wanted nothing more than to be a deacon just as saint francis was wanting to show that the deacon's office is an office of service let's send say our prayers on this particular morning and we are praying on this morning for the parish of saint andrews at deal in this diocese and paul blanche in his ministry there and also the in the anglican communion the diocese of igbo mina west in the church of nigeria in the kwara province pray for archbishop justin for bishop rose of dover and for bishop emma at lambeth and here is our advent collect almighty god give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life in which your son jesus christ came to us in great humility that on the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge 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 are men and we are now going to say that prayer that our savior taught us in whatever language we choose to use and in our hearts and minds we think of that regular round of prayer of the diverse extended family of little giddy and the light lit by nicolas ferrer and also giving thanks for the poetry of george herbert 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 for your own prayers on this morning [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] rules [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] 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 are men well you've been really really good all of you it's such a quiet place to be and a very quiet community all so different and yet also very beautiful i think the water's holding off you isn't it for the moment we'll have a new roof over soon hello you