[Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral wherever you are in the world feel welcome as we say our morning prayers there is no doubt whatever what today is it's thanksgiving day in the united states and the the whole nation there will be keeping an act of thanksgiving a celebration of home and harvest and memories and looking forward where families and extended families gather together and we say prayers for all americans and american citizens wherever they are throughout the world on this really special day for them and give thanks with them for that but also gives thanks for the festivals of our own nations and cultures throughout the year particularly festivals of thanksgiving we've come here just to the little courtyard outside the back door of the deanery um darcy who perhaps is a turkey would be uh welcome here today but uh certainly not for the table but he's decided to go to the orchard quite wisely so we have his stand in here who is uh upstanding and providing us with an image of the turkey he's he's rather bowing over at the moment in the in the wind so i think he's probably um imbibed too much of the festive drink of thanksgiving so let's say our morning prayers on this really happy day oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your faithful servants bless you they make known the glory of your kingdom blessed are you sovereign god ruler and judge of all to be praise and glory forever in the darkness of this age that is passing away may the light of your presence which the saints enjoy surround our steps as we journey on may we reflect your glory this day and so be made ready to see your face in the heavenly city where night shall be no more 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 are men our son today on this 25th morning of the month is a section of the long psalm 119 and i'm starting at verse 33 teach me o lord the way of your statutes and i shall keep it to the end give me understanding and i shall keep your law i shall keep it with my whole heart lead me in the path of your commandments for therein is my delight incline my heart to your testimonies and not to unjust gain turn away my eyes let's say gaze on vanities oh give me life in your ways confirm to your servant your promise which stands for all who fear you turn away the reproach which i dread because your judgments are good behold i long for your commandments in your righteousness give me life i'm going back to the five books of the law and in sequence but from now on the chapters contain many many many detailed um instructions gathered together and placed as to how the effects of the law are lived out especially in terms of worship and so this morning i'm going to the book leviticus and chapter 23 because this will help us understand how every culture needs its feasts and festivals of thanksgiving but also its days when they look back and ponder their history and take a a check a look around them and then begin to look forward so often we've said in the past few weeks looking back looking around looking forward and giving thanks is a spiritual activity which leads to practical results so here is chapter 23 parts of it and in the scriptures that i'm reading from it's entitled feasts of the lord this is part of the law the lord spoke to moses saying speak to the people of israel and say to them these are the appointed feasts of the lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations they are my appointed feasts the sabbath for six days shall work be done but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest a holy convocation you shall do no work it is a sabbath to the lord in all your dwelling places the passover these are the appointed feasts of the lord the holy convocations which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them in the first months on the 14th day of the month at twilight is the lord's passover and on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread to the lord for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread on the first day you shall have a holy convocation you shall not do any ordinary work but you shall present a food offering to the lord for seven days on the seventh day is a holy convocation you shall not do any ordinary work the feast of first fruits and the lord spoke to moses saying speak to the people of israel and say to them when you come into the land that i give you and reap its harvest you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest and he shall wave the sheaf before the lord so that you may be accepted on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it and on the day when you wave the sheaf you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish has a burnt offering to the lord and the grain offering with it shall be two tenths of an ifa of fine flour mixed with oil a food offering to the lord with a pleasing aroma and the drink offering with it shall be of wine a quarter of a hen and you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day until you have brought the offering of your god it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings the feast of weeks you shall count seven full weeks from the day after the sabbath from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering you shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh sabbath then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the lord you shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be waived made of two tents of an ether they shall be a fine flower and they shall be baked with leaven as first fruits to the lord when you reap the harvests of your land you shall not reap your field right up to its edge nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest you shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner i am the lord your god the feast of trumpets and the lord spoke to moses saying speak to the people of israel saying so i'm having trouble turning the page saying in the seventh month on the first day of the month you shall observe a day of solemn rest a memorial proclaimed with blasts of trumpets a holy convocation you shall not do any ordinary work and you shall present a food offering to the lord the day of atonement and the lord spoke to moses saying now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement it shall be for you a time of holy convocation and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to the lord and you shall not do any work on that very day for it is a day of atonement to make atonement for you before the lord your god the feast of tabernacles and the lord spoke to moses saying speak to the people of israel saying on the 15th day of the seventh month and for seven days is the feast of tabernacles to the lord on the first day shall be a holy convocation you shall not do any ordinary work for seven days you shall present food offerings to the lord on the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the lord it is a solemn assembly you shall not do any ordinary work these are the appointed feasts of the lord which you shall proclaim as times of holy convocation and on this feast you shall celebrate the feast of the lord for seven days and you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees branches of palm trees boughs of leafy trees willows of the brook and you shall rejoice before the lord your god for seven days you shall dwell in the tabernacles made of these branches for seven days all native israelites shall dwell in tabernacles that your generations may know that i made the people of israel dwell there when i bought them out of the land of egypt i am the lord your god thus moses declared to the people of israel the appointed feasts of the lord well that's a feast list which jesus himself would have known well just as we know well the feasts and festivals of our own culture they are necessary stopping places but they are often times of reflection as in the day of atonement looking back at mistakes of the past but more often the sense of celebration for harvest gathered or simply a celebration of what it means to be at home celebration and thanksgiving it's good to read of those feasts and festivals they get transformed slightly by the second book of the law deuteronomy it's the fifth of those books of moses and was written probably many hundreds of years later in the reign of king josiah but was proclaimed in a different way and in that law people are caused to come to the temple in jerusalem to celebrate these feasts and that of course many people tried to do not only from the land around galilee and judea but also from right across the nations around the jewish people coming back to celebrate in jerusalem itself all of those things become almost centralized in deuteronomy but here in the earlier book of the law leviticus it's assumed that you will do it at home and present your sheaf to the priest nearest by who will wave that sheath and you present your offerings and lots and lots of rules about what you do which become customs and celebration customs and stories told well today we are giving thanks for the day of thanksgiving in the united states which is a celebration of family and home and extended family and hospitality and there will be american citizens in every land probably keeping that sense of thanksgiving the nearest thing that we have to that when everything stops here in the united kingdom i would say is christmas day you go out into the streets here and you can be in no doubt that absolutely everything has stopped everyone is at home as far as possible of course they come to services as they sing their carols but mostly they want to gather as families and one doesn't expect to have things open on christmas day some places are but mostly not well i've never spent a thanksgiving in the united states i've always had to be here or wherever i was in i'm serving in in uh the ordinary ministry of the the the day but fletcher himself has spent many a thanksgiving in the united states and always at the the invitation of a family particularly to enjoy all that they are doing and i think probably the the ones he remembers most were with our friends andy and nancy mead when they were at the rectory in park avenue at st thomas fifth avenue and when fescher went to be their guest there well the rectory was filled with those who maybe were um by themselves on that day and were brought there and the party was a great one of course says rose turkey of course says pumpkin pie and of course there's an enormous amount of sitting down afterwards and digesting the wonderful meal that's been given but it's a time when games are played that reminds me of christmas day here and the day following but a time when games are played and everyone almost becomes children again there's much laughter and there's much fun and there's much family custom and of course there's much memory of the past of those with whom they have celebrated this feast before and that will be the case in every culture in the world with a festival like that you're thinking back to those who have actually been part of life just try and stand up i know you've had a a lot of encouragement to lean over in the winds behind you but i don't think we're going to do much with this let me let me lean you down otherwise it's going to be a bit perhaps if i turn you around mr turkey we don't want to be inside of you and put you back a bit you might lie backwards how about that is that going to do that maybe gives you a better chance to see happy thanksgiving uh and uh you've you've got all kinds of of things uh but i think he's not gonna say because the wind is is right behind him um so if i keep a hand there maybe that's the best way to do it um i don't want to lose sight of him because i want to say it's the day then that we all become children and love to play games with with uh in in the family i'm sure there are many games and customs which you play in your cultures throughout the world wherever you are on particular festival days uh and um it's a time when one remembers parents and friends who were there in the past but are no longer there but uh you allow those people also hopefully who've come to join you to tell their stories too it's a sharing it's a thanksgiving for what home means and in the states it reaches right back to that sense of first harvests and it is in a way a kind of harvest festival and one of the hymns that is sung at this time of the year at thanksgiving is a hymn which was written by my predecessor henry alford come ye thankful people come raise the song of harvest home but at the same time it's much more than that it's an embracing of everything it means to be a particular culture a particular nation with a particular diversity and that constant injunction to give thanks and what better when thanks has been given than to have a meal together see how all those uh festivals in the old covenant were accompanied by a meal and as they were harvests then you'd had the the wheat harvest and the barley harvest and the grape harvest and the olive harvest and all of those were thanksgivings in that way but also there are touches of sorrow as we think back and intention for every festival and act of thanksgiving needs a practical intention to look at the quality of the culture to which we belong and as we give thanks to assert that we go forward bearing those principles of which we are proud and talking now of all the nations of the world as they keep their various festivals and as we join in the celebrations and and wish our american friends well wherever they are in the world today one or two dates which are good dates to remember on this day uh john the pope john the 23rd was born he was made pope at the age of 77 in 1958 and he's marked as one of the most popular popes in history everyone there loved him i remember my mother going to rome soon after uh he is his death in the in the the reign of paulie vi the papacy of paul vi and all the italian people there in rome would say to her oh but papa john it meant that he he was the one and this shall we say almost cuddly figure looking not at all radical in his intention but in fact having the idea that he would even at that age and although i think he was thought to be oops a compromised candidate um at the time he suddenly announced quite quietly that he was calling together a a whole vatican council and he said um we need to be open to change a giornamento it was called and it will be a pastoral council no new dogmas pronounced but the old doctrines and disciplines re-examined by everyone coming together a new pentecost you said well pentecost the feast of weeks is one of those celebrations but in christian terms it's the giving of the holy spirit a new spirit and as he did that he proclaimed that it was his role to be the servant of the servants of christ and he was the first pope not to be constrained by being a prisoner in the vatican but walked about in the city of rome as well and that was a surprise to the citizens at the time but in his short years of papacy just five years he won all hearts and his most uh famous encyclical was something which prayed and and and yearned for the peace of the world park chairman terry's peace on earth and here it was who who spoke words of reconciliation at the time of the cuban missile crisis and was thanked by president j f kennedy but also uh received the deputy president of of of the the russian government too at one stage and received all kinds of people in in the vatican who had never been there before from different faiths and and uh different branches of the christian church and there's one occasion it's said that when a group a jewish group invited in uh and uh were very sort of uh looking very strange in all this splendor and this this uh figure this rotund figure quite short went towards them uh and and said from the scriptures their scriptures and his don't be alarmed i am joseph your brother and uh one remembers joseph putting his brothers at ease at that time when they came in and met him in all his splendor elite don't be alarmed i am joseph your brother and on another occasion a very human occasion his english was not good but he was going to meet jacqueline kennedy and he was practicing his greeting to mrs kennedy or madame kennedy that he was deciding and when she walked in everything overcame him and he held his arms out and said jacqueline and embraced and that was the kind of of flavor that my mother said the the italians had at that time and i have a picture of her standing in uh the the square in front of the basilica that i'm happy herself to be in rome at that time so all of those memories of course but we give thanks for the openness because not only did he say that he as the pope was the servant of the servants of christ but he said the church must remember its vocation as the servant of the nations of the world and in the hospitality of word and sacrament and social action must live that out the servant of the nations of the world in all its aspects i wanted also to say today i'm talking about extended families and guests and uh how hospitality can engender many things that this is the day on which november 25th 1748 isaac watts the hymn writer died and he was the father of english hymnady that's how he's remembered but in 1712 he went to stay for a week with sir thomas abney in hertfordshire and that week turned into a lifetime he never left the abners wherever they went he was with them and lived at their estate in stoke newington for 36 years and that gave him both an extended family life but the time to write all those wonderful hymns when i survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died and there is a land of pure delight where saints immortal and one remembers that verse in that uh that hymn could we but stand where moses stood and view the landscape or that's a story we shall come to uh in a day or two's time of moses standing on mount nebo and looking out over the promised land and then oh god our healthy age is past of course we sing constantly but uh um the hymn that i love best of all jesus shall reign where are the son because i love the line let every creature rise and bring peculiar honors to our king well peculiar means special particular gifts suited to you as a person and each creature for their gifts i'd love to go out in the morning at the moment and listen to the song thrushes who have begun to sing in great measure as it begets begins to get light very dark mornings at the moment but the song thrushes have that peculiar gift of song to lift the heart and every creature rise and bring peculiar honors to their king the whole earth is praising god and giving thanks and we give thanks on this thanksgiving day with our american friends across the world let's send say our prayers on this day of great thanksgiving and joy of memory and intention we're praying today in the diocese i'm sorry in the anglican communion for the diocese of ida in the church of nigeria in the lakoja province let's pray also for the episcopal church of the united states and all communities there too and we pray for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover and for emma bishop at lambeth and today in our own diocese for the parish of all saints biddenden and michael smarten and those looking after that parish during this time of vacancy at presence so let us say the prayer for this particular week of the year and bring your own prayers and intentions of thanksgiving and intention stir up oh lord we beseech you the wills of your faithful people that they plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works they by you be plentiously rewarded through jesus christ our lord amen so in whatever language you like to use 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 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 perhaps this is a day for us all to think of things for which we would want to give thanks in the past and now and look forward to in the the future blessing he chases us [Music] is he signed us to guide us our god with us joining orderings maintaining is [Music] holy [Music] congregation escape tribulation thy name be ever praised so at the end of that reflection of thanksgiving we remember those who died 27 migrants who were attempting to cross the english channel yesterday and just outside calais were drowned we remember all those who have been bereaved by that and the sense of loss and we also remember uh the people of waukesha in the united states on this thanksgiving day after the tragedy of their thanksgiving procession which lost lives and and injured so many on sunday last 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 those whom you would pray for and those whom you give thanks for this day and always our men this is a a day when um i've no doubt at all we shall be talking to many of the american friends we have and hearing their stories of how thanksgiving is being celebrated and their day is is uh hardly starting yet so we should look forward to that right across the states as we have messages and conversations and i'm sure many of you will be doing the same wherever you are but we did want to give thanks for one person and that is uh lady sons phyllis sons who is an american who lives in kent and has been in hospital with kovid and in rather a a poor way she suffered really badly but she's now at home and so we are really glad that she's made such a great recovery so to her today we say um happy recovery may that continue so i think you can continue your own thanksgiving and thanks for standing in for darcy today who i can hear in the distance in the orchard having a thanksgiving of his own as he enjoys the morning and no doubt lizzie and the poults in the in the greenhouse will be doing the same [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] great for the lord of god [Music] his angels charge at lost in the fire the tests were cast the fruitful is to restore in [Music] free from sin [Music] angels come raise the glorious uh uh [Music] [Music] [Music] hmm 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