so [Music] oh good morning and welcome to the dinery at canterbury cathedral on this sunday morning the 5th of december the second sunday of the advent season a season of preparation for the feast of christmas but also a season of reflection of all kinds and we've come to say our prayers again inside it's it's a fairly breezy and gray morning outside and later we should be lighting the candles on the advent wreath so we've come inside as we did last sunday to say our prayers bring your own prayers and intentions from across the world we keep in our hearts and minds the people who are suffering so much from the eruption of mount sumeru in indonesia and those attempting to help them those in danger of losing homes and all who are struggling with the enormous ash cloud which is covering them let's begin our prayers 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 as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen before we say our psalm we'll mark this second sunday of advent by lighting the two advent candles for this particular season first the one that we lit last week and then this morning's candle [Music] so having kindled our light we say the sound for the morning i'm using psalm 26. give judgment for me oh lord for i have walked with integrity i have trusted in the lord and have not faltered test me o lord and try me examine my heart and my mind for your love is before my eyes i have walked in your truth i have not joined the company of the false nor consorted with the deceitful [Music] i hate the gathering of evildoers and i will not sit down with the wicked i will wash my hands in innocence so lord that i may go about your altar to make her the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all your wonderful deeds lord i love the house of your habitation and the place where your glory abides sweep me not away with sinners nor my life with the bloodthirsty whose hands are full of wicked schemes and their right hand full of bribes as for me i will walk with integrity redeem me lord and be merciful to me my foot stands firm in the great congregation i will bless the lord this is a sheltered place for candlelight it's also a sheltered place for leo he doesn't mind at all being inside on a morning like this and somewhere in the room lily's here as well so they've come in for warmth and comfort but we've come in so that the light shines brightly and burns clear as an image of the light of christ in these advent days generally we kindle the first one as the advent light and then the second two this the first of those two that we've lit this morning are a sign of prophecy prophecy from the old covenant and prophecy in the new covenant prophecy fulfilled but let's leave that for next week here is one talking about the prophets but reading from the new testament lesson given to us in our lectionary this morning the person who is represented by this light is the figure of john the baptist who if you like is a bridge between the old testament prophets and the new testament message which john himself began to proclaim when he said to the two disciples pointing to jesus there is the lamb of god and we're going to read the 11th chapter of the gospel of saint matthew beginning at the second verse and going on to verse 19. now when john heard in prison about the deeds of christ he sent word by his disciples and said to him are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another and jesus answered them go and tell john what you hear and see the blind receive their sight and the lame walk lepers are cleansed and the death here and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them and blessed is the one who is not offended by me as john's disciples went away jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning john the baptist what did you go out into the wilderness to see a reed shaken by the wind what then did you go out to sea a man dressed in soft clothing behold those who wear soft clothing are in king's houses what then did you go out to see a prophet yes i tell you and more than a prophet this is the one of whom it is written behold i send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you truly i say to you among those born of women there has there is no one greater than john the baptist yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he from the days of john the baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violence take it by force for all the prophets and the law prophesied until john and if you are willing to accept it he is elijah who is to come let the one who has ears to hear listen to what shall i compare this generation [Music] they are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates we played the flute for you and you did not dance we sang a dirge and you did not mourn for john the baptist came neither eating nor drinking and they say of him he has a demon the son of man came eating and drinking and they say look at him a glutton and a drunkard a friend of tax collectors and sinners yet wisdom is justified by her deeds the light burns for john the baptist and we're used to reading lessons of john in all the confidence of his ministry of baptism by the river jordan looking at the crowds and saying to those who had come just out of curiosity from jerusalem groups of the the pharisees and sadducees and herodians and the scribes and lawyers and all sorts of people who've simply come to observe and check as we've seen at the beginning of sin john's gospel in chapter one who is this is he someone who's going to cause disruption will he be a troubled to us and you remember how in luke's gospel john says to them all you vipers brood who warned you to flee from the roth to come a confident john and one also who witnesses to the anointed one there is the lamb of god who takes away the sin of the world and john also witnessed to at the baptism seeing the dove descend on jesus and those kinds of testimonies are probably what we think of most apart from lessons about his birth with zechariah and elizabeth which we shall come to as we get nearer to christmas but this morning this is very different john has been imprisoned by herod and now in the darkness of his prison he begins to feel as so many do in the darkness doubts about whether he can be so confident this is the human john and he says to his disciples go and ask whether this is the one who was to come or are we to look for another and here we have then the last words of john it's a gift to us because of course john is asking the kind of questions which in darkness i mean metaphorical darkness in desperate places john is imprisoned and is in fear of his life but at the same time he's probably more in fear that the faith he holds and the prophetic message he has has somehow led him astray so he sends his disciples to jesus and asks the question are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another and it gives us an opportunity to hear the answer that jesus gives it's the same answer that he gives in luke's gospel early in st luke's gospel to the synagogue at nazareth when he picks up the scroll of the prophet isaiah and reads those verses about the anointed one coming to proclaim good news the servant of the lord coming to to proclaim good news and then he sets out what isaiah says and it's very like this here go and tell john what you hear and see let their own eyes their own witness answer this question what you hear and see the blind receive their sight the lame walk lepers are cleansed and the death here and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them the same message that isaiah says the one who is anointed who will come will proclaim and bring to the people who are waiting you remember how in the synagogue in nazareth when the scroll is handed back to the attendant jesus says today in your very hearing this scripture has come true this prophecy has been fulfilled and now he's saying to the disciples of john look and see if you see by what is going on here with the crowds that are here not the observers that john kept shouting at is just people who've come out of curiosity or to try and trick jesus but those who gladly hear the message and receive healing both in body and mind and spirit just see for yourselves and and test the atmosphere and right at the end of all of this right the last sentence of what we read wisdom is justified by her deeds wisdom is the sum of knowledge and john is after the knowledge as to whether this is the anointed one and jesus is saying to them as he says to us look around you and know within yourself what this good news of the new covenant of the anointed one means and then you begin to get your answer we can't evade the dark places nor avoid them either but those kinds of doubts which come to us jesus asks us to look around and see the kind of message that is being given both in his human life and in that which he offers of the kingdom of heaven in the life eternal but it goes on a bit after the disciples have gone away for jesus then speaks of john the baptist and says he also is a prophecy fulfilled the messenger who will prepare the way of the one who is coming and that too becomes part of what is seen and witnessed and experienced by those around and then he turns the light onto the people themselves and i mean from top to bottom from those who have power those who have resources right down to those who may be fickle in the crowd and follow where the wind is blowing on that particular day and this little sentence it's like children sitting in the marketplaces calling to their playmates we played the flute for you and you did not dance we sing a dirge and you didn't mourn i remember getting clarity on that statement in the middle of a lecture by the new testament scholar george cad who was lecturing us at uh mansfield college and used a lecture in the great hall there and it was just before lunch time and it was uh the smell of lunch cooking was all about the place but he was he was a colorful speaker and he also used images of his own and um this little sentence which before i i probably not understood much and hadn't noticed we played the flute for you and you did not dance we sang a dirt and you didn't mourn he imagined the children playing in the marketplaces and making up games which followed what the older uh the older generation were doing and we played the flute for you and you did not dance we were playing at weddings and invited you to come and take your part at this and and i'm sure all the sort of things which children do now we're going to have a wedding such as we saw yesterday and you're going to and they all took their parts and things and then we invited others to come in and even played the flute but they said no we're not going to do that and then the next sentence and we were playing at funerals they'd seen funeral processions they'd seen things which were more solemn and they themselves as children would act that out as children do we've all done that in earlier years just saying oh let's do what we saw yesterday and act it out again we'd all play our part we and we sang a church you did not mourn you so now i don't want to do that so we can't please you and this is what jesus is saying this generation is like that because john came with a very severe message indeed neither eating nor drinking and fasting in a very great way very severe and hard message as the the one who is preparing the way and you you wouldn't have that you said he had a demon and now the son of man he himself comes and i eat with you in your houses and celebrate with you on different occasions and sit with those who need me most and what do you do you complain that i'm a glutton and a drunkard and a friend of tax collectors and sinners and yet wisdom is justified by her deeds those with eyes to see and ears to hear will know what this message is and that's the message that was sent back to john to give reassurance in his prison cell well now today on this 5th of december 2013 nelson mandela died aged 94 a a towering person across the world's leaders when he became president of south africa in 1994 and retained that position just for one term that's all he wanted from then on he took his life in other directions to help with both reconciliation and those who needed him most both in his own nation and in other areas of the world and was an honored guest in uh so many of the the homes and and state rooms of leaders across the world and is really known as the father of the nation in south africa still but we remember that he spent 27 years of his life in prison and many of them at robin island which is now can you believe it a world heritage site say that when people go there they can see the tiny cell that she occupied and for a long time that cell had no bed in it simply a mat laid across the floor and that's how it's laid out at a table and he was allowed in the beginning only one letter a year and yet his faith kept up not only his faith in the divine but his faith in humanity and his certainty that violence in terms of trying to resolve things was not the way forward sometimes it had been necessary to break the power of those who kept people in situations which was both dangerous and cruel and tormenting and all of these but mostly his desire was to make a nation with the freedom to make choices and he held on to that 27 years from robin island he went to pose more prison now in robin island things got a bit better on the way through but when he was forbidden to study his law books he'd been trying to con complete a law degree um when he was forbidden to do that he turned his mind to botanical things and and to gardening and when he got to pose more prison the governor there who was a kinder person and he was there between 18 1982 and 1988 having been robbing ireland uh uh up until 1982 uh allowed him to create a roof garden and in doing that gradually things began to open up so that between 88 and 90 it became more and more possible to have contacts with the outside world until the new president of south africa fw de clerk realizing that the situation was up and that their apartheid was was something that that could no longer continue began to make those kinds of of noises which mandela responded to and by 1994 was himself the first elected president by a complete poll of the nation of south africa but his mind was and his heart was on reconciliation realistic reconciliation with those who were ready to go forward and we give thanks not only for those years where he was greatly respected and his word listened to but mostly that took power from the fact that 27 years of imprisonment had focused and concentrated not only his mind and heart but his vision so that something so tightly controlled and locked away suddenly like a seed burst out and it burst out in a wonderful way or we could say much about nelson mandela but as with john the baptist in prison thoughts come which then need to be helped and then the next person i want to think of who died on this day in 1791 in vienna aged 35 years is the composer mozart w.a mozart who himself had throughout his life suffered series of a series of restrictions not imprisonment but restrictions on his creativity and sometimes um on his strength in his humanity the the first of those dominating restrictions was of course his father who with the best of intentions probably for for his son but also in hope of getting uh both profit and also a good job for for young mozart after enormous tours around europe where mozart as an infant prodigy played in all sorts of places he played here at ed bourne park he played across the lands but what that must have taken out of the young boy i don't know but at that point it was father who was controlling and then after that when he got a job in salzburg it was the archbishop of salzburg who was controlling controlling his creativity and saying what must happen and what mustn't happen and mozart could not stand him it was a long running feud and uh in the end um mozart left in 1781 to go to vienna but the power of the archbishop of salzburg and artists and composers had to rely on their patrons so if the archbishop said when you're composing a mass you don't do this for more than three minutes and i don't want that bit i want that is massively restrictive and mozart nevertheless produce beautiful masses some of which we sing but his mouse in c minor which was sung at a concert here quite recently was something that um was something that almost was uh in in defiance of the archbishop of salzburg because there he created long passages uh and he it was performed in salzburg again but at the same time it wasn't when he was working for the archbishop of salzburg so there was a certain defiance to it these restrictions which go the the last restriction was one that almost at the end of his life began to to plague him and that was a lack of financial resources to do things in that way because of what was happening to europe and also happening in austria uh that even the those who had before in if one thinks of joseph hayden with the the esterhazy family being good patrons they didn't any longer have the finances to do that he died in 1791 the french revolution had happened in 1789 which was shocking all europe and remember that marie antoinette was a princess of austria and and mozart by that stage was was suffering badly from his his health declined and yet he went on writing writing writing and at the free times those things which he'd suffered from people fed into what he was writing he he composes operas his italian operas some of them serious some of them comic and lovely scripts provided by de ponte but nevertheless uh when he came towards the end he was struggling struggling to complete his requiem and of course it was never finished one likes to think that these really wonderful and uh happy things which he composed making us all laugh in operas and also feeling joy in his masses had benefited once again from this almost this restriction which caused something in the human figure of mozart with all his genius to burst out and that unfinished requiem is something that we glory in it was completed later by another hand but at the same time what mozart wrote is is something really fine and then finally i want to talk about claude monet who died on this day on the 5th of december 1926 aged 86 and this is a different kind of restriction because monet was a fashionable and and great painter uh and uh when the the the normal roots in terms of parisian painting and and uh a popular life in that way but then in 1883 in traveling in a train through normandy he looked out of the window and discovered juvenile from a train window in normandy and instantly something within him decided this was where he was going to go and he rented a house with gardens and later on purchased that house and it became in a very small way his great place for having a vision mostly for the natural world and the creation of that garden anyone who's been there and said it's breathtakingly beautiful and to go there in different seasons of the year is a really lovely thing to do but monet was wanting to paint the garden and hand it on so that we can enjoy it as well and the amount of painting done though he kept his hand over every aspect of the garden this is monet's vision money's creation from the big canvas that he had been involved in with um society paintings and and portraits of the rest coming right down to the impressionism of trying to give the flavor of a sunrise or a sunset or different lights particularly with the water there on the water lilies that he grew in his water gardens excuse me and uh as uh as he did that so too he began to do series of paintings of the same thing we think of the bridge and the water but what's being given to us is an image much much much wider than that little garden i mean you're standing in it it's not a little garden there's plenty of it it's much bigger than ours but um as you you enter it through the paintings you're actually being given something of the quality of money's vision of the creator's gifts and the way that that vision can be handed on each day his gardeners would receive details in instructions and then after that he would go and paint or sit in the garden and paint and he didn't mind how many times he did the same thing because there was different light and a different sense of where he was coming from on those days we rejoice once again that the tiny focus in terms of restriction of staying there in that little village community and they grew to knew him well know him well from 1883 right through to 1926 given a was his home and also it was given that he wanted so much to paint to give us the flavor of that garden now happily we can go there as we have and enjoy it as it is and so much of it is still there and the atmosphere is very much still there but at the same time he gives us all that was within him which is a much bigger vision than just the garden itself of light and shade and growth and spring and sunrise and sunset and the perfection of the water lilies in so many ways as all of that on the trees around there painted again and again and in his long life he's left a complete gallery of vision that mozart too in his short life left a gallery of human emotions of laughter and sorrow of solemnity and then little teasing music as well of music telling historic stories music uh telling a modern story with much fun in it and music for the worship of the catholic church of which he remained a very faithful member and then back to mandela locked in robin island having a vision for how society might be in his south africa and then breaking out and being able to realize something of that vision as the president himself in 1994 and being that for that term of five years and then going to share his vision with the world after that so thanks be to god for that but there's one last little thing that um was given to us by a bbc newsreel of an artist called tanya hinton who lives in warminster in wiltshire and she decided during lockdown that there were too many boarded-up buildings in warminster and they didn't give joy and so she took her palace as an artist and her paint brushes and she created tiny miniatures of creatures uh giving joy about a hundred of them birds and other creatures just put on the on as banks he did with his uh with his uh graffiti and and drawings on on the the the um paintings and she's become uh known in a a a a humorous way is that nature banksy but the little little painting she does the citizens of war minster when interviewed said they always give us a smile we so love tanya's paintings little birds little creatures just just there a cameo here then everything's small but it causes a smile and causes the community to come together waiting to see where they'll find one next and that seems to me a lovely way of encouraging people in the same way by artistry in small but sending people away with the vision in their own hearts again of a sense of abundant nature and natural things so let's say our prayers on this particular day the second sunday in advent and we use the collect for this day bring your own prayers from across the world we pray for our whole anglican communion pray for archbishop justin and bishop rose of dover and bishop emma at lambeth the life of this diocese of canterbury and in the anglican communion the anglican church of burundi today on this sunday of advent here's the collect oh lord raise up we pray your power and come among us and with great might succour us that whereas through our sins and wickedness we are grievously hindered in running the race that is set before us your bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us through jesus christ your son our lord amen and the advent collect itself 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 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 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 reflection on this day [Music] as [Music] oh [Applause] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] yes [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [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 amen [Music]