good morning and welcome on this friday the 18th of december welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral as we come to say our morning prayers and it really is not a very nice morning this morning there's a wind about there's rain in the air and it's chilly but i'm sitting in a wonderful place because our tree this morning is the crab apple and there's a very large crab apple tree beside me and all the branches and i see patterns as i look up into the sky of the branches leafless but making really beautiful patterns above me and the crab apple of course is an indigenous tree and from the crab apple all other forms of apple trees which grow here have developed but this is the mother and father of them all and it is one of the most beautiful trees when it flowers in the spring it has perfect blossoms of beautiful colors and is an absolute field day for the bees and later for the birds and in its fruitfulness i used to think when i heard the shakespeare rhyme the winter rhyme when icicles hang on the wall and dick the shepherd blows his nail and tom bears logs into the hall and milk comes frozen home in pale you you know that that moment and and uh there's a line in it which said and roasting crabs hiss in the pot and i had visions in those days as a child in learning that poem of sea creatures with goals but of course it means these crab apples which made with spices the most wonderful christmas treat at this time of year and we also give thanks that is hosting the rambling rosy rose and it that rose is a slower growing rose than the rambling rector on the great cherry tree over there which you saw in full glory in june all over the big cherry tree and growing up into the ash tree but rambling rosie does her best and she still has some flowers on her on this this winter day and around me are other trees the rowan tree here which we shall be thinking of later in our meditations and then also around me as well um the various trees with the big mulberry behind which we have sat under so many times so the trees not giving us so much shelter at the moment but as i keep saying showing their architecture in silhouette against the sky and their trunks like arthur rackham paintings in a wonderful way so distinct from each other on this day of course we are step two in the advent antiphons that we were talking about yesterday step two towards christmas with the seven antiphons and today's antiphon is o adonai and leader of the house of israel who appeared to moses in the fire of the burning bush and gave him the law on sinai come and redeem us with an outstretched arm references this time to the book of exodus as yesterday were to the book of wisdom and ecclesiasticus with oh wisdom o sapientia o adonai doesn't need to be translated it is one of the ancient hebrew words for god himself the divine and it's addressed to christ in his coming at this season of the year step by step so let's say our prayers on this day 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 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 the psalm on this 18th morning of the month is psalm 90. you remember that's the psalm that isaac watts turned into a wonderful metrical hymn o god our help in ages past our hope for years to come and here's the psalm itself lord you have been our refuge from one generation to another before the mountains were brought forth so the earth and the world were formed from everlasting to everlasting you are god you turn us back to dust and say turn back o children of earth for a thousand years in your sight are butters yesterday which passes like a watch in the night you sweep them away like a dream they fade away suddenly like the grass in the morning it is green and flourishes in the evening it is dried up and withered for we consume away in your displeasure we are afraid at your wroteful indignation you have set our misdeeds before you and our secret sins in the light of your countenance when you are angry all our days are gone our years come to an end like a sigh the days of our life are three score years and ten or if our strength endures even four score yet the sum of them is but labor and sorrow for they soon pass away and we are gone who regards the power of your roth and your indignation like those who fear you so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom turn again o lord how long will you delay have compassion on your servants satisfy us with your loving kindness in the morning that we may rejoice and be glad all our days give us gladness for the days you have afflicted us and for the years in which we have seen adversity show your servants your works and let your glory be over their children may the gracious favor of the lord our god be upon us prosper our handiwork oh prosper the work of our hands some wonderful advent prayers in that psalm as we wait and watch for the coming of our lord jesus christ in celebration at his nativity in bethlehem and also in glory at the end of time [Music] so today we complete our little pilgrimage through the two letters of paul to the thessalonians and it's been a a lovely uh journey particularly through the five chapters of that earliest of saint paul's epistles to him his beloved thessalonian community but here is chapter three of the second letter finally brothers and sisters pray for us that the word of the lord may speed ahead and be honoured as happened among you and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men for not all have faith but the lord is faithful he will establish you and guard you against the evil one and we have confidence in the lord about you that you are doing and will do the things that we command may the lord direct your hearts to the love of god and to the steadfastness of christ now we command you brothers and sisters in the name of our lord jesus christ that you keep away from any brother or sister who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you receive from us for you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us because we were not idle when we were with you nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it but with toil and labor we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you it was not because we do not have that right but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate for even when we were with you we would give you this command if anyone is not willing to work let them not eat for we hear that some among you walk in idleness not busy at work but busy bodies now such persons we command and encourage in the lord jesus christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living and as for you brothers and sisters do not grow weary in doing good if anyone does not obey what we say in this letter take note of that person and have nothing to do with them that they may be ashamed do not regard them as an enemy but warn them as a brother or sister and now may the lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way the lord be with you all i paul write this greeting with my own hand this is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine it is the way i write the grace of our lord jesus christ be with you all and so the two letters taken together end there and as we've said day by day through the last couple of days and this morning there is much similarity between the second letter and the first but the puzzle of what the mystery of chapter two of this letter means is still hidden from us and the tone of this letter is much more severe much sterner and yet still there are reminiscences of the first letter and of the words that paul loves to use and certainly the lesson about working quietly and being creative is one that he repeats in many of his epistles and the benediction at the end well not nearly as fulsome as those wonderful sentences at the end of the first epistle to the thessalonians but i think we have to see them together a pair of letters and one complements the other and as i've said to you read them side by side sometime but here we say farewell to all those early jewels of paul's theological thought but also to a particular time in his ministry for the letter certainly the first letter was written from corinth and both letters bear the name of the three who are ministering together at that time paul and silas also venus and timothy the three of them in a team of ministry and we see how in paul's ministerial journeys his missionary journeys as he does his work different companions make up his team of busyness and creativity as he goes on when barnabas left in the acts of the apostles we read that silas joined and barnabas leaving was because of a sharp dispute about the nature of the ministry that john mark nephew of barnabas should continue after his early failure when he left barnabas and saul because of his feeling that he couldn't continue in the first missionary journey but then silas joined and here is silas now coming with timothy two corinth and the three of them are the signatories of this letter it is in some ways a joint enterprise but certainly the first letter bears all the gladness of the apostle paul which he gains from the good news that timothy and silas brought from the thessalonians that all is going well for them they have seen that in action but now they bring the news to paul who has had difficult times in athens and now is in corinth by himself until they come so we give thanks for that creative team but it will break up and there will be others who come to join the ministerial team as it goes on and if you think that the early church was completely free from all dissensions and squabbles and it was a a lovely growing time with no problems then just read a few verses of the acts of the apostles or some of these epistles and the things which paul is describing and those things which exasperate him when the moment is back his turn things begin to go wrong and also the way in which the various members of the team want to emphasize different things in their creativity and sometimes the emphasis is so different that they decide to go their own way but all the work is creative so long as it is rooted in christ himself and that's what these lessons of the two epistles keep telling us rooted in faith and hope and love and that quality of steadfastness well now this is a a day of remembering creative teams and first of all i want to remember that in 1946 steven spielberg was born on this day and he an enormously popular and respected filmmaker over many many years became and is a legend so we think of his films if i read the list of them jaws close encounters of the third kind rages of the lost ark e.t the extraterrestrial jurassic park empire of the sun schindler's list saving private ryan a.i artificial intelligence war of the worlds munich the adventures of tintin war horse lincoln and so it goes on and at the moment he's in the midst of making uh um west side story but that's not due because of all the restrictions of of the pandemic until the autumn of 2021 but many of his films well most of them really have been accompanied by the music of john williams and those two in partnership have given us the flavor of films like schindler's list or even war horse and those things are a bit like sort of rogers and hammerstein but filmmakers and and their musicians don't tend to go together in that way but we can put them together this morning spielberg and john williams say that when you hear those themes the one is feeding into the creativity of the other well that's a happy thought because oftentimes we need companionship and partnership in our creativity and sometimes it's quite sparky when two people are being creative together and i'm sure that john williams and stephen spielberg on that long partnership must have had those times that paul and silas and timothy or paul and barnabas and so on in their creativity would find when it was hard to see to get a a compromise or consensus agreement and the second team i want to mention is based on the fact that today in 1707 charles wesley was born and he is probably known best to us as one of the if not the greatest hymn writers of our tradition of faith he was born in 1707 and he was the youngest of the family but he had an older brother called john john wesley and those two at oxford with george whitefield made a group who began to develop a way of being christians in a methodical rhythmic ordered way as they they put their thoughts together now these three were later known as we saw because whitfield came up quite recently as field preachers preaching i mentioned my own um uh childhood knowing that the the mount as it was called where whitfield and the wesley brothers would preach to the coal miners of the kingswood forest which was really too rough for the vicar of britain and his parishioners in whose large parish that area lay to go and try anything but those three did and they preached in the fields and preached in the open air and saw that kind of evangelism as creative and good whitfield and both wesley brothers also went to savannah charles wesley didn't take to that he came back pretty quickly and charles wesley is is also the one of them who was most wedded to his church of england roots and like john wesley they they died as members of the church of england and priests in the church of england but at the same time their methodism gave rise to a new way of expressing christ in community and charles wesley had been ordained but on which sunday may the 21st 1738 he had an experience of the holy spirit which left him as he said at peace with god charles wesley left us published four thousand five hundred hymns and unpublished another three thousand an extraordinary quantity of work sometimes even handel himself would write music to some of those hymns but they are fine hymns and there is a corpus of them a body of them that you will find in every hymnbook one or two of them are autobiographical and one of those is a very favorite hymn with a wonderful tune called sagina and can it be that i should gain an interest in my savior's blood and that wonderful chorus which appears at the end of every verse amazing grace how can it be that thou my god should die for me you can hear the tune in your head and it goes well to a brass band as well and i've heard it sung its services on the mount as a child when people gathered at the place where the wesley brothers would preach in the open air and among the trees to those colliers those coal miners who until then had not had the gospel preached to them in that way two types of evangelism both the preaching in the fields but also the ability to give them hymns that they could sing and if i look through as i look through the the films of spielberg and the music of john williams in a list let's just do the same a little bit for charles wesley here are him his hymns i said that two were autobiographical and certainly the hymn come o thou traveller unknown which is called generally wrestling jacob and the story of jacob wrestling in the wilderness when he's by himself and claiming and calling to know the name of the one with whom he wrestles but many of them also are for the christian year the great advent hymn though he comes with clouds descending once for favored sinners slain we sing that at this time of year and then perhaps one of his most famous and most loved love divine or loves excelling joy of heaven to earth come down fixing us by humble dwelling that's a great theme in wesley's hymns because of his feeling that the holy spirit didn't dwelt in him in that experience he had which caused him to be at peace with god on which sunday 1738 oh for a thousand tongues to sing my dear redeemers praise or rejoice the lord is king that's one that was set to music by handel and we still sing the handle tune to it and at christmas time of course hark the herald angels sing glory to the newborn king so we shall be singing that but perhaps my favorite of all because it dwells so deeply with the indwelling holy spirit within us and uses the image of our hearts as an altar for that flame is one that was set to music as a hymn by his grandson samuel sebastian wesley a great english church music writer and hymn writer and that tune samuel sebastian wesley because he was the organist at hereford cathedral called hereford but here are the words and they are a prayer which is so often sung and used at ordinations and any kind of service of commitment oh thou who came is from above the pure celestial fire to impart kindle the flame of sacred love on the mean altar of my heart there let it for thy glory burn with inextinguishable blaze and trembling to its source return in humble prayer and fervent praise jesus confirm my heart's desire to work and speak and think for thee still let me guard the holy fire and still stir up thy gift in me ready for all thy perfect will my acts of faith and love repeat till death thy endless mercies seal and make by sacrifice complete a wonderful prayer a wonderful hymn as we give thanks for the creative teams of paul and sylvanus and timothy of charles wesley john wesley george whitfield but also of creative teams like stephen spielberg and john williams who give us so much well let's say our prayers on this particular day this day of the second antiphon and as we do so we are thinking on this day the 18th of december of south kerala in south india and the bishop there dharmaraj rasha lam and then his people and the diocese of eli in england in the church of england and uh stephen conway the bishop there and his people and the diocese of embu in kenya and the bishop there david irari and all his people we are praying through the diocese for different themes at this time and today we're asked to pray for those in need of mental health and well-being we pray as always for justin our archbishop and diocesan bishop and for rose bishop of dover and for tim bishop at lambus as someone was asking yesterday why do we pray for tim because lambeth palace is in the diocese of canterbury and tim as the chief assistant to the archbishop of canterbury uh is based there but nevertheless he's actually within the diocese of canterbury by being at lambeth so we pray for him too and uh we also bring our own prayers for each other and uh for everyone that we have concerned for today here's the collect for this week and then we'll say the advent collect the lord jesus christ who at your first coming sent your messenger to prepare your way before you grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready your way by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just that at your second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in your sight for you are alive and reign with the father in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever and the daily prayer for advent 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 visit us in great humility but in the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever are men so each in our own language we 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 moment of silence now as we say our own prayers [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 now i have a very pleasant duty to do this morning because uh we're unable to have the normal huge christmas lunch for all our paid staff but we are going into the precincts to sing carols together at a socially distanced way which we're allowed to do in the open air and we have some of the salvation army band coming to be here with us as well as we just wish each other a happy christmas at this time and also hot chocolate will be served and that will be very welcome on a morning like this but also we've got leo's still here i think it's time we went inside actually he must be very cold in this wind come on dear hey come here come on come on come on it's play time come on come on hey we're going to go in now okay i'm going to go in there