okay girls i think that there is some more breakfast here for you but we'll just wait a moment till our friends from across the world join us in your prison cell here good morning and welcome to all of you from uh right across the world on this morning of monday the 13th of december as we gather in the dienery garden but a special place in the deanery garden you'll remember that all the hens and pheasants uh have to be under lockdown at the moment because of avian flu not here in this uh area but uh a a precaution from the the authorities saying that they must be kept free from contact with wild birds so this is breakfast time and i'll just uh give them a little bit to eat as we go along and then we'll begin to think of what we're going to do today here we are hens just a little bit here quite a mixture here and you'll see we've got some pheasants in here too and they generally get on quite well with each other but uh we shall see you will have been used to the other birds the white pheasants and the the pheasants here in the enclosure we were in before on the uh i think it was on saturday morning the fourth of december just before i went off to saint albans and uh we had them all there in that little group well they're now in a bigger group but the smaller ones amongst them are in a different place and at some stage we'll visit them too we come to cheer you up we hope and we'll say our prayers here with you this morning so let's uh think about our prayers we're remembering various areas of the world which are suffering massively from climate change and we concentrate really on the united states because at the moment northern california which had been suffering from horrendous fires is now being uh drenched with one of the worst storms of of of rain and wind that they can remember there and the the great problem is that the large burnt areas of the forest thus the burn scars when the rain falls in those torrents on it actually causes mudslides uh and uh the the kind of flash floods that are very dangerous to the communities there so a different kind of danger through those storms but on the other side of the states a huge hurricane force is approaching the city of houston where we have many friends there and we pray for them this morning as they anticipate the arrival of that storm at the same time we're continuing to pray for kentucky and the surrounding states after the the again the biggest tornado and the longest path of a tornado that can ever be remembered and we remember all those who've lost their lives and also the many many who've lost their homes in that tornado which took place a few days ago those helping them well people are trying to help each other the world over in different ways fire and flood and pandemic and we ourselves have heavier restrictions this week as the omicron variant has come to this land and we're trying desperately to look after one another with that and and so although the hens are in absolute lockdown we're not in lockdown but there are different restrictions taking place here uh we remember the people of south africa will remember the the president there who has contracted the the covid uh strain and we we pray for his health at this time so we think of all those things and at the same time we remember that this is st lucy's day and we give thanks for that feast which we will talk about in our reflection that december the 13th the feast of st lucy the saint of light so let's begin our prayers on this particular morning a monday morning in advent oh 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 praised 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 and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence so god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm our morning psalm on this 13th of the month is psalm 68 it's a long psalm and i'll read some sections of it now let god arise and let his enemies be scattered that those that hate him flee before him as the smoke vanishes so may they vanish away as wax melts at the fire so let the wicked perish at the presence of god but let the righteous be glad and rejoice before god let them make merry with gladness sing to god sing praises to his name exalt him who rides on the clouds the lord is his name rejoice before him father of the fatherless defender of widows god in his holy habitation god gives the solitary a home and brings forth prisoners to songs of welcome but the rebellious inhabit a burning desert oh god when you went forth before your people when you marched through the wilderness the earth shook and the heavens dropped down rain at the presence of god the lord of sinai at the presence of god the god of israel [Music] you sent down a gracious reign o god you refreshed your inheritance when it was weary your people came to dwell there blessed be the lord who bears our burdens day by day for god is our salvation god is for us the god of our salvation god is the lord who can deliver from death sing to god you kingdoms of the earth make music in praise of the lord he rides on the ancient heaven of heavens and sends forth his voice a mighty voice ascribe power to god whose splendor is over israel whose power is above the clouds how terrible is god in his holy sanctuary the god of israel who gives power and strength to his people blessed be god a powerful psalm as we turn once again to our weekday lessons having had sunday lessons yesterday and we've read from the gospel of st john we're back today with the letter to the hebrews and the writer to the hebrews who is going to give us images many of which we are used to mostly from the language of the liturgy of the eucharist of the holy communion of the lord's supper known of the mass are you known by different titles by different christians in different communions throughout the world but here is this writer in elegant greek giving us imagery based on the old covenant but also based on human life and based on things of this world as christ did in his parables to help people understand that the heavenly kingdom the eternity of the heavenly city has been opened by christ's self-offering well i'm in chapter 9 where we left off of the letter to the hebrews and i'm starting at verse 15 and we'll read to the end of this chapter this week we'll go through the chapters to complete our reading of the letter to the hebrews and then next week begin on new testament lessons connected with the going forward to christmas itself christ is the mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant for where a will is involved the death of the one who made it must be established for a will takes effect only at death since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood for when every commandment of the law had been declared by moses to all the people he took the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people saying this is the blood of the covenant that god commanded for you and in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship indeed under the law almost everything is purified with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these for christ has entered not into holy places made with hands which are but copies of the true things but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of god on our behalf nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own for then christ would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world but as it is christ has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself and just as it is appointed for humanity to die once and after that comes judgment so christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him so many images so much imagery of this finite world and of the old covenant and all that was done in the rites and ceremonies of that covenant but the writer is giving us imagery which we have become used to used to mostly in the celebration of the new covenant with bread and with wine as we gather for the eucharist greek word simply meaning thanksgiving a sacrifice of thanksgiving made once for all and that's the writer to the hebrews gives us we're used to it because most of our eucharistic prayers use the imagery of this particular epistle reaching back into the old covenant and celebrating the once for all nature of christ's own self-offering but that self-offering becomes effective every time it is claimed so that the gift of a new day starts with thanksgiving because that can be claimed and what do we have in terms of imagery from this writer christ is the mediator of a new covenant or christ is the perfect sacrifice or the offering of himself once for all and instantly we are into those images which are used in sacramental ways and by that i mean um as with parables the sense of having an earthly reality but a deep mystery of heaven a heavenly meaning which is eternal and all of those things we become used to but here they are written out neatly for us and suggested by this epistle writer of the uh letter to the hebrews pointing back to what was and showing what is and when jesus himself because in eucharistic prayers you tend to get first this imagery and then the story told of what happened around the supper table and the way in which our lord before his perfect offering took bread and said take eat this is my body given for you do this in remembrance of me and then after some of the cup and that's given slightly different words drink this all of you this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins imagery but a reality when we come together the mediator of a new covenant the perfect sacrifice offered for us and that perfect sacrifice was the offering of himself christ our high priest whoever lives to make intercession for us the mediator of a new covenant we can use all kinds of language but all the language we use and all the images are images going deep into an eternal reality which the images themselves only give a foretaste of as this is claimed by us day by day well as i said this is lucy's day a festival of light for the very name lucy comes from the word uh for light in latin when we were learning our latin remember we were generally given the the nominative form and then the genitive form looks and then lucis and in that uh of course comes that word for light and santa lucia came from syracuse in sicily so it's very much an italian feast but it's kept mostly in its ceremonies in countries where there's hours of darkness at the moment because in the very very far north the hours of darkness have increased and increased and the daylight hours are very short indeed until you get up to almost perfect darkness all the time if you travel right up to the north and at that time we have the feast of st luci before the calendar changed this was the shortest day but in sweden and in denmark and in norway and places like finland you get this festival kept with great ceremony people carrying candles and lanterns and rejoicing in the light in the midst of the darkness i am the light of the world said jesus and lucy gave herself as a self offering in martyrdom her feast day dates from 304 a.d when in the persecution of the emperor diocletian she offered her herself for martyrdom rather than sacrifice to the god-like nature of the human emperor and she'd been accused by one and this how this is how the story goes and it's come down through the ages by one who wanted her for his wife but she said no my my life is is given entirely to god and then he turned quite round and and accused her of being a christian and the roman governor in sicily at that time took that up and lucy was martyred and all kinds of stories attached to that martyrdom but essentially it's the the light of christ in self-offering that we're remembering with santa lucia and all those festivals in dark places where a simple light carriage will be a sign not only of the way up head as you as you go along a difficult road but also the light of christ here in this world giving a foretaste of what is to come so we give thanks for this day as the feast of santa lucia st lucie in our christian calendar but also in our anglican calendar here in this country on this day a commemoration is made on december the 13th of samuel johnson who died in 1784 on the 13th of december now we've dealt with dr johnson before but i want to remember him in a particular way today samuel johnson who was born in litchfield a city dear to my heart because i was ordained both deacon and priest in litchfield cathedral but he was born in litchfield in the year 1709 but lived most of his life in london and we know his life in infinite detail because james boswell wrote a biography of johnson which is seen to be one of the shall we say perfect biographies of the english language a model biography in its detail but also in the way it swaps stories for facts and all of you see on the way through and gives us many pictures it's not that that i want to talk about this morning for johnson was a poet a playwright a moralist a critic a biographer an editor but essentially he was a lexicographer who dealt with words he loved words and always he was was busy quarrying with the words of the english language and he came to produce by commission the first real dictionary of any merit it's uh a dictionary which is is a dictionary of the english language put together by samuel johnson now for those of you who it was in published in 1755 those of you who like numbers and statistics um there is in that dictionary forty two thousand seven hundred and seventy three entries there are in that dictionary for forty two thousand seven hundred and seventy three entries but and this is the important thing there are 114 000 quotations from english literature showing how english words can be used now that shows a mind that knows literature inside out and until the um oxford dictionary itself was published johnson's dictionary was the only dictionary that people went to if they wanted real scholarship and even now it is a real testament to the english language and the power of words he quarries into shakespeare he quarries into milton he quarries into the poets of the 18th century and at the same time as if that one wasn't enough for him he is writing constant articles he was a devout episcopal anglican and he was also a very firm tory in politics he was a a conservative type of person and in his writings he is moralizing yes but he called the articles that he wrote which were just handed around in pamphlet form at first and then put together he put it under the title the meaning these are thoughts about all kinds of things and it is for that theological questing as well as the faithfulness of his life that he appears in our anglican calendar because he also shows us the power of the word in being able to communicate things and words become intensely important he is a stickler for using words properly and impatient with those who use words in a shall we say a careless way for words to him were a holy means of passing on and at the deepest level passing on the faith in the beginning was the word the eternal word and words in the epistles the epistles of the hebrews in the gospels are a way of communicating words even in the old law a way of communicating and accurate translations become important but johnson was most concerned not so much with translations but with the way the english language was formed and used and it's for that that we give thanks on this particular day when we dealt with him before we remembered um hodge is his his wonderful companion the black cat uh and also we give thanks for the way in which boswell used words to give us the character of samuel johnson now because of the dictionary excuse me the way in which he used his scholarship he was given an honorary doctorate from oxford university uh and therefore what is known to us is dr johnson that's that's how we we remember him most of the time but samuel johnson to give him his as you say christian name uh is is a character in our calendar today because of the power of the word and i want also to remember that the power of the word for him was contained as it will be for our next person too in this little book which is the book of common prayer 1662. that was the prayer book for his worship he would have known and loved and that the bible at that time of course would have been the 16-11 king james version when he read the gospels but what i want to do is to read from the prayer book which he would have known the preface to the prayer of consecration before the words of institution are spoken and you will know it well if you know the book of common prayer which was carried across the world as well so many of the older prayer books in other parts of the world use this this language and we still use the language in modern terms in the liturgy as we have it but here's the words as johnson would have known them almighty god our heavenly father who of thy tender mercy did give thine only son jesus christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption who made there by his one oblation of himself once offered a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world and did institute and in his holy gospel command us to continue a perpetual memory of that his precious death until he is coming again hear us so merciful father we must humbly beseech thee and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine according to thy son our savior jesus christ's holy institution in remembrance of his death and passion may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood so much of that derives from the imagery of the writer to the epistle to the hebrews and it will then go on if i'd carried on we will be neatly into the words of the gospel which i quoted earlier and those things in johnson's mind in english words and they've been being said in latin words or in greek words or in the words of the various nations now that use that liturgy which offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving trusting in the eternal blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins and trust in the presence of christ in take eat this is my body the power of words in johnson and also our next person whom some of you will know most of you will know one of his uh poems uh which have been set to music and sung uh and uh many of you will recognize certain words when i i read them from that poem well he's called phillips brooks and he became a bishop of massachusetts but for many years before that was the rector of trinity church boston massive church in boston and he drew crowds of thousands because of his preaching and i i think i owe quite a debt to phillips brooks because i happened upon in a second-hand bookshop uh one of the books of his sermons and began to read and found the imagery that he was using and the care he was taking to use that imagery is compelling and so i made it my business to get other collections of his sermons and they are of their time of course because he was writing in the late 19th century and preaching those sermons but here beside me this morning and i then want to announce my debt to phillips brooks in preaching this is called little book called lectures on preaching by phillips brooks and in it he starts off his lectures by saying since i received some months ago the invitation to deliver these lectures which i begin today i have been led to ponder much upon the principles by which i have only half consciously been living and working for many years this is part of the debt which i owe to those who have honored me with their invitation it is interesting to oneself to examine and recognize and arrange the ideas which have been slowly taking shape within him during the busy years of work i shall be very glad if you too are interested as i try to recount them to you and very thankful if you find in them any help or inspiration well i did and the way in which he uses words at that time but even more so uses images like bread and candle light now remember an image of bread when he's using in his hands a crusty loaf and says this crust on the outside feels as though inside there's not going to be anything of merit and if you tap a hard crust that's how it is but then in breaking the bread the softness and the scent of the bread appears and at the same time he says now don't think that the outside is any different for the inside but the loaf in certain circumstances produces the hard resistant crust and sometimes we do that and we need to be broken open by christ to share the bread of ourselves and our gifts that kind of images or how he describes a candle flame offering itself or the candle offering itself to light as the candle actually burns itself away and a self offering on the part of the candle to give light to others it was that kind of thing that struck me and uh he's not probably the most important person in my preaching i'd give that to other names of people that i've listened to and thought um how we do that and it's quite clear to me from the care that's taken there that he would read all his sermons and i early decided that a sermon was really a conversation between you and the people that you're giving it to and intuitively you're understanding what their reaction is being and so a script gets in the way in a big way unless you're trying to quote someone and want to be accurate or remembering numbers which always i find hard but at the same time uh it's a conversation that's happening there but phillips brooks really led me along the way so the six or seven books which i meant i i managed to gather from second-hand sources well before you could do that online are important to me as part of my formation but what we all know of phillips brooks is his poem which begins a little town of bethlehem how still we see the lie we'll come back to that later near a christmas we won't use that this morning but there is one verse that i want to use because it's quite clear that both he and dr johnson would have felt that the way in which heaven communicates itself is essentially a way which goes deep in the silence of reflection and the psalmist in the stillness advises us to wait on god in stillness how silently how silently the wondrous gift is given so god imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven no ear may hear his coming but in this world of sin where meek souls will receive him still the dear christ enters in that's a poem by philips brooks which we know well as part of a christmas hymn and we'll return to that nearer to christmas and think of his providence and where he was when he was writing that which becomes important too so let's then say our prayers on this particular day when we're giving thanks for all these images which we sort of take for granted and when we break them open by the crusty loaf then the fragrance of what heaven is giving to us what our lord is giving to us becomes much more apparent so we are praying today for the diocese of ijumu in the church of nigeria in the lukoja province and we are praying in our own diocese for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for emma bishop at lambeth and throughout this week we're going to be praying for the areas in the area dealery of canterbury which is outside the walls of this cathedral and the countryside just a little bit beyond and the area dean is the parish priest of the church of saint martin and saint paul here in the city our friend mark griffin say we pray for him in his role as the area dean i'm sure we'll come again upon his role as the the incumbent of the parish priest of the two parishes nearby later in the week so pray for mark as area dean of this canterbury area and we bring our own prayers of course as always we'll use first the prayer for st luci's day and then we'll say the prayer the ads and college god our redeemer who gave light to the world that was in darkness by the healing power of the savior's cross shed that light on us we pray that with your martyr lucy we may by the purity of our lives reflect the light of christ and by the merits of his passion come to the light of everlasting life through jesus christ our lord amen so together the advent college 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 say 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 are men time now for reflection on this day foreign oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] uh oh um oh all right um uh alright all of you 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 on those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always amen you're very friendly aren't you i'm going through your i'm going through your moat you'll look lovely when it's all over oh gosh bruce you're there you've been quite quiet this morning bruce to the rooster and you're not as wet as when we last saw you either are you nice and sheltered in here