good morning and welcome to the garden of the deanery at canterbury cathedral on this 29th of october thursday morning as we say our morning prayers together welcome wherever you are in the world bring your own concerns and they will be very different from place to place but we will enfold them in our own prayers as we say them normally we just think of this date october the 29th in years gone by and see what human history world history and national history was doing at that particular time times of sadness sometimes signs of tragedy and disaster and sometimes times of joy and this morning perhaps we should begin with what one might see as a time of shame for in 1390 the first documented trial for witchcraft was held in paris many had been held before but all the evidence of this one written down and ending in three horrendous executions people fearing something that they didn't understand and people being tortured and tortured to elicit confessions it's the day also in 1692 when the court in massachusetts which had been convened for the salem witch trials was dissolved and we remember our capacity as human beings when we are afraid simply to reach out and destroy and that has been a dimension of faith and life throughout human history but these are also dates on october 29th this is also a date of healing and and recreation and and that trying to come to terms with things which must happen so one thinks that in 1863 in geneva the representatives of 18 nations on this day met to form the international red cross which would attempt to give neutrality and protection for all the wounded in a war zone and also those who were medical personnel trying to treat them so that the white band and the red cross on the arm meant that those people were meant to be seen as neutral and given proper protection this is a day also in south africa in 1998 when the truth and reconciliation committee presented its report trying to bring healing and a new beginning the day when spain had a new beginning in 1975 after 36 years of ruling the country general franco resigned and opened the way for the restoration of the spanish monarchy so we pray for our near near european neighbor on this day the kingdom of spain and we remember also some national bits of history that on this day in 1986 the final section of the the great motorway which rings london the m25 was opened by the prime minister margaret thatcher it was already too small for the congestion and has been labeled the largest car park in europe because the the traffic on the m25 at busy times is often stationary well we remember those times and we remember also that on this day in 1929 the great depression began in america and spread this was the day of the great wall street stock market crash in 1929 so let's say our prayers and one or two other things will come when we come to our reflection o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the day star dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night blessed are you creator of all to you be praise and glory forever as your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation may we rejoice in this day you have made and as we awake refreshed from the depths of sleep 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 and 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 on this 29th morning of the month is psalm 139 and we read some verses from that now oh lord you have searched me out and known me you know my sitting down and my rising up you discern my thoughts from afar you mark out my journeys and my resting place and are acquainted with all my ways for there is not a word on my tongue but you o lord know it altogether you encompass me behind and before and lay your hand upon me such knowledge is too wonderful for me so high that i cannot attain it where can i go then from your spirit or where can i flee from your presence if i climb up to heaven you are there if i make the grave my bed you are there also if i take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there your hand will lead me your right hand hold me fast if i say surely the darkness will cover me and the light around me turn to night even darkness is no darkness to you the night is as clear as the day darkness and light to you are both alike for you yourself created my in most parts you knit me together in my mother's womb i thank you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made marvelous are your works my soul knows well my frame was not hidden from you when i was made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth your eyes beheld my form as yet unfinished already in your book were all my members written as day by day they were fashioned when as yet there was none of them how deep are your counsels to me oh god how great is the sum of them if i count them they are more in number than the sand and at the end i am still in your presence so we turn back to the first letter to timothy and i'm reading from verse 14 of chapter three was a chapter we missed yesterday because of keeping the feast of simon and jews so i'm just putting the end of that chapter onto the whole of chapter four i hope to come to you soon but i'm writing these things to you so that if i delay you may know how one ought to behave in the household of god which is the church of the living god a pillar and buttress of the truth great indeed is the mystery of faith christ was manifested in the flesh vindicated by the spirit seen by angels proclaimed among the nations believed on in the world taken up in glory now the spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that god created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth for everything created by god is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving for it is made holy by the word of god and prayer if you put these things before the brothers and sisters you will be a good servant of christ jesus being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths rather train yourself for godliness for while bodily training is of some value godliness is a value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance for to this end we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living god who is the savior of all people especially of those who believe command and teach these things let no one despise you for your use but set the believers as an example in speech in conduct in love in faith in purity until i come devote yourself to the public reading of scripture to exhortation to teaching do not neglect the gift you have which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you practice these things immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching persist in this for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers that's a very important passage in our understanding of the way in which the early church developed it contains passages and sentences from much earlier than the composite letter itself but those sentences too shine out like diamonds in the middle of this and as we've said before quotations appear from the worship of christians you may have spotted one right at the end of chapter three because we use it now in the middle of the prayer of thanksgiving as we take and bless bread and break it as a sign of our christian communion and unity it goes great is the mystery of faith christ was manifested in the flesh vindicated by the spirit seen by angels proclaimed among the nations believed on in the world taken up in glory it's a very old statement of the christian church and we rely on it to see how the faith was being taken around verbally now we use very simple sentences in that acclimate acclimation sentences which hold up a whole world of our belief within them grace is the mystery of faith christ has died christ is risen christ will come again found here set as i say like a jewel at the end of chapter three and explaining an acclamation in different words but stretching back all those years to the worship of early christians in households and later in their churches and we come across something like that again in chapter four and it's a sentence that we have come across before twice already in the first letter to timothy it'll come again in the second letter to timothy and and it in in the greek word it's pistos you may rely on this word it's as if saying okay this quotation is trustworthy and true it's verse 9 of chapter four the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance pistos very very indicative of the writer of one timothy and what is the trustworthy and true thing well it looks as though there although inverted commas of that kind quotation marks were not used in the greek but it looks as though it's the sentence while bodily training is of some value godliness is a value in every way as godliness holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come this saying is trustworthy and true the kind of training and the myths and genealogies and asceticism and setting aside of this food and that food is nothing to do with the life of faith of course there are things which must be resisted because they spring from evil and that the spirit had worn the early church up from right from the very beginning jesus himself had warned them of persecutions and terrible things but nevertheless everything that god has created has the potential for good if it is received with thanksgiving and here is our instruction for grace before meals the word of god and an act of thanksgiving purifies all things and that compass is amazing a sentence of scripture and a word of thanksgiving and actually that's at the heart of the eucharist itself for eucharist in greek means simply thanksgiving the thanksgiving for the bread which as we break unites us not only now but with that life of the early church which we see developing also with the laying on of hands of the deacon timothy that word servant be a good servant of christ is the word diaconos deacon and we see how the ministry of the church is developing well let's think how that plays itself out this is a day when we remember the first bishop of eastern equatorial africa james huntington for he lost his life on this day in busoga in what is is now the eastern africa he he'd come from kenya he walked across and with his party to uganda and the kingdom of buganda and we remember that kingdom even today with its present monarch muendam mutabi ii who has been the cabaca the king of that constitutional monarchy within uganda since 1993 and his royal line goes back to well beyond thirteen hundred but uh we remember huntington losing his life i think because he was a a very important person and the political situation of uh the german influence coming in in colonial times from uh tanganyika and the the the the british seeming to to come into the culture there and the whole thing becomes the most terrible violent model so the bishop was martyred a witness to his faith and we remember him on this day and the the dangers of bringing the good news anywhere and the way in which that has to be done and we we pray for the church mission society on this day for it was to that society that the bishop huntington gave his life he'd already been out to africa once and had to come back because of the basic medicines not being able to deal with the dysentery and everything else he suffered but went back again and his own death signaled a a terrible persecution of christians at that time and the first of the uganda martyrs we remember all that on this day as we pray for the church in uganda but at the same time we remember how things move on historically and i'm going to use a figure who was executed on this day in whitehall in london by orders of the king he's a famous figure in british history he's called the walter raleigh and we um learned all kinds of colorful stories about him because he was a great icon of the age of the first elizabeth later i came across the uh the the life of raleigh at sherman castle when i was vicar of sherban but the raleigh family had sherman castle for a stage then um but uh we think of him uh having brought tobacco to england and there was the story of a servant coming in and throwing a bucket of water over sir walter raleigh because he thought he was on fire when he was actually smoking a pipe and also the potato which was already known to uh already known to spain but was not known to england at that time and raleigh is is is given the the credit for bringing that very important vegetable to us here however he also founded the great uh colony of virginia the commonwealth of virginia as it's now called and named it after the virgin queen for he was a huge favorite of elizabeth the first but he outlived her reign and in resisting the change that came with james the first he first of all faced 13 years of long imprisonment and then when he was given permission to go and find the city the fabled gold of el dorado on a new expedition he broke all rules and came back and as uh almost a sop to the the spanish because uh war was going to be a a corollary of all his behavior james the first had him executed the embracing of new ways and the way in which people um have to forget sometimes the the ways of the past and go on with the lessons learned become something which this letter to timothy show very very distinctly and so our real icon today is the council of elders laying hands on that deacon and the encouragement of that deacon timothy to carry on with the deacon's work of teaching preaching and above all else in their own life being an example to others the best form of just carrying the good news and at the same time we remember those jewels of early christian creeds and practice and the breaking of bread with thanksgiving whenever we eat so lots of things to think about this morning as we begin to say our prayers and we remember today the diocese of rift valley in tanzania and pray for john daudi lupa the bishop there and his people the diocese of damatoru in nigeria and johanna aoudu the bishop there and his people and the diocese again in tanzania of dar es salaam and jackson sossinis and all his people there and here in this diocese as we remember just in our archbishop and rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambus we pray for the diocese of sindh andrew reading street and pray for philip musindi in his ministry there and all of his people and this week of course our colleague is one that we're beginning to learn to say together one which causes us to reflect on the holy scriptures and receive the gift of what is called in the epistle godliness which has value for this life and the next blessed lord who have called all holy scriptures to be written for our learning grant that we may in such wise hear them read mark learn and inwardly digest them that's by patience and comfort of your holy word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of eternal life which you have given to us in your son our savior jesus christ amen so let's keep silence and first say the prayer our savior taught us and into the silence then bring our own concerns 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 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 hey